Toowoomba pointed his thumb at Andrew. ‘Talking of hoodlums, has Tuka told you that he once used to box for Jim Chivers?’
‘I suppose there are still quite a few things I don’t know about . . . er, Tuka? He’s a secretive guy.’
‘Secretive?’ Toowoomba laughed. ‘He speaks in tongues. Tuka will tell you everything you need to know so long as you know what you have to ask. Of course, he hasn’t told you he had to resign from the Chivers team because he was considered too dangerous, has he. How many cheekbones, noses and jaws have you got on your conscience, Tuka? Everyone reckoned he was the best young boxing talent in New South Wales. But there was one problem. He didn’t have any self-control – no discipline. In the end he knocked down a ref because he thought he had stopped the fight too soon. In Tuka’s favour! That’s what I call bloodthirsty. Tuka was suspended for two years.’
‘Three and a half, thank you very much!’ Andrew grinned. ‘He was a real drongo, I’m telling you. I only nudged the bastard of a ref, but you wouldn’t believe it, he fell and broke his collarbone.’
Toowoomba and Andrew clapped their hands and collapsed in laughter.
‘Robin was hardly born when I was boxing. He just quotes what I’ve told him,’ Andrew said. ‘Robin was one of a group of disadvantaged kids I worked with whenever I had time. We did some boxing sessions, and to teach the boys the importance of self-control I told them a couple of half-true stories about myself. As a deterrent. Obviously Robin here didn’t understand, he followed me instead.’
Toowoomba became serious. ‘We’re usually good boys, Harry. We let them have a few heaves before we chuck in the odd punch so they can see who’s boss, know what I mean? After that it’s not long before they give up. But this bloke could box, he could have hurt someone. Blokes like him get what they ask for.’
The door opened. ‘Fuck you, Toowoomba – as if we didn’t have enough problems already. You only broke the nose of the local police chief’s son-in-law.’ The MC looked furious and underlined this fact by spitting on the floor with a resounding splat.
‘Pure reflex action,’ Toowoomba said, examining the snuff-brown liquid. ‘It won’t happen again.’ He sent Andrew a surreptitious wink.
They got up. Toowoomba and Andrew hugged each other and uttered a few concluding remarks in a language which left Harry mystified. He gave Toowoomba a pat on the shoulder to render any more handshaking redundant.
‘What was the language you were speaking there?’ Harry asked after they had got into the car.
‘Oh, that. It’s a kind of Creole, a mixture of English and words of Aboriginal origin. It’s spoken by lots of Aboriginals across the country. What did you think of the boxing?’
Harry took his time to answer. ‘It was interesting to see you earn a few dollars, but we could have been in Nimbin by now.’
‘If we hadn’t come here today you wouldn’t have been able to go to Sydney this evening,’ Andrew said. ‘You don’t have dates with women like her and just run off. We might be talking about your future wife and mother of two tiny Holies, Harry.’
They both smirked as they passed trees and low houses as the sun went down on the eastern hemisphere.
Darkness had fallen before they reached Sydney, but the TV mast stood like a massive light bulb in the centre of the town and showed them the way. Andrew drew in at Circular Quay, not far from the Opera House. A bat whirled in and out of the car headlights at great speed. Andrew lit a cigar and motioned for Harry to remain in the car.
‘The bat is the Aboriginal symbol of death. Did you know that?’
Harry did not.
‘Imagine a place where people have been isolated for forty thousand years. In other words, they haven’t experienced Judaism, never mind Christianity and Islam, because a whole ocean has separated them from the closest continent. Nevertheless they come up with their own history of creation, the Dreaming. The first man was Ber-rook-boorn. He was made by Baiame, the uncreated, who was the beginning of everything, and who loved and took care of all living things. In other words, a good man, this Baiame. Friends called him the Great Fatherly Spirit. After Baiame established Ber-rook-boorn and his wife in a good place, he left his mark on a sacred tree – yarran – nearby, which was the home of a swarm of bees.
‘“You can take food from anywhere you want, in the whole of this country that I have given you, but this is my tree,” he warned the two people. “If you try to take food from there, much evil will befall you and those who come after you.” Something like that. At any rate, one day Ber-rook-boorn’s wife was collecting wood and she came to the yarran tree. At first she was frightened at the sight of the holy tree towering above her, but there was so much wood lying around that she did not follow her first impulse – which was to run away as fast as her legs could carry her. Besides, Baiame had not said anything about wood. While she was gathering the wood around the tree she heard a low buzzing sound above her head, and she gazed up at the swarm of bees. She also saw the honey running down the trunk. She had only tasted honey once before, but here there was enough for several meals. The sun glistened on the sweet, shiny drops, and in the end Ber-rook-boorn’s wife could not resist the temptation and she climbed up the tree.