Fergus McPhail Read online

  Puffin Books

  FERGUS McPHAIL

  Talk about embarrassing! There I am, standing on a toilet seat with my good buddy, Lambert, hugging him for support. It’s the girls’ toilet naturally, the one at school. Lambert wonders why the girls get pink toilet paper; I just wonder how we got into this crazy situation. More to the point, how are we going to get out of it?

  So this is a year in the life of Fergus McPhail, the highs, the lows, the bit in the middle. As the months troll past, I dive into many an embarrassing situation - then make it worse.

  There’s also love interest in the shape of wondrous Sophie. Even to think of her makes me flush. No, we’re not back to toilets. It’s a different kind of flush. Honestly! ‘

  Also by David McRobbie

  Mandragora

  Prices

  Schemes

  This Book Is Haunted

  The Fourth Caution

  Timelock

  Outworld

  Flying With Granny

  The Wayne Dynasty

  Waxing with Wayne

  The Wages of Wayne

  A Little Drop of Wayne

  Haunted too...

  Winter Coming

  See How They Run

  Tyro

  Eugénie Sandler PI

  Mum, Me, the 19C

  Strandee

  Copyright

  David McRobbie

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Puffin Books

  Published by the Penguin Group (Australia)

  250 Camberwell Road Camberwell,

  Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Ltd

  80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc.

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  Penguin Books, a division of Pearson Canada

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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

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  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd

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  First published by Penguin Books Australia,

  a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd, 2001

  This edition published 2003

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Text copyright © David McRobbie, 2001

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Text design by Brad Maxwell © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Cover design by Miriam Rosenbloom © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Typeset in 12/15 Galliard by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough, Victoria

  Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group, Maryborough, Victoria

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  McRobbie, David.

  Fergus McPhail.

  ISBN 0 14 330142 X

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  www.puffin.com.au

  Table Of Contents

  New Pastures

  The Best of Intentions

  Secret Admirer

  Solidarity

  The Sins of the Father

  Home Affairs

  Disclosures

  The Amateur Gynaecologist

  No Whatsits Day

  Cactus

  A Rare Song to Hear

  New Pastures

  Here we go then. Mid-January, stinking hot and I’m camping ’neath the stars, under canvas side by side with my flatulent father. Ba-dang, he goes. The tent walls bulge outwards like a hot air balloon, then all too slowly the noxious gases vent themselves to the outside world. Soon I hear sleeping birds tumble from their perch to thud dead upon the grass. Spark a match around here then Dad, me and this entire reeking tent are in orbit!

  Ring, ring. Hello, NASA? Put me through to the rocket fuel department. I’ve got an economy hint for you.

  The place Dad chose to camp for the night is as traditionally Australian as they come - beside a billabong, under the shade of a coolabah tree. Any second now down will come the troopers one, two, three. But that’s a little flight of fancy there. The truth is, the night before, we drove well on into the Victorian darkness with one headlight on the blink, and the other one not working, until Dad said, ‘This’ll do us, Fergus. Get the gear off the truck, tent up, while I see what’s for eating.’

  So I blundered about in the pitch darkness, getting in my own way, dragging things from the back of the truck, whacking in tent pegs, hauling on guy ropes, which is when Dad announced we’re out of kero so it had to be cold baked beans, straight from the can.

  But they were gourmet baked beans so that’s all right then.

  And so to sleep until, Baddoomphah! There goes my father again.

  ‘Phoo-ar! Where’d that one come from, Fergus?’ He fans the air. The thing about sharing a flatulent episode with your father is that for every one he drops, he has to make a comment. Fathers never just let the wind pass wordlessly, they have to verbalise every example. Must be a father phenomenon; something to do with bonding. I don’t think mothers do it to the same extent.

  Froomp! says my father’s nether region. ‘How about that one, Fergus?’ he chuckles into the darkness. ‘The old thunderbox is in good voice tonight!’

  ‘Must be the beans, Dad,’ I remark. Well, you have to say something. You can’t just lie there like a fumigated log.

  In the cool grey light of dawn, I toss the tent flap aside and read a notice declaring this place to be under the care of the National Trust of Victoria. We are camped on a smooth lawn and a peacock is very annoyed with us. In the misty distance I make out an imposing grey house with turrets and fake Gothic bits. In the not-so-far-off hinterland, I see two large wheel ruts in the lawn, made by a truck similar to my father’s. There is also a herbaceous border which the same heavy vehicle has flattened.

  ‘Dad,’ I say. ‘You’re in trouble.’

  We are out of there in four minutes which doesn’t include breakfast. Driving along in our pyjamas, Dad lets fly with a grin and an observation.

  ‘You got to live a little, Fergus. Besides, we’ll soon be home.’

  Soon be home? Soon be home? What bittersweet words. I was happy enough in my Queensland home where I had heaps of friends although, as Dad pointed out at the time, who wants his friends in a heap? The story, nutshell-wise, is that Dad’s Aunt Bronwyn died. Coincidentally, she was also my great aunt, who I last met one Christmas when we all went down to Melbourne on the train to stay with her.

  ‘You’ve sprouted,’ Great Aunt Bronwyn greeted me at the time in that hoarse croak of hers, sucking on her fag. ‘Hasn’t he sprouted, Morag?’ (Morag being my mother.) ‘Oh yes, he’s sprouted all right.’ Great Aunt Bronwyn hack-hacked for a minute before continuing. ‘Last time he was only that high.’ She death-rattled on for a bit then dismissed me. ‘Now nick off outside, play in the yard and don’t tease that chook.’

  Later on, my father chopped the bird’s head off which must have teased that chook no end. We ate it with roast vegetables.

  So anyway, Great Aunt Bronwyn finally followed the tall, dark guy with the scythe and the beckoning finger, and Dad, being the only relative, inherited her house in Ryan Road, which meant
we could live there rent-free. It had been Dad’s boyhood home, he reminded us when he came back from the funeral. One tiny snag: Great Aunt Bronwyn’s house was in Victoria while we lived in Queensland but my father, who was born optimistic, saw it as a wonderful opportunity. New state, new life, new direction. Dad put it to a family vote: sell Great Aunt Bronwyn’s place or leave Queensland? Mum was out-voted.

  It was a simple matter to uproot ourselves from our rented place in Brisbane then travel south. Mum and my sisters, Senga the older and Jennifer the younger, went by air, leaving Dad and me to load the big things on the truck, clean up then hit the road in the mid-summer heat.

  I just had time to take a sad farewell of Heidi, the woman of my dreams, who lived three streets away. Things had been warming up nicely between me and Heidi, and, I suspect, between Heidi and Frank, Heidi and Simmo, Heidi and Angelo Tortellini as well as Heidi and a couple of girls from year eleven, although I don’t think there was anything romantic in that association.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, Heidi.’ I tossed her one of the sincere looks I’d rehearsed in front of the mirror.

  ‘Yeah.’ Heidi stood swinging her front gate, chewing gum, looking left along the street.

  ‘You’ve been one of the bright spots in my life,’ I persisted.

  ‘That’s nice.’ She swung her eyes over me and looked the other way.

  ‘It’ll be difficult, making new friends in Melbourne.’ I waited. She chewed for a bit.

  ‘Aren’t you going to Victoria?’

  ‘Melbourne’s the capital of Victoria.’

  ‘Yeah, they got trams down there, or something. Big green buggers.’

  So I left Heidi at her front gate and dragged my feet away from our trysting spot. When I glanced back, there she was, smiling now at Angelo Tortellini who must have sprung out of a drain or something. She’d even parked her gum! Damn! I piled on all that soulful stuff and never even got a suggestion of a kiss. Still, I did manage a decent squint down the front of her blouse.

  Took Dad and me three days on the over-heating under-achieving truck, driving by day, camping by night. We took the inland route, thinking it would be quicker, but so did a million semi-trailer drivers which is why we didn’t see much of the scenery apart from Woolworths ‘The Fresh Food People’, Australia Post and Franklins ‘Fresh’. To make up for our lack of sweeping vistas, Dad bought me a picture postcard at Albury-Wodonga. Then at last, at last, we reached the traffic-choked outskirts of Melbourne. The word outskirts reminds me of Heidi. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s a hormonal thing.

  ‘Which side do you pass these trams on, Fergus?’ My father breaks into my wanton thoughts of Heidi’s inskirts.

  ‘Everyone else seems to be sticking to the left, Dad,’ I tell him.

  ‘Left it is. Mind you, coming from Queensland, I reckon they’d make allowances.’

  ‘Left, Dad.’ For days the road’s been stinking hot, now it’s cool in the city, low clouds and skies of lead to match my mood. As we search for the suburb that is to be our future home, and between abusing other road users, Dad paints a rosy picture.

  ‘Huge place,’ he explains. ‘Older-style house and would you look at this idiot! Him with the dog.’

  ‘He’s blind, Dad.’

  ‘It’s where I grew up, Fergus,’ Dad goes on. ‘Lovely view out the back, fields and cows. We used to chase them round the paddock, my brother and me, turn their milk to butter. Saved the farmer doing it although it must have been hell to squeeze out the teats.’ Dad adds that he was five and a half when he left, so some of the memories could have dimmed with time.

  The houses we pass are all the same - brick-built, low-set with a window on either side of the front door, making them look like a row of faces, scowling at us for daring to come here. There are straggly trees lining the street but where are the Queensland flowers that used to flit down on us like butterflies? A man scoops up dog poo. When we eventually find Ryan Road, it’s Dad’s turn to frown. The place has changed a bit from his last visit, starting with a large, forbidding sign which says the street is one-way and we’ve arrived at the wrong end.

  ‘Watch this.’ Dad sticks the truck into reverse. ‘In my time, traffic went both ways.’ No one complains as we high-pitched-whine our way backwards along Ryan Road although drivers look at us strangely and switch off their motors till we’ve passed. They will mark this occasion as McPhail Day.

  I consider Great Aunt Bronwyn’s place. It’s bigger than most, set further back from the street with more of a front garden and what looks like a tree or two in the backyard. Mum is already out front, pleased to see us, she winks, because she needs the cap taking off a jar of gherkins, but that’s a Mum joke.

  After three days away, I get a little lift in my spirits when I see my mother waiting for us at the front gate. It’s the sort of big, happy relief feeling I used to get coming out of school and finding Mum with a knot of other kids’ mothers. Well, even at that age, you can’t help comparing and being proud that your Mum is more beautiful than anyone else’s. She’s tall, Mum, taller by half a head than Dad, has a great wit and is amazingly calm.

  Dad grunts a bit before succeeding with the gherkin jar and Mum kisses him then gives him a welcoming hug.

  ‘Glad you’re here, Dad,’ says my older sister Senga, who comes from the house. ‘I need some furniture shifted so I can see daylight in my room. Place is chockers.’

  ‘Senga, Senga,’ Mum chides her for the thoughtless remark. ‘Let the man get inside.’

  ‘Stop calling me Senga! I hate everyone calling me Senga!’

  ‘Count your blessings, my girl,’ Mum replies. ‘Your dad wanted you to be Brenda.’

  ‘Wasn’t it Shirley?’ Dad asks. ‘Can’t remember which. So we settled on Agnes backwards.’

  ‘Ha, very ha! Not funny,’ Senga sneers. In all this time, no one welcomes me. I announce my presence.

  ‘Behold, the invisible man!’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Senga snarls. One good joke down the gurgler but it proved I’m not invisible.

  Inside Great Aunt Bronwyn’s house, every room is painted a different shade of fawn and each one has a sort of small-windowed, closed-in, snug look about it. Great for winter, not so cool in the summer, but it’s only 21 degrees outside so I don’t complain. Save it for later. Senga was right about the furniture. There’s a lot of it and we’ve got even more on the truck.

  Dad does a quick room-by-room tour of the house but nothing is as he remembers. The field out the back with the butter-churning cows has gone. In its place other houses have been built and equipped with backyards, clothes hoists and rusty car bodies. No one here seems to throw old cars away. Back in the living room, clutching a welcoming cup of tea, Dad complains that nothing is where it used to be and everything seems so much smaller.

  ‘This room used to be huge,’ he says. ‘Now look at it.’

  ‘How can a room get smaller?’ Senga asks. Everyone is saved from making a reply when my younger sister, Jennifer, enters tragically, hands trailing by her side, head angled to the left, her mouth a crumpled line. Her middle name is woe, this younger sister of mine. ‘Look on the bright side,’ Mum always says. ‘There isn’t one,’ Jennifer comes back. ‘Somebody stole the bulb.’ ‘Every cloud’s got a silver lining,’ Dad tells her. ‘Huh, mine have got linings of putty,’ Jennifer answers. I don’t know where she gets all this negative stuff from. Look at me. I’m cheerful, well disposed, whereas Jennifer was born in a bad mood. Anyway, she has another moving complaint.

  ‘My lavender dressing-table’s not on the truck!’ With hands on hips, she juts her jaw. Dad shakes his head sadly.

  ‘Have you had a good look, love?’ He swivels around to me as if I’m involved here. ‘We packed that lavender dressing-table, didn’t we, Fergus?’

  ‘In Brisbane, yeah,’ I agree cautiously.

  ‘Oh, I get it.’ Jennifer stands with arms akimbo. ‘So where did you unpack it?’

  ‘I reckon The National
Trust’s got it,’ Dad consoles her. ‘They’ll absolutely cherish that dressing-table. Put it on display somewhere.’

  ‘You get them from Ikea!’ Senga spits hurtfully. Dad has no answer to that but promises to fork out for a replacement.

  ‘Or better still,’ he brightens. ‘Soon as I unpack the tools, I’ll knock you one up. How about that?’ Jennifer stiffens as if she’s been wounded.

  ‘That’s all I need! A dressing-table made by my father! Out of four-by-two and angle iron! Old tea chests and chicken-wire!’ She flounces off, a pitiable sight. Mum makes sympathetic clucking noises after her.

  ‘Jennifer, look on the bright side.’

  ‘You already said that, mother! Five hundred times since we came here!’

  ‘I’ll make her one,’ Dad says. This little incident is well placed in my story because my dad is a professional maker and a doer. He is, moreover, a mender and an oops-it-came-apart-in-my-hand-er. He can also rake things, shift and paint. In short, Dad is a home handyman who does whatever people need doing when they can’t afford a real trades-person. Years ago he was made redundant from his clerical job in the Queensland Public Service, because he grew an unauthorised beard, he said. With his payout he bought a second-hand truck, then had a business card printed:

  Donald McPhail

  Home Handyman

  Give me a call. I do it all!

  Only he forgot to add the phone number so we kids had to write it in with ball pens, five hundred times each. But we get by. Good old Dad. No one’s starved yet.

  In our new home, we finish morning tea then get some of the stuff off the truck and cram it inside the house. With time on his hands, since Mum has no more gherkin jokes, Dad announces he’s off to seek some remembrance of his youthful past, to get in touch with his roots.

  ‘Don’t trip over any,’ Mum warns.

  ‘You want me to come, Dad?’ I ask.