1915 by Roger McDonald

immobile prison his thoughts had suddenly escaped from. In that second or two he conceived the idea that other people were not so trapped, and he envied them. When he tried to stay with the idea, to discover it properly, the tone of his breath changed, flapped wetly, and abolished the spell. He fell back to noting his boots dusty from the ride — he’d been up early polishing them — and he saw again that his fingernails were getting long. So he bit them.
    â€œAmen.”
    After the children’s address Mr Fox invited the younger ones to leave the church for Bible class. Douggie slipped away, and Mrs Gilchrist’s hand, which seconds before had been resting on his knee, now lay flat on the empty seat. Father and son folded their arms, bumping elbows.
    Mr Fox reminded the congregation that the year had been one of rich blessings. He spoke of grapes and melons, figs and honey, bread and milk — as if the produce of Palestine and the produce of Parkes werethe same. The hoped-for rains had come, but elsewhere others had not been so fortunate. He referred to distant parishes. We must think of these less fortunate places as we garner our harvest, said Mr Fox, and thereby make a storehouse for the well-being of our souls.
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    Billy’s mind now wandered the district, starting far away from the hospital, then coming closer, yet never actually entering the room where his mother lay. He felt for a bruised thumbnail and pressed it till it hurt. He thought of the silver roofs of Forbes, brick chimneys, the Bible class outside gathered in the shade of the tankstand — then far-off things again. Suddenly something forced him to view his mother walking the track near Pine Creek as she loved to in spring. But he wrenched that picture aside. He saw May Armitage escorted down a rocky laneway to a spot where an overhanging pepper tree plunged the track into utter darkness. She was black and blue now, and wouldn’t be kissed by choice for ages.
    Ethel thought Billy knew more than he said, which was true.
    The police had walked him down the lane and asked what he’d seen that night, where he’d stopped. Near the pepper tree they tried to be clever:
    â€œRemember how dark it was. Did she run?”
    â€œCome off it!”
    He’d been unable to help because what he knew and what they wanted to know would never fit together. They wanted the culprit — who wasn’t Billy. But Billy knew something all right. He had kissed May Armitage the night before she’d been bashed, and he could havetold the police why it happened and how. But that would have been about May, not the culprit.
    Billy had half jokingly thought of getting Walter together with May some time, she would have been a treat for his innocent soul. The plump Baptist kindliness held surprises, though you had to be daring to track them down because she never offered a thing. When they kissed a suddenly fierce contest of limbs occurred and it took Billy a minute to realize that her cry was not “You’re hurting me,” but a plea for rougher treatment. Then a light had spilt from the kitchen door of the nearby rectory. “Spot?” called an approaching voice: “Here, Spot — Spotty Spotty Spotty — Oh!”
    Billy wondered about his cousins, if any bloke would be tempted to get rough with them: and decided they were too jolly. Though Ethel wanted things, and demanded them smartly enough with her sinewy body, they weren’t peculiar needs like May Armitage’s. Nor did they catch at some half-buried need in Billy himself. He lifted his rump from the hot seat and unpeeled his sticky trouser-bottoms. In the deepening boredom of the service his thoughts now changed direction as abruptly as a horse’s swinging head: his mind galloped everywhere. He dropped Ethel and shouted himself a tall glass of beer, he swung from a rope and splashed in the Lachlan, he scrutinized May Armitage’s damaged