Read Online Bridge of Triangles by John Muk Muk Burke - Free Book Online

separator once stood. There was one window overlooking a red dirt lane running by a wheat field. Outside was a furphy which Dawson would tow away every now and then to refill at the cattle trough.
    The family settled in and the sun shone. The wheat across in the paddock turned from electric green to rusty gold. The lane glowed rose pink as the surface dried out and broke up.
    The hot Christmas arrived and settled with its magic and flies over the landscape. The small gums scattered down the lane stood milky green. Sissy took the kids and they broke off a branch. Back in the shed they decorated it with coloured paper. Sissy cut “Merry Christmas” from pretty paper and strung it across the top of the window.
    The wind moved over the ripening wheat and lifted the light paper message.
    The kids had fizzy drinks and Sissy and Jack floated bottles of beer in the cool water of the furphy. Later in the afternoon there was a summer storm and heavy rain drops punched into the red earth and washed the gum leaves. The family moved inside and the smell of dust and rain came through the window and all the wheat across the lane moved as the storm rolled in from the west.
    It was the last Christmas before Sydney. Chris asked why his name sounded like Christmas. Sissy and Jack laughed because they didn’t know.

PART II

    The voices faded in the fog like a short-wave radio. Chris could not see any name for the town but he could make out dark lettering on a suspended sign where an amputated hand pointed to REFRESHMENTS. The window panes were black. The boy stirred irritably as the inconsiderate business of stopping the train proceeded. A short hiss was followed by a final jolt of the couplings. The dead stillness and a different light suddenly moved outside his head and Chris became aware of the figures on the platform. Grey shapes breathing smoke and moving silently past the window. Families arriving—leaving. And yes, there was a father. Did all the groups have a father? Big coat collars turned up to nearly touching low slung hats, and tops of heads just above the window. Families—families—leaving and arriving. Coming and going. Going—leaving. What strange words. Words that should have been exciting but were in the reality of this moment sickening and lonely. Yet Brian had left England. Perhaps that was why Brian had been his friend. Could Brian tell something about his future—that he was a traveller too? No, that seemed like nonsense. And Brian had spoken of his trip across the great ocean in the ship which had a swimming pool; laughed of it in his funny accent and shared sweets as he told of the biggest adventure of a life. Perhaps big ships were different? That had taken six weeks—six weeks! And this leaving, on a train, was taking forever too. Would he see Brian again?
    The train sighed as if all its systems had been turned off and it would rest here forever. Chris could still taste the meat pie his mother had bought eight hours before on another station—another refreshment room—another world. There the wintery sunshine had seemed full of promise and he hadn’t really thought of the others back at school. But the excitement was now replaced by a movement in his stomach which he fought to control. He saw Brian’s face smiling a crooked confused little smile as MrWebster, hand on Chris’s shoulder and looking worried, had led him out of the classroom.
    His mother, in her best dress but looking terrible, and, strangest of all his older brother who should have been in high school, stood with Mary and Keith in a broken little family group. They stood there waiting and Chris felt something move in his total being. This shouldn’t be like this: something feels wrong: his mother never came into the school. Rarely she would meet the kids after school but then she would wait, across the ditch and under the dark monkey-nut trees that lined the metal road in front of the school. But