Read Online The Story of Danny Dunn by Bryce Courtenay - Free Book Online Page A

league international player and who could have played centre back in the water-polo team had they gone to the Olympics. She didn’t see the six foot four, strong-limbed, seventeen-stone lad who, just by being who he was, made Balmain folk feel better about themselves. Half Dunn understood this lionisation of the young sportsman. He overheard more than he let on as he sat in the pub each day.
    â€˜Yeah, Danny’s our boy! Mark my words, mate, that lad’s gunna be a league international – shit it in. Got a bloody good head on his shoulders too. And the sheilas flock around him like bees round a honey pot.
I reckon he could shag any sheila he wanted on the peninsula.’
    â€˜Yeah? How about your daughter?’ some smart aleck quipped to roars of laughter.
    â€˜Yeah, well, providin’ I knew about it, I’d wait a month or two then go round to Brenda and tell her me daughter’s up the duff and —’ he grinned and cupped his right ear, ‘I can hear weddin’ bells ringing!’
    More laughter, then someone asked, ‘You reckon she’d buy it? Castin’ no nasturtiums at yer daughter, mind, but you know what she’s like . . . stubborn Irish. Remember the water polo and the Olympics? She wouldn’t have a bar of it. Even if your daughter had a bun in the oven I reckon she’d hand you the money for an abortion and tell ya to piss off.’
    â€˜Abortion? Bullshit! Brenda’s a tyke! If she paid for an abortion it would screw up her immortal soul forever. The bloody tykes take that sort of stuff real serious. They’ve got this thing called . . . something or other, I forget, you cross a river and the other side is a sort of halfway house to heaven where you hang around until all the sins you committed in yer past are forgiven and all your relatives have paid the priest heaps fer yer ticket to heaven. But if you done an abortion, yer history! No more questions asked, over and fucking out, down you go, straight to fucking hell!’
    â€˜Yeah? Well, I hope fer yer daughter’s sake it don’t happen. But I reckon she’s got a right to be proud of Danny. I reckon we all have.’
    Half Dunn knew how the locals regarded Danny, but he kept his counsel. All Brenda saw was her boy standing in cap and gown in the Great Hall of Sydney University holding a parchment scroll, proving her mum and dad hadn’t left Ireland for nothing and that she and her twin sisters could hold their heads up high. Danny would reach down and pull them all up out of the gutter. She knew she shouldn’t have made the speech, but she couldn’t help herself. Danny had started the last climb to the Everest of her aspirations.
    Danny copped it on the chin, never complaining about the party again, but he believed he would never live down the shame. As a small indication of his remorse, he refused to join the University Rugby Union Club, the oldest in the nation, and stuck with rugby league; in the summer he played water polo for his old team. In the 1938 league season he appeared as a front-row forward in the firsts for the mighty Tigers. He also passed his first year at university the same year.
    By the end of the following season, when the club won the league premiership, if there had been any lingering resentment about the party, the good folk of Balmain had well and truly forgiven him. Danny had fulfilled all their hopes and met their every expectation.
    Then, having almost completed his second year, Danny turned on the wireless in early spring to hear that Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, had declared that Great Britain was at war with Germany; then Bob Menzies went on air and said that if Britain was at war, so was Australia. Two weeks later at breakfast, Danny announced that he wanted to join up.
    Brenda went very still. ‘I don’t think that’s wise, do you?’ she said coolly.
    â€˜All my