Free 1915 by Roger McDonald Page A

as sealed in as those of a play. Falling stars slipped from the sky one after the other, blinking out behind the dark heap of Mt Cookapoi. He made a wish to accompany each one: Her .
    In the secrecy of his bedroom he scrutinized the note, holding it up to the hurting light of the lamp. Her touch had been dry as this paper, though underneath something had rippled like silk and skimmed the surface when their eyes met. Turning the paper edge-on (to find the night’s code greeting him again: black, white, yellow) he saw faint hairs of fibre rising from the small furrow of her pencil-marks. She had written her name. Using his magnifying glass, the furrowdeepened to a ditch. It was like the dropped edge of a sand pile, only it never moved. Here he located the very instant when she had impressed her whole self in a line leading unvaryingly to him.

6
Divine Service
    When Billy laughed these days and said, “I’m a bad bugger, eh?” he meant it. While he believed in God and, as far as he cared to notice them, the laws of the church, he saw himself standing off to one side. The laws were all right — he’d pay some day for breaking them — but for the moment they were for other people and got in the way.
    Billy saw heaven as a place full of ladies from town dressed up as if waiting for the train. He saw Christ babbling on over their bent heads while they crept forward, all those old ducks, and tugged at the hem of his gown. There was nothing to be said to that weak and bearded figure. But if Billy could make contact with the Old Chap — he got on well with old men — he was sure the two of them would hit it off and get to the bottom of things. He wanted somewhere decent for his mother to go when she died. She’d like somewhere with a bit of grit in it. Why shouldn’t she get a heaven right here among the paddocks and hillsides she loved? He wondered what would happen if he prayed at white-hot heat and asked God for a bargain. He’d do anything to make her happy. So as the church at the crossroads came into view and he cantered to catch up to his father he was impatient for the service to get started and that moment of blunt contact to begin.
    â€œIt’ll be hot later,” he greeted Mr Gilchrist, thenclamped Walter by the elbow and urged: “Come on over and say g’day to the girls.”
    Walter found himself in view of those “good sports”, Billy’s cousins, puffing out his chest, hooking his thumbs in his belt. The cousins, sixteen and nineteen, with small chins, narrow chests, eyes as quick as pullets’, glanced from one male to the other as if they had special food hidden about their persons. Then Ethel cocked her head to avoid the sun and bowled Billy a difficult question, something about “May”.
    For some reason the query rang in the air like a shout.
    â€œWho?” asked Walter.
    Billy bit a fingernail and grunted.
    â€œSomeone in hospital,” Ethel confided.
    At last Billy answered: “The police think it was the same shearer that pole-axed Albert Telford last Easter.” After saying “a funny show all right” he excused himself and joined his father, who had signalled.
    Ethel wrinkled her nose as if at a bad smell. “A nurse at the hospital got followed one night and attacked.” She maintained the furrowed nose, but now seemed to be asking: do you think wrinkled noses are pretty?
    Lottie pitched in: “The police quizzed Billy.”
    The Reverend Fox and his wife stood to one side under a copious yellow box tree. As the worshippers filed past they shot the couple shyly curious glances.
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    â€œMerry Christmases” multiplied from pew to pew: the phrase increased until it became a murmur, releasing a flow of small talk that ebbed only when Mrs Fox fussed her way to the organ. The cousins after alast peek around buried their hands in their laps feeling satisfactorily observed. The older women prayed