Free The True Story of Spit MacPhee by James Aldridge

coming through this one.’
    Grace thought carefully for a moment before saying what she had to say. ‘What about the boy?’ she said. ‘What will happen to him now?’
    ‘I’ll see Sergeant Joe Collins in the morning. The police will have to do something about him, or the council, or one of the churches.’
    ‘Or Betty Arbuckle,’ Grace said unhappily.
    ‘I suppose so. He’s a Protestant, so they’ll have to look after him.’
    Again Grace hesitated and then she said, ‘Couldn’t he stay here for a while, Jack, until they sort it out?’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Jack Tree said. ‘It’s not our problem.’
    ‘It wouldn’t hurt for a day or two.’
    ‘Not here,’ Jack Tree said. ‘How’s the tea?’
    ‘It’s drawing,’ she said and poured it. ‘But he can’t go back to that boiler any more, and Betty Arbuckle lives on the other side of town, miles from the river.’
    ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
    ‘He’s used to it down here. It’s where he lives.’
    ‘Yes, but not in this house. Have some sense, Grace.’
    ‘I meant just for a few days, until they know what to do with him.’
    ‘Joe Collins will find something.’
    ‘But it’s a shame, Jack, to just turn the boy like that over to the authorities or to Betty Arbuckle. Betty’ll send him away to that Boys Home.’
    ‘It’ll have to be done sooner or later if the old man’s locked up. So there’s no use getting soft about it. He can’t stay here, and that’s all there is about it.’
    Grace didn’t argue because she couldn’t argue. But she knew that her husband was right. If old Fyfe was finally and completely mad, then sooner or later Spit would have to be cared for by some sort of authority. A few days on the back verandah wouldn’t be of much use to him.
    ‘He really is a nice boy,’ she said. ‘That’s the pity of it.’
    ‘He’s a tough little bushie,’ Jack said, ‘and he’ll survive anything. So don’t worry.’
    ‘I’m not sure about that,’ Grace said sadly. ‘He’s not as wild as you all seem to think he is.’
    She washed the tea cups and listened to her husband cleaning himself in the bathroom. She took another look at the sleeping Spit, and it seemed to her that with the smell of smoke and fire and damp on him, Spit too had been burned to the ground. How, she wondered, would he emerge from the ashes this time?

7
    When Spit woke up at dawn he knew instantly where he was, and without having to think about it he was out the back door and down to the river to see what was left of the house and the boiler. What he expected when he reached it was exactly what he saw – an ugly pile of charred wreckage, a chimney still standing, some smouldering timbers, sheets of twisted corrugated iron on the ground, and nothing left of the house or the extension except the boiler. Nonetheless, it was a shock to see it in broad daylight because when he stood and looked at it he knew that his home had gone.
    He walked cautiously into the mess. The buckets which Jack Tree and the others had used to fight the fire with were lined up near the front gate, which still stood, although the fence and flower garden had been trampled down. The gate sign said OUT and Spit pushed it to IN as he passed through it, feeling the damp sharp ashes under his bare feet. He was afraid to continue because of the broken glass and the nails. Remnants of clothes and curtains, and his grandfather’s stuffed chair, were still smouldering.
    It was the boiler he wanted to get to, and by raking his way through the mess with a piece of wood he reached its gaping side. The extension had been burned to the ground, and now there was only an open hole leading into the boiler. When he put his head inside it he realised for the first time that the fire had ruined the inside of this too. His bed was burned, so were his table and the boxes. The walls were black and charred. The wooden floor had gone. Instead, there was a pool of black water in