TWO BOB TOMMY
[from “North & West of Melrose St”]
An odd assortment of people hung around the station platform with us that Monday morning, waiting for the railcar to come grumbling out of its shed. There were a few farmers in short-sleeved shirts, two men in suits, but with ties only half-done and coats over shoulders, some women with kids and parcels attached and, squatting against the ticket office, a rough-looking young bloke in a broad-rimmed hat, sheathed rifle and battered kitbag alongside of him. Everyone still looked half asleep.
It was going to be a stinker of a day, the heat already starting to bounce off things and hit you in the face if you stepped out of the shade. I could feel the perspiration between the slats of the seat and my bare legs. My uncle leaned forward to rest on his knees. I did the same. Above us a large clock with Roman numerals clunked away the minutes very slowly. We watched a few more people straggle onto the platform.
Down the other end of the next bench a weathered old black man with greying hair sat down on his own. He had on some tired-looking dungarees and a blue check shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and riding boots with no socks. The boots were so parched and faded that at first I didn't notice that they had once been two different colours. I'd never seen a real live Aboriginal before, only on the newsreels, or in books at school, and there they all wore only underpants and corroboree paint. I found it hard not to keep taking quick looks.
He was really black, and shiny too, his nose wider than any nose I'd ever seen. And his eyes were sort of pinkish, round the edges, and a bit watery, as if he was going to cry. He winked at me. I suddenly felt embarrassed that I'd been staring.
"Are there lots of black people up at the farm Uncle Clem?" I half whispered.
"No, not anymore. Used to be a small tribe of them out around Yongala Rock and the Waddikee Hills, back out to the ranges in the early days by all accounts. But not any more."
"What happened to them?"
"Oh, they just seemed to disappear. Some went north onto the stations I reckon. There was only the old king of the tribe left when your grandad took up his block. Old, old blackfella called Two-Bob Tommy, used to live in a wurley not far from the farmhouse off and on."
"Why was he called Two-Bob Tommy?"
"Well, he went in to Waddikee once, way back when it wasn't much more than a pub and a railway station in the middle of the scrub, and the stationmaster made a bit of fun of Tommy and gave him two bob, told him to shout himself a drink. Your grandad reckoned the stationmaster always was a pain in the neck. Tommy chucked the money away and said a few things in his own lingo and the stationmaster got all uppity and they had a fight in the middle of the road.
"Anyway, make a long story short, the stationmaster came off second best and Tommy finished up with the coppers looking for him. He was always called Two-Bob Tommy after that."
"What happened to him?"
"Tommy? Oh, he used to come and go. He managed to keep one jump ahead of the district copper, always seemed to know when to go bush and when to come in. And he stayed pretty clear of the town too, never did get pinched. Your grandad looked out for him as well I think. He'd hear him some nights singing his corroboree songs off somewhere in the dark and he'd leave some rations down at his wurley. They'd be gone the next day."
"Is he still there?"
"No, hell no. We're talking about thirty years ago, and he was getting on a bit even then."
Uncle Clem looked out over the railway yards, but it was as if he was seeing something else. "Your grandad reckoned he never had to worry about a broken fence while Tommy was around," he went on. "He never knew how he did it, but every now and then he'd come across a fresh mend, wire all nice and tight, new post cut and in where it was needed, join as neat as any he'd seen. Your grandad reckoned there was no way he could've done it all with his bare hands, and none of his tools ever went missing. He couldn't work it out, but he was sure it was Tommy.
"Then one day your grandma suggested that maybe old Tommy did it at night, so your grandad made a note of exactly how the wire strainer was hanging on the wall of the shed, and the axe and the crowbar and stuff. He swore that none of them ever moved. But his fences still got mended. It really got your grandad in, so he put a little feather in the chain of the strainer one day, a fluffy bit, off a chook, tucked out of sight. Two days later there was a new mend in a fence so your grandad tore off to the shed to see if his feather was still there."
Uncle Clem had a little chuckle to himself. "What do you reckon he found?"
"What? -- I dunno, what?"
"There, hanging on the wall, in exactly the right place, right way round, exactly as he'd left it, was the wire strainer, but it had the biggest wedgetail eagle's feather stuck in it you ever saw, nearly two foot long. Your grandad laughed like mad. He's still got the feather."
"And what happened to Tommy?"
"Oh, one day a couple of years later your grandad found a busted piece of fence, looked like it had been that way a while, and he knew Tommy wasn't around any more. He just seemed to disappear, like the rest of his people, melted away into the scrub. No-one ever saw him again. But your grandad was out in the ranges with your dad a while after that, looking for some drought grazing, and one night round the campfire they heard, way off in the dark, someone singing the old corroboree songs."
"Was it Tommy?"
"Your grandad reckoned it was. Or his spirit."
"Wow!"
"Yair, not only that -- he's heard it since a few times over the years, so he reckons."
"Wow!"
I sneaked another look at the black man in the blue check shirt and the odd riding boots with no socks. He was just sitting, absently rolling a cigarette.
© T. R. Edmonds 1993
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