‘Come on,’ Jack now says, leading her out of the shed.
‘They’ll think I’m marching you out, like Billy’s doing with the others.’
‘Please Jack, stop Billy, he’s gunna ruin it for me,’ Jessica cries.
‘Leave Billy be, Tea Leaf, he’s old enough and ugly enough to take care of himself. Come on, we’ve got to fix your hair,’ Jack replies.
‘No, no, please stop Billy. You said the benzine will fix my hair, that’s all that matters. We can do it later. It was a joke, that’s all. Just a stupid joke.’ Jessica reaches over and pulls at Jack’s sleeve. ‘Your father said he’d fire me if there was trouble. Jack, please, Joe needs the money I make for the mortgage. You’ve got to stop Billy before it’s too late, before he wrecks everything!’ she pleads desperately.
Jack stops, and looking into Jessie’s eyes sees the panic there. They’ve reached the horses tethered to a stump. He unties both reins and hands Jessica hers as he thinks for a moment. ‘I’ll try,’ he says finally, ‘though Billy can be a stubborn bastard.’ Then, placing his boot in the stirrup, he swings into the saddle. Jessica does the same and they ride to where Billy has collected the six tar boys behind the shearing shed.
The boys stand in front of Billy with their heads bowed. Five are barefoot and only one wears a pair of heavy boots, which are too big for him. They are all dirty and sweating and their top lips have turned to snot runs. When they’re running around the shed you wouldn’t notice what a bedraggled lot they are. But standing together in the late afternoon sun in their rags and tatters, filthy dirty from the day’s work, sniffing and forlorn, they’re as pathetic-looking a mob as you’d ever wish to see, Jessica thinks to herself. But she knows too that while her clothes are better, well patched by Hester, she doesn’t look much different.
‘Righto, here’s what’s gunna happen,’ Billy is saying as Jack and Jessica come riding up.
‘Hey, Billy, what say we leave this to Mike Malloy?’ Jack calls down to him.
Billy turns and looks up at Jack. ‘Nah, it’s our business, Jack. They did it to our tar boy, it’s ours to fix.’ Jack climbs down from the saddle and tethers his horse to a tall mallee stump behind Billy. Jessica does the same.
‘Mate, Jessie doesn’t want you to go on with it,’ Jack continues. ‘She says it was just a joke they played on her.’ The tar boys all look up hopefully. Billy fixes his eyes on Jessica. ‘Some joke! Take off yer hat, Jessie.’ Jessica shakes her head.
‘Jessie, lift yer hat, that’s a bloody order!’ Billy shouts.
‘Lift it, Tea Leaf,’ Jack whispers beside her.
Her hat is stuck firmly to her hair and she tries to remove it, lifting it gingerly, trying not to show the pain it’s causing her. She winces and gets one side of the hat free so that it lifts like a hinged lid, just enough for them to see that her scalp and short fair hair is completely covered and matted with tar. Some of the men have come out from the shed to see what’s going on, and a couple of them whistle with surprise at this sight. Jessica quickly pulls the side of the hat down again, flushing with embarrassment. ‘Please, Billy, there’s no harm done,’ she pleads.
Billy isn’t listening and now he turns to the tar boys. ‘You gutless cowards done that to our tar boy and you’re gunna have to pay. You’re gunna have to fight me or have your heads done same as hers,’ Billy says.
‘What, all o’ us against you?’ the biggest among them says, smirking, hardly able to believe his ears. ‘All six of us in one go?’ It’s Flats Sullivan. Flats is not his real name, nobody knows his real name, not even him — he is called Flats because when he was a baby he fell out of his cot and onto the stone floor in the kitchen. It broke his nose and flattened his face out a treat. His dad later said it didn’t matter much because he was always fighting and his face would just as likely have ended up that way anyway. Jessica recalls it was Flats who sat on her chest and pinned her arms.
‘No, wait on, Billy,’ Jack says again. ‘Mr Malloy will fine them a day’s pay and they’ll get the living daylights belted out of them at home.’
‘That ain’t fair!’ one of the tar boys, Fly-speck, yells out.
‘Why not?’ Jack asks, surprised. ‘Would you rather get walloped, or go home with a head full of tar?’
‘Shit, yes!’ Fly-speck says. ‘Me old man will flatten me if I don’t bring home me pay!’ He points to Billy.
‘I’m scared of him, but I’m more scared of me father.’
He looks around at the others. ‘Some of them’ll get off light, it ain’t fair. We all done it the same to her!’
‘That’s a confession if ever I heard one,’ Billy says, smiling at Jack. ‘You heard him.’ ‘We’ll fight yiz,’ Flats decides suddenly.
Billy turns back to him. ‘Wait on, you ain’t heard the terms. It’s two at a time, one minute by the clock fighting, half a minute rest for me, then I take the next two and so on, till the six of you has learned yer lesson.’
‘How many times do we fight?’ Fly-speck asks. Though he’s the smallest of them all, he’s clearly the brains in the group. ‘Just the once.’
Fly-speck looks over at Flats and nods.
Jack tries one last time, Jessica egging him on silently. ‘Billy, Jessie thinks she’ll lose her place in the shed. She says my old man told her any trouble and she’s out.’ ‘Bullshit!’ Billy points to the tar boys. ‘They’ve chosen their own punishment. They’ve admitted they did it, you heard the boy. It’s not her that’s responsible, it’s them lot that has to cop what’s coming.’
By now most of the men have come from the shed and they’ve made a semicircle around the group. There is a hum of approval at Billy’s reasoning. Billy is one of them, a grafter, and while Jack is a good lad who can put in a day’s work, he’s still the boss’s boy. The men like to settle things their way. Billy’s right — the tar boys have to learn they can’t muck about. What’s more, it’s a fair contest. These are all tough kids and at fourteen years they know how to scrap. The men don’t say it, but it’s also a bit of amusement before tea.
‘So, what’s it to be?’ Billy asks. ‘A bucket of tar over yer miserable heads, or fight me two at a time?’
Jack looks down at Jessica and shrugs, then says quietly so that only she can hear, ‘She’ll be right, Jessie. I’ll talk to my father if it comes up. I’ll take care of it — you won’t lose your job.’