J.B. In Charge Chapter 11

Old Bootles and I confess our ill doings

On the following Friday, our school held its annual fancy‑dress ball.

We kids had grown tired of this business. For ages before the event, we had to relearn our dance routines. We had to skip and hold hands to strange meaningless songs like, She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain When She Comes.

That is the only one I can remember. It had struck me as particularly stupid.

We practised them in the school yard day after day and grew sluggish. Then Mr Macgregor would disappear and return with a switch and his grim smile. Our dance routines would immediately sharpen.

Days before this dreary event, Aunty Fan would be sewing and stitching our costumes. Brian had always gone each year as a different cowboy from the movies. I never fussed but put on whatever Aunty Fan made me. This year I went as a pirate.

Over the days of that week, old Bootles and the fate of Mrs Bootles hung over all my thoughts. There was on one I could talk to. I tried not to think about it. I soon found nothing more forces you to think about something than desperately trying not to. Dad got better and better fast. By the end of the week he was working on the farm as if his illness had never happened. We Browns never talked about it and no one else ever knew except the doctor and old Bootles. But more about that later.

The doings on the Bootles farm soon hung over not just me. Every grownup talked about nothing else. We kids stayed silent and kept our ears flapping. You may know the situation. It is meant to be none of a kid's business, but the air waves are electric with titbits of gossip about grownups going off the rails. It is of course our business. With scarcely a dime in the world, we are at the mercy of our grownups.

The morning after a nightmare, I found my legs taking me back to the Bootles farm. I was drawn to it the way Bruce was drawn, face down-cast and trembling to lick his own vomit. That night in the nightmare I had been half‑climbing, half‑sliding down a pine tree at the bull hole. In my hands I still held the radio and that was slowing me down. Old Bootles with his sack in his hand was above me and in hot pursuit. Mum with an axe at the bottom was calling to me to hurry. I fell out of the tree and into my bed.

I made my way to the boundary fence of the Bootles farm where I had cut my leg. I could find no traces of my former visit. I knelt down and peered through. Strange bulky men with intent faces and spades were trampling over the ground and digging furiously.

A hand rested on my shoulder. I looked up at old Bootles. My first reaction was panic. Then it was a surprise how insignificant he looked and then a strange calm. This was not a monster but a man like other men, rather balding and with a shrunken, tired old face.
Old Bootles removed his arm.

It was you who stole the court order and radio and returned the radio on Saturday night.

I nodded. It was a great relief to confess. Old Bootles sighed.

You are a smart little codger. How's your father?

I really didn’t have to, but it was a relief again to tell everything about Dad's sickness and how I had been his left hand man.

I suspected your father was sick, said old Bootles.
That was why I tried to foreclose the mortgage of your farm. I never though I, who had sacked the Boers, would be outdone by a small boy.

Old Bootles cast a grey, watery eye at me.

What did you see here on Saturday night?

Again I told him everything. Old Bootles seemed to visibly go greyer and shrink more as I told him.

Jesus, said old Bootles.

I was surprised and alarmed that old Bootles would call on Jesus.

They will get me soon, said old Bootles.
Boy Brown, let's strike a deal. Both of us keep mum about each other's ill doings.

I quickly agreed.

I know Bert is in the garden but where is Mrs Bootles? I asked fearfully.

She is in the duck pond, said old Bootles.

Will they hang you? I asked fearfully.

Once I had refused to unjustly get the strap from Mr Macgregor.
He had let me off with the warning that ‘I was a rebel and they hang rebels’.
Old Bootles shook his head.

I will be in prison for the rest of my life.

Old Bootles began to suddenly shake as if he had just fallen into an icy river.

You, boy Brown, remind me of myself when I was a small boy. Granny was sick and I managed the sweet shop for her. Everyone thought she looked after me but it was really me who looked after her.

When I became a man, I promised myself no‑one would ever cross me and make me poor again. I forgot what that poet said, ‘No man is an island’.

When Jean and me were at your farm for tea, I was jealous of your family. I could never take my mind off your farm. I wanted all your happiness for myself. Now you can have the farm for keeps.

I fled. There was a piercing whistle. I turned back for one last look. The strange bulky men were all running towards the duck pond. Old Bootles still knelt at the boundary fence. He was covering his face with his hands. That night I put on my pirate costume and we all went to the fancy dress ball.