Billy Mack's War by James Roy Page A

me doing pretty much whatever Nan told us to do. This was on top of all the jobs we’d have ordinarily had to do. I’m talking about getting both houses — ours and the big house — perfectly tidy and spotless for Dad’s return. Even in late spring it can get pretty cold in Tasmania, but that didn’t stop Nan insisting that all the windows had to be opened so that the houses could air.
    She made Ma’ s room — soon to go back to being Ma and Dad’s room again — as comfortable as she could, with every surface dusted and polished, the linen washed and put back on the bed, fresh flowers in vases. She spent hours over the copper and at the line as she washed and dried practically every piece of clothing and linen in our house. She stocked the pantry as best as her coupons would allow, so that everything would be just right. ‘Your Ma won’t have to worry about a thing,’ she said.
    Then she moved on to the big house and did it all over again. She set a room aside as ‘Freddy’s room’ so that if he felt weak or tired he wouldn’t have to walk the quarter-mile back to our place to go to bed. She took some heavy sacking and sewed a hammock, which Granddad and I slung between a couple of willows down by the creek, and she borrowed a friend’s deckchair for the front porch.
    â€˜Slow down, woman,’ Granddad would say from time to time, but Nan would just give him a look that’s hard to describe. It was a look that said, ‘You know it has to be done. You know it’s the right thing to do.’
    It’s very hard to argue with a look like that.

Chapter 10 Billy

    Granddad left early on the Thursday morning, when everything was still asleep, even the currawongs. I’d asked him to wake me up, but I think that maybe he forgot, because I awoke to the sound of the truck idling in the yard.
    I sat up in bed, pulled the curtains aside and wiped the condensation from the cold glass. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and Granddad was standing beside the truck talking to Nan, who was wearing her dressing gown and hugging herself against the early-morning cold. Then Granddad leaned down and kissed her before climbing into the truck. He revved the engine and pulled away — he’d said the clutch was on the way out, and the engine roared as he started off down the long driveway — and Nan waved a couple of times. She watched until the tail-lights had disappeared over the crest, then she turned and came back into the house.
    I lay back in my bed and listened to the sounds in the house — the front door closing, Nan’s footsteps on the floorboards, the clink of plates in the kitchen, the sound of one of the twins mumbling in her sleep. I was wide awake now, and it would soon be time to get up and sort out the milking, anyway. Besides, I was too excited to go back to sleep.
    I really wished I could have gone with my grandfather. It would have been fun, just him and me in the cab of the truck, out on the road in the early morning with the sun coming up behind us. But I knew that my job was to stay on the farm and make sure it all kept running smoothly. I could hear the low murmur of cows, and knew that they’d be starting to line them-selves up behind the milking shed. I briefly thought about getting dressed and starting the milking a bit early, but at that point I must have dozed back off.
    I didn’t go to school that day or the next. I was looking after the farm, and this time Granddad hadn’t asked Stan Whittaker to come over and check that I was all right. I suppose he thought I’d proven myself the last time.
    The twins definitely knew something big was happening. They’d been a bit of a handful for Nan the whole time, but for some reason they chose those two days in particular to really play up. Maybe it was made worse by the fact that Nan was like a bull with a migraine as she tried to get everything