Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières

Author:Louis de Bernières
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473545748
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2016-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

TRAINING BLUE

FIVE MORNINGS LATER, Mick found out what Taylor Pete had been making for him. It was a cricket bat, crude and heavy, but nicely balanced, and just the right length. Pete had laminated three thick planks, and then trimmed it all down, varnished it, and wound the handle with rubber from an old inner tyre, to take some of the shock and sting out of hitting the ball. Then he had painted three stumps in white paint on the wall of the shed.

‘It’s a dinkum bat, Peeto,’ said Mick, his eyes shining with pleasure.

‘Don’t thank me, thank your grandad,’ said Taylor Pete. ‘It’s actually a present to himself.’

‘A present to himself?’

‘He’s had no one to play cricket with since your dad left. That bat’s for him, so he can play with you.’

‘But it’s too small.’

‘I’ll probably have to make him another. I think we’ve got a word for that. In Yindjibarndi.’

‘For a cricket bat?’

‘Nah. In Yindjibarndi, a cricket bat is a “cricket bat”. I mean, “a present for yourself”. Can’t remember what it is, though. It’ll come back later, when I’m at something else.’

Granpa made Mick play cricket almost every morning, until the sun grew too hot, and the light so bright that it was senseless trying to follow a ball. Stemple usually passed by on purpose in order to be invited to join in. He was a fine wicketkeeper, but as the stumps were painted on a wall, he had to make do with being cover point. He could bowl a mean googly even on that dust, and often had arguments with Granpa about LBW. Granpa reckoned there was no chance that Stemple had got him out, and Stemple reckoned he got him every time, but as there was no umpire, Stemple’s appeals were formally undecidable, no matter how much he ran in circles pumping the air with his fist and shouting, ‘Howzat?’

Mick had to admit that his grandfather was a very good cricketer. He could dive to catch a ball, and roll over like a paratrooper as he struck the ground, coming up covered in red dust, but unhurt. He could hurl the ball from just about any distance, and land it square on the stumps. He could break windows with a cut, and could pull off an ugly cow shot that sent the ball high into the sky and into Willy’s paddock. Once he scored sixty-three runs while Mick went looking for the ball, and then declared, as he was too tired to bat on. He could drive the ball along the ground straight back at Mick, so that he had to leap out of the way, and he could bowl a spinner that seemed to bounce sideways at forty-five degrees in either direction, so that Mick didn’t stand a chance at the crease unless he bounded forward and took the balls at full toss. Sometimes he would bowl a ball so hard and fast that the side of the shed was at risk of being wrecked and so Taylor Pete nailed up a thick piece of ply to protect it.

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