Hammers Over the Anvil by Alan Marshall

Author:Alan Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2012-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

THE OSTRICH MAN

‘The unknown frightens animals. When I was a boy a horse dropped dead in the shafts of a wagon standing in the Turalla railway yards. The long train carrying Wirths’ Menagerie and Circus had just drawn into the station and, as the elephants and camels walked down the ramp from their railway truck, the horses gathered in the yard panicked and fled, their carts leaping behind them.

Father explained that animals with weak hearts sometimes dropped dead with fright at the sight of strange objects. When the first cars and motorbikes appeared on the roads, horses bolted in terror and otherwise tranquil cows burst through fences in their efforts to escape from the reports of exhausts and the panting of motors.

But the horses and cows of Turalla had never experienced mass terror until the ostriches came. After that, ostriches paced through the nightmare-haunted nights of every cud-chewing road cow and deserted horse for months afterwards.

The coming of the ostriches was announced by Mr Goodman. He came before them and they called him ‘The Ostrich Man’. Joe said to me, ‘He’s a marvel; he knows more about ostriches than your father knows about horses.’

‘You stupid bugger’, I said, ‘that’s impossible.’

‘Well, nearly as much.’ Joe always knew when he had gone too far.

Mr Goodman waited for the ostriches at the pub. While he waited he talked about them. He explained that it was the feathers on their wings that were worth money. In fact he seemed to think there was more money in plucking ostriches than in milking cows.

I explained to Joe that Mr Goodman didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘When does he pluck them!’ I exclaimed. ‘Every bloody night or what? The bastard’s mad.’

‘Listen!’ said Joe. ‘When it comes to money, you and I don’t know the time of the day. We reckon ten bob’s a fortune. Ten bob!! God Almighty!! Argh!’ Joe spat his contempt of such a paltry sum. I’d never seen him so contemptuous of money. Ten bob had suddenly been revealed to him as worthless.

‘I tell you. Ten bob wouldn’t buy a feather off an ostrich’s arse. Do you know what ostrich feathers cost?’ This rhetorical question seemed to demand an answer, judging by Joe’s expectant eyes. I had nothing to say so Joe supplied the answer.

‘Ask Miss Tittell Brune’, he announced to the paddocks around us, making them a party to the discussion by a wave of his hand. ‘Ask her. She’d know what ostrich feathers cost if ever anyone knew.’

I doubted Joe’s knowledge of ostrich feathers.

‘I’ll ask Mr Goodman’, I said.

Mr Goodman would only talk to me when he was drunk so I had to wait till he was well pissed before I asked him.

Joe’s faith in Miss Tittell Brune arose from the fact that we both saved cigarette cards and Joe had twenty ‘Gold Girls’. You got them out of Milo cigarettes. They were pictures of beautiful women and all around them was gold. The women were all actresses and one of them was Miss Tittell Brune.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.