Then he explained the bird net, pointing out the simplicity of the spring which he had made from an old inner tube, and the trigger release which was as sensitive as a mousetrap. He did not notice that she had been crying and when she made no comment about his invention it did not seem to dampen his enthusiasm for it.

That night she cooked him curried lamb, a meal he hated. He ate the lot without commenting, talking to the silly boy about a pet shop.

"Fix up his bike", she said, "so he can go."

Charles heard her, but he was so frightened of her he could not look her in the eye.

"Fix it," she said, pulling her knitting out of a brown-paper bag.

But Les Chaffey did not seem to hear, or perhaps he did hear and decided that there was no point in addressing the question until the present matter was settled. He was making some clever shipping cages. Using no more than galvanized iron and solder he was constructing a feed dispenser and a tiny water cistern that would not spill no matter how roughly the cage was handled by the railways.

He also spent a lot of time (now he was privy to Charles's ambitions) giving advice. Half of the advice was about banks and the other half about wives. Marjorie Chaffey's knitting needles clicked as fast as a telegraph key.

About banks he said: "You are doing the right thing, Chas, to have a pet shop. By that I mean – you are handling a product that already exists. My big mistake in life was to make a product that had not previously existed. You see, these fellows at the bank are only there for two reasons. The first is that they've got no imagination. The second is that the bank is a secure job. So they've got no guts and they've got no imagination. They lack every bloody thing you need to make a quid. So what you need, when you approach them, is something they can understand without thinking. You won't have to make them imagine a pet shop, because they'll have already seen one. You won't have to give them drawings of cockatoos or prove to them that a cockatoo can actually fly and talk and that, if it could, people would want to pay money for the privilege of owning one. The cockatoo already exists. This puts you in the same league as importing or manufacturing under licence. They'll lend you money whether your suit is pressed or not."

About wives, he said: "Now you reckon you're too young to go into marriage, and I grant you that there is not a lot of talent in Jeparit to change your mind, but you should not consider opening a business without a wife. You think you can do it, and then you realize there are books to be done, bills to be sent out, and women are particularly good at this sort of work."

"Fix his bike."

"If you've got a telephone," said Les, blinking at his wife, combing his hair, holding the comb up against the light so he could remove the hairs properly. "If you've got a telephone," (he put the comb back in his pocket) "if you've got a telephone…"

"I'd need a telephone."

"You would. They're a great aid to any business. If you have a telephone, you need someone to answer it."

"I like a woman's voice…" said Charles, as Mrs Chaffey rose, quite suddenly, and walked out of the room, across the passage, and into the bedroom where she threw herself on to the bed so heavily Charles could feel her misery through the soles of his boots.

"But not only that." Les got up, went to the door, peered across the corridor, shut the door, and sat down again. "Say you're called away, someone's got to answer it. You can't, because you're not there. Now you can employ someone, of course, but then the money is going out of the family, and you won't get the same intelligence, or diligence either." He paused. "A guinea for a bloody parrot," he said, and whistled. "It's a bloody marvel."

"Mr Chaffey, please, I'd appreciate it if you'd put my bike back together."

"You're a funny fellow," said Les Chaffey who could not understand how anyone who was such a no-hoper with machinery could display such a talent when it came to a more difficult thing like birds. He would, of course, be lost without a sensible wife and in this respect the motor cycle would prove to be an important asset. Girls liked fellows with motorbikes. He began to think about the various local girls who might look kindly on his lodger, but could not, immediately, think of any. They were either too pretty (and therefore too up themselves) or too clever or too stupid. He completely forgot about the young schoolteacher who boarded with Chook Carrol out at Red Hill and might never have thought of her had he not had his attention drawn to her by chance.

17

Charles only went into Jeparit that day because he was frightened to be left alone with Mrs Chaffey. He did not like Jeparit very much. It was a small town where everyone stared at a strange face, and he had only gone into the general store to escape the ordeal of the main street. He was poking around amongst the rolls of pig wire, trying to fill in time until Les Chaffey came to fetch him, totally unaware that Robert Menzies (that famous kisser of royal hands) had escaped from the same shop – he had been born there -and was now on his way to being Prime Minister of Australia.

Les Chaffey, meanwhile, was standing in the street outside and wondering if it might be worth his while to teach his guest to dance. It was then that he saw the bank manager walking at an unusually brisk pace. The bank manager had wrapped up a revolver in a handkerchief but the handkerchief was not large enough to hide the weapon from Les Chaffey who introduced himself to the man's attention and demanded to know what he was up to.

The bank manager had only walked fifty yards from his office but he was already puffing and he was in such a state of excitement that it took all of Les's skills to extract the story from him.

He had been contacted by the police, who had no pistols themselves, to ask him to go up to the school where Miss Emma Underhill was bailed up in the schoolyard with a large goanna on her head. The goanna was a big fellow and, being cornered by teasing children, had run up Miss Underhill (as goannas will) thinking her a tree, and now Miss Underhill was bleeding and hysterical and the goanna must be dealt with.

"And what," asked Les Chaffey, reaching for a comb which he had left at home, "what were you going to do with a firearm in a schoolyard?"

The bank manager thought that the pupils should be sent home.

"You would evacuate the school? On account of a goanna?"

The bank manager knew that Les Chaffey was a sticky-beak and a trouble-maker, but he was also nervous of the firearm. "Do you have a better idea?"

Les Chaffey did have a better idea. He ran into the general store and pulled Charles out, holding him by the collar and leading him (still holding the collar) along the main street, past the giggling draper's, in front of Dan Murphy's Commercial Hotel, and up the sandy path into the schoolyard where a high-pitched scream (the goanna had just shifted position) attracted him to Miss Underhill who stood, isolated and lonely, on a bitumen square in front of the shelter shed whilst four teachers and thirty-six pupils stood in an arc and stared at her.

"There," said Les Chaffey to his panting puzzled friend. "Isn't she lovely?"