Ben Rice - Pobby and Dingan

Mum told me that then Judge McNulty did lots of racking of his brains, and sometimes he looked a bit pale, but eventually he decided to break up the court until it was possible to interview Kellyanne. But he only did it after asking Sid about his family. And Sid said he hadn’t got any, and that his wife had died twenty years ago. And the judge asked him if he ever talked to her privately even though she was dead. And Sid said he did sometimes, when he was up at the agitator, because his wife used to help him sift through opal dirt because she had better eyes than he did. But I don’t think Sid realized what was going on, that the sly old Judge McNulty had trapped him into admitting that everybody has an imaginary friend of some kind even if you don’t think they have, and that Old Sid himself was a bit on the short-sighted side.

After that, McNulty announced that the court was going to come together again when Kellyanne was better. And at the end of the proceedings only about twenty or thirty people were outside the courtroom to throw cabbages and things at my dad and hiss: “Ratter. Ratter. Ratter. Ratter.” And only one bloke had a banner saying POBBY AND DINGAN WERE RATTERS on it in red paint like blood.

Well, to be honest, all this trial stuff cheered me up no end, and the next day Mum and me got ready for the funeral of Pobby and Dingan with smiles on our faces while Dad went off to fetch Kellyanne from the hospital.

Mum had bought me some new black pants and a black sweatshirt, and so we went out all comfortably to the cemetery and decorated the fence with flowers and opened up the gate. And the priest came and talked things through with us, you know, about what the proceedings were. And Mr. Dan drove up around ten o’clock and shuffled around a little awkward in his suit and tie. And then the coffins of Pobby and Dingan turned up and I helped carry them up to the grave. And old Humph came along in his hat to tell me he was putting a plaque for Pobby and Dingan up in his Moozeum. Well, I was looking forward to telling Kellyanne this when she arrived from the hospital with Dad. That would put a massive smile on her face, for sure. And she would never be sick again.

And then all that was left to do was to wait for people to start arriving. I had some butterflies in my stomach, but. You see, I’d been round the whole of Lightning Ridge posting Humph’s invitations into everybody’s mailboxes. And I was sort of nervous to see how many came and how many tore up the invitations and still called us Williamsons a bunch of frigging lunatics. And I was also nervous because of the reports about Kellyanne and how she was getting worse by the day even though they’d managed to pump some food into her at the hospital. So it seemed pretty much like it was now or never.

I got so afraid that people wouldn’t turn up and that I might have to imagine myself a whole crowd that I got really impatient, and an hour before the funeral was due to start I got on my bike again and went pedalling around Lightning Ridge to see if people were getting ready. The place was a sort of deathly quiet. I sat on the step outside The Digger’s Rest for half an hour, trembling and half wanting to go for a piss.

Eventually a few people started stepping out of houses and shops coughing, or pulling back curtains and doors. And then suddenly, as the sun got hotter in the sky, old buggers, young buggers, men and women and dogs started appearing on the street and walking out towards the cemetery. A couple of them saw me and waved. I got on my Chopper fast and cycled around the back way, standing up on the pedals to get a good view of the crowd walking along in silence between the gum trees and houses. And I noticed that everyone had like made an effort and changed out of their mining clothes into their best boardies and singlets.

I got back to the cemetery ahead of the people and I saw them all coming up the road past the balding little golf course like a massive great wave. I stood on Bob the Swede’s gravestone and saw that actually there were many more than I’d expected. Thousands of people all coming out towards us. More even than you saw at the goat races, more even than I’d ever seen in my whole life except on the football on TV. And for a moment I was worried that there was something else going on that they were all going to, and that they were going to walk straight past the cemetery gates or something and head out of town.

But I shouldn’t have worried, because pretty soon the little cemetery was full of living people, and everyone closed in around the grave and the coffins which had Pobby and Dingan inside. And some sat on the scorched grass, and some wandered around looking at some of the other graves. And no one was saying nothing except a few words to each other. But most just gave me a nod and gazed out over the land or fanned themselves down. And Mum and me had made some lemonade and cookies earlier, and so we passed some cups around and began pouring, so that people had something to graze on. But although I was relieved to see all these people turn up at the cemetery for the funeral of Pobby and Dingan, the most important ones hadn’t arrived. And that was Kellyanne and Dad.

Kellyanne and Dad. Dad and Kellyanne. They still hadn’t come back from the hospital. It was way past time for the funeral to start and people were starting to do a bit of muttering and all that. And I suppose some of them were starting to doubt if there was going to be a funeral at all. And perhaps some folks were beginning to look at each other and at me and my mum and starting to ask each other what the hell they were doing attending the funeral of two figments of a girl’s imagination, especially when that little girl wasn’t even there. And I remember picking out Judge McNulty in the crowd. He was frowning and looking at his watch. But at least the preacher was doing a good job. He was pretty sober and he was still going around welcoming people and saying hello and handing out sheets with some songs printed on them. I reckon he wasn’t keen to lose all these people. Because if they stayed it would be the biggest congregation he ever preached to in his life. At one moment he looked up and gave me a thumbs-up sign as if to say: “Don’t worry, mate, Kellyanne will be here soon.”

And then suddenly she came. I recognized the sound of the ute as it came in the gate, and there was Dad at the wheel. And everyone turned around and stood watching as he climbed out and walked to the back and began to take out a fold-up wheelchair and assemble it on the grass. I ran down to meet him. Through the back window I could see Kellyanne’s pale face. I ran to the back door and opened it and Kellyanne turned and gave me a twitch — because she had no strength for a whole smile. She was as thin as I have ever seen a person get, and Mum came and helped me lift her into the wheelchair which Dad had assembled. And there were tears in Mum’s eyes and the funeral hadn’t even started. Well, then Mum gave Dad a big hug and a kiss right on the lips and I did a yuck sign to Kellyanne by sticking my finger down my throat, and then I pushed Kellyanne up the slope through the crowd and up to the grave of Pobby and Dingan. And most people I think were pretty shocked to see my sister looking so sick. And some of them said nice things to her on the way up, like “Good on yer, gal,” and “She’s a brave one.” And somebody else’s mum put flowers on her lap. And then, when she got to the top, everyone suddenly started clapping and everyone was cheering and people were slapping my dad on the back. It took a fair while for everyone to settle down and listen to the preacher, who was now standing up at the front and looking like he wanted to speak.

He shouted out: “G-day, everybody! And welcome to the funeral of Pobby and Dingan, friends of Kellyanne Williamson and members of the good honest Williamson family!” Well, at that point Humph let out a huge cheer, but he was the only one and I think he felt a bit of a drongo for doing it. But my dad had a little smile to himself. And then the preacher told us we were going to sing from our song sheets and everyone rustled their papers.