Macbeth and Son Read online

  Luke peered ahead. He could see tall trees that looked like they’d been there forever, and the sort of grass that was regularly mowed and watered, and flower beds all around, as if no one at St Ilf’s had ever heard of a drought—a far cry from the rutted dirt playground and shabby weatherboard buildings of Breakfast Creek Central.

  I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, thought Luke. There was no way he’d ever pass an entrance exam in a place like this, no matter how much coaching Sam had arranged for him and how many old exam papers he’d gone through.

  Sam was out of the door before the driver could open it for him. Luke followed him up the steps. A crowd of boys and parents were already milling around on the grassy terrace.

  More flowers, thought Luke. There was enough grass here to feed all of Mum’s cattle for a month.

  Maybe if he did end up going to school here he could send the grass clippings home.

  No one else was wearing boots and moleskins. Luke wished he’d worn the expensive joggers Sam had given him last month. Most of the boys seemed to have both parents with them too. For a moment he wished Mum had come as well. She wouldn’t have looked out of place these days, not with her hair all short and streaked like most of the other mums here—not if she dressed in her ‘going to Sydney’ clothes, anyway, and remembered to do her hair.

  But he’d been so sure he was going to flunk he’d asked her not to come. And Sam had agreed. ‘Gives us boys a chance to spend some quality time together,’ Sam had said.

  Luke supposed ‘quality time’ was having dinner last night at that Japanese restaurant where half the stuff was raw and all the other diners kept looking over at Sam while he pretended not to notice. Or breakfast this morning at that trendy café, where the omelette wasn’t half as good as Mum’s, all pale and tough like a kitchen sponge with bits of tomato inside, and where everyone looked at Sam once again and Sam sort of glowed with all the attention.

  They were looking at him now, Luke realised, in that out-of-the-corner-of-their-eye way so it didn’t seem like they were staring. Luke supposed Sam was used to it after so many years on TV. But it still made Luke feel weird.

  ‘Attention! If the boys will all follow me…’ a teacher’s voice said.

  It’s time, thought Luke. He looked up at Sam and tried to smile.

  ‘You’ll be right, mate,’ said Sam confidently.

  No way, thought Luke, as he followed the others in.

  The hall was three times as large as the school hall at home, with big stained-glass windows at one end. The desks were polished wood. They looked as old and mellow as the school itself.

  The teacher looked at his watch. ‘Everyone got their pens? Right…if anyone needs anything just raise your hand. You can start writing…now!’

  Luke lifted the exam paper and opened it. The maths section was first. The words blurred for a second, then cleared.

  ‘If 3x =…’ Luke stared. He felt a grin slide over his face. He knew this one! It had been on one of the old exam papers Sam had given him.

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as he’d thought.

  He flicked over the other pages. ‘Write an essay on one of the following…’ ‘Examine the difference between State and Federal governments…’

  Cool! He knew it all! This was going to be easy…

  Too easy…The thought went through him like an axe through butter.

  How come he knew all the answers? He’d seen every question before, he’d answered them all before. He’d discussed and practised every essay…

  The paper on the desk in front of him looked just like the last exam paper he’d done back home, didn’t it? The one Sam had insisted he complete totally, answering every question. ‘Just to rehearse, you know.’

  Luke tried to remember. It couldn’t be just the same!

  But it was.

  There must have been a mix-up! They must have handed out last year’s paper by mistake. He should put his hand up and tell them…

  Luke hesitated. Maybe they always repeated some of the questions each year. Or maybe…maybe the mistake was the other way around. Maybe they’d sent him this year’s exam instead of last year’s.

  Which meant he’d pass, he realised. It wouldn’t be ‘Dumb old Luke, pity he’s not as bright as his stepdad.’ He could really kill it…

  Luke picked up his pen. He was wasting time! He couldn’t think about this now, he told himself. He’d do the exam, and then…and then…

  And then there’d be time to work out what he should do…

  Chapter 2

  Luke

  Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

  First Witch: Where hast thou been, Sister?

  Second Witch: Killing swine.

  (Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3, lines 1–2)

  ‘The big question is,’ said Mrs Easson, perching on the edge of her desk in front of the blackboard, ‘what should Macbeth do? Should he believe the witches when they tell him he’s going to be king?’

  Luke yawned. How dumb was that? Witches. Who believed in witches these days?

  Megan put up her hand. Luke grinned. This’d be good. Megan always had something to say.

  ‘Witches are supposed to be wise women, aren’t they? So Macbeth would be right to believe them.’

  ‘Not in Shakespeare’s time,’ said Mrs Easson. ‘Remember those were the days when women were hung for witchcraft. And James I, Shakespeare’s king, hated witches. Which is probably why Shakespeare put them in his play—to make them so evil that the King would be pleased. Witches would have been a real crowd pleaser, too.’

  ‘Shakespeare wanted to suck up to the King, then?’ asked Megan.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes, to seek his favour,’ said Mrs Easson. ‘Shakespeare needed a licence from the King to put his plays on.’

  ‘But that’s what he was doing, wasn’t he? Sucking up?’ argued Megan.

  Jingo put up his hand.

  ‘Yes, James?’ asked Mrs Easson, looking slightly startled. It was the first time Luke could remember Jingo putting up his hand in English. Showing off for Megan, thought Luke. He’d caught Jingo staring at Megan lately. He wondered if Megan had noticed.

  ‘How come there aren’t any vampires in Macbeth?’

  Mrs Easson was taken aback. ‘Why should there be?’

  ‘Because they’re heaps cooler than witches,’ said Jingo. ‘Vampires are hot!’

  The class laughed.

  Mrs Easson shook her head. ‘English people didn’t really think about vampires much till Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, in the late 1800s.’ She grinned. ‘Witches were the coolest topic around back then.’ She looked around the class again. ‘Any more questions before we move on?’

  Jingo put up his hand again. ‘How come Macbeth thought the women he met were witches? I mean, this guy’s a real bright dude. How come he believes in witches?’

  ‘Everybody did,’ explained Mrs Easson. ‘If someone thought you were a witch you were tortured till you confessed and then you were hanged.’

  ‘Cool!’ said someone.

  Jingo’s hand shot up again. ‘What sort of tortures? I mean, did they pull out their fingernails…’

  Mrs Easson’s smile grew a bit more fixed. ‘Maybe you’d like to look that up tonight then, James?’

  ‘Sure. Can I change my talk to “Torturing Witches”?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Easson.

  ‘Is this a thumbscrew that I see before me?’ whispered Megan, not quite loudly enough for Mrs Easson to hear. A few people sniggered.

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense!’ Jingo went on, glancing round to check that Megan was watching. ‘There’s this guy, right, and he’s wandering through the fog and he meets these chicks. How come he suddenly thinks, Hey, yo, witches?’

  ‘They had beards,’ someone put in. ‘Banquo says, “you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.”’

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs Easson, impressed.

  Me
gan put up her hand again. ‘Women get hair on their faces after menopause, don’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ put in Jingo. ‘Mrs Henderson.’

  Mrs Henderson was the principal. Luke joined in the general laughter.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Mrs Easson, though she was trying not to smile too.

  ‘Hey, does that mean Mrs Henderson’s a witch?’ called Patrick.

  More laughter.

  ‘Settle down,’ ordered Mrs Easson.

  Jingo put his hand up again.

  ‘What is it now, James?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘If I met Mrs Henderson in the fog,’ said Jingo, ‘and she told me I was going to be king one day, I wouldn’t go and shoot what’s his name, Prince Charles, like Macbeth goes and kills King Duncan. I’d just think she’d gone crazy.’

  ‘Yay, King Jingo!’ yelled someone up the back.

  ‘But the witches were telling the truth,’ objected Megan.

  ‘Were they?’ asked Mrs Easson. ‘That’s the point of the play, isn’t it? Are they really telling Macbeth what will happen? Or are they lying to make Macbeth try to become king? Would he have become king if he’d never met them? Is it truth or is it a lie?’

  Who cares? thought Luke. But it had been fun watching Megan take on Mrs Easson. Even Jingo had been okay.

  He glanced at his watch. Nearly knock-off time. He supposed he’d better get round to reading the play tonight. Everyone else seemed to have finished it.

  ‘Now, don’t forget,’ Mrs Easson said more loudly over the sound of the bell, ‘you have to give your talks Friday of next week. Okay, off you go.’

  Chairs scraped as the impatient ones who’d gathered up their things in the last five minutes of class raced for the door. Luke stood up more slowly. Why hurry? The bus never left till ten to four, which was when a couple of the kids on their route finished their music lessons.

  ‘Hey, Luke.’ It was Patrick. ‘You finished reading the play yet?’

  Pat and Megan lived next door, even if ‘next door’ meant five kilometres down the road—or one kilometre if you cut through the paddocks and went over the hill. Pat had been his best friend since they’d bashed each other with their rattles, and Megan, Pat’s twin…well, she was just Megan. Part of Luke’s life.

  Luke shook his head. ‘Haven’t even started. How about you?’

  ‘Nope. But Megan’s read it.’

  ‘Hey, not fair! You can’t just have your sister read it instead of you.’

  ‘Course I can,’ said Patrick easily. ‘One of the privileges of being a twin. Isn’t that right, Meg?’

  ‘What? No way!’ Megan was shoving her books into her bag. ‘You can read it yourself, peabrain.’

  It was hard to believe that Megan and Pat were twins. Megan’s hair was dark red—red like the rose on the bush Mum had planted in their new courtyard. Pat’s was black, and he was a head taller than Megan too.

  ‘Hey, Luke.’ Megan turned to him. ‘Dad wants to know if you can give us a hand pruning this weekend.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘I wish someone would come up with a peach tree that didn’t need pruning…’

  ‘Sure, no worries.’ Luke liked pruning. Funny, he’d hated it when Dad was alive, when they had to prune the trees each winter or have no fruit to sell the next year. But since Sam had moved in and the orchards had been bulldozed, Luke had found he missed the trees and the old rhythm of their year.

  At least he could still prune with Pat and Megan. And doing it with them was different somehow from pruning with your mum and dad.

  The three of them walked along the splintery school verandah and down onto the asphalt. Luke could see the line of buses outside the school gates, the line of houses opposite, then behind them the paddocks and the bare brown hills. How many months since it’s rained? he wondered. Three was it, or four?

  ‘Hey, there’s your mum!’ said Megan. ‘No, over there, dimwit, waving at you.’

  ‘Mum? What’s up?’ For a moment Luke felt alarm. The last time Mum had come to school unexpectedly was the day that Dad died. She’d come from the hospital to pick Luke up and take him to Dad’s bedside to say goodbye.

  Dad had been breathing with that mask thing over his face, but when Luke bent down he’d breathed out, ‘Look after your mum…’

  It had been corny as hell, like Dad was copying the script out of some chicks’ movie. Luke had been about to laugh, hoping Dad might smile as well, and then he’d seen Dad’s eyes were staring at the ceiling and Mum…

  ‘Luke!’ Mum waved a letter in his face. She was wearing her old jeans with the rip in the knees, like she’d just rushed out without bothering to change into her go-to-town clothes, and her hair had a leaf in it. ‘Stop dreaming! Look what came!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Duh! It’s a letter,’ said Megan. ‘Hey, it’s addressed to you.’

  ‘From St Ilf’s,’ said Mum. Her grin was so big it hardly fitted on her face. ‘I opened it. I couldn’t resist!’

  ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘Don’t you want to read it yourself?’

  Luke shook his head. He’d failed…of course he’d failed…

  …but Mum wouldn’t be grinning like that if he’d failed.

  Maybe they’d discovered the problem with the exam papers. Yeah, that’d be it. They would all have to do the exam again…

  ‘I’ll read it if you’re not going to!’ said Megan impatiently.

  Mum handed Megan the letter.

  Mum was humming. She always did that when she was happy, even when someone else was talking. It used to drive Dad wild.

  ‘Dear Luke, On behalf of the community of St Ilf’s I have great pleasure in advising you…’ began Megan. Then she gasped. ‘Luke!’

  ‘What?’ asked Luke nervously. ‘Have they accepted me?’

  ‘Accepted you? You peabrain! They’ve offered you a scholarship! You came top of the whole exam! Luke! I’m so happy for you!’

  She was happy for him…she was impressed. For a moment that was all Luke could take in.

  And then the rest of it hit him. He’d won a scholarship! Dumb old Luke who’d nearly had to repeat Year Five, but that had been the year Dad died so they’d still let him go up a grade.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ Mum did a little jig, clicking her fingers to the rhythm.

  ‘Hey, Mum! Embarrassing!’ hissed Luke.

  ‘Sorry.’ Mum didn’t look sorry at all. But at least she stopped jigging.

  ‘Hey, wait till Mrs Easson hears!’ cried Patrick. ‘And she only gave you sixty per cent last exam. That’ll show her!’

  ‘Sixty-three,’ said Luke absently. He’d won a scholarship…

  And then it hit him. He hadn’t! That exam paper had been a mistake!

  How had it happened? But that didn’t matter now. He had to tell them…tell Mum…

  ‘I rang Sam straightaway,’ Mum was saying excitedly. ‘He’s flying back this afternoon. We’ll pick him up on the way back home.’

  Sam chartered a four-seater plane to take him to Sydney and back every week. Mum often went along too.

  ‘What about his show?’ asked Luke numbly.

  ‘He’s done a prerecord. They don’t mind just this once, not with something like this. Oh, Luke, you’ve no idea how proud we are of you!’

  ‘Me too,’ said Megan. She sounded like she really meant it.

  Usually she said ‘us’, Patrick and her together. But this was ‘me’, not ‘us’.

  He had to say something now!

  But suddenly Mum was crying…It had been years since he’d seen Mum cry, not since the time after Dad died when the bank manager had driven out to tell her they couldn’t keep on postponing the payments on the mortgage any more. They’d have to sell the farm…Then a week later she’d met Sam at the reunion and it had all been okay. But that night she’d cried and cried as though she’d never stop. He’d wanted to help her, but he hadn’t known how…

  Now she was crying again, but they were
tears of joy. ‘You’ll never know what this means to me, Luke. I was so worried…you’d missed so much school when your dad was sick. I thought it was all my fault, that I should have helped you more. But you’ve made it all up, and more!’

  ‘Mum, it was never your fault…’ began Luke, then stopped. This wasn’t the place to say all that. People were staring at them already.

  ‘Hey, are you lot getting on the bus or what?’ yelled Jingo to Megan and Pat.

  ‘I can give you a lift…’ Mum began, but Megan was already waving the letter in the air.

  ‘Guess what?’ she yelled to Jingo. ‘Luke’s won a scholarship!’

  Too late, thought Luke. There was no way now he could say anything at all.

  Chapter 3

  Luke

  …a tale

  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

  Signifying nothing.

  (Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5, lines 26–28)

  Luke shoved his copy of Macbeth to the back of his desk. What did all those old words mean, anyway? he thought as he opened the window. His bedroom stank of air freshener. It always had that not-quite-roses smell after Mrs Tomlin cleaned.

  Mrs Tomlin and her husband lived in the cottage down past the machinery shed. The cottage had just been a wreck when Mum and Dad had the farm. But when Sam married Mum he’d had the cottage renovated at the same time as the new wing of the house was built.

  Now Mrs Tomlin did the housework, and the cooking too when Mum went down to stay with Sam during the week in Sydney, and Mr Tomlin helped Mum run the farm. Mum and Sam slept in the new part of the house, but Luke had kept his old bedroom.

  He breathed in the night air gratefully. Cold cowpat wasn’t the best smell in the world. But at least it was a real smell. Better than air freshener.

  It was three days now since the letter had come from St Ilf’s. Three days of people congratulating him, telling him ‘Well done.’ Three days of empty triumph. Mum had been walking around with a grin the entire time, singing ‘Rocky Mountain High’ under her breath. You always knew Mum was over the moon when she sang ‘Rocky Mountain High’.