The Story of Danny Dunn by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page A

Dunn’s shoes. ‘Mate, we’d like to talk to you about your unfortunate decision.’
    â€˜My decision? What decision?’ Half Dunn panted, mopping his face with a large white sweat-soaked handkerchief.
    â€˜C’mon, mate,’ O’Hearn said impatiently. ‘Yer boy Danny . . . not goin’ to the Olympics.’
    â€˜Brenda!’ Half Dunn replied by way of a one-word explanation. His wife’s name seemed to give off a firm, hard sound, like a heavy brass padlock snapping shut.
    â€˜Yeah, mate, we know.’ O’Hearn waited for a further explanation.
    Half Dunn stuffed the hanky absently into his trouser pocket and stared at his buggered shoe, thinking, you can’t polish patent leather .
    â€˜So?’ someone asked, breaking the silence.
    â€˜I dunno, mate,’ Half Dunn said. Danny, the cause of this kerfuffle, wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing his disappointment over his mother’s decision to his old man, to use him as an ally in an attempt to make her change her mind, two against one. He had long since sussed his father out as a major crap artist. Although never openly disrespectful, he seldom if ever asked his opinion on anything.
    Last night Half Dunn’d heard the boy crying in his room upstairs, but knocking at the door and going in to offer him comfort was pointless. Brenda’s word was law. He knew he was piss-weak as a father, as a husband even worse. He’d willingly handed over any authority he might have once possessed a long time ago, although he couldn’t quite remember how that had happened. Take the Commercial. One moment he’d been happily propping up the bar in his childhood home, the next she was buying a pub in Balmain. ‘Sign here, dear,’ forefinger on a line appearing in the same place on several sheets of typed paper he hadn’t the energy to read or the nerve to question. ‘Sign here,’ was practically her maxim.
    It hurt. It hurt like hell having no particular purpose, sitting on his reinforced stool getting slowly pissed and crapping on to the customers from opening to closing time. He was, in his own eyes, a useless prick, but he no longer had any idea how he might assert himself. He wouldn’t have understood the term ‘emasculated’, but he knew how it felt.
    It wasn’t as if they ever quarrelled or even raised their voices. She’d simply say, ‘Yes, dear’ or ‘Never mind, dear’ or ‘Trust me, dear’, then go ahead and do as she’d originally intended. The worst part, in terms of the eventual outcome, was that she was seldom wrong.
    â€˜I’ll talk to her,’ he promised the men standing with their arms folded in front of him.
    â€˜What, you haven’t already?’ someone asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
    â€˜Jesus, mate,’ yet another exclaimed, his disdain obvious.
    O’Hearn, as the union shop steward, was accustomed to doing the talking and there was a grumble of disquiet beginning to come from the delegates. Any moment now, he knew, they were all going to be having a go at Half Dunn. He took a step closer to deliberately separate himself from the mob. It was basic union training – you own the mob, they don’t own you. ‘Glad to hear it. So tell me, watcha gunna say to the little missus?’
    Half Dunn looked at him alarmed; he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He was being pushed into a corner and didn’t like it, but he wasn’t game to object. ‘Er . . . I’ll . . .’
    â€˜Can I make a suggestion,’ the shop steward cut in firmly – it wasn’t a question. ‘You’re going to point out to your good wife that half . . . no, more than half the blokes who drink at the Hero, at your pub, support the water-polo team. That’s half the flamin’ profits if I’m not greatly mistaken! I mean, if