Cloudstreet (18 page)

There’s a track winding back to an old-fashioned shack along the road to Gundagai—

She hefted the big china gravyboat and swung it with a backhand sweep that caught him square in the belly hard enough to beat the wind out of him, hard enough to knock him back against the kitchenette and slip and hit the floor bum first. Oriel put the gravyboat down on the draining board and the handle came away, still round her fingers.

Has my life been a waste? she said in a flat, still tone. Has it been that useless?.

But Lester said nothing. He sat there. It looked like he was making plans to get some air into him somehow and it gave her no satisfaction at all.

It didn’t feel so bad to have sore hands when you knew that you’d left East Fremantle behind and passed Rocky Bay, with all its puking foundries and limestone cliffs, for the long stretch through Melville and the sugar factory whose pipes came down to the water to send rainbows out into the channel. Quick saw yachts moored in flocks over on the Mosman shore and the great, long scar of the sandspit. Shags sat high on channel markers to watch them pass.

It’s a long way, Fish said. Is it a long way, Quick?

Yeah, mate. It’s a fair whack, orright.

Quick was starting to wonder if the old man was the full quid. He wasn’t sure if even a fullgrown man could do this. It was late. The sun was sitting low now, right back where they’d come from.

Can I do?

Do what? Quick asked.

Do the sticks. The rowers.

Quick rested a moment and felt the boat glide along upstream.

Orright. We’ll share. Then we’ll go faster, eh.

Fish damn near rolled them out of the boat in his excitement to get up there and it took all Quick’s will not to yell at him.

It was lucky they were headed in the long bellied arc around the Mosman spit because that was the only direction they were ever likely to go in, the way Fish was rowing. Quick pulled hard, but Fish seemed bent on digging all the water out of the river, hauling and grunting so they heeled around to port. Quick hoped Fish’d get bored by the time they needed a straight run, though he figured it’d be dark by then anyway.

Lester sparked up the truck in the dusk and pulled out into the street. Down on the tracks, an engine was hammering up from West Perth with the city lights behind. No one saw him go, he was sure. He felt prickly with nerves; his mouth tasted like sand.

Passing through Subiaco he dodged the late tram and heard the town hall clock ringing the hour, and then he steered the old rattler down along the sombre wall of bush that was Kings Park towards the University and the river.

Down at Crawley there were lights out on the river and fires on the beach. Lester parked the truck and went down through the boozing parties of prawners with their whingeing kids and boiling drums of water to where the grass ended and the peppermints gripped the bank above the sand and the thick stewy smell of the river was strong and plain in his face. He walked up and down, staring out into the darkness. Now and then he could see men in the water wading with nets, or kids with Tilley lamps and spears in the shallows hunting cobbler, but no sign of Quick and Fish. They had no light, no real idea. They could be anywhere, and it was his stupid fault. Panic was acid in his throat. Lord, what a fool he was; he wasn’t fit to have children, she was right.

He began to jog.

Out past Claremont, out past somewhere—Quick doesn’t know anymore—he just stops. He sits back and ships the oars and gives it away. Fish is curled at his feet, sleepy.

Well, Quick says. He sits a few moments. In the starlight he can make out Fish’s features. He has his eyes open. What you thinkin?

I can hear the water.

We’re on the river, you dill.

I can hear it.

Yeah. Quick twists about in his seat. Up on the hills there’s houselights and even the dimmed lamps of cars. You cold?

No.

I’m knackered.

You wanna sing, Quick? Let’s sing.

It’s quiet for a few moments and then they begin to sing, and once they start it’s hard to give it up, so they set up a great train of songs from school and church and wireless, on and on in the dark until they’re making them up and starting all over again to change the words and the speed. Quick isn’t afraid, and he knows Fish is alright. He lies back with his eyes closed. The whole boat is full of their songs—they shout them up at the sky until Fish begins to laugh. Quick stops singing. It’s dead quiet and Fish is laughing like he’s just found a mullet in his shorts. It’s a crazy sound, a mad sound, and Quick opens his eyes to see Fish standing up in the middle of the boat with his arms out like he’s gliding, like he’s a bird sitting in an updraught. The sky, packed with stars, rests just above his head, and when Quick looks over the side he sees the river is full of sky as well. There’s stars and swirl and space down there and it’s not water anymore—it doesn’t even feel wet. Quick stabs his fingers in. There’s nothing there. There’s no lights ashore now. No, there’s no shore at all, not that he can see. There’s only sky out there, above and below, everywhere to be seen. Except for Fish’s giggling, there’s no sound at all. Quick knows he is dreaming. This is a dream. He feels a turd shunting against his sphincter. He’s awake, alright. But it’s a dream—it has to be.

Are we in the sky, Fish?

Yes. It’s the water.

What dyou mean?

The water. The water. I fly.

Lester punishes the truck up and down the bays and bluffs, getting out to blunder along shelly beaches and call out to his sons, but all he flushes out are soldiers and openbloused schoolgirls who leap up and advise him to fuck off before murder is committed. It’s a warm night. Sweat gathers on him and the old truck is overheating. Lester’s making promises to himself now: he’ll never play the ponies again, no more grog, no more foolery and toolery. Street lights are out now and the prawners have long gone. The city is asleep and the quiet infuriates him. Up on the bluff over Claremont, he aims the headlamps out over the river across the masts of moored yachts and the bowed backs of sleeping shags. At Freshwater Bay he stands on the sand and listens to the sound of mullet jumping and prawns scattering before them. You’d think I’d learn about rivers, he thinks; you’d swear a man’d get smart. He remembers the sound of Fish thrashing under the net, how he was forcefed river until he was still and dead and trampled on by his own frightened kin. That funny, skylarking kid. That Fish.

God Almighty, it was hopeless. Now look, now he’s weeping; he’s on his face in the sand and he’s bawling.

Quick knows the planets from school but he can’t tell one from the other as they blur past like stones someone’s chucking at them. Fish sighs and tilts his wings in the bow. The boat’s vibrating the way it’d hum if they hit rapids and went chuting down over snowy water between rocks. Quick’d swear Fish is steering them. Even the anchor’s rattling against its little length of chain. Quick feels fatigue coming to claim him—he aches all through—but he strains to stay awake, to see, to see. Fish is up there gargling like a nut, talking to himself or something, and then in a moment he’s quiet and the boat is skimming, full of hiss and bounce and Quick knows straight away they’re back on the river.

The water! Fish cries in distress.

The river, Fish. We’re back on it.

Where’s the water go?

Were on it, mate.

No. It’s go.

Fish begins to whimper. Quick pulls him gently back into the bottom of the boat and holds him. Like a baby, he thinks, and he’s as big as me. He feels Fish’s head against his chest and the big, sad jerks he makes sobbing. All the excitement disappears. Quick knows the old misery again but he doesn’t let himself break. He gives in to sleep.

Lester found them at dawn, asleep and aground in the shallows along the foreshore at Nedlands. Old men, retired officer types, were smoking pipes and walking their great ugly hounds back on the grass, and the river was flat and without blemish. Lester pumped along the beach, seeing only the boat, and his vision started to blotch with fear. He wanted to pray, but it felt like vomit rising in him so he held it off.

When he came to the boat he saw them. They were wrapped in each other on the boards between the seats, all knees and elbows and skewed shorts. The oars were shipped, the rowlocks stowed. They’d damn near made it all the way to Crawley. Lester stood ankle deep in the cool water and let out a great roar of relief and wonder. Quick twitched and sat up. He looked about him. Then he looked at his father.

You orright? Quick asked.

Lester opened his mouth, but all he had was laughter. He couldn’t help himself. He was dancing in the sand. Fish woke and he and Quick exchanged glances. The old man chiacked on the beach and the sun hauled up over the hills.

They got home at nine. After pushing the truck through Nedlands, Shenton Park, and Subiaco.

Oriel met them on the verandah. It seemed the whole street knew they were coming up Railway Parade, and when they heaved in, she saw the three of them were singing. The Pickleses were looking from their windows and the early customers in the shop came out into the yard to watch. Quick and Fish and Lester came up chuckling and nudging and she felt the pit between them. They were foreigners, they were her blood but they were lost to her. Oriel hid her fists in her apron and felt ready to die.

No juice, love, Lester said. No juice, and no money.

She seized the boys and hooked them into her breast. She felt their blood, their breaths against her. She spoke over their heads.

No brains, Lester Lamb, she said. And no wonder.

Blisters had risen like fruit on Quick’s hands. She saw them. She pulled herself erect and looked about at those who’d gathered to watch. Her little green eyes sighted on them and the spectators shuffled, looked at their boots, looked back again to see that she hadn’t let up, and a couple moved off. No one spoke. The rest began to file away. Lester stood with his hands clasped together like a child. His daughters began shutting down the shop. Even the Pickleses above pulled their heads in.

I’m hungry, said Fish.

Burning the Man

Rose Pickles saw the bonfire out of her window with its rippling yellow mass making silhouettes of the Lamb girls as they tossed fruit crates onto the great spitting blaze to the sound of an accordion. Guy Fawkes night. She heard voices in the hall, the parade ground barking of Mrs Lamb becoming suddenly lowpitched and friendly enough to make her curious, so she went out to the landing and hung over the banisters.

Oh carm on, Mrs Pickles—look I’ll call you Dolly an be done with it. Lester’s gone out and bought all the gear for the kids—they’d love it. Carm on over. There’s spuds to go in the fire and cakes and everywhatall.

Mum? Rose called down. Her mother looked confused and embarrassed. She only had on a dressing gown and her hair was set beneath a tartan scarf. She looked awful, like anyone’s mum. It made her angry to have a pretty mother, but when she let herself go it was worse still.

Guy Fawkes night, said Dolly. I forgot.

Carm over to ours, eh?

Mum?

We haven’t got any crackers.

Rose got the boys off the floor of their room where they were making a wingless fly dance with a piece of matchstick and had them hammering down the stairs after her. Their mother stood there with one of her legs showing and watched them go out the door.

Firelight softened everyone’s faces as they stood around, poking at their scorching potatoes and singing to the accordion Mr Lamb strode around with. The boys fiddled at the fence, setting up strings of fizzers and penny bombs and Catherine-wheels until sparks leapt up into the clear black sky. Mrs Lamb brought out cocoa, lemonade, and leftover pasties with Rosella sauce. Mr Lamb organized a mass whistling of ‘God Save the King’ while he ate a lemon, right under their noses. The last one to plug on to the end was the winner. Chub hardly noticed the lemon, and though he whistled like an emphysemic lung he got the prize which was a box of broken cake pieces and half a jar of cream.

Rose screamed and giggled as the crackers went off and everyone gasped at the colours and the noise. She could hear her mum and dad laughing as the Catherine-wheels got going. She couldn’t remember when she felt so happy before. The yard was full of kids, full of shouting, full of orange light and smoke. The Lambs yelled a lot. Their boy, the slow one, bellowed with laughter and grabbed anyone’s hand who went past. Hens laid eggs in fright and a dog somewhere down the block barked until it was hoarse. The older Lamb girls were friendly even though they talked to Rose like she was much smaller, and even the redhaired one she didn’t like much was sharing things and cracking dumb jokes. The eldest boy, the one they called Quick, was alternately shy and boisterous and he kept asking which parent should be burnt first.