Cloudstreet (19 page)

When they brought out the Guy Fawkes Rose clapped and exclaimed. It was stuffed with wild oats and dressed up in motheaten flourbags (because Mrs Lamb didn’t believe in wasting old clothes) and he had a pipe Mr Lamb had whittled from pine. Everybody yelled and cheered when Rose’s father helped Mr Lamb put the dummy on the fire, but when they sat to eat their black potatoes, the slow boy Fish began to cry and then to scream.

No. Burn the man. Don’t burn him. He’s the man.

At first they laughed. The Guy Fawkes’ head was tilting and one of his arms was gone. Flames shot out of his collar and he seemed to twist a little as the flourbags caught. But when Fish went crazy Quick Lamb and his mother took him inside and everything went quiet and strange and the party died.

Oh, you remember that alright. You see lights buzz and whizz up bangcrack. Everyone loving. Taters black an eaty. Here, Quick, look here! Lady and Lestah’s laughing with fire up they chin. Lon come runs with fizzer things laughing up he hair. Tummy full with laugh and taters. That girl, she laughs. Right up, the sky big an black, nightime after darking an not in bed, you know, not even close to bed.

Whacko! Quick say.

Whacko! Lestah say.

Whacko! Lady say.

Fish wants a whacko but out come the Man with arms out Jesus arms, stiffy an funny. But no! No, Lestah! Noooooo! They get him on the hot, gots him on the fire. Lestah, you burnin the Man, Quick you burnin the Man an now theys fire out his mouth and eyes. Now he’s head off alright. No. No. No. No. Quick? Yous burning He, the water Man. Ah, Fish mouth all black with hurt an they pullin an hookin on me and there cry tears an mess in me eyes. Legs hurtin up the stairs in the dark. House full of breathin. An Fish he cry like littles, like baby Lon in the truck. Theys pull me up goin hard in the hands. Everythin hurt. Theys open the door. The handle sees me in the dark. Fall down.

Quick drags his brother up the stairs. He can feel tears and snot and spit on him and he wishes he could just go to bed and die. Fish is still going, his voice busting with pressure, and his mother is pushing from behind.

It’s only grass, Fish, Quick says. It’s not a man.

You burn tha maaaann!

I’ll give you a hidin if you don’t slack off, son, his mum says, but Quick can tell there’s none of the usual iron in it.

The piano, Mum. Give him the piano.

I hate that room.

Let him in. He likes the piano.

They got Fish to the landing and steered him round to the door at the very back where no one went much, and as soon as the door was open and that sweet musty smell came out, Quick felt crook to his guts and his mother let go of Fish and stepped back. Quick held Fish by his belt and took him across the stained boards to the piano that stood against the wall. There were no windows here and it was the kind of place you’d rather not be in. Fish flicked up the cover and put his fists on the browning keys. Quick watched him beat out a horrible noise with his eyes all busted looking and wet and then left him there with the lights on behind the closed door.

Outside, on the landing, his mother was crying. She had her brow on the banister looking ugly and red so he put his hand on her back. But it was like she didn’t know he was there, and he didn’t say anything, so, after a while he went back downstairs. The thumping music drifted down over the flames and Mr and Mrs Pickles looked bored and edgy.

Quick’s dad did animal impressions for an hour and though the Pickles girl laughed, he felt shame and embarrassment.

That night, as they all lay in bed, tossing, askew, asleep, awake, the piano rang on. Middle C droned through the house, and though they all heard it, no one said a word.

Down into the Light, Samson Lamb

Sink and glide to where the light comes down like a vine. It’s all calling, softbottomed and the colour of food, the rich saucy look of a meal you’ll feast on forever, Samson Lamb, so down you fly, to the sky beneath, we are the firmament below and can’t you see the light coming up from the darkness, it seems to say. Cool goes to cold, but now there’s a heat to it, a joy here you didn’t expect, growing in you all the time so the thrashing back up there where the night sky growls down doesn’t matter anymore, and the true faces are smiling. See this, boy. The fish are coming to you; they are letting you aside. You will pass. This is joy. You don’t struggle. Go down into the light. Soft fat bubbles tickle you now. You begin to recognize. Oh, boy.

Oh.

Oh.

No. Not back.

No.

The Hand Again

School ended for the year, but even so, Rose sharpened all her pencils and kept her writing desk in good order. Each drawer was neat as a diagram inside: paper, nibs, clips, crayons, blunt scissors closed like a body in repose. It was the way she’d have her whole kitchen, if she ever had one to herself; her whole house. Maybe it wasn’t such a fantasy. She was learning to cook these days because the old girl was always too drunk and the old man was always late home. When they were home they were always fighting and tossing things at each other so dinner never got cooked. Rose knew how to grill chops and fry up eggs and bacon. She learnt how to boil cabbage till it looked and tasted like wet newsprint, the way the old man liked it. The boys always ragged her and took the piss these days, but they let up around six every night until she’d cooked them their chops and cabbage and mashed spud. She knew they couldn’t help being dills—they were boys. That’s why they were mean and clumsy. She knew they’d go hungry without her. Maybe they’d even starve. Rose felt tough sometimes. She felt best when she slapped the spud on their plates like it was mud and looked down at Chub and Ted like they were just helpless animals.

Now that the holidays were here, the three of them just mucked around in the house or out in the yard. There was always the river, so often they walked down to Crawley to the baths for a swim. The old man was at work and the old girl didn’t seem to care much what they did, these days.

Down by the tracks, the three of them dug a cubbyhole. Well, Ted and Rose dug. Chub just sat round looking like he might do something any moment. It was a kind of alliance forged in boredom, but they got the long trench dug. They made a rectangular chamber at the end hacked into the side of the embankment where trees grew and shielded them from view, and they roofed it with tin from dunny roofs in back lanes and shovelled sand back over so the whole thing was invisible. Ted was good at building things, Rose had to concede. He was good at pinching things, too. They pulled nails out of other people’s fences, knocked off the odd fourbetwo from wood heaps and even copped a shovel. It took a week. The final touch, a trapdoor, was the oven door from an old Kooka stove, and it opened out on a hinge and all. Inside, the sand was blackpacked, and Rose thought it smelled of chook feathers. It was quiet in there, and even with a candle you could only see a foot or two ahead. Rose could barely believe they’d done it. In the whole week there wasn’t a quarrel or even a bad feeling. Ted was funny, cracking bum jokes and teasing. He loved to make things join up. It made him happy, and Rose wondered if this was the first time she’d really seen him happy. They got on so well they didn’t even mind Chub walking up and down, pressing his lips together and doing absolutely ringall.

But it all went to the dogs in a hurry. The day it was finished Chub went in the trapdoor and climbed straight out again and wouldn’t go back in.

I don’t like it, he said.

Well if you’d done something to make it better, you wouldn’t need to complain, Rose said.

I don’t like the sand.

Shit, said Ted.

Then Chub ran off. Ted and Rose climbed in and lit candles and sat in the dead quiet of their bunker. Ted showed her the tin of Capstan tobacco he’d knocked off from a shop in Subi. She was outraged, but she wanted things to go well so she watched him take out his Tally-Ho papers and open the tobacco tin crouched down on his haunches with his loose shorts showing that revolting little thing of his hanging down. Then it was all over. Someone banged on the door, Ted snapped the tin shut in fright and screamed. The roof started caving in, and they spent an hour in Mrs Lamb’s kitchen watching her try to get Ted’s dick out of the Capstan tin. Some grownups stomped the cubby in, and Ted snarled at everyone that came near. Every time one of the Lamb kids passed they’d laugh their boxes off and Rose knew there’d be no fun before Christmas.

The old man lost big at the races. Things started to disappear from the house. Then the old girl disappeared from the house.

It’s the Hairy Hand, the old man said.

Rose couldn’t speak to him.

Poison