Cloudstreet (50 page)

Does anyone?

Mum, I spose.

No, not even her.

So what … what dyou live for?

The old man laughed: The family, Quick. Your mother’n me always had that in common. Take away the family and that’s it, there’s no point.

Our family? Us. Come on!

It’s why I don’t shoot meself quietly in the head with the old Webley. If I did nothin else in me weak old life, Quick, I know I had a family and I enjoyed every bit of it. Hell, I made youse laugh, didn’t I? We had fun, all of us, didn’t we?

Quick thought about it. They lived like some newspaper cartoon—yokels, bumpkins, fruitcakes in their passed down mended up clothes, ordered like an army floorshow. They worked their bums off and took life seriously: there was good and bad, punishment and reward and the isolation of queerness. But there was love too, and always there was music and dancing and jokes, even in the miserable times after Fish drowned.

Quick? Boy? Didn’t we?

My oath, Dad.

You’re wastin yer brains out here on the river, son. You should be usin yer brains.

I like it, Dad. The water makes me happy, lets me think.

You need some ambition.

What big ambition did
you
have, apart from wantin to be a hero?

Nothin. I just wanted to be a good man.

That’s all I want.

Well, there’s time. A whole river of time, Quick. Easy to be a good man out here—there’s no one else to think of. Lester pointed to the lights above Perth water where the city hung and the suburbs began their outward roll. But up there, that’s the test.

Quick rowed on the slackening tide while the old man crooned a hymn from times back.

That year Quick worked the river from the narrows, where the bridge was going up, down to Blackwall reach where stolen cars and hot pistols were thrown from the cliff into the impossible deep, and even as far as East Fremantle in the shadow of the soap factory and the foundries where the channels ran full of fish, where now and then on the incoming tide, a body might be found, some wharfie, sailor, drunk and king hit. He got plenty of time out there alone to think, and by the beginning of winter, he knew that he really was wasting his time. The fish were selling, the shop was doing well, but he was operating inside a routine. He liked to be on the water, he liked the business of nets and line and fish, but he knew it was a postponement of something.

One afternoon, he gave in to Fish, smuggled him into the Chev before dusk with the wireless still chirping up in the fuggy room, and enough closing hour business in the shop to confuse things.

They drove down along the cliff at Peppermint Grove where in the last light of day, the great, lazy broadness of the river was exposed to them, turning light in insect movements, pricked white with the slackbellied yachts setting out for a twilight run around the Mosman Spit and Claremont water beyond. Fish gasped.

Haaaah! The water!

That’s the stuff, orright.

You good, Quick.

Ah, dry up, Quick said, smiling.

Haah.

You know the rules?

I have to have string.

I’ll tie your belt to the seat so you don’t fall out, and you have to wear this.

Quick pointed at the bouquet of plastic net buoys, each the size of a man’s head, that he’d strung together.

It’s like a hula belt.

What?

Just wear it. Not now, you nong, wait’ll I get you in the boat. I’ve gotta park the truck first. It was like being kids again, nicking off and going fishing. They moved east, upstream, working the banks and gutters all the way through Claremont where the houses were shabby and colonial, to Nedlands water where the lawns stretched up from the water to configurations of houselights you’d only expect to see on luxury liners. Just before midnight they came upon a batch of cobbler that were easy spearing in the shallows. Fish lay across the bow with a torch strapped to his wrist, peering down into the water, mystified by its loss of reflection. He could see down into the milling mobs of smelt and gobbleguts and the ribbed sand bottom until the batteries began to give out. Then he found the dark water more exciting and Quick noticed how precariously he hung over the side, was glad he’d made precautions.

You hungry? There’s some cold pies in the box. Cmon, we’ll take a breather for a while. Get back in the bottom, it’s cold. Where’s your beanie?

In my pocket.

Put it on, it’s cold.

Don’t boss!

Who brought you out in this boat? Whose boat is it?

It’s our boat, all of us. I remember.

Well, so you do, thought Quick, ashamed.

Cmon, let’s have somethin to eat. The cobblers can wait.

Not lookin at them.

Just the water, eh?

Yep.

You’re a character, orright.

Fish got down in the bottom of the boat. A wind was springing up from seaward bringing in that chill Rottnest air. They ate cold meat pies, discards from the shop, and drank hot, sweet tea from the Thermos.

What’re we gonna do with ourselves, Fish?

Eat pies more. You go to sleep. I’ll watch.

You happy?

Yep.

Always?

I get happy sometimes. Not you.

Oh, me, I’m the original glumbum.

I like the water.

You remember what happened to you in the water, at Margaret?

Is it a story?

It happened, but it can be a story.

I know a story. The house hurts, you know.

What’s that?

A story.

There’s someone on the bank there.

Some people cry.

Shut up, Fish, someone
is
crying. It’s late to be out. Stay down.

In the story, Quick—

Shut up and stay down! he hissed.

Quietly, Quick punted them in under the shallow of the low wall that held the river back in storms. The keel ground along the shell grit at the edge, losing water. He was right. There was someone up there crying, but out of sight, in the lee of the wall.

Is everything orright up there? he called. There was a startled squeak, and a scrape of shoes on cement. A figure rose from behind the wall. Quick held the Tilley high, but succeeded only in blinding himself. He heard a honk of noseblowing.

Sorry, I didn’t mean—he stammered.

Quick Lamb, she said. That bloody house won’t leave us alone, will it?

Quick looked at Fish who was smiling fit to sin.

Hypothetical, as the Smartbums Say

She wipes her eyes again and looks at him with his puzzlement plainlit by the lamp swinging at his cheek. The brother is down in the boat, luminous in his own way, huge in sweater and cap.

Well, fancy this.

It’s Rose, says the slow brother, Fish, the one she used to watch through door cracks and curtains.

From next door?

She’s not happy, Quick.

Any chance of a ride?

Where to? says Quick.

Oh, doesn’t matter.

Here, hop in.

And the moment she gets in the boat she can’t stop howling. She holds back on it like a carsick kid trying not to toss, but it only increases the tearing in her throat. Now and then she gets a glimpse of Quick rowing and the other one watching her, both looking like they don’t know whether to go on fishing, head home, or paddle her around till dawn. Now and then she gets her breath back and composes herself for a bit of polite chat, but she loses the lot at the last minute to end up head down in the stink of nets and pots and the mire of her own hanky. In the end she dozes, exhausted. When she wakes she sees they’ve been fishing again, but now the slow one is asleep up in the bow under a tarp. Horror-faced cobbler squirm around in a tub beside her, all with white patches where their stings have been torn out. She smells the heat of the lamp behind her, hears the dip of oars, and Quick Lamb’s orderly breathing. There’s a man’s greatcoat across her shoulders. Her backside is alive with pins and needles.

Wanna fag? Quick asks.

Thanks, I don’t smoke.

Fair enough.

Have I been asleep long?

Oh, an hour, I reckon.

Jesus.

You must be pretty upset.

How many cobblers have you got?

Three dozen, maybe.

Do you catch them on a line?

Nah, we spear em with a gidgie in the shallows. Easy work when a bloke can get it. We’re just settin nets now.

City lights drift by, but only the boat and the river move. Rose can hardly recall feeling as awful as this, though it’s a surprise that it’s not worse.

I’ve got some Chateau Tanunda in that coat, if you want a swig, he says.

No, it’s alright.

No smokin and no drinkin—do your parents know about this?

Spose it is a bit of a laugh, really.

Think I’ll take a snort meself. Couldja find it?

Rose gropes around inside the pockets with their crusty dried flecks of bait, pencil stubs, pieces of string and chips of Buttermenthol.

Think I’ll have a splash myself, after all that, she says.

He takes the bottle from her while she’s trying not to cough it all into the cobbler trough.

Well, that’s cheered you up, he says with a laugh.

It’s beautiful out here, she says, turning round to sit facing him. He stands, punting along with effort.

It’s cold.

Where are we going?

I was about to consult you on that. Actually, I’m beginning to wonder meself. This hasn’t turned out a regular night, you see.

Your brother.

Yeah.

What’s the story with him?

He sighs. The dark water moves by like the black glass of a dream’s beginning. After a while she knows she’s upset him. God, what a clumsy bitch I am, she thinks.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. It’s just that, well, your mob and mine never really talked much, did they. I’m sorry.

Doesn’t matter.

Is he out with you for any special reason?

Oh, he’s been after me forever about coming. Mum an Dad worry. I smuggled him out. He’s knackered. Snores like a bugger.

Rose reaches for the brandy again to take another pull, and the Lamb boy lets the oars drag a few moments passing it to her, watching her drink. The lamp is strapped in against the gunwale beside her; she puts a hand to it for warmth.

What are you like, Quick Lamb?

What sorta question’s that?

Can’t you answer it?

Rose watches his features straighten in offence, a moment, before easing back into the soft, boyish lines from a few seconds before.

What’m I like? He takes up the oars again. Even in a coat and beanie he looks thin. A bit lost, I spose.

The lost Lamb.

Yeah, I feel sheepish about that.

Neither of us is likely to get a show on the wireless, you know.

Oh, I thought my joke was a bottler. It was yours that was on the nose. Gawd, yer smilin.

Nah, it’s only a rumour.

Why’d you ask the question?

I don’t know. Actually, I was just wondering. We live in the same house, what is it, fifteen years now, and I suppose I don’t even know who you are. Hey, I remember that time years ago you clobbered me on the stairs with a bag—knocked me down, you rotten sod, you remember that?

He just rows. No. Don’t think so.

Well, you were in a hurry.

You grew up pretty good lookin, Rose.

Ta.

Funny, the way he says it; it’s like there’s no intention behind the observation, as though he doesn’t mean it to be an embarrassing personal sort of thing, but just a general comment. Rose flushes, not because he’s said it, but for it’s plainness.

How come you do this?

Fishin? Reckon I’d do it after work anyway, if I had a routine job, and seein as I can’t figure out what the hell to do with meself, it’s pleasant enough and pays me way. I just haven’t got any ideas, you know, about what to do. Me old man was sort of restless, goin from thing to thing, the sorta bloke who needed the army but wouldna thought of it till the war came along. Spose that means we’re weak.

No, I reckon it’s just normal.

You look the ambitious type to me.

You come from a big mob, remember. You’ve been sheltered a bit.

He nods. Maybe you’re right. I never thought about it like that.

Rose can’t help but laugh.