Cloudstreet (57 page)

So you came for help?

Yeah. Sam let off one of those grins that she hadn’t seen since God knows when, since Geraldton and days when there were only air raids and Japs to worry about, and her fury subsided a moment, despite her.

Help? Dad, I cleaned up her vomit, washed her clothes, dragged her home from the pub every bloody night of my childhood. I replaced her, you know. I did her work. My childhood was taken from me, Dad. She hurt me all her life. Don’t you think I helped enough? Don’t you think you’ve got a bloody hide even comin to ask?

She’s grievin. It’s Ted, you know.

Ted, Ted, Ted! She only ever loved the one of us!

Well, for Chrissake, how do you think that makes me feel? You think you’re the only one? Nothin can fix that for us, Rose. But show some pity. She lost a child.

Well, she’s not the only one!

You never even knew yours. It’s not the same. She was Ted’s mother.

She was never a mother. She never loved me.

You wouldn’t let her, Rose.

Rose stared at him, mouth open.

Sam looked at his cooling tea.

You’ve lost her, that’s why you want me to come.

She’s been gone a coupla days.

She’s left you.

No, she’s left herself.

You still love her, don’t you?

Sam shrugged, wet-eyed and stiff in his seat. I got used to her. I dunno.

Well, I’m not crawling through the bars of any more pubs looking for her, Dad.

You won’t go with me?

Why?

It shames a man lookin for his wife.

Jesus, Dad! Haven’t you got used to the shame of it all? She’s made an idiot and a laughing stock out of you so often it’s like a joke now. Hasn’t it worn off yet?

I thought you’d come lookin. Just for me.

I always went for you, Dad.

Don’t try to be cruel to her, Rose. She’s had her chances, she’s nearly finished. Winnin out over someone like that isn’t much of a victory. She can only lose from now on in. She’s nearly sixty odd. She can only get old and die. You’re young. You can have more babies, things are ahead of you. Look at me. Whatever I’m gunna get in this life I’ve had, and damnnear all that’s been lost. You can bear it when you lose money and furniture. You can even grit yer teeth and take it when yer lose yer looks, yer teeth, yer youth. But Christ Jesus, when yer family goes after it, it’s more than a man can bear. A man’s sposed to have that at least to look forward to.

Rose watched him go out, dusting off his hat, striding down the steps with his elbows in the air and he was gone before the screen door came to with a slap and left her in a shrinking room.

Arrest

Night falls. All down Swan Street the dogs bark and children are hectored indoors. Alone in her two rooms Rose sits on the bed, picking at the candlewick bedspread with a great blankness expanding in her mind. She’s hungry, but the feel of food in her mouth just makes her retch. Quick is late off the afternoon shift but she’s not thinking of him anymore. For a while there, around five o’clock, when she realized that her flesh had come to feel as though soap had dried on it, she thought that perhaps she should go out and find a doctor because she was suddenly afraid of falling asleep and waking to find herself pinned to the wall by the faint grass-smelling easterly that murmured at the screen door, but the thought petered out somewhere and left her with a fear that seemed to have lost its source. And now, now she’s not thinking of anything at all. She’s even forgotten to be afraid. The candlewick bedspread moults under her hands.

She listens to her own breathing. It fascinates her, reminds her of things, so mesmeric. Girls. It’s a girl’s breath, that’s what she hears. And these two rooms don’t exist. Something bad is going to happen. All this breathing here in the hallway in front of 36. The Eurythmic Hotel when you’re eleven and a half years old. This isn’t a memory—she doesn’t recall this. The door of 36. Those sounds behind, Jesus Christ, she knows what that is. They’re fucking in there behind the door. Who is that? And anyway, what’s she waiting for? Listen to them go in there, snorting and snouting like … but I’m a girl, I don’t know this. I don’t … I … my God. Mum? There’s been an accident, an accident. Dad’s lost his fingers. And she’s in there huffing and puffing with someone else. Your mother’s on her bed under some stranger and you’re turning to steel right there.

A car pulls up noisily somewhere.

Rose begins to weep. I didn’t want to remember
that
! I don’t want
that
.

And now someone is running, someone close by.

I was a girl, she thinks; I shouldn’t have had to hear that. I shouldn’t have had
any
of it.

Rose? Rose?

A policeman at the door. He bursts inside like he owns the bloody place.

It’s not fair! she yells, Not me!

Rose?

The taxi floats down Stirling Highway. She sees the clock-tower of the uni lit in the far distance.

Rose, says Quick.

Yes?

Are you orright?

Looks like a fuckin scarecrow to me, says the taxi driver.

She’s also my wife.

Shit! Sorry, Constable. I thought it was an arrest. Gawd, I’m sorry.

Just drive.

Quick?

Yeah.

You putting me in the hospital?

Quick smiles. He looks beautiful in his uniform: No. Though I probably should. Look at you.

I’m ugly.

Not as ugly as me.

Where we going?

Cloudstreet.

Is everything alright?

We’ve found your mum.

Oh God.

I don’t wanna do this, Quick! Rose pleads, trying to slow him up in the corridor.

From a doorway, a woman’s voice comes screaming: You fuckin bastards! Get your stinkin hands outta me stockins or I’ll piss all over the lotta yer!

Quick looks pale and nervous himself. His tunic is crumpled from holding her in the taxi. Elaine drifts by squinting with strain.

I don’t know much about this stuff, Rose. I got the call and thought I’d better bring you. I thought you’d come.

The call from who?

Yer dad. Some bloke slipped a note in the mail box, I dunno, someone told him. I dunno.

Dad, you little mongrel, she murmurs. You gutless little runt.

Down the corridor the woman screams again. Aaargh!

You don’t know what this is like, Quick!

He shrugs.

You’ve been sheltered from this sort of stuff, damn it!

He nods. Yeah, I’m finding that out, orright.

No one should make me do this again. I’ve told you all that stuff. They shouldn’t make me.

Quick shook his head.

God, Quick, I’m married. I’m my own person.

She’s yer mother.

I can’t help that.

Neither can she. They said she wants you.

She can go to hell.

The voice is broken and hoarse now, pouring from that room. A man comes out sweating and closing a bag. The doctor. She’ll settle now, he says leaving.

I think she’s found Hell, someone says, by the sound of that.

Quick snatches up his cap. I’ve gotta go. Good luck. He turns on his boot heel and pushes his way through the doors.

Rose stands there with her hair about her like a storm-cloud, all the steel gone out of her.

The Girl with the Brown Fatness of Hair

Dolly saw the girl swimming through the crowd. It was hard to see because she herself was lying on the bar with men leaning on her and their drinks on coasters balanced on her belly, between her breasts, along her thighs. They were squeezing her for it, those men, milking her tits for beer, foaming up their glasses, reaching inside her camisole, forcing her legs apart to get at things and dragging out coins, furniture, dead babies and old bottles. Between her knees and through the smoke and laughter she saw the girl with the brown fatness of hair. There was a great ticking watch on the girl’s wrist, big as a saucer. Dolly heard it through the roaring mob and saw how it weighed the kid down. But the girl waded on doggedly. She was strong, you could see, and she was coming, and the laughter was drying up and the hands were coming out as they all started dying around her.

A long time after everyone left, Rose stood by the bed. The old girl sagged back onto the pillows with her wild hair spread out upon them full of silver streaks, tobacco washes. She looked incredibly old and tired, more haglike than any pantomine witch. It was hard to believe that something like this could give birth to you. The whole house went quiet till it was just grinding on its stumps, like a ship at anchor.

You wanted to see me, said Rose dully after a long time.

Dolly closed her eyes.

Rose sat down.

I’m tired.

Well I’m tired, too, so get on with it.

Don’t hate me.

Too late for that.

Why?

My whole life, Mother, that’s why.

Dolly blinked. What did I do that was so bad?

Rose smiled bitterly. You’ve gotta be joking. You stole from me. My childhood, my innocence, my trust. You were always a hateful bitch. A drunken slut. You beat us and shamed us in public. I hate you for all the reasons you hate yourself, and I wanted to kill you the way you wanted to kill yourself. Everything, you stole from me. Even when I was a teenager you
competed
with me, your looks against mine. Shit, even my grief you steal from me. You can’t imagine how I hate you.

You look sick, said Dolly.

I’m not sick. What is all this anyway? What’s the summons? What’ve you been doing? Don’t answer that, I don’t wanna know.

I was sad.

What?

About Ted.

Oh dear. Here we go.

I loved him.

Your favourite.

People have em, Rose. You always loved Sam more than me.

He earned it.

People don’t earn it.

They do with me. Listen, I’m going. This is making me want to vomit.

I wanted to talk to you.

I don’t want any boozer’s justifications and sympathy talk.

Come back tomorrow.

I’ve got my own life now.

Come back.

No.

Rose.

Why?

I want to talk, just to talk.

I’m busy.

Doing what?

I’m just busy.

Come tomorrow. Please. I’m beggin you to come back tomorrow.