Cloudstreet (65 page)

Fish finds Quick weeping in the outhouse.

Does the poo hurt, Quick?

But Quick says nothing.

Fish stands by the old pen where the rugged survivor of a pig rubs against a post. He goes up to the dunny door.

Quick?

It’s orright, Fish.

Doan cry.

No.

The ladies like it.

Go back inside, mate. Leave me alone, orright?

Fish goes obediently.

Somethin’s Up

Somethin’s up, said Murphy. The CIB know somethin, they’re settin somethin up. Even the papers know about it.

Hmm? said Quick by the urn looking at his own handcuffs.

The weapon. The papers are goin quiet. We’ve got him rattled, the sick bastard.

I just wish it’d stop rainin, said Quick.

You wouldn’t notice yer own balls ringin vespers, said Murphy.

I could drive trucks, said Quick.

Jaysus, said Murphy.

Oh, see down there, Fish, see down there something happening at last. A tip, a copper’s hunch, an old couple coming across a .22 under a bush above the river. And the net closing.

On Sunday, Murphy was on the shift fresh from midnight mass.

They got him, he said.

Who’d you get it from, said Quick, the priest?

Father of seven, said Murphy, can you imagine?

Sure, mate.

I know a journo.

And I know a load of bollocks.

The Sarge came in: You hear the news, Lamb? They got him, the Monster.

Who told you, Sarge? said Quick.

Murphy knows a journo.

That’d be bloody right, said Quick. He just wouldn’t let himself believe it. No, they’d have this mad bastard hanging over their lives from here on in. He was here to stay.

Lamb? Lamb!

Sarge? What was that?

The phone was for you, you galah. You gone to sleep on us? Constable!

Sarge?

Get home.

Sorry, Sarge. It’s just I’m … It won’t happen again.

Go!

But Sarge!

Get him home, Murphy.

But
why
? Quick pleaded.

Because yer about to be a father.

It’ll be in the morning papers, shouted Murphy riding through the streets on the single sidebanger.

My baby? said Quick.

The bloody murderer, you nong.

Oh, him.

Him

Him. Already they’re bundling him into a paddywagon, disappointed at the size of him, the hopeless look of him ambushed and frightened and suddenly not winning. He’s just a frustrated man with a hare lip who’s gone back to his lifetime of losing, and the pathetic sight of him robs the detectives of the feeling they’d expected. The Nedlands Monster, the man who made the town a city, who had gallows written all over him. Him!

Wax Harry

All these months Rose has been rehearsing the whole business in her mind, the steady buildup of contractions, the developing stages, the orderly nature of nature, but what she finds when the contractions come is that this baby means business now and to hell with stages and order.

The house wakes inside a minute and Lester goes downstairs like a falling cupboard to finish up naked and grazed on the corridor rug below. Pansy comes down scowling, with Lon behind. Fish wanders out with his slug tilting gamely from his pyjama bottoms.

Get to a phone, Lon. Lester calls once his specs are in place. Tell Quick to come!

Rose stands up for a few musclecranks and decides that she won’t try the stairs alone. They are flurrying about down there like maggots in a Milo tin and she’s having this squeezebox routine every minute or so. She sits down, puts a pillow in her mouth and she can hear a motorbike coming already—or is it her pulse backfiring?

Quick comes hammering upstairs. I’ve gotta get her to the hospital!

Get the truck started! says Lester.

I’m not going in that bloody truck! yells Rose, putting her head to the wall where a vicious white old woman looks down aghast at what’s pinning her knees.

The Rugby’ll never start in time!

I’ll start the Harley! says Lon. She can go in the sidecar.

Oh. Gawd Aggie! Don’t bother. I’m having it right here and now.

Lie down, Rose!

I can’t.

Elaine gets her back on the bed.

Lester slips quietly off to get Oriel, but she’s inside already with her gown sleeves rolled up and her specs on awry. Sam stumbles into the corridor.

Fire?

Baby.

Oh, gawd. Dolly’s out to it.

Rose sees Oriel coming up the stairs two at a time with her mottley forearms swinging, her boots a-creak, and she’s never been so grateful to see her. Already Rose is bearing down. She can’t help but push.

Hot water, towels, boiled scissors and a laundry bucket! Oriel barks, and some purpose comes into the gathering.

Oohhhghm!

Rose feels herself lifted like a child. The library light comes on. There’s the bed.

Take a rest, love, you’ll tear your insides out. Fish, go to your room.

No.

Uughnnmmaah!

Let’s get this nightie off. Good Lord who made us—there’s the head.

Outside the Harley blurts up, sending out a volley of backfires.

No shoutin, no shoutin, the old woman says. We’ll frighten the creature.

Quick comes in with patched towels as Rose draws herself up on her knees and strains with the sound of air through the neck of a balloon. There’s gooseflesh big as acne on him. His mother’s down there making a footstool of herself, her hairy bum showing shockingly in the gap in the back of her gown. Rose has fistfuls of fabric at Oriel’s shoulder; she hoists with each burst of power.

Rose sees the stars and moon in the walls, the weft and weave of timbers behind the two strange spiritous women pressed away from her. It’s like she’s looking into the room on herself and Oriel because one is old and the other a girl, but the girl is black, bruise-coloured and the both of them are straining and it doesn’t make any sense at all without oxygen in your head. Fish is at the piano, fisting it out all of a sudden and the women fade and for a moment Rose is frightened it means she’s dying. They’re fading, fading.

Here we come!

Ohmygawd, said Quick, about to howl.

The Harley revs impatiently.

Fish lets off a burst of wild singing. It sounds like a flock of galahs passing or a man strangled in a cement mixer.

Get the cord, Quick, take the cord.

Gawd, the baby’s got his fingers crossed.

Ahhhh! goes the mob in the doorway.

You mean it’s a boy?

Wait a sec, love, we don’t—

He’s all there, orright.

Don’t worry, Sam calls shaky from the doorway mob. We all are, too.

Haah! goes Rose.

Lookathat.

Fish, cut it out!

The room goes quiet. The spirits on the wall are fading, fading, finally being forced on their way to oblivion, free of the house, freeing the house, leaving a warm, clean sweet space among the living, among the good and hopeful.

He’s lookin at me, says Fish, shambling over. Oriel reaches out with one bloody hand to push Fish’s dick back into his pyjamas.

Rose knows it’s only her, it has to be only her, but the house is shaking.

Give him here, give him here.

Cover her up.

Oh to hell with it, Rose says, now you’ve all seen me bits.

They all circle around like a two-up school, peering down.

Thank God, says Lester, weeping fit to sweep away his specs. Thank God, thank God.

He’s perfect, says Rose, and he’s gonna have sisters.

Pass the bucket, Elaine.

You’re not puttin im in the bucket? Sam protests.

She’s got a placenta to come, you ignorant man, Oriel says with a grin.

She hasn’t got her teeth in, thinks Lester grimly, she could’ve slipped her teeth in.

Wish Dolly could’ve seen it.

Shut up, Dad, and gimme a kiss.

After me, says Quick.

Don’t get slushy, says Elaine.

Red shoulda been ere, she’s the nurse.

Nah, she hates people’s bits.

She’ll be dark on us for doin it without her. She hates to miss out.

I don’t reckon I can go through with it, says Pansy.

Shoulda thought that when you were goin through with somethin else, Chub sneers.

Oriel glares and Chub backs off.