Cloudstreet (69 page)

The gaols are full of blokes we’d swear are different to us. Only difference is, they did things you and me just thought about.

That’s still a big difference, said Rose.

Maybe. A second’s difference.

What’s happened?

I pulled a drowned kid out of the river today. You wouldn’t believe this, but it just happened to be
his
kid.

Whose?

The Monster.

Geez.

I’ve pulled a kid out of the river before, Rose. When I was eleven years old. My own brother. I know how it feels. I know how that poor bastard feels. And I got thinkin about my childhood, my life. I did a lot of feelin sorry for myself, those years. I used to see the saddest things, think about the saddest, saddest things. And those things put dents in me, you know. I could’ve turned out angry and cold like
him
. I can see how that evil little bugger might’ve just … turned, like a pot of milk.

So you’ve given away the old good and evil? asked Rose, amazed at all this rare talk from Quick.

No. No. I’ll stay a cop. But it’s not us and them anymore. It’s us and us and us. It’s always us. That’s what they never tell you. Geez, Rose, I just want to do right. But there’s no monsters, only people like us. Funny, but it hurts.

Quick shook and coughed up a great tearless sob.

You can’t do the impossible, she said.

No, he murmured, unconvinced.

You do need a break. Let’s go somewhere.

Quick Lamb wept. He cried like something had fallen on him from afar.

Quick. Quick.

Rose put the knife down and came to him on the bed. She pulled the sweater up and over her head and let her breasts settle hot on his chest. She wrapped her legs around him and lifted her breast, silvery with workmarks, and put it to his mouth. Her nipple like a hot coal on his tongue.

You need me, Quick Lamb, she said. That’s why I have you. Just be happy. Be happy, Quick. It’s us. You said it yourself.

Coming

Autumn comes and the long, cool twilights before winter hang over the rooftops of the city full of the sounds of roosting birds and quiet leaving. Down in the yard at Cloud-street, down there in the halls and channels of time Fish and the pig exchange glances and dumbly feel the weather turning inward. The pig is battleworn, leathery beyond the threat of butchery and scarred like the trunk of an old tree. Fish handles him sweetly and without talk, just touches him on the moist plug of his snout and stands. What are you thinking, Fish? Do you feel that you’re going, that you’re close? Strange that you should be so hard to read these last stretching days. It should be rushing, like the whole planet is rushing down its narrow, fixed course. But I can’t read your face. I stare back at you in the puddles on the chilly ground, I’m waiting in your long monastic breath, I travel back to these moments to wonder at what you’re feeling and come away with nothing but the knowledge of how it will be in the end. You’re coming to me, Fish, and all you might have been, all you could have hoped for is turning for you like the great river, gathering debris and nutrient and colour from every twist and trough of your story without you even knowing. The house is clear, the people are coming to things day by day and it’s all that’s left. No shadows, no ugly, no hurtings, no falling down angry. Your turn is coming.

Get a Haircut

Sarge, said Quick coming into the dry warmth of the office looking like a wilted celery, Sarge I—

Take a week off, Lamb, you look like shit.

Sarge, I—

Go now before I look at the roster and change me mind. And get a haircut.

Where will we go? said Quick that night in bed. We could go crabbin at Mandurah, or go for whiting at Parrys. There’s fish up at—

No fishing, said Rose.

What?

No fishing. There will be no fishing.

But it’s a holiday, love.

This time it’ll be a holiday without fishing.

Quick lay there, suddenly without reference. Well, what would you like to do?

Rose turned into his chest and lay her hands flat on him. Let’s just fill the car up and drive.

And drive?

And drive.

That’s …

Not the Lamb way, I know. It’s not practical, it’s probably not even safe, but for once we can just go. We’ll make it up as we go along. We’ll just …
go
.

Sure you wouldn’t rather go fishin?

Rose turned her nails into his flesh and he shook the bed with trying not to scream.

Lester on His Knees

Lester pulled the Harley over in the fresh, antiseptic street and lifted his goggles. He looked at the scrubbed bricks, the dinky letterbox, the planted lawns of Rose and Quick’s new place. They’d been out here getting it ready. So, this was where they’d be. Lester looked up and down the silent street. He got off the bike, dropped his helmet in the sidecar, went down the side of the house and fell on his knees to pray. Somewhere, a long way away where there was still a native tree standing, a kookaburra laughed up a cyclone of derision which brought a flush to Lester Lamb’s cheeks but did not keep him from his prayer.

Voting Day

Sam Pickles came back dejected and alone from the polling booth knowing his vote hadn’t done the country a stick of good, and that those tightfisted boss lovers would be back for another term, sucking up to the Queen and passing the hat round to the workers again with smiles on their faces. When he turned into Cloudstreet the sun was on the rooftops and a man stood alone across the road from the big house. Sam shambled on up to him, lit a fag and held it out to the stranger.

Ta.

He was black as a bastard.

Got yer vote in?

The black man just smiled. He had a Ned Kelly beard and an old grey suit on with a pair of red leather shoes that must once have cost a fortune. The toes were cut out, and the man’s toenails were horny as a rooster’s.

Well, not that it’s much use. It’s a boss’s country straight up.

The black man sniffed, still smiling. Only the bosses don’t know theys the bosses, eh.

Sam blinked.

You live there, said the black man.

Yeah. I own it. Don’t tell anyone, but in the new year I’m gonna sell it. Some rich bastard’ll come along, bulldoze it and build a fuckin great block of flats on it. Salmon pink bricks, five storeys, ugly as sin. And I’ll do orright.