Time's Long Ruin (6 page)

Movements:

When we finally got home, Dad and Bill were both asleep on the lounge, beer in hand, cricket on the radio. I could hear Mum, Liz and the little ones busy next door. In our dining room flies buzzed around the half-eaten cake, landing and rubbing their feelers in the melted cream before flying off to drink cold tea spilt into china saucers.

We sat at the dining table and ate the last of the cake. I picked up a singlet. ‘Thanks.'

‘That's okay.'

Chapter Two

Back then you were never far from the beach. My next memory begins with four children and two fathers, headed for the station; two mothers left at home to wash bed linen, drink tea and pick sultanas from Jubilee cake as they discussed their husband's shortcomings.

We passed Mr Houseman, sitting in a chair in the middle of his front yard practising his bagpipes. They'd been a gift from an aunt in Glendambo. He'd nearly mastered ‘Scotland the Brave', but not much else. Whereas most beginners started off on the drone, Mr Houseman had to have the full production. Every grace note, every good note, every bad note, every pause to find his spot in the music, every trill and every Christ-all-bloody-mighty was broadcast at full volume across the streets of Croydon. Dad claimed he was slowly getting better but Mum didn't agree. She'd got him on to ‘Amazing Grace' and ‘Danny Boy' but it was mainly just ‘Scotland the Brave', as accompaniment to endless jigsaws in our living room as Dad jumped back and forth across the Hoover hose.

Bill Riley stuck his head over Mr Houseman's fence. ‘Morning, Ron, any luck yet?' as Janice picked up a pair of sticks and improvised on the iron.

Rosa Pedavoli, on her way to the gatehouse with a thermos of coffee for Con, caught up with us and asked, ‘Where you all going?'

‘Semaphore,' I replied.

‘Ah,' she said, her eyes lighting up, ‘no good, no good. They saw a shark at West Beach. You should go to a swimming pool.'

‘The sea is shallow,' I explained. ‘You'd see its dorsal fin.'

‘Just the same.' She nodded her head knowingly as she waddled around the playground towards the gatehouse.

Ten minutes later we were crammed into a carriage, struggling for air in the gaps between tall, bronzed teenagers smelling of coconut oil, and fat grandmothers whose bums took up most of a double seat. People stood in the centre aisle clutching overhead straps, allowing good views of hairy armpits dripping sweat onto the black rubber floor. And other armpits, shaved but not shaved; or cotton frocks with wet patches where skin touched skin; sweaty boobs, pre-packed into loose bathers, channelling perspiration into a valley of cleavage; people spreading legs apart to ventilate thighs, or straightening them to cool the pink fleshy bit under their knees.

‘You'd think they'd put on a few more carriages,' someone said, in a thick Irish accent.

‘They don't think that way,' someone else replied. ‘You can fit a hundred people into two carriages, or into ten. If this were the eastern suburbs, things'd be different.'

But to me it was paradise, squeezed in between Dad and the window, squirming to avoid a spring that had worn through the upholstery, filling my lungs with steam and smoke as I tried to stop my underpants riding up. I looked at boys my own age standing in the aisle clutching inner tubes, wearing bath towels like skirts that covered shorts that covered jocks that would do as bathers. Their bodies as brown as the wood veneer. Their backs freckled and peeling and their shoulders straight and broad from hanging off the edge of the Semaphore jetty. Their bare feet hard and black on the underside, toes pointing straight ahead, towards an afternoon of cool, shark-infested waters and stale sandwiches eaten in the shade of the war memorial.

I was more the white-skinned indoor kid. It wasn't entirely my fault. I had a couple of cold climate parents. The jetty jumpers (I guessed) probably had parents with a touch of the Spanish or Greek.

Bill Riley, sitting next to Dad, gently kicked his foot and said, ‘They'd removed all the labels from his clothes.'

‘Whose?' Dad replied.

‘The mystery man.'

‘He might have removed his own.'

Bill stopped to think. ‘Yes, that was probably the case. Which meant he wanted to hide his identity. Why?'

Dad shook his head. ‘We've had detectives on this for twelve years, Bill. You're not going to solve it on the way to the beach.'

‘It just needs a fresh mind, Bob. What else did they find on him?'

‘The unused railway ticket, a bus ticket to Glenelg, fags and matches.'

‘And that's it, no wallet, no keys?'

‘No.'

‘And the claim for his suitcase?'

‘Missing.'

‘Stolen, perhaps, but why didn't whoever it was go and claim the case? Not enough time?'

‘Plenty of time.'

‘A mystery.'

Janice came and stood beside me, staring out of the window. We slowed for the Woodville Road crossing and she waved at someone.

‘Who was that?' Bill asked.

‘A man with a greyhound,' she replied.

The train stopped at Woodville station and even more people squeezed in. The man with the Irish accent cursed the South Australian Railways as people jostled for room. The smell of talc and deodorant almost cancelled out the BO.

‘Some bastard stinks,' the Irishman began again. ‘Needs a fuckin' operation.'

‘Hey, language,' Dad grumbled, looking around and finding the voice.

‘You can't smell it?'

‘So what, five more minutes.'

‘Five more minutes of fuckin' hell.'

Dad turned right around. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, opened it and showed the man. ‘We can get off here if you like.'

‘Ah, big man.'

‘Would you like?'

And that was it. Could anyone have a better dad than mine? People went to the movies to see this sort of thing but I had it all the time. My dad could stop traffic, save lives, and throw people off trains. Other people's dads made furniture and sold radios; mine stood up to murderers and thieves.

Janice could see the pride in my eyes. She smiled and almost laughed. Looking back out of the window she said, ‘Maybe one day, Henry.'

Bill wasn't finished with Dad. ‘I read he was clean shaven.'

‘That's right.'

‘That's a problem. Why would you shave if you were going to kill yourself?'

‘And put on a suit and tie?'

Bill stared down at the floor. ‘Yes . . . still . . . no . . .'

‘Could be, if you were thinking about killing yourself, a familiar routine might help you along. And the suit, might have been his profession. Salesman? You know how it is. You gotta be well turned out . . . a habit.'

‘No, doesn't seem right to me.'

‘You're not the mystery man.'

‘That could be any of us. If what happened to him happened to us.'

Anna, sitting against a window on the far side of the train, called across to her dad. ‘Where's Gavin?'

Bill and Dad looked around and then stood up, scanning the carriage. ‘Gavin,' Bill called softly, and then louder.

No reply. ‘You kids stay here,' Dad said to us, as he headed down one end of the carriage, and Bill the other. They stumbled over bags left in the aisle and Bill nearly fell into someone's lap. I turned around and saw the Irishman half-smiling. ‘It's not funny,' I said, but he just looked out of the window.

Dad and Bill passed into the connecting carriages. Anna came over and sat with us, anxious. ‘I didn't see him,' she said.

‘Don't worry, he's always wandering off,' Janice replied.

Anna shook her head. ‘He shouldn't. He could get into a lot of trouble.'

Bill reappeared from the front carriage. Gavin followed behind him, moping. Bill sat down and placed Gavin on his knee. ‘Have you got that through your head?' he asked the boy, shaking him.

Gavin didn't reply.

‘Have you?'

Bill shook him again and Gavin's head jolted back so quickly he started to cry. ‘Shut up,' Bill said, his face set hard, his hand tight on Gavin's arm.

We were all silent. Janice lifted Gavin onto her lap and tried to calm him, stroking his hair and wiping his tears with her top. She dared not look at her father, or say a word. She just sat it out, like we all did, knowing he'd eventually calm down. She was the pacifier. She'd learnt how to turn a shitty situation around. She'd learnt that sometimes she was the one her brother and sister could rely upon.

A few moments later Dad returned. ‘Where was he?' he asked.

‘Playing with some other kid,' Bill replied, arms crossed, shaking his head. ‘He's got no bloody sense.'

‘It's the age,' Dad said, sitting down. ‘You gotta watch 'em like a hawk.'

‘You can't tell them. He'll end up on a road somewhere.'

‘He'll grow out of it.'

‘Henry wasn't like that.'

‘Henry was different.'

Thanks, Dad. At least you always knew why my dad said what he said.

The shark hadn't been seen for three days. The fisherman who'd sighted it, a hundred yards off West Beach, said it was twice as long as his fishing boat. Hardly. Still, it gave the papers something to go on about during an otherwise dull week. Should the shark be killed or left alone? It's their territory, some said, but others reckoned you should always shoot a wild dog.

The consensus seemed to be a bullet. Fish belonged in a can. The
Advertiser
carried pictures of men in boats with rifles and shotguns, throwing out a berley of viscera someone from the abattoir had donated. If that didn't solve the problem then nothing would. There were photos of a Dunkirk flotilla heading out with javelins, kindly donated by Findon High, of potbellied Ahabs holding bottles of beer as they scanned the horizon. Sharks might be vicious, but humans were smart, apparently.

We sat in the sand dunes eating vinegar-drenched chips and flake. Bill held up a hot, golden portion and blew the smell out to sea. ‘He who laughs last,' he said, looking at me and asking, ‘Is that how it goes?'

‘I think,' I replied.

He finished the fish in three bites and then stuck a chip up each nostril. ‘Some bastard stinks,' he said, in his best Irish accent.

We all laughed. Gavin tackled him, pulling out the chips and eating them. ‘That's disgusting,' Janice said, screwing up her face.

Bill wiped his hands on his shorts and took his ukulele out of his beach bag. ‘I stole this one from Lester Barrett,' he said.

They're plump and healthy, kind and free
With appetites the same as me
And you should see them shift their tea –
They're all fine girls . . .

Without a thought for hats or zinc cream, the Riley kids tumbled down the dunes towards the beach. Bill was soon after them, screaming, singing, running like a monkey.

‘Come on,' Dad said.

‘I'll wait here,' I replied.

‘Come on.'

Dad helped me down from the dunes, and across the soft sand. As we went we picked up the Rileys' clothes, thrown off in a frenzy that stopped at the water's edge. I let go of Dad's hand and walked across the hard sand. Then I took off my sandals and waded in to ankle depth.

‘You'd see his fin,' Dad said, smiling.

I shrugged. I watched as he looked up at the Rileys – jumping about up to their chests, launching themselves off their father's shoulders. Then he looked at me. I wandered off, looking for shells. He turned back to the Rileys.

I just couldn't do it. I'd sink into the sand. I'd fall over. It just wasn't what I did. Sporty stuff. Dad understood this, I think. He picked up a small glob of jelly and called me over.

‘What is it?' I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know.'

And then – regardless of the fact that Dad looked hot, like he just wanted to peel off his shirt and shorts and get in the water – we collected shells. Small shells, big shells, shells with holes, shells like the petrol station sign, shells like people wore around their neck, like kids left on the railway tracks, jumping with joy when they were crushed by the city express. Dad put them all in his pocket for me. I'd hand him a shell and he'd look at me and God knows what he was thinking.

As the screams of pleasure continued, Bill came out of the water and ran up the beach to us. ‘Coming in?' he asked.

Water trailed down Bill's pot belly. I could have taken a pointed shell and popped his guts. His nipples were pink, sticking out like engines on the wing of a Heinkel.

Dad took my T-shirt and started to lift it. ‘Come on, Henry.'

I pushed him away and pretended to look for shells. Bill was looking at me. At my foot. Quasimodo. He ran back into the water, hollering.