Cloudstreet

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WILL you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water’s edge.

Twenty years, they all say, sprawling and drinking. There’s ginger beer, staggerjuice and hot flasks of tea. There’s pasties, a ham, chickenlegs and a basket of oranges, potato salad and dried figs. There are things spilling from jars and bags.

The speech is silenced by a melodious belch which gets big applause. Someone blurts on a baby’s belly and a song strikes up. Unless you knew, you’d think they were a whole group, an earthly vision. Because, look, even the missing are there, the gone and taken are with them in the shade pools of the peppermints by the beautiful, the beautiful the river. And even now, one of the here is leaving.

He hears nothing but the water, and the sound of it has been in his ears all his life. Shirt buttons askew, his new black shoes filling with sand, he strides along the beach near the river’s edge nearly hyperventilating with excitement. His tongue can’t lie still; it rounds his mouth, kicks inside like a mullet. He tramps through the footprints of the city’s early morning rambles and nightly assignations toward the jetty he’s been watching the past halfhour. He breaks into a run. His shirt-tail works its way out.

It’s low tide so he reaches the steps to the jetty without even wetting his shoes, though he would have waded there if need be, waded without a qualm, because he’s hungry for the water, he wants it more than ever.

Three cheers go up back there in the trees on the bank. But he’s running; seeing slats of river between the planks, with his big overripe man’s body quivering with happiness. Near the end of the jetty he slows so he can negotiate the steel ladder down to the fishing platform. He’s so close to the water. A great, gobbling laugh pours out of him. No hand in his trouser belt. The water to himself. The silver-skinned river.

He sits. He leans out over it and sees his face with hair dangling, his filthy great smile, teeth, teeth, teeth, and then he leans out harder, peering to see all the wonders inside. It’s all there, all the great and glorious, the sweet and simple. All.

Within a minute he’ll have it, and it’ll have him, and for a few seconds he’ll truly be a man. A flicker, then a burst of consciousness on his shooting way, and he’ll savour that healing all the rest of his journey, having felt it, having known the story for just a moment.

From the broad vaults and spaces you can see it all again because it never ceases to be. You can see that figure teetering out over the water, looking into your face, and you can see the crowd up on the treethick bank behind him finishing this momentous day off and getting ready to wonder where he is. And you can’t help but worry for them, love them, want for them — those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time and space without you.