Cloudstreet

VII. Madhouse

SEVEN o’clock and the place is like a madhouse! Since five, when he woke up, Fish has been laughing like a bird, and now Lester’s trying to dress him while the women fight it out in the next room. Oriel turns her lamp out and comes inside to supervise the dressing. She’s weary and can’t make herself any excitement for the day. Dew drips from the flaccid gutters, catching the first hints of sun now and then as it falls to the grass. Dogs and roosters stir and territorialize on the westerly. This morning Cloudstreet looks like a scabby old steamer resting at her moorings in the quiet time before the seas quicken and unsettle her.

Out in the garden, the pig is muttering in tongues: Gwalia logoreemi muluth dooloomoos speptie …

Rose Pickles, freshly showered and peering at the steamy mirror, pens on the Dawn Heat lipstick with plenty of speed and nerve as Sam fries bacon and eggs for himself down the corridor, and over the sound of spitting fat comes Dolly’s straighteight snoring.

The floors rumble across the way. It’s a non-opening Saturday today. The Lambs are killing the pig, that’s for sure. Well, not literally. The pig is as safe as parliament, but they’re bunging it on for young and old because today Hat Lamb’s marrying that handsome dill from Pemberton, the one who always wears tweed and whose brogues could house a family. Today they’re giving one away, and Rose Pickles could spit, she’s so cheesed. It’s something she wouldn’t miss for quids, but there’s a morning at the switch to be got through, there’s Mrs Tisborn to be borne, there’s more than she can stand to think of, and she’s gonna miss it.

If you hook me again, Elaine Lamb, someone yells next door, I’m gonna knock your block into ya frock, ya hear me?

Someone begins to sob.

Rose pauses, strains to hear.

Settle down!

Rose stifles a laugh to keep listening. It’s like they’re all in the same room.

You be careful, and you show some patience or the whole cricket match’ll be cancelled!

You can’t—

We’re payin for it if we’re stayin for it, so you button your lip and let your sisters dress you. You’re not playin doogs now. This a weddin for grownups. Anymore gripin and you’re not invited.

But it’s my wedding!

Bumslash! It’s your marriage. The weddin belongs to us. Behave yourself.

Oh, maarm!

You look beautiful, now shut up.

The sergeant major’s at it again, thinks Rose.

Rose! Brekky’s ready.

Coming.

Rose snaps her makeup case back together and straightens herself. She catches a whiff of something terrible.

In Lester’s bedroom, Fish stops laughing and Lester thanks God or whoever for ending it before it killed the boy. Fish is all got up in a serge suit, dark as a bagman, and now his father can straighten him up and comb his hair, glad that he shaved him last night.

It’s Hat’s big day, Fishcake. She’s gonna be married.

Quick.

What?

Quick, Lestah.

No, it’s Geoffrey Birch, from Pemberton. He’s a timber man.

There’s the snort of airbrakes outside and a sweet gummy pong.

Whew.

Quick.

Oh, Gawd, there’s someone at the door. Stay here boy.

Lester goes through the shop and meets Oriel at the front door. Sam Pickles is halfway down the stairs.

Let’s hope it’s not the groom, Sam says with a chuckle. Oriel levels her martial look at him until he goes up again.

Open it, Lest.

Morning light pours in on them and for a while they can’t see who it is backlit in their doorway.

Lester. Oriel. We’ve brought him home. Hello? It’s Earl and May. From Margaret.

Oriel barges past like a half back and sends them whirling out onto the verandah. There is fierce morning light in the cab as she climbs up to the door of the pigstinking cattle truck with house windows and doors cracking open behind her. She hauls on the handle, swings the door out past her hip, sees Quick Lamb in there, wedged between the seats asleep and glowing.

Lawd, he’s glowin like a lamp, says Lester behind her. Hala-bloody-lujah!

Oriel turns on him: Get your mouth outta gear and help me get him inside. You’re a pimple of a man, sometimes, Lester Lamb.

Oh, but you love me.

She snarls and he gets helpful.

He’s thin.

He’s home.

He looks terrible, and don’t smarm up like this.

They carry him in, long and bony, before the gathered crowd. Up in the house the piano jangles but Fish is out on a second storey windowsill leaping and kicking like a squaredancer.

Rose Pickles snaps her handbag closed and passes on the verandah.

Good morning, she says brightly.

Damn right, Lester replies.

Hold him up, Lest, for pity’s sake!

Upstairs, Hat is bawling: That’s it, then, that stabs that in the guts.

Oriel rears: Leave off with that racket and make up your bed for him. Where’s Beryl?

Asleep still, like a Cathlick!

Get her up. Get dressed. Get ready and get married — we need the space.

Tell me you’re happy, Lester says halfway up the stairs. Tell me you’re happy to have him back.

He could have timed it better, don’t you think?

I couldn’t give a damn, you know.

I’m happy, I’m happy, just lift your end. We’ve got a weddin on.

The Do

At a quarter to ten that Saturday morning, with the sun streaming across in a dockside farewell that lit up every peeling, rusted surface, each brushed jacket and bleached blouse, the Lamb family climbed into the truck to follow father and bride who led billowing on the Harley and sidecar.

They proceeded at a stately pace to an Anglican church in Shenton Park, a venue of committee compromise, and were met by a fidgeting group of inlaws-to-be whose jaws dropped like eggs from tall chooks.

Oriel marshalled her children inside and left Lester and Hat scuffing their toes on the pavement outside. Black swans came low across the sky, searching out the lake. Children rattled by on larrikin billycarts. Earl and May pulled up and parked the seven tonner in front of the church, pigs squealing and stinking.

I’11 miss yer, love, Lester said, looking at his tall eldest daughter. You’re a fine girl an I never saw a better marbles player in me life.

Oh, Gawd, Dad, let’s go in and sign on the line.

You can always come home.

Think we shoulda done it in a real church? You know, without the stained glass and the chessmen?

Lester shrugged. Well. Your bloke’s from that kinda family.

Yer a dag, Dad.

Let’s go in. Looks like an overpainted gin palace.

Hat went in with the giggles, and, without the dignified snooting of the pipe organ, the whole business would have turned into a footy match.

Oriel sat up front with her rank and file, peering discreetly at the statues and the lantern slides the stained glass made, trying to muster up some silent thanksgiving for this day. Fish began to hum a beefy descant across the anthem as Hat came down the aisle sending everyone up out of their pews, reverent and neckcraning. I have a son at home who is glowing, thought Oriel, as Hat came past looking tall and proud. Oriel felt the centripetal pull of the old things and she felt lonely the way she never had in her life. The words rolled out, the prayers proceeded like rote school poems, she upped and downed with the rest of them and kept her eyes off the Christ pictures, the ones that really set her teeth. It was like fighting off a toothache — you had to concentrate and will, overcome, pretend, become another thing.

Before she was ready for it, Oriel saw Hat and Geoffery Birch from Pemberton going back up the aisle with the organ snuffling in their wake.

Mum, yer crying, Hat said out in the sunshine.

No, it’s just sweat.

Oriel hugged her daughter till the whole lampshade and gauze construction went askew.

I’m losin children.

And yerv gained a son, said Geoffery Birch from Pemberton.

Yairs, Oriel said, without feeling.

They drove off in a pale blue Humber festooned with toilet paper and lipstick and Oriel thought glumly of the feast ahead. Should have cooked for it myself, she mused; it’s a lot of money.

Lambs!

They gathered round her. Fish looked into the sun, his tie the shape of a pig’s tail already. Lon scratched at the bumfluff on his chin. Elaine squinted, a sulk coming on.

I want some behaviour at the do, alright?

Orright, said Lester.

Lester.

Yes. Yes.

I want an example set. There’ll be alcohol there. I want Lamb behaviour. Remember, we’re Lambs, not sheep.

There was a stenchy gust of airbrakes as Earl and May’s truck pulled out. Fish waved to the shitpaddling pigs who steamed in the sun and lurched into the turn.

They’re not a bad pair for relatives, said Lester.

They’ll see us in Heaven, dear, said Oriel. A smile slipped in under her nose and the whole mob went silent with happiness.

Country

Seven days they nurse Quick Lamb who says nothing but goes on glowing quietly, taking a little water but no food at all. The colour of his skin is strange; like mother of pearl it changes at every angle, pale but somehow riddled with rainbows that catch at the edge of vision. He’s cool to touch, and sweet smelling the way a man rarely is. Morning and afternoon they take shifts sitting with him, while Beryl Lee and Elaine run the shop. Fish stays all day, sitting on the bed, humming, watching. At night they let him climb in beside Quick. Fish holds onto his brother as if he expects him to float away at any moment, and the room is lit by Quick’s candlepower. The walls crawl with shadows.

On the fourth day, Lester and Oriel sit out on the back step alone the way they haven’t for years now. The night air is cool and heavy with dew. A train always seems to be coming down the tracks. A wireless murmurs from an upstairs window.

How sick is he, you think? Lester asks. It’s times like these he wishes he’d never given up smoking and drinking.

Oriel sighs. He’s not sick.

He doesn’t look that good to me.

I just don’t think he’s sick.

I wondered if … if he hadn’t lost his marbles. He looks like he’s gone someplace else, you know?

You’re not as silly as you look.

I’m sillier and you know it. I’m an old fool and I don’t care at all. I just wish I knew what to believe in. Life throws a million things, good and bad, at me, but all I really care about …

What?

I just wish I knew what to believe in.

You believe in what you like, Lester Lamb. That’s one thing I can’t show you.

You’ve got mean, Oriel.

She sniffs.

Is it the war that’s done it to you?

It’s all war, she said.

What is?

I don’t know. Everythin. Raisin a family, keepin yer head above water. Life. War is our natural state.

Well, struggle maybe, said Lester.

No, no, it’s war.

Ah, things come along. You take the good with the bad.

Oriel rears with sudden passion: No you don’t. You know about boats. You can’t steer if you’re not goin faster than the current. If you’re not under your own steam then yer just debris, stuff floatin. We’re not frightened animals, Lester, just waitin with some dumb thoughtless patience for the tide to turn. I’m not spendin my livin breathin life quietly takin the good with the bad. I’m not standin for the bad; bad people, bad luck, bad ways, not even bad breath. We make good, Lester. We make war on the bad and don’t surrender.

Some things can’t be helped.

Everything can be helped.

You’re a hard woman to please, Oriel.

That’s what I tell myself, she says with a sudden drop of tone. She sounds almost lighthearted.

Aren’t you happy?

Oriel sighs. Do I look like a winner?

We have a big place to live in. We’re three years ahead with the rent, the kids have food and clothes, they go to school and have jobs, and now one has a husband — she’s a credit to us, that girl — and there’s the shop. People say: There goes Mrs Lamb who lives in a tent, she runs the best shop this side of the river. Gawd, the trams even stop for you. People come to you for advice like you’re Daisy-flamin-Bates. You’re famous! Course yer a winner.

A winner wins them all, Lester, not just the worldly things.

You’ve won me, love.

You’re a fool, Lester Lamb.

That’s what I tell myself.

They’re quiet for a time. That train is still promising to come. Lester puts his hand on her leg.

Do you still love me?

I married you before God.

The mention of that character puts them back into quiet.

Oriel?

Hmm?

Why are you in the tent?

Oriel cracks her knuckles. Why’s Quick lit up like a beacon? Why is Fish the way he is? Why does this house … behave?

Strange, says Lester.

Oh, nothin’s really strange. Strangeness is ordinary if you let yourself think about it. There’s been queerness all your life. I’ve seen stranger things than Quick glowin, haven’t you?

Lester looks out across the crumpled tin fence: I used to ride farm to farm down there at Margaret, and I’d look out across the hills, the karris, the farms and dead crops, and you know the whole flamin country looked sad. All the plants with their heads bowed looking really browned off. And you know, I used to hear it moan. Not the wind; the ground, the land. I told meself it was the horse, but inside I knew it was the country. Moanin.

Like this house.

Come to think of it, yeah. I thought it was just me hearin it.

It’s just a house.

You think maybe we don’t belong here, like we’re out of our depth, out of our country?

We don’t belong anywhere. When I was a girl I had this strong feeling that I didn’t belong anywhere, not in my body, not on the land. It was in my head, what I thought and dreamt, what I believed, Lester, that’s where I belonged, that was my country. That was the final line of defence in the war.

Lester shifts his butt and rubs his knees in consternation.

What’re you sayin, love?

Since Fish … I’ve been losin the war. I’ve lost me bearins.

Lester makes his teeth meet at all points round his jaw. Talk like this makes him nervous. Something’s going to happen, to be taken from him, to be shone in his face. It’s like walking down a rocky path at night, not knowing where it’ll lead, when it’ll drop from beneath your feet, what it’ll cost to come back.

You believe in the Nation, though. You’re the flamin backbone of the Anzac Club.

Ah, it’s helpin the boys, I know, but I read the newspaper, Lester. They’re tellin us lies. They’ll send boys off to fight any war now. They don’t care what it’s for.

But, but the good of the country—

Oriel put a blunt finger to her temple: This is the country, and it’s confused. It doesn’t know what to believe in either. You can’t replace your mind country with a nation, Lest. I tried.

Lester almost gasps. It’s one thing for him to say it, but for her to admit such a thing, it’s terrifying.

You believe in hard work, love.

Not for its own sake, I don’t. We weren’t born to work. Look at them next door.

There’s always the family, says Lester.

Families aren’t things you believe in, they’re things you work with.

Don’t you believe in … love?

No.

No? Lester bites the ends of his fingers.

I feel love. I’m stuck with the love I’ve got, and I’m tryin to work up the love I haven’t got. Do you believe in love, he says. It’s like sayin Do you believe in babies. They happen.

What about goodness, lovingkindness, charity?

They’re just things you do, you try to do. There’s no point believin in em.

So what do you want? says Lester.

I want my country back.

The tent?

I wish I could lace it up an never come out, she says with an unexpected laugh. You could slip food under the flap and I’d never see a soul, never say a livin word.

Lester shakes his head. Why?

Then I could get on with the real war.

You want a miracle, don’t you?

I want the miracle finished off. I demand it, and I’m gonna fight to get it.

So you do believe.

Lester, I believe in eight hours’ sleep and a big breakfast.

Oriel gets up and goes to her tent.

Lester sits out on the stoop and watches the lamp waver into life inside the tent. The scabby arms of the mulberry tree reach around it so that from the upper floors Oriel’s silhouette looks like it’s moving about inside the ribcage of some sleeping animal. From where Lester is, though, it’s just a woman going through her drill before bed. I’ll bet she even prays, he thinks. But the light goes out, the sight of her diminishes in the gloom, the dew chills him.

Keeping Watch

Day by day Quick began to fade, until by the end of the week he had no light in him at all, and he slept thirty-two-and-a-half hours with the snores of an explorer. A tall, pale woman he’d never met sat on his bed with a rosary and a hangdog look and took turns with Fish to keep watch.

In the Poo

Sam Pickles came home a week after the wedding with grass on his sleeve, blood on his collar, and a tooth in his pocket. His hat looked abused. One eye was oystered up with swelling. There was bark off his nose.

My Gawd, murmured Dolly who was still in her dressing gown. That’s what I call a day’s work. What the Christ have you been into?

Me luck’s runnin uphill.

Runnin out yer arse by the look.

Sam eased himself into a chair at the table.

You’ve lost a tooth.

Sam fished it out of his pocket and put it beside the teapot.

Geez, look at the colour of it. That’s smokin, doin that. It’s as yeller as Tojo.

Pour us a cup.

How much do you owe? Dolly said as she poured him the strong metallic tea.

I could make it back on a quinella or just a decent run of luck.

That much.

The stove fizzed and snapped with the kettle working back up to the boil. Next door creaked with the business of closing the shop. That slow kid was laughing; the sound got on your nerves, made you wish they’d put him in a home with his own kind where he’d be happier.

Wincing, Sam drank his tea.

Could you eat a chop?

Sam nodded. Dolly got up and slipped the pan onto the stove. She was in an unaccountably decent mood tonight, he thought.

How many blokes dyou owe?

One fella who owns all the fellas. He’s a nasty cove.

What’re they gunna do?

Work it out of me, I spose. There’s plenty of shonky jobs they’ll want done.

Oh gawd. Haven’t you got some union mates to back you up?

Sam smiled: They are the union.

Jesus.

When he was eating, Dolly took his gladstone bag and shook the Daily News final out of it, the horseshoe, the rabbit’s foot, the breadcrusts, pennies, watch parts, peppermints and old train tickets, and went upstairs with it. She came back with it full of clothes and shaving gear. He looked at her across the table, pushed the plate away. There was a knock at the door.

Godalmighty.

Sam got up, found the crooked old poker by the stove and went to the hallway door. Before he turned the knob, he looked at her and saw what a handsome woman she still was, despite all. He opened the door with his bung hand and had his good one ready.

Gday, said Lester Lamb. I’ve got some old caulies. They’d be good for a soup. I had too many too quick and … you orright?

Yeah, yeah, come in Lester.

Lester put the two greyish cauliflowers on the table. Evenin Mrs Pickles.

Cauliflowers.

Yeah, I just—

Thanks, that’s beaut.

Lester saw the open bag on the table. He looked at Sam’s face and the blood on his shirt.

You off, then?

Yeah, said Sam. I’ve got some business to do.

You’re in trouble.

The stove spat and swallowed. Someone thumped up stairs.

The bookies?

Sam squirmed against the door. Well—

The union, said Dolly.

Ah, the flamin unions, then is it? That bunch of grovellin bullies. By crikey, I can’t … He trailed off and went thoughtful. Need to find a bit of tin to crawl under, eh? Listen, gimme ten minutes. Grab some blankets.

Rose came down the station ramp and saw the Lamb truck going. She waved dutifully and then stood there in the little gust of wind it left in its wake. The old man; that was the old man in the passenger side with his hat pulled down over his eyes. And the cocky, the bird on his shoulder and all. Rose swung her handbag and tried a quick trot but her feet were just too sore from dancing. He’s in the poo, she thought; he just has to be.

Lester drove out north and before either of them spoke the city was behind them, vibrating in the rearview mirrors.

What’s the story? Lester asked.

I gotta keep me lip buttoned, really.

Fair enough.

Sam lit up a smoke. It was something to see, a man with so few fingers rolling and lighting like that.

Your missus clean your face up a bit?

Yeah. Gave me the shock of me life, Sam said with a wetlunged laugh.

What you bring the bird for?

It agrees with everything I say.

What’s she really like, Sam?

The bird or my old lady? Jesus, I dunno. Like she looks. She’s just a rough broad. She used to be … I dunno … softer. We had a lot of bad luck you know. She used to be easier to get along with. She wasn’t such a piss artist in the old days.

Heard from your boy?

How’d you know about that?

Come on, mate, we live between the same walls.

Sam dragged so hard on his smoke, the cab lit up till they could see each other a full few seconds. He’s not so bloody stupid as he seems, Sam thought. He’s the sort of bloke you’d never know what he was capable of. He might come good in a blue, for instance, though he might be a dobber, too. Didn’t he used to be a copper once? A man should never trust an ex-copper.

I haven’t heard from Ted yet. Silly bastard. He’s gonna find his dick in the wringer before long. He’ll end up married to some big bellied girl lookin down the barrels of a shotgun.

Bad way to start a marriage.

Sam snorted. Tell me about it.

Is that your story?

Doesn’t it bloody show?

Lester shrugged politely.

He’s got Sunday School written all over him, thought Sam.

They drove into the dry, capstone country where ragged banksias showed up in the headlamps and groups of roos stood in paddocks, motionless as shire committees.

Where we goin?

A fishin shack. How long will you need?

A week maybe.

Will it blow over or do you have to blow it over?

I reckon I have to do the job meself.

Trouble is, said Sam, thinking as he spoke, that a bit of action costs money. To get things done.

I can’t lend you any, said Lester, the wife wouldn’t have it. He thought: he sounds like a little crim all of a sudden.

Wouldn’t necessarily be a loan. Rent in advance, maybe.

Well, we’re paid up for years already.

Lester turned off towards the coast at a clump of black-boys on a rise. The sky was littered with stars.

You ever thought of buyin it?

Lester sniffed. Cloudstreet?

It’d be a money spinner.

Hardly made you a rich man, mate, said Lester.

I’ve had a lot of bad luck.

I thought about buyin it once. A long time ago before the old girl moved out the back. But it’s too crowded.

Christ, yelled Sam, it’s hardly deserted. There’s your whole mob and us. And that flatchested Cathlick sheila your missus took in.

No, I mean it feels claustrophobic. Even when it’s empty it feels overcrowded.

Jesus. You believe in luck, Lest? You remember that horse Blackbutt? Luck!

Mm.

It’s like that lighthouse out there. Pointin the finger, like the Hairy Hand of God.

Lester drove silently until he couldn’t bite his tongue any longer. Come clean, Sam, how much do you owe the bookies?

Sam sighed. So the bastard had known all along. Two hundred quid. Some blokes in the union paid it for me.

When was this?

January.

Coo. No wonder they’re a little punchy. Will they just take the money if … you come up with it?

Yeah. I reckon. But I gotta come up with it.

They rolled down between balding dunes where a small river was dammed up behind the beach. A half dozen tin shacks stood concealed from one another by peppermint trees. No lights showed. There were no other vehicles except a rusty old Fordson tractor that looked like it was used to haul boats out of the water. Upturned dinghies stood beneath trees, with the frames of chairs, kerosene tins, broken rope swings from summer. Lester stopped outside a little corrugated place, left the headlights on and got out to work at the padlock with a bunch of keys. Sam stood out of his light, smelling the sea, wondering how it could all go this far.

There’s a coupla crates back in the cab you can bring in, Lester said, getting the door open. A stink of dust and ratshit wafted out.

I didn’t know you had a beach house.

It’s Beryl’s. That flatchested Cathlick sheila you were bein so nice about.

Inside, in the broken beams of light from the Chev, Lester found a lamp, fooled with the wick for a bit, and got it lit. In the sick yellow glow, swimming and bobbing in the uncertain light, the big bed appeared, and the bench, the deal table, the bits and pieces. Sam came in with two boxes.

There’s a fuckin revolver in this crate.

Old army days.

Whatm I sposed to do with that?

You got enough fingers to pull the trigger, haven’t you?

Yeah. But a gun …

I was operatin under the idea that it was a union matter. Keep it here anyway. Shoot rabbits. You’ll need the meat.

You goin?

Lester felt disgust come on him in a rush.

I got a family to get back to. I’ll be back in a week. No one’ll find you out here. Those blokes’ll be back, and I’ll pay em off and come back for you. There wasn’t much camaraderie in his tone, and even he was a little surprised by it. Orright?

Why? Sam said, snaky all of a sudden. What’s in it for you?

What’s in it for me is I don’t have to worry about bruisers hangin round my kids or my house. It buys me some peace of mind.

And a warm feelin, eh, Lester? Sam said bitterly.

Yeah, if you like.

Fair dinkum, said the bird.

Sam swatted it from his shoulder and Lester went out the door to the Chev.

Lester waved and drove off. Sam looked in the boxes. Bread, polony, toilet paper, fruit, vegetables, flour, tea, sugar, a book about John Curtin, a Reader’s Digest and a Smith & Wesson, six shells.

There’s always Russian roulette in the evenings, bird.

Yairs!

Wallpaper

Red Lamb liked Beryl Lee. She was a hard worker and kind. She treated Fish as though he was special. She’d just arrived one day with a teachest of clothes and no explanation. Apparently the old girl had invited her in, and in the weeks after Hat got married Red was especially glad someone had come along. Her mother had foresight, she knew. Right back then, before Hat fell in love, her mother was recruiting a reinforcement.

Beryl didn’t say much. She ate with the mob, worked with the mob and on Sundays she went to Mass. Red couldn’t tell if maybe it was the changing seasons, but day by day, Beryl seemed to grow paler. It was like seeing someone fade like wallpaper.

That, thought Red, is what happens when you wait for men. Red knew the story. Beryl’s hubby had gone down in the Perth and no men had looked at her since.

Red thought that Beryl Lee didn’t know how lucky she was.

Morning

But no one explained to Quick just who Beryl Lee was. He needed to know because she kept arriving on the end of his bed at dawn to stare at him. One morning she pulled a dandelion to bits and left the petals on his blanket. She was kind of longfaced and horsey, maybe a bit crosseyed even, and when she was around Quick she flounced about a lot, as though she had worms or something. For a couple of days after he came good, he didn’t get out of bed, and the days began with this strange woman turning up. He wondered if perhaps she climbed up the drainpipe or crept up through the house while everyone was asleep. Maybe she was a relative. She never said a word and he pretended to be asleep.

One morning he woke to the familiar pressure on the end of the bed but when he peeped through his eyelashes he saw it was his mother. He opened his eyes.

Gday, he said.

Hello.

Quick doubled his pillow beneath his neck. He looked at her. Her square jaw, the arms muscling out of her cotton dress, the bigdialled watch on her wrist. She had long distance eyes. Now he knew where he got his aim from.

I thought you wouldn’t speak to me.

I’m your mother, you know.

Geez, how can I forget it.

Not by runnin away.

Quick looked at the ceiling. Great shales of paint hung only by spiderwebs. Waterstains spread map-like across the plaster.

How old are you, Mum?

She cracked her knuckles. I’m fifty-four.

I never knew. You don’t look it.

No. But one day I will.

He smiled.

Hat got married last week.

Oh. Good old Hat. Be nice to see her.

She’s in Pemberton. Hubby runnin the mill now.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Do we fly to the moon yet?

Only on the wireless.

They looked at one another, and then Quick saw business come into her eye.

What did you see? she asked.

What do you mean?

You saw something.

I don’t know.

I’m your mother.

I don’t know, I said.

You broke Fish’s heart, Quick. People aren’t like furniture.

He closed his eyes.

I’m sorry, she said, I didn’t want to go crook.

He felt her hand on his face. He opened his eyes again.

What did you see, Quick?

Why are you out in that tent?

I asked you first.

What’s for brekky?

Quick.

I saw myself runnin. That’s all.

Well, that’s enough I spose.

You bet.

Fatted Calf

Down in the kitchen the old man is at the stove, ducking and weaving as fat snipes at him from the pan. He looks old and exhausted, damn silly with his hair all on end and his lardspattered specs up on his brow. Fish is at the table where two china bowls roar and roll, teetering and toppling as gravity gets hold over motion. His big, soft hands hover over the bowls.

Keep it down, says Lon in his morning sulks.

They’re up. I keep em up.

Brilliant, just flamin brilliant, Fish.

Rain falls against the window. Outside looks glum and unavoidable.

Cut yer grizzlin, Lon, says Lester. You’ll be late for work.

I’m waitin for me eggs.

You’ll be wearin em if you keep that up.

The bowls slide to a stop like pranged hubcaps.

Jesus, Fish!

In a moment Lester is at the table with the lobe of Lon’s ear between thumb and forefinger and Lon’s squealing like a cut cat. He’s small and hoarse, these days, muscly enough, but still no match for Lester who’s thin and tall and angry. Lon wriggles and lurches, squinting with pain.

If your mother was here she’d wash your mouth out, boy. It’d be Trusol paste at least. Don’t let me hear you talk like that again. Now eat your eggs.

Lester lets go and slides the fried eggs and tomato in front of Lon whose face is lit up red and nasty.

He makes a racket!

It gives him pleasure. Can’t you cope with him havin a bit of fun? In case you hadn’t thought about it, his prospects aren’t as … brilliant as yours, you know. If you can’t show him any respect—

Respect! He’s a Clydesdale. A monster! He should be put away.

Lester expands, you can see his flesh taking on ballast. His arms quiver. He steps out of his crushedheel carpet slippers and puts down the egg slice. Smoke begins to rise from the pan behind him. He’s never seemed bigger or meaner than he does now, not to himself, not to the others, not to the room he’s in. Lon gets up and backs off.

Don’t hit us! calls Fish. Lestah, don’t hit us!

Lester turns, startled, and Fish yelps in fear. Lon bolts for the door but Oriel fills it like a Frigidaire.

What’s this?

Fish sobs in the corner. Lon barely breathes. Lester looks a kick behind the play, dazed again, incompetent to the moment.

I’ve never had cause before to feel ashamed of a child of mine, he almost whispers.

The eggs are burnin, Lester.

Yes, I know woman, I know. Mornin Quick, he says, seeing Quick behind his mother. Welcome home.

Quick smiles.

Fish looks up, blotchyfaced and afraid. He’s gone out. He’s light’s off.

No. It’s brekky now.

I’ve gotta go, says Lon.

Take a wrench to your neck, son, says Lester, and get your head off and see if you can’t give it a good flush out. A plumber should always mind his own blockages.

He’s a plumber? Quick asks, when Lon slams the last door in a long line of them.

Apprentice, says Oriel.

You bin gone a hundred, Quick.

Yeah. You’ve got big, too.

Fish lowers his eyes. He must be six feet tall. He’s soft and oafish, but his eyes are still bright as a child’s.

Lester comes back to the table with the black-soled eggs, their yokes petrified and split. Hardly a fatted calf is it?

Elaine and Red come in from the shop.

A what? says Red.

Hello, stranger, says Elaine.

Gawd, look at these two!

Where you bin you slack bludger?

Red, you’ve grown up.

Glad you still know me name.

There’s porridge, says Lester.

There’s always porridge, Elaine sighs.

Everyone notices Oriel hiding a smile behind her fist.

Yer mother’s not well this mornin, Lester says, rolling his eyes. She’s havin an attack of smiles.

There’s a snort, a sniff, a smirk, and then they’re all laughing like themselves from another time.

Voop

Well, says Quick leaning into the pig pen, I see you’re still with us.

The pig grins and rubs his nuts against a stump.

Did you look after Fish, you dirty old cold cut?

Voop, says the pig.

Quick heads indoors shaking his head. I’m surprised you didn’t get my bed while I was gone! he calls back, laughing, but the pig just rolls over and farts like a statesman.

In the hallway he comes face to face with Beryl Lee.

Good morning, she says.

Well, hello.

I’m the star boarder.

Pleased to meet you.

I’ve heard a lot about you, Quick.

How long have you been here?

Oh, quite a while. Your mum’s a kind soul.

She’s a battalion.

Beryl Lee laughs: nick, nick, nick. It’s the saddest laugh he’s ever heard.

He stands in the big house and hears it creak.

Matinee

In the middle of the afternoon when the house is quiet, Lester leaves Red and Beryl and Elaine to the rest of the re-stock and steps across the corridor to the Pickles side. Dolly opens the door to the kitchen and lets him in.

Where is he?

Up the coast a bit. He’s orright.

She is dressed and made up, and he hears the current in her stockings as she crosses the room for a chair.

Whatm I sposed to do? she says.

Sit tight, I reckon.

She sits and faces him. He can’t remember seeing her nervous like this; it takes the crustiness from her features so that she looks younger, more pretty than voluptuous. Lester takes the chair and sits on his hands. A pulse pecks in his neck.

You’ve got no way of raisin the money, I spose.

I could stand on the corner, she says with a snort. That’d bring in enough for a packet of smokes.

He smiles, uncertain. Men’d pay money, he knows, men’d queue up if she looked every day the way she looks this afternoon. It’s something he’s never done, hardly even thought about. Thirty years have passed since he was in the company of a woman who would even joke about such things. She grins, as if she reads his thoughts.

Sorry if I’m a bit rough for yer.

Lester fidgets.

What if they come again?

Tell em to see me, he says.

You don’t seem the fightin type, Lester.

There won’t be any fight.

Dolly pours him a cup of tea. She seems perturbed now. He’s never seen her face so different. Until now she’s always looked disgusted or just plain nastymouthed.

You can’t have this kinda money.

There’s savings we’ve got, he says. We live poor. It’s the way we are somehow.

You know it’ll be money down the dunny.

Lester shrugs. He feels a continent of trouble sliding his way and sees the flesh of her leg. Where the skirt is slipping back each time Dolly Pickles recrosses her leg.

What else am I sposed to do? he says.

What dyou mean?

Well, he says. We live in this house and we got our shop here and the family. If this thing turns into a proper blue we’re liable to find ourselves on the street. I mean, what if you have to sell to clear your debts?

We can’t. Not for another ten years. It’s in the deed.

Then these blokes are gunna come round and take goods to the value of. Guess which end they’ll pillage. I reckon it’s worth me insurin against that.

And that’s all?

Dolly comes across, takes his cup, and kisses him. The taste of tannin and tobacco are on her lips and her live, moving tongue. The cup falls to the floor, the saucer rolls, and she slides astride his knee and winds her hands into the elastic of his braces. Lester Lamb feels the weight of her buttocks clamping on his knee, the hardware surface of her nails through his shirt, the grate of her heels on the lino, and the speed of her mouth across his face. It’s the Saturday Matinee, that’s what it is. He can hear the popcorn going off between his ears. His dick begins hydraulicking around behind his flies, as he gets a handful of backside and draws her closer. She comes up for air like a navy diver.

You sure that’s all you’re buyin? A bit of safety?

He got up, foggy behind the eyes, rearing out of the chair with her still attached to him, and he ran her into the wall so her head hit the flaky plaster and jerked back against his chest. She slipped sideways to the table looking dazed, with her legs still round his waist and her skirt hoisted. Lester felt shock and fury, a kind of gear slip. She had her hand inside his trousers and he took her backside in hand and shoved down onto her. The silver flecks in the surface of the table stung his eyes. She had her hands over her mouth. A shoe dropped to the floor. There was a puddle of tea. The inside of her was firm and strange as sweetmeat. It wasn’t the Saturday Matinee anymore. He could hear people passing in the corridor a long way away. Her breasts heaved on her, and in the moment before he felt sick with gravity, he flew his mouth across them and bit down to keep from crying out.

Was that rape, do you think? he asked when he could breathe again.

Dolly pulled her legs down off his shoulders with a wince. I spose not. More a deposit on a hundred quid.

Lester covered his face with his hands.

You bin waitin ten years for that.

And you?

She laughed. I’ve bin waitin all my life for everything.

We’re different.

Yeah, you’re gonna go off feelin bad, an I’m gunna go to bed feelin sore. You’re not handsome, but you’re a nice fella. You’ve got ninety quid’s worth left.

No.

Very flatterin, Lester.

No, not to either of us.

You’re a churchy bugger, mate. When you get what you’re after you go off feelin awful.

And you just go off soundin awful.

Dolly laughed shakily. What do you want, cobber?

I want you not to use this against me.

I told you you weren’t buying safety.

Lester unstuck himself and tried to get organized. The job was beyond him.

Disciples

Sam woke full of burn and tingle. The stumps of his bad hand seemed to be shooting sparks. The shifty shadow was about; he knew it. Rain beat on the tin roof and he heard the dark, choppy sea rolling restless. He found his matches, lit one and got the Tilley lamp burning, and as he did so he saw a large tweedy rat sloping off, nose up like an Englishman, towards the door. The.38 lay on the deal table by the light. Sam took it up and aimed, saw the rat go stiff and thoughtful in his sights, contemplating a quick sidestep, whiskers aquiver. Yeah, a bloody pommy gentleman, you are, Sam thought. You could be a mine owner or a politician like that rodent Churchill, that nasty little fleshfeeder. The hairy hand is about, rat, so how’s your luck gunna be?

All Sam’s nerves fizzed and fibrillated. This must be what it was like when the old man could feel water in his rod, the magic of it going right up his arms like a shot from a live fence. The light shinin, the shadow fallin, the seesaw tippin our way.

The rat took a step. Sam spat and hit the door behind the rat which sent it into a panicky spin, a desperate effort to identify its opposition and face off against it. Its eyes were all over, trying to pick an exit.

I could blow your arse out through yer teeth, you little bastard.

He stamped his foot and the rat was off like the Fremantle express.

Sam sat back on the cot, took a coin out of his pocket and flipped thirty-two heads in a row. Then he began to laugh. Pickles, you prize dill, you didn’t even call. You dunno if yer winnin or bloody losin!

Heads, he said, and put the florin back in his pocket.

His back hurt again, the way it had all day since he went walking down through the heath country back from the river. He had lumps there, like the beginnings of boils, the kind of boils he could remember having as a kid. Oh, those afternoons over the old man’s knee biting into an apple while the old bloke tore clean rags and squeezed through them with his thumbs, pinching the skin of his backside to ̵decarbuncle him’ quick as could be managed. Be brave, the old man’d say, and you’ll be laughing it orf in a sec. A cove only has to be brave for a few minutes of his life. Ooh, I’ll bung this on me toast tonight! And he’d laugh across the final lancing scream that Sam, nose deep in apple, came out with.

Boils! he called in disgust, and tossed the florin. Tails it was. Well, it matched. He decided to be satisfied.

A few days of this and they’d be chookraffling him to the nuthouse.

Right then he heard a motor. He looked at his watch—1:15. He turned out the pressure lamp, reached for the revolver.

Headlamps forked up over the hill and swung down among the trees. Sam went to his knees by the window. Now he’d see which way his luck was runnin. It was hanging over him like a cold dark cloud tonight, and he knew it was momentous, but there was no way of reading it — salvation or his head on the block.

Well, whoever it is, they’re comin my way, he thought. A man’d pay coin of the realm for a peaceful leak right this moment.

He ducked as the headlights came swinging his way. With his back to the wall beneath the window, he could see every feature in the shack, the chair and table, cot, shelf, pots and buckets, all with long, tearing shadows from the light barging in through every crack in the tin walls.

Sam? The motor cut short. He heard the handbrake. Sam?

Sam fidgeted. The.38 felt like a laundry iron in his hand. He’d never shot a pistol before in his life. Should he break the glass first and then fire, or shoot straight through the window? He tried to think what they did at the matinee.

The door opened.

Sam? You there?

Friend or foe?

Tenant.

Shit, you scared me.

Get the lamp on.

When the lamp came up Sam looked white and shaky. As he stood there shiftfooted by the door he scratched his back, squirming.

You got the money, then.

What’s wrong with your back?

Friggin boils.

When did they come up?

Today.

Don’t scratch em.

I’m feelin lucky.

Let’s get you packed up.

Sam swatted the bird from his shoulder, but a claw caught in his singlet so that the cockatoo flapped in a fit of squawking and crapping, upside down, suspended from behind Sam’s neck. Lester reached out to unhook the bird which took a piece out of his hand the size of a snapper bait.

Dammit to buggery! he yelled.

The bird got free, flew straight into the window and crashed to the floor where it lay groaning like a floored boxer.

You orright? Sam said, laughing.

Yeah, but you aren’t. They’re not boils you got there. It’s ticks. Roo ticks.

Bugger me!

We’ll have to get em out. You smoke don’t you?

Yeah, what—

Roll a smoke thin and tight and give it to me.

I don’t—

Come on, you’re wastin time. When you’re finished take off your singlet.

What you gunna do, for Chrissake?

Burn em out.

Wonderful. Bloody marvellous.

You won’t feel a thing except those little fellers reversin out in a hurry.

Sam lay on the cot while Lester went over his back finding the little pointed butts of the parasites and applying the fag end.

I’ve got a plan, Sam said, wincing.

What plan?

For the money.

I thought we’d just drive you straight back to town an you pay em off.

No, I feel lucky.

Oh, you look lucky.

Lester rested the glowing end on the tail of a tick and watched it shunt out like a dog from a snake hole. You’re gunna look like a fly wire door when this is finished.

There’s a big two-up game tomorrow.

It’s already tomorrow. Where?

I’ll show you, said Sam.

It’s stupid.

You said you’d get me the money.

I got it. To pay off your debts and keep trouble away from Cloudstreet.

Well I’m gonna do that and make us some money.

Us?

Well, it’s your money. I reckon you deserve a dividend.

I need a horsewhippin, Lester thought. For this, for a lot of things. You’ll lose it, Sam, he said.

Don’t bloody talk like that, I know when I’m gunna win.

Well why don’t you win more often?

I’m a dill for excitement.

I could do with a little less excitement.

You’re gutless, Lamb.

You just remember one thing, mate. I haven’t given you the money yet.

I’ve got the.38.

A man who can’t drive a car could never use that thing.

Want to test that little theory? Listen, I’m gunna win. Me stump’s bloodynear glowin. I know it.

There was a sweat on Sam’s face, and his eyes were bright. Lester didn’t know whether to admire or pity him. It was too late to save the money now. In any case, he thought, aflush with shame, you can’t deny a man a chance when you’ve just had his wife on the kitchen table.

Carn. Get up and pack.

You’re in?

No, you’re in.

Where’s that … Sam then? said the bird trying to get up. Where’s that Sam?

Wakings

At dawn, and the first raw-throated stirrings of hidden birds, Cloudstreet floats soundlessly from the gloom to join the day. Down on the tracks a Fremantle freight creeps past under a limestone sky, and in her tent, towelling the water from her face and chest in a manner so delicate as to be secretive, and to someone who knew her, completely uncharacteristic, Oriel Lamb feels the vibrations in the duckboards. When she’s finished washing she applies a little talcum powder and dresses in her floral frock, stockings and hardsoled sandals which look more like work boots with ventilators cut into them. She notes again the ugliness of her feet all distorted with corns and bunions. She still remembers her own bare running feet on the dirt of the home paddock when the world was a place given by God for the pleasures of children, when all that was good was unbroken. Oriel empties her washwater onto the seed pots outside and comes back in to make her bed and tidy the shelves, clear the card table that is her desk. For ten minutes, with the help of the rimless spectacles she needs now, she reads the Reader’s Digest and makes pencil marks beside instructive passages. The early morning ‘quiet time’ as she calls it, has proven impossible to shake off. But it gives her time to meet the day, steel herself, put on the full armour as she used to say. She finishes up, tidies the table again and feels the mulberry tree hanging over the tent like a cloud. It’s still early, she’ll give them another half hour before reveille — it’s been a hard week since the wedding, what with Quick turning up and keeping them on the lookout like that, and the hole that Hat has left in the company. Another loss. Oh, if she thinks about everything that’s been taken from her over the years — Lord, it’s like the longest subtraction sum invented. She can’t help it, the feeling is on her and she’s furious. It’s a sickness, selfpity, it’ll eat you up, woman, you know it. It’ll eat the day and worm into your labour and weaken you. She puts her square, red fist on the table, watches it like it’s a paperweight. Up the back the pig snorts like a priest chanting. Fowls begin to scuffle. She hears water in the sewerage pipes beneath the garden path. Someone is up.

Elaine waits till the stove finishes smoking and makes sure it’s properly alight before waking Beryl Lee. Back in the kitchen they lay out the bacon and yesterday’s eggs. Elaine stands at the back door in the cold morning air and sees movement in the tent. The New Guinea beans Fish planted have overtaken the yard, the great hairy, veined creeper enclosing the chookyard and the pig’s den, the whole of the back fence and each side, right through the other vegetables, across the apple and orange and lemon trees, right to the door of the tent itself. Elaine can’t think how the thing has been tolerated this long. There’s even a tangle of it in the mulberry tree, and in the first sun, a-shine with dew, you can see a bean hanging above the tent the size of a man’s arm.

Your father’s not in, Laine, Beryl murmurs behind.

Hmn?

The truck’s gone. His bed hasn’t been slept in.

Elaine turns and is distracted from wondering how Beryl has the nerve to go into the old man’s room, by the mystery of his absence.

Probably gone to the markets early, I spose.

He hasn’t been here.

He used to be in the army, Mrs Lee. He knows how to make his bed. Elaine isn’t used to being firm with Beryl. Sometimes she has the feeling she’ll end up like that poor woman, alone, too old, pathetic and dependent, it’s the only thing that keeps her from lashing her now and then, the image of herself in Beryl’s rednosed maudlin face.

Well, says Beryl, I hope he comes good on the apples today. People are asking.

Here comes Mum, put some wood on the stove. I’ll wake the boys.

Quick wakes from a plain wide sleep without dreams to remember, and finds Fish in bed beside him. It brings back more mindpictures than any dream — they could both be boys instead of the men they are. Fish has his head against Quick’s chest and his arm thrown over his belly. Quick smells his brother’s hair, feels the weight of him against his ribs. It feels like forgiveness, this waking, and Quick is determined not to be embarrassed. He looks around the room and sees how shabby it is. Wallpaper has gone the colour of floor fluff. The bedspread is patched, and he feels the pillowslip against his chest, an assembly of old pyjama tops. The furniture could have come from any combination of shutdown pubs from Beverley to Bakers Junction, the kind of firewood gimcrack he’s seen as a shooter and rouseabout and truckie.

Quick?

Hmm?

Lester goed.

What?

He didden come.

Did you get lonely?

He didden.

He probably had somethin to do.

Everyone goes.

Quick chewed his lip. There was more action around the old house than there used to be. It took all your energy just to keep track.

Down the corridor Lon sleeps openmouthed. Pimples break out on his chin and others are plotting. A bomber jacket, new and wrinkled, lies across his chair. Out on the landing, Red gets on with her situps. She has a shine on her, the firmness of green fruit, and wind comes out of her like truck brakes.

On the other side of the corridor, Chub Pickles sleeps like he was custombuilt for it, Rose Pickles writes in her diary with her tongue wickedly in the corner of her mouth and listens to him snoring through the wall. She checks her nails between sentences. She has beautiful hands and they still surprise her.

And then the silly drongo told me my ear tasted like treacle, and that HAS to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Still, he’s nice enough for his kind. It’s hard to believe I come from this nuthouse every morning and go out there into the world without everyone guessing straight off. It’s like two lives. Ha, ha. Like a book!

Rose hears the Lamb truck pull in and goes to the window. Down below she sees her mother’s arms protruding from her ground floor bedroom. There’s Mr Lamb with Stan the cocky, but no Sam. Curious.

Dolly can’t catch Lester’s eye as he stumps up onto the verandah with a crate of lettuce. She waits, braving the chill in her thin nightie, but he comes and goes as though she’s not there. He looks tired and needs a shave. The windscreen of the truck is running with the goo of a hundred exploded bees.

You look like you just lost a quid and found a shillin, she says in the end.

Lester stops, a box of Jonathons swaying in his arms. I’ll let you know when I find the shillin.

Are you in the poo, too?

Let me put it this way, Mrs Pickles. By midnight we’re probably all gunna be in the poo.

People like you aren’t used to it.

Being in trouble, you mean?

Yeah.

She watched him thinking about this for a good while and she could tell that a thousand cruel comebacks were reeling through his mind. She braced herself for it, but he said nothing and she felt ludicrously grateful. It gave her the feeling that there’d be no more visits to her kitchen and she was surprised to find she regretted it.

Lester went to bed with the curtains drawn and slept till noon but instead of getting up to make tonight’s pasties and do the afternoon grocery deliveries, he stayed where he was, paralysed with wondering how he could have gotten himself into such a spot. All their cash savings in a two-up game depending on a dud gambler landlord whose wife he had been knocking himself only yesterday. And it wasn’t only his own mystification he worried about. He could feel the wonder of the others almost crashing at the door.

He didn’t sleep, though he wished he could because he was still weary from the night. He looked around the room, tried to concentrate on its contents. I miss kids, he thought; I miss having children around. To fool with and muck about with. I was somebody with kids — they believed in me, I made them laugh. And now … what is it? That they see straight through me? The bloke who’s married to the lady in the tent.

He noticed how patched together everything was, everything in the room. What had they been saving for, anyway?

All our clothes are old and mended, he thought; we never buy anything except for the shop, so what are we intending to buy?

He listened to the sounds of lunch being prepared down the hall.

He’s probably picked up a wog, said Elaine.

Do the knife, Quick, said Fish.

Quick spun the knife with a grin.

This is for the biggest bloke in the family, and remember, sport, the knife never lies.

Fish hunched over the spinning blade, giggling. It was a strange sound to hear coming from a fourteen stone man whose hands were as big as T-bones. A pale forelock bobbed on him as his head followed the slowing movement and Quick set his teeth against that old feeling of grief and blame. The blade crept around now, and Beryl and Elaine stopped putting out the ham to watch. Lon looked out of the window. Oriel turned from the stove looking blank. Fish’s giggle thickened and he barely seemed to need a breath to sustain it.

It’s me! Meeeee!

Fish beat his fists on the table and they laughed with him until Oriel put the early potatoes out, steaming in their pale jackets with butter sliding over them and parsley sprinkled on top. There was tea from the urn and fresh bread, a salad with grated carrot and cheese, chutney for the ham.

Before anyone else was finished, Quick excused himself and went down the hall. He knocked at the old man’s door and went in uninvited.

How you feelin?

The old man was lying there with his arms behind his head. He looked pale and worried.

Oh, I’m orright.

You crook?

No, not really.

Quick sat in the old reading chair that used to be in the loungeroom before the loungeroom became the shop. He could smell the lemon scent of the old boy.

Good to have you back, son. You get out of bed and I climb in, eh?

You’re lucky Red’s at school. If you’re not crook she’ll be onto you. She doesn’t believe in sickness. Even if you were crook she’d have you out.

They laughed quietly at this.

She’s like her mother.

Quick shrugged. Well, she hasn’t been in to hook you out, so I gathered you must be on yer last legs.

Well, that remains to be seen.

What dyou mean?

Oh, I’m in the poop. I’ve lent money to Pickles.

Quick whistled. A lot, eh?

The old man nodded.

Mum know?

She’s got a nose.

You’re too soft, Dad, Quick murmured without much censure in his voice. Let’s go fishin, take Fish along.

Not tonight.

They sat quiet for a while. It was like a hospital visit, or what Quick imagined a gaol visit to be like.

You ever dream? the old man asked.

Plenty.

You ever have the same dream twice?

Quick nodded.

I keep having this dream, the old man said, almost in a whisper. It’s the first thing I can remember in my life — you know my earliest memory. It’s dark and raining and I’m in a storm and I’m in the middle of a creek — I can hear it roaring and see the white. There’s lightning but it doesn’t show anything up, just blinds me. I’m absolutely packin myself. And I’m on my father’s shoulders and he’s carryin me across. He’s steady and big, and we’re makin it. I’m just hangin on, and he’s takin me across.

Their eyes met. Quick smiled.

That’s a nice one.

I always wake up in tears.

Why don’t you come down and make the pasties? Mum’ll botch em up.

Lester smiled. Don’t ever join the army.

Geez, one army’s enough.

She’s a good woman, Quick. She’s worth two of me.

But she makes a lousy pasty.

Go on, you drongo.

Quick left and saw Beryl coining.

He alright?

Quick nodded.

I’ll see if he wants something.

He doesn’t want you, Quick thought; you’re the last thing a man needs. Regular bedside Betty.

He heard her open the door behind him as he went on up the front to the shop. The bell was ringing.

Promises

Lester was most of the way out of his pyjamas when Beryl broke in, knocking as she came, and he found himself standing like a soldier ready for a short arm inspection. Beryl had a sweat on her upper lip; her eyes were china white taking in his kit. She showed none of the disinterest army matrons had impressed him with, and he felt a fury rising out of his embarrassment.

Would you like to break a piece off as a souvenir, Beryl?

What?

He hauled up his pyjama pants and sat back on the bed.

What do you want, Beryl?

Oh, strewth, I’m sorry, Lester.

She stood with her back to the door, wearing a faded bag of a frock and a pair of chunky heels that must have given her curry all day in the shop. He knew she was a fragile thing, and he’d seen her kindness to his children and the gratitude she offered to Oriel for building her back into someone who could stand in her own shoes again; regardless of the style. She worked hard in this house and he respected her for it, but he’d never been able to cipher out why she’d stayed so long.

As he watched, a composure, a toughness came into her face that he’d never seen before, and he was about to ask her again what the matter was when she started talking.

I know about you and Mrs Pickles, Lester.

You must hang off the banisters like a fruit bat.

I watch you.

You don’t know anythin, Beryl, he said, a quiver coming to his jaw. How on earth could you know that what you think happened actually happened?

Well, you seem to know what I’m talking about without any explanation.

Lester tried to scrape up some form. He looked at his flat pink feet sticking from his barber’s pole jarmies. Well, he thought, catastrophe hasn’t exactly been long in the wings. Least it hasn’t kept me waitin.

She’s a low woman, Lester.

That’s our landlady you’re talkin about, he said with the feeblest of grins.

I’m shocked, surprised even.

Me too.

You’re in trouble.

More than you think, Beryl. You know I’ve never been in trouble in my whole life — I mean seriously nose deep in the nure. I’ve kept laws and rules and contracts—

And now you’re gunna tell me you feel free for the first time in your life, like Bette Davis or somebody! That’s really got to be the living—

Beryl! he hissed. Keep your blessed voice down.

Beryl sagged back against the door.

Are you gunna dob on me, Beryl? Is that why you’re here? I haven’t got a brass razoo if it’s money you’re after.

Oh, you … bugger!

State your business, Beryl. What have you come to do to me?

Beryl came to the edge of his bed and her proximity forced him back onto the pillow.

I came to tell you to leave off with Mrs Pickles.

Or?

Or you’ll ruin your life and break a fine woman’s heart. Mrs Lamb deserves better.

Fair enough, Beryl.

What?

I said you’re right.

Well … well good then.

Go, Beryl.

Lester lay back and felt the cool palms of his hands on his face.

The World Through Beryl

Pausing for barely a second now and then like a motor gently missing, Oriel stopped to watch Beryl, who had grown paler still. That woman will disappear if she keeps fading like this, she thought. What is it with Beryl? Hunger for a man? What man deserves a good honest woman like Beryl? Even as she watched, Oriel saw Beryl fading by the window. She saw the mulberry tree through the tall woman’s translucent, veiny arms. The sky moved behind her. You could see the whole world through Beryl Lee.

Take a break, Beryl.

No, I’m right. Truly.

Business

For the better part of the day, Sam stays in Kings Park where Lester left him at dawn. He sleeps in cool shade before the sun gets high, and later he walks down the quiet avenues, along the endless rows of trees, each with its plaque bearing the name of a dead soldier, his unit, his deathfield. The bush of the park comes alive with sweeping birds, the scuttle of goannas and rabbits. All day he wanders, finding a statue, a new road, a landscaped garden, and at the eastern edge, a view of the city with the river leaning its way in and out of the plan below. A ferry pushes its way from Mends Street to the Barrack Street jetty. A rich man’s yacht, red sails shuddering like a singer’s lungs, cuts in behind it, and children wave. He’s come to like the place, he discovers. The autumn blue sky bowls across the whole business and warms his certainty. He feels the notes in his pocket.

Heading down to the big boulevard of eucalypts, past the statue of John Forrest, he comes to the great log the kids call the Toothpick. It’s huge and barely weathered, ten feet high and a hundred feet long, on its side like a fallen beast. At its sawn ends he sees the lines that divide its years, concentric markings like the inside of a gobstopper.

There’s some floorboards in you, old son, he murmurs, leaving.

Lightbrained with hunger, he goes on down to Mount Street, past the grand houses and the gleaming Buicks and Humbers, into the city. Hay Street is full of trams and beer barrels. Kids are selling the Mirror and the West on corners, trollies hiss by down William Street, and outside Foys the cashews roasting, the sandwich counter roaring, send him giddy and glasseyed on his way. Afternoon picture shows are finishing with a straggle of squinteyed patrons coming back out onto the street as if stunned by the ordinariness of the day. Men smoke on the steps of the GPO, eat pies and stay wary of their suits. With two hundred pounds in his pocket, he sits in Forrest Place with the gas-crazy Anzacs and mealy whingers who ask for a fag and a florin and look at you like you might be the bloke who caused all their problems in the first place. With two hundred quid against his leg, he sits without food, without a drink or a smoke, looking across the rails toward Roe Street where someone’s backyard is being rigged with a tarp and the dirt raked in a flat circle for tonight. All along the street, the tired old tarts are calling sailors and frightening off schoolboys while the trains shunt by spitting steam. Sam feels change in his pocket. Yes, he’ll buy a shave in an hour, and after dark he’ll go across the bridge, hungry, smokestarved, dry, clean as a monk. And lucky.

Beryl Fades Out

Mum, said Red. Beryl is fadin.

Oriel looked at the potatoes in her hand and thought of the things she’d like to tell the spud growers of Australia about taking a little time, a little pride and a little care.

Mum? All afternoon she’s bin goin out like a light.

Your father’s out like a light today himself. Hasn’t been out of bed all day.

I think he’s crook, Red said disapprovingly.

Hm.

Then what about Beryl?

Go find her for me.

They’re holeing up this afternoon in Cloudstreet. In their beds, their rooms, in their work and their heads they’re closing doors and turning keys while the trees lean in against the gutters and squeeze and the nails creak, the boards squinch together just a notch more beneath a shifting, a drifting, a lifting sky as Sam Pickles pulls lint from his pockets, as Fish touches Quick’s back leaning into the steamy guts of the Chev with a spanner, watched by Dolly and above her by Rose while Beryl goes back in to Lester without knocking.

I’m leaving here tonight, said Beryl.

Lester sat up in bed and saw Beryl trying not to bawl and weep.

Going? Lester’d gone beyond fury today. He’d been all day in a state of silly wonder, and now he didn’t know where else there was to go. He’d spent years arresting people for things both mild and maniacal. He’d been to war and lived a Depression on the land, been a father and a husband, and this week, even an adulterer, but it counted for nothing because here he was with Beryl Lee on the end of his bed beggin the question: why was it that he didn’t know a thing about the underlying nature of people, the shadows and shifts, the hungers and hopes that caused them to do the things they did?

Why, Beryl? I thought you were happy here, safe.

Beryl unwound her defeated neck and fixed him with a doleful stare until he could feel his eyes pressing the back of his skull.

Well, I have … I have feelings too you know.

Lester sighed. Ah. Quick, is it? I’ve seen you since he’s been back.

Oh, Lester.

What?

You’d have made an awful copper.

I was.

She fixed him with that significant look again and Lester groaned.

Me? Oh, Beryl. I’m sorry.

It’s just got too much for me.

But you don’t have to go.

No, I’ve been deciding ever since Quick came back. I … hung about him because, well because of the state he was in when he came home to us, and I wanted to talk to him, ask him some things. You see there’s a house I’ve been talking with, a convent—

Oh, come on, Beryl!

And I wanted to pick his brain about a few things. He has shadows in his eyes, that boy. I’m sure if he’d wanted to talk to me—

He doesn’t know you, Beryl, he hardly knows his own family anymore.

Well, anyway, I’ve decided without the benefit of getting through to him. I’m going tonight.

But you don’t want to be a nun.

Don’t you believe in commitment?

I dunno, Beryl.

Why’re you staying here with your wife? Think of the calisthenics you could have had with … other people.

Well, I made some promises in my time.

Beryl smiled and her whole posture seemed to benefit. And you’ll keep them all in the end, Lester. That’s you. See. And I’m the same. I’m a Catholic. I make promises, too. I love the Church.

Geez, Beryl, it’s drastic.

Look at this old house, Lester. Look at that tent down there. Do a room-by-room and have a look. This has always been drastic and I thank God for all of it. I’m getting married again, Lester. Be happy for me.

It’s not natural.

Marriage is never natural.

Lester laughed. Oh, Beryl, you’re a bonzer.

Beryl Lee smiled the sweetest most crucifying smile and Lester heard Fish begin to thump the piano upstairs.

And we hardly noticed you, he said.

But you’ll remember, won’t you?

My oath.

A terrible moaning came down through the floor. Beryl left him and he lay there like a sprayed insect.

Oriel looked at Beryl and took her in her meaty arms.

Don’t pity me, Oriel.

Pity? You’ve gotta be usin levity on me! You see that tent? You see this non-Cathlick beatin breast? Pity, Beryl? Don’t shame a woman. I’m just sad to see you go. I’ll … probably … well, miss you.

But we hardly ever talked.

Talk? Those poor misguided nuns’ll teach you the use of talk, love. A woman doesn’t need talk. She needs a team. I hope you find it. You can always come back. Always.

Beryl said her bit and stuffed her bags and everyone descended to the kitchen to make a dinner worthy of her. Lester whipped and dipped. There were scrubbers and peelers, stringers and wringers, as the stove bawled and the pots jangled up a head of steam. The big old house heaved and sighed around them. Chooks were still fighting for roosts down the back, and the pig was snoring by the time they finished eating and Lester cleared his throat to speak.

Beryl, as head of the household I think it’s time to let you know how glad we are to have had you round. You’ve worked like a bloke and we’ll miss you, I reckon. We wanna say good luck in all you do. He looked at the others, a little uncertain, as though calculating something, and then he grinned. You know we’re not a drinkin family, Beryl, and you’ll also be aware that Mum here doesn’t agree with fluids at meals on account of the science of digestion, so in order to serve you a toast, I’ll ask everybody to charge their forks.

And he speared a spud and held it aloft, waiting for them all to follow suit, which in the end they did, openmouthed with amazement. Yes, charge your forks, and here’s to Beryl, a jolly good fella.

To Beryl, they all said, lamb, spuds, or just gravy on their forks, if that’s all they had left, and they bit and munched, following his lead — even Oriel whose face led you to believe she was eating live bullant.

Nun better for our money, said Lon, who got a blow from everyone in reach except Beryl herself.

Bless you all, she said.

We’ll smuggle icecream in, eh, Dad, said Quick.

Ah, Beryl laughed, you’ll bring the Church to its knees.

I’m told that is the correct position, said Oriel stone-faced.

In the brief, hysterical silence to follow, Lester said:

I do believe your mother made a joke.

Their eyes were as big as hardboiled eggs.

Ticking

Sam Pickles opens a gate across town with his stump sparking like a cut cable.

The light goes out of the night sky a moment. The pig hoots and bawls. Fish goes to the window stormbrowed. A man stands in the street across the road with his great timepiece ricking and ticking.

Lester came back from dropping Beryl off. Everyone slumped round the cleared kitchen listening to the queer rattle of the gutters.

I’m goin prawnin, said Oriel.

Thay all just gawked.

Not really the season, Mum, said Quick. November at the earliest.

There’s always prawns in the river. There’ll always be something.

Brrr. I’m listening to the wireless, said Elaine.

Me too, said Red.

Yeah, said Lon.

In the river? murmured Fish, building something out of his hands.

You’ll be in bed, Fish.

I’ll tell you stories, son, said Lester. He looked darkly at Oriel.

Come on, Quick, she said.

Eh?

Get the net and get your togs on.

It’s cold, Mum.

Goin on me own, am I?

Quick stood by the big old wireless and sucked his teeth. It’s givin in, he thought; it’s too early to be givin in.

And I haven’t seen him for two years, Oriel said to Lester.

Quick sighed and gave in. Heading for the door, he muttered: It’s just silly.

Everyone else can be silly all day long in this house, so why not me a couple of hours in me lifetime?

Out in the water it was cool but not quite cold. From the shallows outside Pelican Point where all the bigboned birds nested restlessly in sleep, Quick and Oriel could see the lights of Mounts Bay Road, the baths, the party glow of a ferry coming through the Narrows. The whole city seemed to lay itself flat upon the water. In summer there’d be fires on the beach and the sound of children, smells of boiling prawns, the lights of kids chasing cobbler along the shore with gidgie spears. Now there was just the sound of the two wading and the triangular net slushing behind between the two upright poles.

You know, this is the first time I’ve been prawning since Margaret River, Oriel said.

Since Fish you mean

Yes, I spose that’s what I mean. Do you still blame yourself for it?

How did you know about that?

I’m your mother. Besides, it’s obvious. Fish was everyone’s favourite.

You mean it’s true — he was the favourite?

Oh, people say they don’t have favourites when it comes to children, but you know, son, it’s a lie we tell to protect the others.

So you did love him more than the rest of us? Quick’s voice was dead with hurt.

Wasn’t he your favourite, Quick?

Quick waded. A small fish skipped away from him. All around his body was an aura of phosphorescence.

Didn’t you love him more than all of us? Don’t you still love him more? Haven’t you always had Honour Thy Retarded Brother as your number one commandment? You see, it hurts to know you’re not the favourite whoever you are, child or parent. Did you feel guilty about leaving us, or about leaving Fish?

Why do we have to talk about this, Mum?

Because we’re family.

Jesus, I hate this family stuff. It makes me sick! I don’t need all this.

It’s all we have.

What?

Each other.

Oh, come on, Mum.

You’re scaring the prawns away.

There aren’t any bloody prawns — Jesus Christ!

Don’t say that.

Oriel pulled the net and tried not to show exhilaration at having him here like this, at the two of them talking like adults together. There was something hard and resistant in him now, something he’d grown in being gone, and she knew it had been worth the hurt.

Why are you so bitter? Because of your family or because of yourself?

What dyou mean?

Do you hate the fact that you come from … well let’s just say crack troops.

Weirdos, Mum, flamin whackos.

Or is it just the old business of feelin guilty about being a survivor?

Quick almost stumbled at that. It went deep into him.

What the hell would you know? You don’t know the first thing about feelings, certainly not mine, and damnsure not about what I feel about Fish.

I know about bein a survivor. You think it’s your fault he died. You think it should have been you. You’re paralysed with this thing that’s eatin you, and you don’t know that it’s rubbish.

You don’t know a damn thing about it, Mum.

She thought about her mother and sisters up in the house cooking like picnic steaks while she lay helpless in the cellar, she saw the bullet torn wallet of Bluey her half brother with its black crust of ink and blood and the King’s stamped signature on the slip of paper. And she could feel Fish’s chest under her fists as she beat life into him with the sky kiting over her, silent as death. She pursed her mouth with her teeth set behind them.

Have I been a crook mother?

Quick sighed. She was upset now. He could feel the explosion in her.

No, Mum, of course not.

Do I lie?

No.

Do I cheat?

No.

Steal?

No.

Fornicate?

Well, I’ll have to check on that with the neighbours. I reckon the tent’s a dubious sign. And to his complete surprise, she laughed.

Don’t be a drongo, Quick.

He pulled the net. Now they were inside the bay at Crawley where the uni glowed like a cathedral up there behind the peppermints.

What’s wrong with me?

Mum.

Carn, what’s my problem, Quick?

Quick had never known his mother to be like this. It was exciting and unnerving. He could no longer tell how she’d react. It was like having a dead shark in the boat. A dead shark always seemed dead enough, but the buggers had a habit of coming to life and taking your feet off.

You don’t have enough fun, maybe, he ventured, a little breathless.

She made a little popping sound with her lips. It sounded ominously slight.

No one takes me to dances anymore.

Geez, Mum, you’re always at dances.

Yes, and I’m either organizin them or playin the piano. Your father’s always on the stage, and I can’t even remember if he knows how to dance. I used to dance with my daughters until I lost out to men, and Heaven knows I dance better than every one of them. And my sons never stooped to dancin.

Stoopin’d be right, thought Quick. It’d be like dancin with a teachest. But she’d made her mark; she was right enough.

Let’s face it, Mum, he said, suddenly reckless with courage, you do everythin better than anybody. It’s just that you’re flamin bossy.

She laughed. I’m glad you see things my way.

Quick pulled with her to the beach, and helped empty the net of its cargo of jellyfish and gobbleguts and other useless small fish. He had a boyish impulse to kick her in the shins and run, just to have her after him, awful and reliable with it.

The strong are here to look after the weak, son, and the weak are here to teach the strong.

What are we here to teach you, Mum?

Too early to say.

They set off again, down toward the deep end and the baths. Quick was real tired now, and cold. Oriel strode out in her hard little granny shoes, feeling quivery inside. She wondered how far things had gone between Beryl and Lester. She wondered what instruction there was in it for her. Sometimes she couldn’t think what jerrybuilt frame was holding her together. It wasn’t willpower anymore. She’d gone past that lately. She only had will enough to make everything else work, these days. There was never enough left for her. She was like that blessed truck of Lester’s, running on an empty sump.

I’ll take you to a dance, Mum. The best. I’ll shout you to the Embassy.

Hmm. Their sandwiches are dry.

How do you know? Quick said, miffed.

I sell em day-old bread. There’s an arrangement.

Quick guffawed. You are bent, then.

No. I’m astute. You ever heard anyone complain about supper at the Embassy ballroom?

No. Never.

Well, there you are.

Quick pulled for a while, and a strange sort of question came to him. The strong can get rich, Mum. You know. What would you do if you got rich?

Get poor again, I expect. I’m surrounded by fools, you know.

Seriously, though.

It’s a silly schoolboy question.

It isn’t. You just don’t want to say.

She surged ahead and forced the pace a little. The water was hard and cold now. He was right; she didn’t want to say.

That was when they came upon the wild wheeling mob of prawns that came brawling out of the deep unlit gutter near the baths, and swerved in panic, beating against Oriel and Quick’s legs, skipping and bouncing into the net, ricocheting like crossfire, breaking the surface of the water in an unearthly frenzy. When they got to the beach, gasping and whooping, with the net near splitting with its freight, they had to lie on the sand a while before taking off their clothes, shorts, trousers, singlet, spencer, shirt, pullovers, hats, and tie knots in them to make bags because the five gallon drum just wasn’t enough. They rode home nearly barebummed through the back streets with the sidecar awash with prawns, and they sprinkled a mist of river as they ploughed through the sleeping streets.

The Whole Damn Cake and Candles

From above, the two-up circle looks like a sea creature, some simple hungry organism in the water of night. A sea anemone whose edges rise and fall as bodies press and spread with two glittering morsels turning and dangling in its maw. Two coins spinning above the pulsating mouth, catching light and shining to tantalize. But they’re men down there and the coins’ light shines on them the way the sun and moon have never done. A swearing, moneyflicking, beery mob of blokes dancing to the music of the toss, the dance of chance. They call in intercession, they pray and whine and moan as if those two big crosspainted pennies can hear them. See among them the little fella with the stump and the mad light in his eyes, crazy as a crusader, mad as a cut snake, driven as a dog. It’s the look men have in their eyes when they go green to war — one eye on duty and the other on the spoils — when they can’t wait to step beneath the spinning pieces to see whether they’ll be torn in half by them or feel them lob safely and full of promise at their heels. He’s not a young man anymore, the little fair fella. Beneath the noise of the crowd he’s wheezy and his veins are swollen. His back aches, he’s thirsty, hollowgutted, in need of a smoke, but he stays planted to the spot awaiting the certainty of his blessing. And down it comes again like manna. Men hush at the sight of it, though he doesn’t even nod. He puts another fistful of notes down and hears the grumbling. He must be the only sober man here tonight, and he tries to decide what this feeling is like, being the lone man, the onehanded man, the man pushing on into the darkness of the rest of them. Like Christopher-bloody-Columbus, that’s how it feels, he thinks; sailin out, knowing you’re not gonna get to the edge and fall off the bleedin map, at least not before you bump into a whole continent of treasure with the angels on your side. Pennies go up and stay there a heartbeat or two, as men wring their hats and wait. Sam’s heart almost explodes with devotion.

From the outside, if you don’t share the love of the game, if you don’t know these men, it’s still cause for wonder. How they love it, how they dance and sing in the dragon’s jaws. And Sam Pickles. If you hated his guts you couldn’t help but be affected by the sight of him, the prince of losers, winning the bank. The whole damn cake and candles.

Feast

Dolly grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close before he’d even got in the kitchen door. She was shaky and sober and ready to scream out of fright and worry and she could barely believe she was clinging to him like this. Drawing back and drawing breath, she saw there wasn’t a mark on him. His trousers were stuffed like a mattress. Before anything could happen, Rose came in the door, fresh from the dance.

Well, look at you two.

They peeled off each other selfconsciously. The three of them had the flesh of new people. For a moment.

Laughter echoed from across the corridor.

We could sell them! Elaine said, putting out a huge china bowl of brown vinegar. The table was spread with newspapers, and the first steaming, red pile of prawns was upon it.

No fear, said Oriel, unable to stop a smile.

Be a good few quid, Mum, said Lon, who was the first to shell. The meat was longer than his hand.

No fear, Oriel said again.

Why not, Mum? Red slid a prawn around the vinegar bowl. There’s so many.

They’re gunna keep jumpin outta me pockets fer years yet, said Quick.

You’ll always be comin the raw prawn, said Lester to a uniform groan.

We can’t eat em all, said Red through a disgusting mouthful.

Watch me, said the old man.

They’re a gift, Oriel murmured. And you don’t go floggin off a gift.

Quick and Lester raised eyebrows at one another.

You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, said Red, quoting from somewhere or other.

Yeah, said the old man, laughing, you send it to the knackers before it can take off with your vegies.

Where’s Fish?

He’ll be asleep.

Go up and check, said the old man to Quick. He might want a feed himself. Hey, an you might’s well knock at the Pickles hatch and ask em if they want to join us. I think they’re still up.

That raised a few brows and stopped a few jaws, but Oriel nodded. Yeah, fair enough. Share n share alike.

And after midnight the Lamb kitchen was full to the boards with the lot of them. It wasn’t till Lester got the broadest, leeringest wink from Sam Pickles that he remembered disaster and discovered that he’d been saved. And then some.

Up in the library, Fish asked the shadow girl why she wouldn’t come out, but she said nothing. She was always either crying or angry and nothing else. He played her a tune and she stood beside him, but he couldn’t tell if it made any difference.

Quick came calling. The dark girl shrank away.