The Unspoken

by Don Zelma

Chapter Forty-eight

  Ned Col reached out with a match and lit his butane gas lamp. The workbench, stained in grease and oil, slowly appeared from the dark. He slipped on his reading glasses, opened Lermontov and began to read, wanting to feel Pechorin.

  He put the book down on the window sill, clearer about the man he wanted to write. He was keyed up, opening his notepad and blowing away the workshop dust. His novel would express everything in him and he grew aware, albeit very briefly, it may also be a confession.

  Tonight, he would start his final chapter. He had been aiming at this moment for many years. He would use his angry man he knew oh so well and add a dash of Pechorin. He reached into his back pocket, drew out his wallet, and removed a clutter of notepaper scraps – ideas he had written down during the day. He placed them with notes made during the night. He took his pen and started transcribing them into his notepad.

  An hour later, he leaned back and felt OK. He reckoned the chapter had a descent outline. It now needed tidying and so he returned to the beginning, starting the process of rewriting. Now, he told himself, use strong nouns easy to visualise and marry them with simple verbs. Don’t be elaborate – understand your limitations. Use adjectives only when you must or need an extra beat to your music. Yes, he reckoned, rhythm sometimes demanded you sin and add an unnecessary word. This, at least, was his theory, and he had arrived at this on his own.

  He read a few lines and felt quietly satisfied. His fingers played through his beard and he reckoned he really had something. He had stopped trying to be other writers and could see his own terse style.

  ‘God damn it,’ he thought, ‘I might just pull this off. A little further and I will be home.’

  Now, began the process of fermentation – again, his own theory – involving waiting and doing nothing. He could rewrite the chapter weeks later, only once he had forgotten what he had written. You could not rewrite intelligently, he believed, until a sentence was a surprise.

  He was proud of his entire enterprise. At three hundred pages, and almost fifty chapters, it was the length of a real novel.

  Growing confident and getting close, he chose a page at random. He read a few paragraphs and it was good.

  He slowly got off his stool and walked to the centre of the room then gently kicked the dirt floor.

  I can do it, he thought.

  The euphoria sparked an idea. He could read his work from the beginning; he could see his years of labour in one continuum and marvel at what he had done.

  ‘I will put my feet up on the bench,’ he thought, ‘and be a reader. I will read not as an author, but like a reader reads.’

  He screwed on another butane canister, sat on his stool and prepared for a long night. He would not finish before dawn but knew he could not wait. A nip of Bundaberg was poured into a glass and he leaned back with his notepad. He sipped his drink and began to read wanting to enjoy his work.

  Hours passed and he grew convinced. He had worked hard and done well. There were holes and mistakes but nothing he could not fix.

  It was only around midnight that things started to change. He became conscious of some doubt. And now, in a moment of clarity, he acknowledged it. He could see the chapters had progressively broken rank with his initial plan. He was losing track of his theme and control of his creation. He pitched the aim to himself then reread the last chapter.

  Chr—t, he thought. He had to face it – he had a big, big problem with structure. The chapters were successful as individuals but served only themselves. He had not learnt the discipline of killing an element, a chapter or idea, even if he prized it. This mistake, he suspected, could be fatal.

  He brought his feet down and slowly put the notepad on the bench. He removed his reading glasses, placed them on the worktop, then slowly forced his fingers into his eyes.

  ‘Good God,’ he whispered. ‘What have I done?’

  You needed a floor plan, enforced by rereading – he could see this now. Once you’ve invested in bad structure, no matter how determined you are, how passionate, there’s not a god-damn thing you can do. The novel won’t stand up.

  The idea that he had wasted almost two years of his time turned his face icy cold. He looked at the page and read another line. It was awful and he knew everything was infected.

  He looked up and stared at the gaslight. He breathed quietly, rapping his fingers on the worktop. He felt his face, now hot, growing wet with sweat. He had to contemplate the unthinkable – killing the book and starting anew. Perhaps, he thought, he could salvage some of the good chapters. But chapters were custom-made for a story and were not interchangeable. He knew, deep down, what he must do.

  ‘I must erase everything,’ he thought. ‘I must start again.’

  His fingers reached up and began twisting his whiskers.

  ‘It will take many more years before I am finished,’ he thought, ‘and even then there are no guarantees. I have a family and a life that requires my attention. I will never have time. He waited, listening to the hiss of the gaslight.

  This time I might have hit a dead end – oh, so f—king dead.

  He remembered his previous passions and slowly shook his head.

  ‘Here I am,’ he thought, ‘getting knocked down and getting up, getting knocked down and up again.’

  He reached out and slowly turned off the light. Only streetlight lit the bench and he stared at his outstretched hand on the lamp. In terms of goals, something had changed forever. He looked down and saw the python wrapped around his arm. Then he felt an old, weird sensation from his youth, something like poisonous apathy, starting to snake back into his life.

  Ned sauntered into the kitchen and slowly sat at the table. The air was hot and sticky and Karen was reading a magazine. He looked down at the floor and saw a cockroach scurry out from under the cupboard. It stopped on the linoleum and its antennae began to wave.

  ‘F—king bastards,’ Karen whispered. She removed a sandal and cast it across the room.

  He looked at her. This girl, this house – these were his reality now and he had to accept them.

  She resumed reading, starting to bite her pen.

  ‘She doesn’t know what going on inside me,’ he thought. ‘She doesn’t know who I am.’

  ‘I want to tell you something,’ he finally said. Karen stopped reading and looked up. ‘It’s somethin’ personal.’

  She slowly rested her pen onto the table. ‘Sure,’ she said, leaning forward on her elbows.

  He looked down and started picking at his dirty fingernails. ‘There’s things I wanna do,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to write.’ He looked up and saw her staring. She almost smiled, her secret thoughts playing across her face. ‘Tonight, I reckon I’ve come to a bit of a dead stop.’ He paused. ‘And I’m too old to find another way.’ He stared at her, debating how much to reveal. ‘I write in secret because I don’t want people to know. I’m not intelligent and I don’t want them to knock me down. But I have this drive to create something wonderful, something I can be proud of. I want people to know who I am.’

  It seemed she didn’t know what to say. ‘Ned, you need to be realistic,’ she said. ‘You never even finished school.’

  He gently laid his hands down on the table. He looked up and saw her eyes tracking around his face. They looked at his python and she suddenly chuckled.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘You’re being a bit of an idiot,’ she whispered.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  She stood, carelessly flipped the magazine to the table, and surprisingly began walking towards the hall. He heard her sit in the lounge room.

  He suddenly grew angry. His hand picked up a chair and threw it across the room. He was surprised at the welling up inside him – he wanted to cry and it shocked him. He reached up to the cabinet and, without knowing why, began pulling out the china. It started smashing around his feet.

  Karen appeared at the doorway. ‘What the f—k are you doing?’ she shouted.
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  He started at the glasses and Karen headed for the front door.

  He followed her into the lounge room. ‘Yeah, go!’ he said. Without truly understanding his actions, he picked up the couch and began dragging it towards the door. He stepped on the front deck and, after a brief struggle, hurled it over the railing.

  Karen shouted from the dark. ‘That’s our stuff, you f—king c—t!’

  A hinge creaked next door and a silhouette stepped out onto a balcony. Across the street a head appeared in a window.

  Ned walked into the lounge, unplugged the television and carried it out onto the deck.

  After some time he walked inside, down the hall and stormed into the bedroom. He glanced out at the street and a blue flashing light appeared in the distance.

  Well, that’s no f—king surprise, he thought. Here they come – to close the fence around me.

  He turned and walked to the centre of the room. It was dark and he stared at the wall. A vehicle braked outside, then a second, and he heard a garble of radios.

  ‘The f—king fuzz are here!’ Karen screamed.

  He stepped up to the window, saw two patrol cars under the streetlight and four uniformed officers casually approaching the house. He stepped back to the wardrobe. The barrel of the SKS was protruding into the light and he saw its long, curved thirty-round magazine.

  ‘Mind your own f—king business, ya f—king pigs!’ Karen shouted.

  Ned chuckled.

  ‘Ned! Don’t come out or they’ll cuff you!’ Then, at the neighbours: ‘You f—king c—nts – go back inside! Mind your own f—king business!’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ he said to himself. He shook his head. ‘She’s a real sweetheart.’ He picked up the rifle, removed the magazine and saw the shells in a box at the base of the wardrobe.

  I don’t like them here, he thought. It’s pulling the noose tighter and I don’t need it tight.

  Outside, Karen carried on getting people hot. He felt the smooth pointed jacket of a 7.62 short and, inexplicably, thumbed it into the magazine.

  ‘Ned?’ called a calm voice.

  A set of boots began scaling the front steps.

  Ned started quickly feeding shell after shell into the magazine. He was growing a little desperate and beginning to breathe heavily.

  ‘Mister Col?’ the voice said. ‘Ned? Can you hear me?’

  He slipped the magazine in under the breach and heard it snap in tight. He pulled the cocking handle and the copper-headed shell, the size of his little finger, jumped up into the breach.

  ‘Ned? Can you hear me?’ the voice said. He was an older man.

  Ned stepped up to the window. ‘Hang on, mate,’ he shouted.

  There was a pause. ‘No worries,’ said the voice. The man hesitated. ‘Gee, some mess you got out here.’

  He lifted the thin mattress from the bed, pushed it out the window and let it drop onto the veranda. The casual chatting, that had started between the policeman, now stopped and Ned knew they had glimpsed the gun. A torch beam swept the window, softly lit the room and he heard a little whispering.

  ‘I notice you got yourself a little toy there,’ the voice said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ned said. He swallowed and realised he was panting. He reached out, pulled on the bedroom wardrobe and it crashed loudly onto the floor. Outside, he heard voices.

  ‘What’s going on in there, Ned?’ the old man asked.

  He opened the wardrobe, pulled out Karen’s dresses and began throwing them out the window. He saw an officer move under the veranda with a hand on his belt.

  ‘What’s the shooter for?’ the old man asked.

  Ned cleared his throat and felt his fingers begin to tremble. ‘I haven’t decided!’ he said.

  ‘OK. No worries, mate,’ said the voice. ‘Just take it easy.’ The boots came up a few more steps and stopped.

  Ned went to the dresser, removed a drawer and emptied it out of the window.

  ‘I just want to chat, mate,’ the voice said. He was closer. ‘Why don’t you come out or I come up?’

  ‘Sweet,’ Ned said, ‘I’ll come out.’

  ‘OK,’ said the voice, ‘But do it slow, son. That popgun’s got everyone nervous.’

  Ned walked slowly down the hall, thinking very clearly. He passed the light of the kitchen and stopped in its dim glow in the lounge. He reached back, took his tobacco from his pocket and began rolling a cigarette. He found his Zippo lighter, flicked it open and the room slowly appeared from the dark. It was almost empty.

  He glanced down at the un-oiled, badly maintained rifle barrel. The yellow rusty spots on the metal resembled the camouflage flecks on a dusky flathead and he remembered fishing the sand with the preacher. He remembered reading the book in the boat and thinking all dreams inevitable.

  ‘Ha,’ he said to himself. ‘What a trip...’ He looked up and stared into the dark for a long time.

  He gently pushed the screen door and stepped out onto the veranda. He leaned back, stretched and his shirt lifted up over his paunch. The yard was void of policemen, then a hat with blue and white checkers slowly appeared from the stairs. A policeman slowly showed his face.

  ‘Chr—st,’ he thought. It was Ramsey – the man that had arrested him. He studied his wrinkled walnut-like forehead. His eyes were wide and not calm like his voice. Ned was trouble and Ramsey knew it. Goose bumps prickled up his arms and his index finger twitched on the trigger guard. He reached up and pulled his cigarette from his mouth.

  ‘G’day,’ Ramsey said. He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.

  ‘What do ya know?’ Ned said.

  ‘Not much, bloke,’ Ramsey said. ‘I just wanna chat.’ He put his hat back on.

  Ned pouted. ‘Chat away.’

  Ramsey gazed at him a few seconds. ‘What are ya intensions, son?’

  Ned shrugged, understanding his silence was an answer. He repositioned the rifle and straightened his stiff elbow.

  ‘Put the gun down!’ someone shouted. A young officer, his pistol drawn, appeared from the shadows. It was the kid that had booked him.

  ‘Hey, shut up, you idiot!’ Ned shouted. ‘Let the old man talk.’

  Ramsey barked at the lawn, ‘Knock it off, Constable!’

  Ned reached up and inhaled on his cigarette. But the kid didn’t back off. Ned looked at Ramsey and nodded at the kid. ‘He’s a persistent little bugger.’

  There was a tense silence then Ned exhaled his smoke, a little nervously.

  ‘I’m not sure about this bloke, Sergeant,’ the kid said.

  Ned looked at Ramsey. ‘You gonna tell him to put a sock in it?’

  But Ramsey said nothing. He was staring at Ned, breathing.

  I can see it in his eyes, Ned thought, Ramsey’s gonna be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. They’re gonna trap me, cuff me and stick me behind bars.

  ‘Let me go, Ramsey,’ he said quietly. ‘I gotta chance if you let me clean this up.’

  Ramsey remained quiet. He wasn’t backing off.

  ‘To hell with it,’ Ned thought. He looked at the kid and began waving the barrel around. ‘How’s that, you little sh—t?’ he said. ‘Like that?’

  ‘Now, come on, Ned,’ Ramsey said.

  Ned glanced at him, seeing the wrinkles of his forehead had now completely ironed out.

  ‘Be reasonable,’ Ramsey said. ‘Let’s cool this. Put the gun down or go back inside.’

  They were on the edge and everyone knew it. But at the end of this story was jail. Ned felt the muscles in his face loosen with beautiful, sure, sure anger. He knew he would act with a violence that was hard for a normal man to understand. He moved the barrel about and another policeman appeared from under the veranda, gun drawn.

  ‘Hold it!’ he said. ‘Put it down!’

  Ramsey crouched and the kid’s eye came right over the sight.

  ‘Ya better not go ahead with this, you c—ts!’ Ned shouted.

  But Ramsey started unclipping his holster a
nd Ned saw his hand on the grip. Sweat on his forehead began dribbling down into his eye and he did not wipe it.

  ‘Is this the way it’s gonna be?’ Ned said. He watched a drop of sweat run down Ramsey’s cheek.

  Ramsey gripped the pistol tighter, ready like a gunfighter. For a brief moment Ned remembered Lermontov, glimpsing a link between himself and Pechorin – so easily drawn into a duel, so simply unsatisfied with life. He blew his cigarette from his mouth.

  ‘Don’t f—king box me in, pig.’

  ‘Put it down! Put it down!’ started from every direction. All the policemen were in the open; Karen was screaming from the road.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Ned shouted, and it reverberated right across the street.

  Ch—t, it’s on, he thought. It’s really on.

  He turned, levelled the barrel at the kid and the boy’s eyelids slid right back over his eyeballs. He raised the SKS to his shoulder and Ramsey had no choice but to pull his gun. Ned swung the muzzle towards him and pulled the trigger. A foot-long Howitzer-like flash lit up the veranda. A chunk of the stair exploded into splinters and started raining down on the deck like confetti. Ned watched the spent shell in slow motion, spinning in the porch light like a flicked coin.

  There was dead silence – no one believed it.

  Above the house, frightened fruit bats flapped away across the night sky.

  The kid took aim, Ned saw the pistol kick and heard a bumble bee whip past his shoulder, feeling a sudden change in air pressure. Ramsey scrambled up the stairs for better aim and fired. There was a tremendous racket across the lawn, like exploding Chinese fire crackers. Ned crouched and felt the bees begin flying around him – he still had not been hit.

  Ramsey’s spent shells sounded like dropped change on the deck. A bumble bee tugged at Ned’s sleeve and he could see the kid through the railings. He stood, pulled the trigger and the fence post split apart. The kid sprinted off like a startled rabbit and Ned continued firing, chasing him, feeling the abrupt knock, knock of the rifle butt against his shoulder. The kid disappeared behind the engine of a patrol car.

  A cloud of cordite was hovering over the deck and Ned began stepping back. His boots knocked on the wood in the silence.

  ‘Anyone else want a go?’ he shouted. ‘Come on! Bring something heavier next time!’

  Just then, something exploded in the screen door and a great gulp of air passed him. Someone was in the house! He saw a silhouette in the fly screen and heard a shotgun cocking. Then, there was a great muzzle flash, a box of razorblades exploded inside his torso and he spun around. He tried to swear but couldn’t. He turned full circle, found his balance and his rifle kicked and kicked repeatedly. The door jumped off the hinges, falling to the deck and a man started screaming like someone was cutting his leg off.

  An immense chill swept Ned’s face; it was the point of no return.

  ‘Why did you have to come here?’ he shouted. He heard sirens wailing in the distance, slipped on the boards on his own blood and dropped the rifle. A bee bit off his ear and he slapped the side of his head then curled up like a child.

  ‘Got ’im!’ someone said. ‘Got ’im! He’s down!’

  Ned slowly crawled inside the bedroom window and slumped onto the floor. His ears were ringing and his face was wet with blood. He could hear boots coming down the deck, his heart was throbbing and he rested his hand on the warm gooey mess. He hocked, spat and a line of muck ran down his cheek. More was coming and he knew it would not stop.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to end like this,’ he thought. He could hear Ramsey on the other side of the wall, changing magazines. His injury started to hurt and he gripped his shirt, pulling it tight. He slowly raised his head and looked at the wall. He saw, very clearly, glimpses of his past as if cast by a projector – the childhood beatings; his mother telling him he would never be anything. He rested his head on the floor and looked at the light bulb in the dark. He remembered lying on his back in the boxing tent after being knocked down.

  ‘There’s still hope,’ he thought. ‘Maybe, I’ll get out of this – just maybe jail ain’t so bad and they’ll let me write. I’ll finish and I’ll be home.’

  He waited, listening to his breathing. He felt it slowing and himself sinking.

  ‘No,’ he thought, ‘I’m pretty sure I’m done. I’ve been finally knocked down.’

  And with that, Ned slowly released his grip and felt himself, at last, letting go.