Cloudstreet

by Tim Winton

  He listened to the sound of a bird nearby, a sort of gasping noise at the edge of the wheat. He’d never heard it before in all the time he’d been living out like this, five nights a week. Bill was standing firm all of a sudden, and whining under his breath. Quick held the dog’s head and felt the damp, loose flesh beneath his jaw. The bird noise was a little cough out there now. He took up the rifle and cocked it.

  It’s orright, boy. Looks like I missed one, that’s all. Poor bugger’s out there chokin.

  It was a good fifty yards out across the roo-battered fence to the edge of the crop. Out of the spotlight now, Quick could only follow the outlines and contours of things, but he could see plain enough where the wheat was moving. A long way out, on the faintest rise, he could see the heads of other roos grazing in the quiet. Once he saw the wheat moving, he strode out beyond the spot and took the safety catch back.

  He felt the hind legs in his chest before he even saw the darkness of it rearing, paws out, and within a second all he could see was the Southern Cross up there, clear as a road sign above the tight blonde heads of wheat. There was the cracking echo of the three-oh as it fell to the ground beside him—or was it the crack of his head on a stone?—and in the quiet aftewards there was the slow, strangling sound of the animal only an arm’s length away. The whining of the dog above. The sound of blood marching across him, establishing a beachhead on his chest.

  After a while, the kangaroo died and gave out a stinking evacuative snort. Bill turned circles. Time proceeded. The light from the spotty on the ute began to fade as the battery juiced out. Quick watched the Southern Cross melt into the great maw of darkness.

  Light comes across the sky, a great St Elmo’s fire of a thing, turning and twisting till it fishtails towards the earth and is gone.

  Quick feels the blood setting like Aquadhere in his nose. He wonders where the light went. If he can’t walk he’ll die out here. That’s a dead ute, now. In a moment he’ll have to try. No use putting it off. Bound to be able to walk.

  Out of the slumber of giants he comes, and there in the waking world with the Southern Cross hanging over him is his brother Fish rowing a box across the top of the wheat.

  Quick pushes the sound against his teeth. Fish?

  HARVEY ORANGES says the box. The oars are tomato stakes. Fish’s body is silver with flight.

  Fish?

  Carn.

  Quick stares. The box comes to a halt a few feet out from him and Fish is leaning out, causing it to rock precariously. It’s floating up there. I’m under it, thinks Quick, I’m under water, under something. God Almighty, I’m gonna drown.

  Carn, says Fish. He lowers his hand.

  Quick lies still. That’s not his brother that’s a man. That’s a man’s arm.

  Carn, Quick. Let’s go fishin.

  Fish?

  Yeah?

  Am I orright?

  Fish widens his eyes a moment, then closes them to let out a long crackling laugh. Quick squints at the sound of it, cowering. When the laugh is all emptied out, Fish rests his chin on the gunwale of the fruit box, looks down dreamily.

  Carn, Quick.

  Quick looks up, uncertain.

  Carn, Quick.

  I can’t.

  The dog is whining, turning circles.

  Quick?

  I can’t, I can’t!

  Ya love me?

  Yes! Yeah, Fish. Quick struggles to keep the panicky weeping out of his throat. But, I just can’t move.

  Fish is looking at the dog now. Bill looks back, agitated.

  Where you goin, Fish?

  Fish leans down, slouching the box over till you’d expect the sound of water or night sky sloshing into it and arms the dog up into the box. Quick feels a bead of saliva fall on his brow.

  You goin home, Fish?

  The Big Country.

  The box rights itself again and Bill barks in excitement as it pulls away a little. Fish holds the dog between his knees. He’s too damn big for a fruit box. He looks bloody stupid, that’s what, a man rowing a crate. Across the wheat. Across the still waters of the sunburnt crop wherein lies Quick Lamb breathing without help, with the Southern Cross hanging above, rippling now, badly seen, beyond the surface.

  He took my bloody dog.

  Goanna Oil

  Old Wentworth found him unconscious under a mound of boisterous flies in the afternoon, roasting like a pig at a party.

  Yer bloody lucky a man wuz goin by on the orf chance! the old farmer shouted over the sound of the FJ whose gear box was shot to bits already. Yer woulda died sure as shit I reckon.

  Quick watched the gravel ahead. The dog was gone, but the three-oh was beside him. He wasn’t sure about himself at all. He went to sleep.

  Late at night he woke headsore and stiff under a sheet on a cot. He looked about. It was Wentworth’s place. They’d lately turned the verandah on the shady side into a sort of sleepout with flyscreens and an old chest of drawers with boyish graffiti scratched into it. It was a cool evening, though Quick could feel the heat radiating from his skin. His chest was taped and there was a bandage across his nose. He could hear them talking in there, Wentworth and his missus. And the girl, their daughter. They’d had the doctor out, he knew. Well, that took care of the week’s pay, the quack and the board they’d charge him. Wentworth had been the one to give him his first shooting job, a break alright, but the old boy was a mean bastard, tight as a noose. He didn’t give anything away, not even kindness. But I’m orright, thought Quick, I’m orright, and he sank back into a blank, overheated sleep.

  Quick woke again and there was Wentworth’s daughter, Lucy. She was rubbing his blistered skin with goanna oil. He’d never really spoken to her before in all his coming and going from the homestead, and here she was, smelling of horse, her hair a dirty blonde colour, her jodphurs feasting on her.

  Is that really your name? she said. Quick Lamb?

  Yeah, he said as she slipped a finger into his bellybutton.

  Because you’re fast? Her hands were ducking and diving under the waistband of his shorts.

  Nah. No.

  Quick had never been rubbed by a girl before. He’d never even kissed a girl. At school he was too sad and slow for romance. And now he looked at the short and bottley Lucy Wentworth and knew he wasn’t interested even now, but he couldn’t bring himself to object about her slipping her grabbers into his boxers.

  You’re blushin.

  How can you tell?

  You just went red in the white bits.

  He felt her grip on his dick. He was glad he’d put on clean undies last night. It was a bit of home-thinking he couldn’t shake off. Lucy Wentworth had the grip of a crop duster pilot.

  I’m going to live in Perth, she murmured.

  Oh? It was all he could manage in the circumstances.

  I’m gonna have a flower shop. A floristry.

  Mmngh?

  My Dad’s gonna set me up.

  Hhhyeah?

  He just doesn’t know it yet.

  Hhhhow long have you planned to do that?

  Oh, she chuckled, I just thought of it. Only three minutes ago. I just got it all figured out. She squeezed and put him through a few manoeuvres that ended in a long, stalling climb which had Quick Lamb shuddering at the point of blackout. Then she abandoned the controls altogether and left him dusting crop at high revs.

  As Lucy Wentworth went inside with a slap of the screen door Quick was contemplating a victory roll, though he thought better of it. His skin was so tight it was hurting now to breathe, and he could feel his pulse stretching him at points all over. Then he felt sort of guilty in a way he didn’t understand. For a long time he listened to the shifting timbers of the homestead, the clink of dog chain out in the yard, the cicadas dozing in the wheat.

  Sleep, Quick, and smell the water leaching. Can’t you hear the boy in the boxboat calling? I’m calling, brotherboy, and you won’t come. And the waters shall fall from the sea, and the river shall be wasted a
nd dried up. And they shall turn the rivers far away and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. From me to you, the river. In me and you, the river. Of me and you, the river. Cam, Quick!

  Safety Off

  In one week five cockies sign Quick Lamb up to protect their crops. They know he’s the best shot the district’s ever seen and there’s no reason why they should give a stuff about rumours. Lucy Wentworth is not their problem. Roos are. Coming on toward harvest time, as if it isn’t enough to worry about early rain, the boomers are moving in from the desert—reds, and greys alike—eating their way overland. Mobs of blokes hurtle around the paddocks at night with shotguns and crates of Swan Lager doing more damage to the crop than the plague itself and blowing each other’s ears off in a regular fashion. Quick Lamb buys an old Dodge with multiple spots, fixes himself a cage on the back to shoot from, and starts earning dinkum money.

  Summer is on the land like fever. Pink zink plastered on him, Quick sleeps the day away beneath the tarp on the back of his truck. He misses his dog. Now and then he’ll spend a morning burning rooticks out of his flesh with a red-hot piece of fencing wire, then lapse back into the stupor of a western. And at night he drives to water and shoots. The bed of the truck becomes varnished with blood until the weekends when he goes to town to scrub out, cash in and sleep up. Saturday nights he sees Lucy Wentworth, or various moonstruck parts of her, in the cab of the truck, parked up some dwindling road behind a decrepit grove of salmon gums.

  You’ve got a huge whanger, she says. That’s what I like about you, Quick. A head like that, it’d be eligible to vote.

  He never thinks about her much, though he doesn’t object to wrestling her round the cab. He figures he’s along for the experience, and mostly he doesn’t feel that guilty at all. He looks at himself naked in the mirror. It isn’t that big. Time just goes along. It proceeds. The summer hardens.

  Then a strange thing begins. One night by a dam, as he waits for the roos, he hears the familiar bashing in the wheat and raises the rifle with the spotlight ready. He hears the hacking of breath and sees the crop swaying in the dark. In comes the first silhouette, a leader, so far out in front of the rest that there’s no sign of the mob behind, and when it cracks from the dry, heady mass of wheat Quick hits the spot to get a look at the monster. But it’s a human, a man running raw and shirtless in the light. His face is tough with fear, there’s a sweat on him, and he runs right past and out of the light to the dark margins of bushland. Long after the runner is gone and the light turned out, Quick has the face burnt into his retina, because that face is his. It’s Quick Lamb barrelling by right before him.

  He doesn’t call out, he doesn’t go chasing him. He rolls a smoke and thanks God that he didn’t shoot.

  Coming up to harvest, it happens now and then. He’ll be sighted up by water and he’ll hit the light and see himself tearing out into the open, right in the sights, right under the first pressure of trigger, safety off. And it scares the skin off him. It starts to affect his shooting. He waits too long now, he lights up too early and loses half the mob. Quick never knows when he’ll see himself in their midst. He thinks about Fish coming in the fruit box. Am I orright? he thinks. Was he telling me true? What was he saying? Was I delirious?

  The Florist Shop

  Quick drove slowly through the great flat plain with her hand on his leg. The Dodge murmured away, sounding deceitfully healthy. The cab smelled of Brylcreem and old blood. Now and then, a ute passed, bellowing toward town for Saturday night, for beer and dancing. Quick wound down the window and rested his elbow on the sill. He didn’t know where he was driving—he just drove.

  What’s up with you tonight? Lucy asked. She had on a small waisted dress that was unkind to her. He saw her bobby sox on the dash in the corner of his eye.

  Nothin.

  Make a killin this week, didja? she said with a mirthless guffaw.

  Nup. I didn’t.

  Must be losin your eye, Quick Lamb, crackshot.

  Quick said nothing. That thing had been happening all this week, too. Seeing himself breaking out of the wheat into his sights. That made it a month, and he hadn’t shot a week’s worth in all that time.

  Crackshot. Make you think of anything?

  You don’t have to talk like that.

  Oh, Quick. I forgot you went to church. I bet all you do is look at those old ladies’ bums.

  Some of em have better bums n you.

  You bastard.

  Quick felt his throat tighten. I’m sorry, Luce. You shoulden push me like that. I take a lot of crap from you.

  And plenty more, you get plenty more, don’t forget, crackshooter. What other girls you got in town like me?

  Quick laughed. What others are there, full stop? Geez, ya haven’t got much competition.

  You’re so dumb, Quick Lamb.

  I believe it.

  Spose you feel sorry for me.

  Spose I do. A bit.

  Well, you shouldn’t.

  Quick shrugged. He’d slowed the Dodge so much they were barely moving. It seemed like a fine pace to him.

  You think I’m a, a conquest? she said.

  Nah. Nope. I never went after you. He thought: no you’re not a mountain I’d choose to climb without havin the idea put in me head.

  You come by every Saturday night, mate. Isn’t that comin after me?

  You asked me to, once.

  Oh, you’re just obedient then?

  Reckon I am. More than I should be. With you.

  So it’s just you takin orders. Whip me pants off, Quick. Get me knees up, Quick. It’s just you bein obedient? She was starting to snarl now. Quick let the Dodge ride to a stop on the gravel shoulder.

  Well, you have a nice way of askin sometimes.

  You bastard. I taught you everything you know!

  Who taught you?

  You bloody bastard! You thought your dick was for cleanin your rifle before I took you in.

  Did you take me in?

  What do you reckon?

  Quick looked at her face, green in the light of the speedo. There was always going to be something waiting for him at the end of this, and maybe he deserved it, going along without any feeling at all. Maybe he was a bastard. But things had just gone along like this without him caring either way. She was around, he was around; he got used to it.

  Trouble is, she said, I got to like you.

  Quick felt a hot blur of embarrassment. He opened the door. The air was warm and breadscented. He turned the motor off and got out.

  Hey Quick, you’re not … are you?

  What?

  Leaving me here, I thought you were gonna leave me out here.

  She got out, stood on the doorsill and looked across the roof at him.

  Don’t be daft. I want some air, and while I’m out here I reckon I’ll take a piss, orright?

  She giggled nervously: you’re a duck, Quick. A sittin duck. You’re dumber than a post.

  Quick said nothing. He heard her coming round his side of the truck as he unbuttoned his flies. The sky lit up over the wheat round a bend in the road. A car coming. He tried to hurry.

  Can’t you go? she said with a laugh, grabbing his arms from behind.

  Leave off, willya!

  The headlights splayed out across the ripe paddocks, veering through the bend. Quick shrugged her off and felt his stream ease out at last. He forced it along, knowing he was beyond stopping now. He thought he had a few seconds. He tried to be cool, but the note of the motor coming out of the bend wasn’t reassuring. There it was, bolting out of him like he hadn’t had a leak in his whole life before. Coming out of the bend, the lights hit the top of the cab. Quick tried a complete shutdown, failed, and started crabwalking for some shelter behind the truck, but when he turned round he saw Lucy sta
nding in nothing but her bobby sox. That’s how the lights hit them, full whack, him with his dick out, and Lucy with those big breasts in her hands. The car pulled up, brakes snickering.

  Evening, said the Shire Clerk.

  Well, said Quick.

  Quick packed up the Dodge and was gone within an hour. The town was afire with gossip and Lucy Wentworth, beside herself with happiness, began her negotiations for the florist shop at breakfast. Her father, who’d been at the dance when the Shire Clerk arrived, took out his account book to do his sums. His face was the colour of gunpowder. Mrs Went-worth wept. She blew her nose absently on the teacosy and wondered how she could ever go into town again.

  Well, thinks Quick as the Dodge runs smooth and unhurried between walls of wheat into the even plain ahead. Well, that’s that. That’s that, for sure and certain. All the heat has gone out of him now and he’s noticing things. Like they’ll be harvesting here any day now, any day at all. Like he has a quarter of a tank of juice left. Like he’s not sure about himself, what he thinks, what he’ll do. He drives away from the dawn.

  Outside Bruce Rock, at the beginning of the faintest morning light, he sees a blackfella standing with his thumb out and a gladstone bag at his feet. He is tall, white eyed and half grownover with beard. Quick takes his foot off the pedal a moment, but drives on. A few miles down the road he’s out by the gravel shoulder again—thumb out, bag down. Quick, who isn’t in the mood to think it through, pulls over and opens the door.

  Ta, the man murmurs, getting in. He seems to fill the cab, even with the gladstone bag on his knees.

  Quick winds his window down all the way and then begins to wonder.

  Wanna smoke?

  Yeah. Ta.

  Quick passes him the pouch and watches him roll. The road goes on.

  Hungry? the black man asks after a few miles.

  Yeah, I could do with a bite.

  From his gladstone bag the stranger takes a bottle and a loaf of white bread.

  Whacko, says Quick.