by Tim Winton
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—