Cloudstreet

by Tim Winton

  I don’t reckon I can go through with it, says Pansy.

  Shoulda thought that when you were goin through with somethin else, Chub sneers.

  Oriel glares and Chub backs off.

  Make a pot, love, she says to Lester. And get the girl a drink.

  He’s hungry, says Rose.

  He’s lookin at me, says Fish. He knows me. He loves me.

  We’ll call him Harry, Quick announces.

  Not on your life.

  Lookit the little larrikin. He’s a homebuilt Harry if I ever saw one.

  Oop! Hold im Quick. I’ve got—

  What? I can’t do—I don’t know.

  Take him, you useless drongo, says Oriel.

  Oooer, what’s that? someone calls.

  And to think we were blessed farmers, Oriel mutters, catching the placenta in the bucket and swabbing Rose a moment.

  He’s waxy, says Quick.

  Wax Harry, Lester grins.

  Put the kettle on, I said.

  Put your teeth in.

  What? Have I, oh I, my—

  Wax Harry, says Fish.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Oriel says.

  Is it alive? The ragged voice cuts the room silent. Dolly swings on her heels in the doorway, face yellow and streaky.

  Yes, says Rose. It’s a boy.

  Well, Dolly says, squeezing out a silent belch. You can all just go out and leave her alone. I’m a grandmother. Good night.

  The room sighs, the house breathes its first painless breath in half a century and outside the pig is going at it balls to the wall, giving it his all, like an angel in a pig’s body, like a bacon choir, like the voice of God Himself pouring up through the fruit trees, rattling the tin fence, shaking the old smells from the walls and the worry from the paintwork, till it spills out on the street where they’re already celebrating something else, something they’ve been waiting for in their beds all year.

  X

  Long, Hot, Peaceful Days

  SUMMER came again to Cloudstreet. Quick got his transfer to Traffic. During the long, hot, peaceful days, Rose took Wax Harry down to the river and lay in the creamy sand with him the way she’d promised herself she would. Harold Samson Lamb fisted sand and dead jellyfish into his mouth. He was dark haired and black eyed, outrageously uncircumcized and stubborn. He grew browner, healthier, gamer. When Quick came home from a shift he couldn’t wait to play with him so he took to waking him up at midnight, at six, whenever. Harry learnt to roll, to crawl. Jealous grandmothers sneaked him out to their own rooms to feast on him uninterrupted. The household spoiled him rotten.

  The house was full of comings and goings. Repairs were planned, though nothing ever eventuated, and just the idea gave the place a fresh look. Out the front, the place looked like a dancehall parking lot. There was a Chev truck, the X-ray Rugby, an Oxford, an old Humber, a Harley and sidecar and Lon’s new FJ Holden that would never be paid for.

  Dolly had a few bingo friends come round occasionally nowadays. She often dragged them up to the library to see her grandson where they left fag ash all over the rug and cooed with the most breathtaking sincerity. To Rose they were a worthless mob of old croakers—bar leaners and bus stop bores—but that they so clearly adored her mother was enough for her to put up with these incursions. Sometimes Quick sat out on the stoop with Dolly to feed the magpies their topside chunks. He’d come to the conclusion that she was a bit of a character. Whenever Dolly was around the baby Rose got nervous. She was frightened of Dolly dropping him, full as she was at least half of the time, and she imagined him blinded by her jutting cigarette embers, clawed clumsily by her yellowing nails. Rose drilled herself in the discipline of refraining from panic, and as if to reward her, Harry was safe always.

  Lon and Pansy had a baby girl in the hospital. The corridor at Cloudstreet was full of their squalling and the baby slept through everything. They called her Merrileen-Gaye. Pansy was pregnant again before anyone was willing to believe it. She and Oriel did not speak, and very loud they were about it.

  Some afternoons Rose helped out down in the shop. Someone was building a modern supermarket across the rails, but the Lambs’ place still won all trade, and no one believed it could be any different. Rose liked the smell of the shop, the crates of vegetables sloped back along one wall, the fatty cold meats, boiled sweets, the zinc odour of the bottle caps collecting in the bucket they’d send to the Blind School every Friday. She went down one afternoon looking for Harry and found herself serving in the afterschool lolly rush. A ha’ppenorth of umbugs, lady! Tuppence a pennysticks, missus! Please, please, a bag uv snakes! She fought with the lids of the great glass jars and felt the weight of kids pressing from the other side of the counter. Rose doled out generous serves and won hearts. Next day they asked for her. On the third day, left alone for an hour after the rush, she rearranged the jars in a more practical order and found them all firmly replaced next day. Elaine daydreamed all morning about her fiance who was stringing their engagement into its sixth year, and she found in Rose a willing ear, though she’d wait till Oriel was out of the shop before starting in on another story of real romance.

  Lester came and went, as though distracted somehow. Rose sensed that he’d lost interest in the shop. He baked irregularly, made no icecream.

  Within a week, Rose had feelings about the shop. If Harry was impossible and kept her from it, she regretted it. Oriel noticed.

  They were wary of one another, Oriel and Rose. When Oriel came into the room she was all over it instantly, like a hot rash. She brought the place to attention just by entering it. Rose remembered the way she took command of a situation in a dozen crises—when Dolly was sick, when she herself was hurt, and she couldn’t think why the very strength of that woman’s actions felt so unforgivable. Her kindness was scalding, her protection acidic. Maybe it’s just me, thought Rose, maybe I can’t take it from her because my mother never gave it to me. What a proud bitch I am. But dammit, why does she always have to be right and the one who’s strong and the one who makes it straight, the one people come to? Why do I still dislike her, because she’s so totally trustworthy?

  Geez, Rose, Elaine said offhandedly one afternoon in a quiet moment between the shelves, you remind me so much of Mum when she was young. I can see why Quick married you.

  He didn’t, love, I married him, she said from some old reflex that took over in moments of terror.

  Ha, ha! Just like Mum. You’re a ringer, Rose!

  Rose choked.

  Oriel wasted nothing and she despised waste in others. There was no point walking from the shop to the kitchen for one task if it could incorporate five more and save walking. Nothing was thrown away, nothing written off to chance. When Oriel sent you to the butcher’s she armed you with a diagram of the cut she wanted, the name, weight and a list of defects to watch for. There was one way of storing eggs, one way of sealing a preserve jar. There was a way of looking after your breasts, a better way of pinning a nappy and an inspired way to get the shit off them, and you couldn’t take solace in the possibility that she might be wrong because she never was. You’d hold out stubbornly with your own inferior methods until you got sick of yourself and gave in with relief. When she found you doing it the right way she’d lay a hot, square hand on you and congratulate you as though you’d just thought up that ingenious method yourself.

  Yer a wonder, she’d say, Rose yer the real thing.

  And Rose never knew whether to leap for joy or puke.

  Fortune

  Sam Pickles was starting to slow down at work, all the blokes at the Mint knew it. He looked weaker these days and that cough of his took up as much of his time as working did. The men who worked on the hosco knew he wasn’t worth his day’s pay any more but they wouldn’t see him laid off until the silly old bugger couldn’t walk in through the gates of a morning. They were used to seeing him round; they liked to hear tips from him of a Friday afternoon about the weekend’s punting. Stories had sprung up around him, that he�
�d lost his fingers in some covert commando exercise in the war. He’d been at the Mint so long the young bods figured there must be gold dust in his pores by now. All the stories of his legendary bad luck started to ring suspicious to the young crew.

  Coming up for twenty years in the job, Sam still smuggled out duds, blanks and new releases, only nowadays they were for his grandson. No one checked him at the gate anymore, beyond the old question: Got any ingots in yer pockets, Sam? If he’d had any greed at all (some would have said any sense at all) he could have been making his pay ten times over.

  Twenty years ago, Sam Pickles might have been invisible at the sorting table. Nowadays it was all: Gday, Sam, and What’s the dirt, Sam? How’s things today, Sam? They talked to him like he was management and they expected him to work about as little. The last few years he walked around all day with a smile on his face, and wondered why no one would believe he was that unlucky. He lost at the races every weekend, more or less without relief, and if he died tomorrow he wouldn’t have enough money to bury himself, but the blokes swore he was onto something somehow, and their admiration was infectious. When he got home of an evening, Rose and Harry’d be in the kitchen often as not, and he’d sneak the boy a peppermint, bring down his two-up pennies and toss them off the paddle for him to get a giggle. Rose would fuss over his cough, pour him a cup of tea, and he was hardpressed to feel unlucky.

  He seemed to be growing smaller.

  A thought occurred to him. In a year or so he could sell this house, cop the profits and retire to some little place by the sea, maybe even back up in. Geraldton, or Greenough—yes, Greenough where summers had been so good so long ago. He’d mention it to Dolly, he thought, but he never did. The two of them sat in the kitchen by the wood stove without real antagonism, in silence most evenings, with the sounds of the house around them. Harry might squeal upstairs at bedtime, kicking the wall in protest.

  He’s givin er a run for er money tonight, Dolly would say.

  Yairs. Cheeky little bugger.

  Needs is bum kicked.

  Yairs. He’s a one orright.

  And that would be it. The kettle would growl. Water moaned in the pipes. The wireless came on.

  Sam went to bed at nine with a Daily News and a glass of VO, thinking that he might just live to see his fortune. His hacking cough had become a comforting, familiar sound in the house, innocent as a boy’s bronchitis.

  News

  The Nedlands Monster comes to trial but he’s forced off the front page by the Kennedy assassination. Rose comes across the startling byline: by Toby Raven, exclusive and feels a smile on her face.

  A letter comes from State Housing demanding that they move into their new house. She looks at it, gives it to Quick who sighs.

  Soon, he says, when we’re settled.

  No hurry, she says.

  1963 turned toward 1964. Cloudstreet sweetened up like a ship under full sail. The only shadows were the shadows of nature, the products of strong, direct light, and as the stonefruit came out again there was laughter, shopjokes at noon in the corridors, and kidsilliness all evening. The lines were strung with nappies that flapped like pennants above the tiny scratching chicks who escaped their mothers to forage in the grass. The place stank of happiness, but the world went on its way. The Nedlands Monster got the Hangman’s promise. The city went wild with exaltation. There were hanging parties, theme nights, ugly jokes.

  Whacko! said Quick, turning the pages of the paper. They gave him death. Thank God for that.

  Good riddance, said Rose, giving Harry her breast.

  Oriel and Lester looked horrified at one another. Lester put his finger to his lip, advising caution, but Oriel couldn’t help herself.

  Killin is men’s business, she said, not God’s. If you think it’s somethin to celebrate leave God out of it.

  Quick smiles in disbelief. What’ve you gone soft on the Monster all of a sudden?

  He’s only a man, said Lester.

  What about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

  Barbarism! snarls Oriel. That’s for primitive tribes.

  Gawd, she’s gone all modern on us. What about the Bible, Mum, that’s your old inspiration isn’t it? I’ve seen you out there with it, burnin the midnight candle. I know what you’re doin out there where no one can see you.

  Oriel flushed.

  Oriel, come on outside, said Lester. The old girl had water on her cheeks. Rose gaped and even Wax Harry left off feeding to stare. Oriel held herself firm before them awhile, mustering up her message, but she seemed to collapse in the face right at the end, and went out running.

  Gawd, said Quick. What was that all about?

  Lester rubbed his hands together absently. Principles, Quick.

  Quick winked at Rose whose face showed worry cracks all of a sudden. What’s that? I thought she only cared about work. Mum’s principles are work, work and work.

  That’s right.

  Well?

  Lester took off his glasses a moment: You don’t understand what she works at, do you?

  Obviously not, said Quick with a smirk.

  Then Lester pulled a little book out of his shirt pocket the size of a harmonica. He found a page and read: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

  Quick snorted nervously. It’s from another time. She doesn’t even believe it.

  She tries, said Lester, putting the book away. That’s her work.

  But she can’t believe it, said Quick. Not since Fish. She can’t.

  But she tries, Quick, can’t you see?

  Now old Lester’s lips began to quiver and he had to go outside to join Oriel.

  Gawd, said Quick.

  Fishing

  Early Sunday morning, dressed for a fishing trip he never intended to make, Lester Lamb stands at the back of the cathedral and watches the micks go about their business. He can’t make head or tail of what they’re saying up front, and he doesn’t quite know how to feel about the gorgeous vaulted ceilings of the place and the way it smells like a bank, but when it comes time for them all to file up the front and take the wine and the wafer he feels a sort of homesickness come upon him. Even the sight of them kneeling to the men in uniform doesn’t poison it for him; it’s the pleasantest kind of melancholy, and he knows there’ll be other Sundays like this, secret, strange.

  Afterwards he parks the Chev down by the river and plays his spitpacked old harmonica, wondering about himself.

  ThePast

  On Rose’s birthday, Quick slips into a florist’s shop in uniform to buy flowers for Rose and Dolly and Oriel. Lucy Wentworth stares at him from behind the counter, huge in her pinny, lips painted up, teeth smudgy with the stuff, and she treats him like any girl will treat a traffic cop in leathers. Maybe it’s the uniform, he thinks, uncertain whether or not he should be grateful. He buys roses for his mother who won’t approve of them and daffs for Dolly and Rose and watches Lucy wrap them in a trumpet of paper. She hands them over smiling. Quick gives her money, gets change and walks out. Riding home on the BSA, he feels the flowers pressed against his legs concealed beneath the wind tarp across his knees, and he can’t help but be relieved she didn’t recognize him. Maybe he owed her a favour because right now it felt like she’d done him one years back.

  Waiting

  In the tent at night, and sometimes on her knees on the duckboards, Oriel Lamb looks out at the house and wonders what it is that still holds her from it. It’s full of light and sweetness now in a way it’s never been before, but why can she still not go back? A whole life of waiting for answers that don’t come. Wait, Oriel, keep strong Mum, keep the steel, you’ll see. Oh, how I missed you all my life. You’ll see it’s best this way. Wait.

  Floate
r

  Quick likes it on Traffic. There’s still some lair in him from younger days; the bikes and the speed still do things for him. He has the whole city as his beat either side of the river and all the way to the coast, and for the first time in months he relaxes a little. He knocks off drunks and speed merchants, faulty vehicles and sideswipers, and he turns up to prangs ahead of the ambulance, siren first, notebook later. It’s cut and dried, rules and regs, safe as houses. Until the day he pulls in by the river for his cheese and pickle sandwiches late one afternoon and sees what two kids paddling an upturned car roof have already found. Facedown, a floater on the incoming tide.

  Boots, leggings, leather and all, Quick slams into the water with the spray glugging up in his helmet. The river tastes sweet and rotten. A mullet bounces off his thigh and one of those kids is crying. When he gets to the facedown child, he hoists him over, ready to scream, ready to take this river apart, and he finds he’s an hour late to save a life. Cold as welfare, a body light enough to lift one armed. With him over his shoulder and the other kids in tow, Quick wades out scowling before a crowd. On the bank he feels for a pulse, for any hope at all, but this boy is long gone. His skin is already doughy, his clouded eyes look up at the canopy of rising midges, his lips purse in a terrible, naked kiss which moves Quick to cover the face with his own hands. The sight sets off too many thoughts. In time, a siren comes keening, men come at the run, and Quick Lamb is forced to take his hands away and see it for what it is. That’s Harry’s face. That’s his own boyhood face, that miserable washed out set of features there on the ambulance stretcher. That’s the sight of the world ending, someone’s son dead. Then it hits him. That’s my brother. This is my life over again. This will always be happening.