We'll Stand In That Place and other stories

by Michelle Cahill

  There’s not one mention of music. So things dawdle as I wait eagerly for the evening sing-along.

  I eat, chat. It’s all footy and ageing ailments, family tales and politics.

  Finally, the time arrives. Now that the men of Dad’s generation are older, they appear embarrassed by the whole idea. ‘Elate, elate,’ persists Christo, mustering the males inside.

  Men grunt and moan. More than a few mutter, ‘C’m’offit, Chris.’

  Christo feigns obliviousness, genially waving and ushering us in. Some men laugh, some snigger, others—at least I hope there are others—conceal their eagerness as we enter.

  ‘Don’t tell Mum about this,’ Dad says.

  ‘You never know,’ says Niko, ‘he may enjoy it.’

  Anyone who is able to stand does so; all seats are reserved for the elderly. A few young girls, from about five to eight years of age, are at the front next to Dad seated on the piano stool. Christo stands next to Dad. One boy is there too, but the rest have snuck outside or are hanging well back.

  The room heats up in the crowded space while Dad stretches his hands. There is a casual muttering from the men around my father’s age. Thankfully, their audible chatter is drowned out in a sea of shushes. Dad begins to play. I haven’t heard him in years. Now that I’ve studied music—we use the keyboard in composition classes—I have a clearer, more objective perspective. He’s actually good, bit hard on the keys, no concert pianist, but he’s far better than me. A few ladies clap on recognising the piece. Nick’s eyes start waltzing around the room, pausing at the painted plates before finally stopping at the African statues. He nudges me to look up at them too. ‘Nuru would be mortified.’ He giggles. I step on his foot with my heel, causing his face to jump. He nods an apology.

  Theia Irini’s eyes are now a little brighter from her lounge chair. I have to really swivel my head around to see her. Then the women and Christo and older men join in. ‘Two Green Eyes’ is the song. Sounds like an Italian tune to me and probably is one. I try to sing along; the lyrics are easy—not that I understand all of them. I wish Dad would sing. I’m sending those singing vibes his way—after all, I’ve heard him croon the same tune in the shower.

  When the song ends, there’s a clap and then this peculiar mood. It’s as if something has occurred, something weird, what they’d call an obscure ‘mishap’ in those old American films set in the Deep South. Dad jerks around to view us, almost toppling a little girl with loopy hair behind the piano chair. He doesn’t touch her but she falls anyway. A concentrated silence blankets us all, it’s as if we’re mortified for ourselves, or for Christo and Dad. She bounces back up, however, all ready for the next song, as buoyant as her hair.

  Christo’s face, which now reminds me of a Byzantine icon, has netted everyone’s attention. My dad plays again. This song is a little more upbeat: ‘Yerakina’. I’m clueless to what it means. Could be a name I suppose. I know the song and despite the rumble-like moan of protests from almost all the men at the back, Niko included, I join in as noisily as possible. The younger men’s faces don’t seem as averse as my dad’s generation. His era contains expressions that proclaim Christo and Dad lost idiots. This isn’t a modern party. Where’s the sushi? Where’s the Champagne? The beer? Where’s the bloody modern music? Or modern Greek even? Or if not that, then a little jazz in the background? The applause, afterwards, without the men’s support, dwindles.

  Christo and Dad effortlessly move into another song. I think it’s a rembetiko—or even older, I’m not sure. I’m transfixed by the melody: slow and haunting and bittersweet. ‘Tzivaeri’: Woe! It was me who sent him away. My Tzivaeri. I willingly, slowly step over the earth. And then: Woe! That you took my small child. My Tzivaeri and made him yours. Slowly I step over the earth. Only the elderly voices sing along with Christo to this one, it’s like a visible divide, a line of protest from the crowd—this we will not partake in! Christo’s voice is forlorn and defiant, reaching upwards and downwards, trembling with feeling. This belongs to him, this song from distant and long-ago place. Theia Irini weeps from red-rimmed eyes. Other elderly women tear-up in their chairs. Children at the front are funereal quiet. The men of my dad’s generation fume. A silent fuming but you can still hear it: the nerve of him in this day and age. Even most of the women of Dad’s, and I might add, Christo’s generation, who may have sung along before, have lips pursed. A few heels tap, not to the music, but with anxiety. Why does it upset them all so? Outside of the home and Theia Irini, what has changed over the past six or seven years?

  Christo hangs his head at the end of the song. Now I see Christo, past the eyes, past the nursing. An undeniable talent. It’s an alienated talent, a talent of a bygone and soon-to-be-lost era. We’ve all witnessed it—including the disgruntled men.

  Yet there is no applause but for arthritic hands, hands not loud enough to create any volume. I am the only truly audible clapper, which earns peculiar glances. I clap louder and louder: I clap for the song, I clap for the past, I clap for Christo, for Dad. For Theia Irini and the ladies of her vintage, who no longer have the strength to be heard.

  Dad closes the piano. Three songs only. At the grander house, when I was younger, there was always a dozen or more.

  The last song though was not imagined. Nobody wants to discuss it later as we sip our coffees and teas and brandies.

  On leaving, I shake Christo’s hand firmly, wanting the familiarity my father has with him, wanting to kiss both of his cheeks.

  Cat Empire plays on the radio while we drive home. ‘Poor guy,’ says Dad, referring to Christo. ‘How about we help Mum select pieces tomorrow for her next exhibition?’ asks Dad, devoid of any sense of segue. ‘Think we’ll invite Niko and Nuru, over for dinner too.’

  ‘Niko and Mum?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Hot chocolate?’

  ‘Yep.’

  All I can think of though is the Do. ‘I’m coming again next year,’ I say.

  ‘Couldn’t you hear the death knell after that final song, Loukas? That’s the last of them. The final Do.’

  What had changed? It wasn’t the small venue alone. They were the same songs as the old days, only fewer.

  Three Dog Night

  K.W. George

  S he pulls up and turns off the engine some way from the house but even so the dogs begin barking. Three of them bouncing at the fence, all looking like they had several fathers between them. There’s little point approaching while they’re in a frenzy so she moves to the verge to look right, then left, then right again before she crosses the road—because it’s the country and the utes and four-wheel-drives travel like they have places to be before nightfall. Places where vehicles cross cattle grids bumping up to homes with glowing lights. Places where children do homework at a big wooden table and washing is strung out in front of the fire. Not for her that life, not now. More than likely never again.

  Across the tarmac, a paddock with a barbed-wire fence stretches to the lumpy hills. Cows, their ribs showing, their jaws gently grinding, pause to stare at her. They are black all over, the soft winter light blurring their outlines, like bears.

  She gazes back at the house, and the bare yard, the dogs sitting to attention in the dirt behind the chicken wire. The old Queenslander is closed-up like a clam shell. A piece of rusty corrugated iron creaks in the chilly evening breeze, and a bare-limbed tree hangs its head. Papery leaves and a chip packet flutter against the fence.

  The cows, losing interest, bend to the sparse grass again. She checks for traffic and returns to the house and the dogs sit quietly as if this is the biggest event of the day. When she reaches the gate they crowd around and wag their tails. The latch is sticky, requiring some force to shove the metal open, and one dog licks at her hand as if to apologise.

  She goes up the well-worn stairs. At the top is a white trellised door with a brass knob and inside, on the veranda, is the hairy old sofa with the shabby armrests. Behind the sofa, French doors allow her a glimp
se into a darkened room with heavy furniture. She reaches up to the top of the lintel for the key and slides it into the lock.

  The house smells of stale oil frying in a pan. It feels cold and neglected. She longs to throw it open to the elements and sweep away the dust, the detritus of loneliness. She wants to leave the front door open—it’s almost warmer out than in—but a dog has followed her up the stairs. Murmuring ‘Sorry,’ she closes the door in its face.

  Her boots clump down the passage floorboards. She passes the main bedroom on the left, the living room on the right, the murky bathroom. In the kitchen, on the table, the last bars of sunlight lie across the plastic cloth like a gift. The plastic is faded blue, with a solitary jar of Sanitarium peanut butter on its surface, and breadcrumbs. She feels them under her fingertips. She pulls out a chair but instead of sitting, she moves to stand at the window with the torn lace curtain and lifts it to one side. Desiccated fly bodies litter the sill, and the glass is mottled with dirt, but in the distance, beside the shed, the angular limbs of the old jacaranda glimmer whitely, as if the old tree is acknowledging her.

  The dogs have gathered on the back staircase and watch her with tilted heads. Perhaps they want their dinner? Sliding the bolt on the door, she opens it, and looks out at them. ‘Where’re your bowls?’

  While she is feeding them she checks under the house for wood. Carrying a number of logs, she retreats back upstairs. She lays the logs on top of newspaper and kindling in the old Aga stove, but she doesn’t light it. Sitting down, she shoves her hands into her pockets to keep them warm, but after a while she rises and paces the floor. She can’t keep still.

  Dark out now, and absolutely calm. A cow lowing somewhere. A vehicle approaching from a long way off, the tyres humming on the bitumen then dwindling into the distance. The rafters creaking and the water pipes ticking. A dog snuffling at the door. Let me in, let me in.

  The big black and white clock on the wall says five minutes past six. She reaches for a glass above the sink and forces herself to drink water. Then she wants to pee. Or thinks she wants to.

  She urinates in the gloom with the door open. Averts her eyes from the gleaming coldness of the washstand, the solitary razor, the single toothbrush with the flared bristles. The icy tap water runs over her hands. A thin, stiff towel is slung over the rack and she uses it, putting it back and positioning it just so, and then, God help her, before she knows what she is doing she has brought it to her nose. It smells of nothing. A whiff of shaving cream, perhaps.

  In the kitchen, the hands on the clock have advanced all of seven minutes. She thinks of how time is always moving forward. Relentless. Of how you can never go back. Repeat. Replicate the moments, the steps up until you made a mess of things. Even if you try. And try you must . . . To be able to move forward, you must go back.

  At six forty-five the dogs bark, heralding the arrival of the ute outside the big gate. She’s cold, but not frozen. She’s paced back and forth across the kitchen floor, and back and forth, purposefully not looking in the fridge, not entering the bedroom. Not doing nothing, as her daughter would say. Now that the vehicle is here, she doesn’t know what to do. Should she wait at the front door, or here at the back by the stove? Should she stand or should she sit? What exactly had she prepared herself to say? What if—

  Footsteps trudge up the front stairs, a key turns in the lock and the door opens and closes. The passage light goes on. Some fumbling when she thinks he might be hauling off his boots, then he is in the kitchen, flicking that switch on too, leaving her blinking like a startled rabbit.

  He stares. The look is neither friendly nor hostile—it’s more one of disbelief.

  ‘You asked me to come.’

  ‘Yeah, I did. I didn’t realise it would be tonight.’

  No, neither did I, she thinks.

  He moves into the room and drops a plastic lunch box onto the table. So, making his own lunch, she thinks. Tick. Wearing a plaid shirt tucked into jeans, he seems older—well, it has been almost a year. His face is browned by the sun, and he’s skinnier. She wonders if he’s smoking again. Or working too hard. She doesn’t know exactly what it is he does, these days.

  ‘The fire,’ he says, bending to the Aga, ‘why didn’t you light it?’

  ‘I didn’t want to make myself at home. I didn’t know—’ she breaks off. ‘Do you blame me? Last time I saw you—’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  On his haunches, his hair curling over the back of his collar, he strikes a match and holds the flame to the paper.

  ‘I’ve fed the dogs,’ she offers.

  ‘Ta,’ he says. ‘I’m surprised they let you in.’

  ‘They didn’t at first, but then I think they remembered who I was.’

  He pulls a bottle of whisky from the kitchen pantry and reaches for two glasses. ‘Drink?’

  ‘I’ve given up.’

  He makes no comment. Pours a generous finger and sips at it while the fire in the stove begins to crackle and take hold, faint warmth seeping into the room.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ she tells him, slipping into a chair across from him. She puts her elbows on the table and knits her fingers into one another.

  Sitting down, he shakes his head. ‘Not this again,’ he says. ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘I’m asking again—’

  ‘So you’re going to give me the house?’

  ‘It’s not mine to give! It’s my father’s—’

  ‘Bullshit. You inherited it.’

  She looks away from his steady brown-eyed gaze as, deliberately, he tilts the chair back. A habit he knows annoys her.

  One day, she thinks, the chair will slip. One day he will fall and hurt himself. Maybe it will be tonight? Wouldn’t everything be so much easier if that happened? She could show him tenderness, touch him, even. If she could just reach out for him things might be less complicated—but she is so afraid of being rebuffed. Is this on his mind, too?

  He brings the chair back to earth with a bump, picks up his whisky and knocks it back. ‘Why’d you come if you’re not prepared to negotiate?’

  ‘I can’t give up the house. You’re asking too much. It was Dad’s. It has memories—’

  ‘You think you’re the only one—?’ he breaks off. ‘Why do you want a divorce, anyway?’

  She rises from the table and shoves in the chair. ‘This is stupid,’ she says. ‘We’re getting nowhere.’

  ‘Have you met someone else?’

  ‘No,’ she says, turning away, not looking at him. ‘Have you?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Why do we do this to each other?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he murmurs.

  He comes around the table and stands within touching distance but she can’t bring herself to look at him, staring at the floor instead.

  ‘Nice socks,’ she remarks. They are thick and navy blue, dotted with yellow puppies. He stretches out a leg and wriggles his toes provocatively, then glances up and meets her eyes. Smiles. Oh, how the whole world tilts.

  ‘Megan gave them to me.’

  ‘She has good taste.’

  ‘How is she?’

  She nods. ‘Good. Last semester before finals, you know. Got her head down.’

  ‘Still off to see the world next year?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You’ll be all on your own, then.’

  Turning on her heel she heads down the passage, blinking fiercely. She doesn’t want to think of being alone, of being without their daughter. Some people are more than happy to be alone. She’s not one of them.

  She pulls open the door, and the dogs, who’ve heard the movement and raced around to the front, crowd her legs. She puts out a hand.

  ‘Goodbye.’ She strokes each one on the forehead, thinking what a waste of time this journey was. Why did he ask her to come? The dogs put their ears back and wag their tails. They remember her. Only two are here. The last one must be in the yard. She crosses t
he veranda to the top step and peers into the shadows. Sees the third lying motionless in the dirt. ‘Monty?’

  She turns to him—he’s come up behind her—and points. Then she’s hurrying down the stairs. ‘Bring the torch,’ she calls over her shoulder.

  She reaches Monty before he does—he’s still hauling on his boots—and drops to her knees. The dog, frothing at the mouth, blinks. She touches the furry brindled chest.

  The man squats besides her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He puts his hand beside hers as they feel for a heartbeat. Monty blinks again, lifts his head to them then drops it heavily, rolls his eyes, and is still.

  ‘He’s gone,’ he says.

  ‘No—’

  ‘He was old,’ he says thickly. ‘Probably just his heart, giving up.’

  ‘Dad’s shadow. Poor little guy.’ She sniffs. Gasps. Tries to catch her breath and then she is sobbing on her knees in the dirt.

  He sits back on his heels, wipes the back of his hand across his eyes and looks at her over the body of the dog. Reaches out. She rests her forehead against his shirt, her quivering mouth against a button, while her body shudders.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s okay. There’s nothing you could’ve done.’

  She lifts her head and stares at him. ‘Why tonight?’ she gets out. ‘Why—why wait until I’m here?’ Her eyes are streaming, snot smeared across her cheek, but he leans forward and tenderly kisses her on the lips. Rocking back, she wails like a child.

  He rises and comes around and lifts her to her feet and they stagger up the stairs and into the house. Leading her to the bedroom, he sits her gently on the bed. ‘It’ll be alright,’ he says. ‘Lie down,’ and makes to cover her with the quilt.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I want to help.’

  He sighs. ‘If you must.’

  In the shed, he finds shovels.

  ‘Under the jacaranda, I reckon,’ he tells her.

  She swung under it when she was small and brooded against it as a teenager when things were unbearable, which was often. It littered her with mauve blossoms through October and November—referred to now as Purple Panic by Megan because when the petals fall she’s writing exams. Not that Megan panics. She has no need to.