by Bruce Pascoe
Brunswick. Brunswick. In the hardly credible world away from this rice bowl, there was Brunswick, a casual half-hour drive from his own home.
The sky began to turn an acrid yellow as sunset became soured with the smoke of shellfire and marsh haze. The last shots were fired, and two pucked into the back of the sheltering corpse and jerked it like a baker might casually thump a bag of flour. A dull, thick sound.
Shell, shells. Shell, shells. He slunk away from the curdling sack of guts, bearing with him the shell. An eye for an eye. A shell for a shell.
Life was best lived in a daze. Not a stupor, but a coma of the softer parts of the mind. The bits for running, drinking and eating could continue unimpaired, while the other senses crouched away from the bodies falling or bleeding, the gaping faces of mothers and children, the flames, the ruined fields, the spoilt soldiers in threshed fields of grain. Discarded sacks of life. As wasteful and careless as a bag of kittens in a sewer.
But he ran and hid, drank and ate, and nothing punctured his frail consciousness, and nothing pierced his warm bag of flesh, until one day he saw a boy’s face appear between leaves.
There was a flash, and he almost saw it coming for his leg. The child was terrified and had hardly aimed at all. But ten others aimed at the boy, and his pouch of life was penetrated and then left to bloat like a cow – or a calf.
He watched in amazement from starchy sheets as infection grew and the sag-eyed doctors stood around, lifting the sheet to look at his leg, to glance at each other, and finally to send him home.
And to be sure, there was a bit missing out of his leg, but it healed perfectly. The boy in the bushes had sent him a ticket for home and paid for it. Dearly.
Pacific Street, Brunswick. He stepped from the car and walked in suburban-street sunshine to the terrace with ‘46’ screwed to the mortar. The door knocked hollow. It opened and a girl looked out at him inquiringly.
‘Does Sue live here?’
‘Yes, she’s inside. I’m Brenda. Come in.’
Brenda turned and sashayed into the kitchen. ‘Suzanne, there’s a man to see you.’
‘Hullo. I, I knew a friend of yours. Could I speak to you privately?’
Brenda whistled. ‘Wow, what a smoothie!’
She saw his eyes as she spoke, and left the room swiftly.
‘I was in Penang and I met this man, and he gave me your address and a present for you, and he died before he could say … His name was Ken Simpson.’
Suzanne drew on a cigarette and stared at the man before her. She pressed the butt into an ashtray. ‘Look, oh look, I’m sorry, but I only moved here two months ago. The other girl before me, she was called Sue. I’m Suzanne. Sue’s gone to Sydney with – I’m really sorry. Look, sit down and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.’
She clanked the kettle onto the stove and tossed spoons of coffee into mugs. ‘Was he a friend of yours?’
The soldier looked up from his hands. ‘No, well, I’d only just met him.’
She held a cup of coffee towards him. ‘Was that the present?’ she asked as she nodded towards the shell.
‘Yes, he didn’t say what …’
They drank the silence from their coffee cups and, though his face was averted, she could tell he was crying, twisting the shell in his hands. He turned to her. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not the shell or anything. I hardly, I only knew him for a few minutes, but for the first time –’
She’d seen enough Rock Hudson films to know that this is what soldiers do when they come home. And there is always a Florence Nightingale to apply the soft hand and soothing words. ‘Look, we’re having a party here tonight. Why don’t you stay and join in?’
Brenda entered the room and saw the soldier looking crumpled and Suzanne’s hand on his shoulder. Suzanne glanced at her friend. ‘This man, he knew one of Sue’s boyfriends, it seems, and came to give her a present. We haven’t even got her Sydney address, have we? What was that Stewart fella’s name? We might be able to look that up in the phone book. Anyway, I’ve invited him,’ Suzanne nodded to indicate the soldier, ‘to the party.’
She brought him wine and cheeses while she tidied the house and made plates of food. He watched through the window the last sun on terrace walls turning the street into a flat façade. She filled his wineglass again and he allowed himself to drop behind the aquarium, with its lonely goldfish. People came and went around him. The party spread and grew, dividing carefully around his chair. The music washed up against the glass in front of his face, and the dancers were like weeds moving in the water.
‘Hey mate, this yours?’ A shell was held over his face, and he reached up from the deep and took it, slipping it into his pocket.
I’d rather be in Lorne.
He woke with sun creeping across his eyes, and he stared at the window, waiting to realise where he was.
Pacific Street, 46, Brunswick.
There was a body behind him, its arm flung across his neck. He reached back and touched the skin. Warm. His hand followed the curve of hip and thigh, and he turned his head. The eye was looking at him. ‘Sleep?’
‘Must have.’
She reached across him and picked up the shell from a table and held it for him to see. ‘I saved your shell. You started yelling a bit.’
‘Did I?’
‘Mmmm. About Lorne. If you keep it up, they might make you mayor.’ She ran a hand round the scoop of his waist and over his belly, and the tingling of his vulnerability was like pain. Sharp as blades.
‘Dearly beloved,’ the minister half-yelled into the wind. This was the first time he had heard the soldier of shelter’s name. The family looked at him, but after the service turned to shepherd the mother from the grave. He was left in the wind and the sour smell of clay. His coat flapped at his legs and blew hair back from his face. He leant forward and dropped the shell into the grave.
‘Friend of yours, son?’
His heart leapt. People were forever creeping up and talking at him. His heart slowed down and he turned to see the man with the spade. ‘Yes, a friend.’
‘Very sorry, mate.’ The shoveller was waiting to shovel.
At the iron gates of the cemetery he pushed his hands into his pockets, and the fingers involuntarily searched the linings before he turned his eyes to the street.
‘Bunch of flowers, sir?’
Christ! He pushed money at her before she could speak again. He pressed the marigolds to his stomach and hurried up the street.
‘Flowers!’ she said, and he held them out to her. She brought the yellow and gold to her face and looked at him, wondering about the next move, the next word. The trip wires and triggers, shelters and tombs. Neither of them spoke across the marigolds.
THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN OF THE DRUMMER
for Uncle Herb and Uncle Sandy … at work
Did you ever see him?
Oh, yes, dozens of times, me and the others … well, not see him, but we knew he was there. I’d never go over that mountain at night. Still won’t. Rather stay at the bottom, in someone’s house. Go on next morning. Sometimes used to stay with them, Mc something …
McArthurs.
Yeah, that mob. Had this little house —
Bit of a walkway across that swampy flat.
Near the mill.
Back of the mill. They had that little —
Yeah, poor thing. Wonder whatever happened to her.
Up in Eden last time I heard, livin’ with that lady.
That’s right, her aunt.
Cousin. Haunty Clarrie.
Yeah. Got the house behind …
Stewarts’.
Yeah, they ever sell that?
The old Valiant wagon, nah.
Remember them days.
The picnics.
The funerals.
Smugglin’ the dead.
That poor old Valiant.
Yeah, I’d only need to look at that old —
Yeah, it’d all come back, eh.
Remember them
old ten-gallon kero tins?
Cut ’em down an’ make buckets.
Bath fa’ the baby …
Cut it flat, tin for the roof.
Yeah. I was talkin’ to old Granny Hagnes, Verna’s mum.
In the home.
Yeah. She was down in the dumps, like. I was tryin’ to cheer her up, type of thing.
Yeah.
Talk about them bean pickin’ days.
On the river.
All the corn …
An’ peas …
Yeah, an’ I was talkin’ about this one or the other, just fishin’, ya know, an’ then I mentioned them tins, sort of in passin’, an’ she goes, Honey. What, I said. They was honey tins, the old girl goes, golden syrup an’ the like.
Cocky’s delight.
Yeah, get ’em from down the tip.
Cut ’em down.
Wire handle.
Yeah, boil up the clothes.
Leg of roo.
Wash the dog.
Chainsaw parts.
Carbies.
Pippis.
Yeah, remember them pippis, eh.
Them days down at Bemm.
Chuck the pippis in, bit of salt water.
Clean ’em out.
Rid of all that grit.
Yeah.
Next mornin’, boil ’em up.
Heat ’em.
Yeah.
Boilin’s too hard.
Make ’em tough.
Yeah, unless you was gunna curry ’em.
Yeah.
Them little square tins of curry powder.
Yeah. Oblong.
Keen’s.
Yeah.
Aunty Darly, the one with the —
Yeah, how is the old girl?
Still up in Shep.
Yeah, all this time.
She’d have to be …
Eighty.
Easy.
Yeah.
Well, she was the one for the curry.
Yeah.
She’d curry ya boots if ya left ’em by the fire.
And they’d taste alright.
Yeah.
They was good days, eh.
Work hard.
Work.
Like bloody slaves.
Were slaves.
But somehow …
Yeah.
We was our own boss, a bit.
Yeah.
Nights by the fire.
Singin’.
Remember Handy Tappy an’ his—
Yeah.
Play good, that old man.
Play anything.
Too right, ya know one night I heard him play that …
‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
Yeah. How can you play that on guitar? I make my livin’ playin’ the bloody thing an’ I never been able to work out how he done that.
Yeah.
All them classical people he’d do.
Yeah. Porter.
An’ Harmstong.
Yeah, the old Satch. Used ta love him. Sing like him too.
Yeah.
An’ what’s his name … Fella with all the hair …
Yeah.
Black man.
Yeah.
Could do him a treat.
He died up …
Yeah.
Now he did see the horseman.
Dooligas.
Yeah.
Up on that other mountain.
Yeah, Gooliga.
He did see that fella.
Old Handy, eh.
Yeah.
Wouldn’t ya love to sit by the fire an’ listen to him play?
Yeah.
An’ them Carters an’ Mumblers.
An’ Roses.
Yeah, the Rose boys.
On the leaf.
An’ mouth organ.
Oh, them nights.
Yeah.
Out by the river.
Remember that night …
Yeah, the Goonitch bird come.
Yeah.
Old lady …
Pressie.
Yeah, she got all us kids chuckin’ stones an’ makin’ a racket. Get that bird outa here. She’d —
Stick her hands over her face.
Apron an’ all.
Get that bird outa here, it’ll be the death of me.
Chuckin’ rocks.
Sticks.
Hanything.
That one with the big white face.
Yeah.
Goonitch.
They was real frightened, eh, them old people.
Terrified. Screamin’.
An’ cryin’.
Get that bird!
Well, I am too.
Remember we was campin’ with old uncle …
Thomas.
An’ we heard that bird, an’ he goes, come on you fellas, we’re gettin’ …
Yeah.
Pack up camp.
We was only little.
Yeah. Come on, we’re goin’.
Yeah.
Remember old Uncle Muns.
Hammon.
Yeah. Remember that thing he did with the wattle?
Old fellas told me.
He showed me one day. Not showed me, just did it so I could see.
The billy.
Yeah. He’d cut around the elbow of a wattle. Like this, see, an’ then he’d prize it off with a stick …
Yeah.
An’ put it on the fire with water an’ it’d boil.
Ol’ fellas told me.
Ol’ Muns.
Spirit Man.
An’ his dogs.
Three of them.
An’ the bike.
Yeah, wouldn’t ride it, just walk beside it.
Coast down the hills a bit. I seen him do that once when I was rabittin’ with ol’ Huncle Col.
Just coast down the hill.
With them dogs.
One in front.
One beside him.
An’ one at the back.
Yeah.
Now he saw the horseman, too.
Huncle Col?
Yeah. He saw him an’ he wasn’t a man ta get scared.
No.
But the hair stood up on the back of his neck an’ cold water was runnin’ down his back. Sweat, like.
Yeah.
An’ he was lookin’ about. Knew he was there somewhere. Just froze.
I never go over that mountain at night.
Me neither.
Stay with them, Macs.
McArthurs.
Yeah. In that little house.
By the swamp.
Yeah.
You know that ol’ Granny Hagnes? It was like that with her. I don’t know nothin’ about them old days, she’d go, an’ I just mentioned them tins an’ off she goes. Honey, she says, an’ that was it.
Yeah.
An’ just as I was goin’, feelin’ pretty pleased to have revved the old girl up, she goes, them Stewarts, they ever sell that Valiant? Don’t know, Aunt, I goes, an’ I didn’t, which is why I asked you just before. An’ she looks at me an’ goes, well, that’s how I want to go. In that Valiant.
Yeah.
So, I said, alright Granny, I’ll ask that ol’ Huncle Erb. Which I just done.
So she can go in style.
Like the old people.
She’d like that.
COFFINS
I could hear them making the box. Chipboard and staples. They measured me first, but it was only a gesture; they’d already guessed what they’d need.
Ca-lick, ca-lick, ca-lick, the tiny detonations of the staples. I saw the black paint come out, could smell it, heard the desultory slap of the brush, the snip, snip, screer of the shears cutting the black cloth to size. Screer, snip, snip, screer. Ca-lick, ca-lick, ca-lick.
It was darker than I’d expected, and unnerving hearing the mourners breathing, clearing their throats behind balled fists. For silence and repose. I saw their hands clutching the side of the open coffin. Fingers drumming, waiting, i
mpatient; a stage silence. Disconcerting to look up to see the undersides of their fingernails and chins. And I saw the ring on a tense finger and knew who owned that hand. An injured bird, jittery, startled into flicking its wings like fans held by nervous ladies. Knew that hand would never again touch the beaver-pelt heads of three of her sons. Can you believe such a loss, how God spaced it to attenuate the pain?
What did I have to whinge about? I stared at that hand and resolved to be still, a good, unremarkable corpse, do nothing to remind her and have to meet her eye. But of course everything reminded her. Seen three coffins, seen them all.
I lay still and listened to some dreary hymn that I would never have chosen. But then I heard a tune I did recognise, although I didn’t choose that either, but knew that this cued the beginning of the end.
I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go. There isn’t a mountain too high, an ocean so wide it can keep, keep me away, away from his love.
They were wheeling my box and singing as we travelled up the aisle to André bloody Rieu.
Near the pulpit, they shuffled the box into position. The trolley wheels squeaked; the priest took possession of the apex and sighed. Straining my gaze backwards, I could see his knuckles, hear his boredom in every breath.
‘Here we go, cock,’ he whispered to me as André let fly with a final crescendo of a thousand strings dribbling with golden syrup. Cocky’s delight. ‘Here we go.’
‘Dearly beloved,’ the priest intoned, his voice rising in portent and volume, shrouding his tedium in pomp, deluding all except me, who could look up his nose and see the flaring of his nostrils and the whiffle of disdain in the hairs that clustered there like fishing flies. ‘We are gathered here today to celebrate the life …’ and so on and so forth; the practised intonation of his voice, pacing, timing the words until he hit his cue like a hammer on a coffin nail.
And on that cue André allowed a beat and then came in double time.
I love him, I love him, I love him, and where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow.
Even though strings and drums were belting and wailing, I could hear the ruffle of efficient hands as they drew away my shroud and felt certain I could reclaim the snip, snip, screer as the material parted to the honed jaws of the shears.
Three beats, four beats, five beats, six beats, seven beats, eight beats and the padded sticks hit the pig skin and a chord ripped from the bass drum and I sat up in my box and began combing my hair. I recognised individual gasps and laughter, yep, performing for my friends to the end.