of driving drunk
and a roadside gum tree.
After the funeral
I moved to the carriage.
I closed the door
to our house,
left everything as it was
and walked away.
The house remains
and I sometimes think
I should sell it,
or rent it,
but the thought of a family
within those walls,
people I don’t know
within those walls …
I go there sometimes
to sit in the backyard
and remember.
I mow the grass,
then I walk back
to the Hilton
and get so drunk
I sleep for days.
I sleep, and
I don’t dream.
Comfort
Back at Wentworth High
I never talked to girls,
I hardly talked to anyone.
Sure, I answered questions from teachers
and occasionally I’d talk
to some guys I’d known for years.
But I didn’t have any friends,
I didn’t want any.
I had books and Westfield Creek
and I had days spent
in my bedroom reading
and avoiding my father
attached to his lounge,
his television
and his smelly unkept house.
So living in this carriage
is special, it’s mine
and I keep it clean
and I read to give myself
an education that Wentworth High
never could
and I think of Caitlin
and how we fell asleep
on the picnic
so comfortable
and I don’t know
what she sees in me.
I hope it’s
someone to talk to
someone to look in the eye
knowing they’ll look back.
Old Bill and the ghosts
Old Bill and me are friends.
Sometimes he comes into
my carriage and we share a beer.
He asks me questions
about my day
about the books I read,
he never asks me about family.
He gives me advice
on how to live cheap,
and how to jump trains
late at night,
and how to find out
which trains are going where,
and which trains have friendly guards.
He encourages me to travel,
to leave here
and ride the freights.
He makes it seem so special,
so romantic,
and I ask him
why he doesn’t do it,
you know,
if it’s so special,
and he tells me
about his Jessie
and his wife
and the house he visits
when too much drink
has made him forget
and how he’s afraid to forget
because without his ghosts
he’s afraid he’ll have nothing to live for.
And at that moment I know
I am listening to
the saddest man in the world.
Lucky
No more taxi rides home
after McDonald’s.
Billy walks with me.
Billy and the half-moon
and perfect stars.
We walk the long way
down Murdoch Avenue
and across the City Ovals.
The dogs bark
and each house glows
with a television light.
I tell Billy about school
and Petra, Kate,
and the drudge of exams.
Billy has become the diary entry
of my days. He holds the secrets
of every long session of Maths
and the crushing boredom
of Science on Thursday afternoon,
and as I tell him all this
I don’t feel rich or poor,
or a schoolgirl, or a McDonald’s worker,
or anything but lucky,
simply lucky.
Dinner
Dinner in our house
is always the same.
Mum’s perfect cooking
and Dad’s favourite wine.
He and Mum drink,
talk about work,
ask me questions about school
which I answer quickly
so as to change the subject.
Once a week
Dad brings up the topic of university
and a career for me.
His favourites are Law
and Medicine,
Mum’s are Teaching and Business.
I tell them mine are Motherhood
or joining the Catholic Church
and becoming a Nun.
This usually shuts them up.
We eat in silence
and I think of Billy
in the carriage
waiting
for my shift to start at McDonald’s.
I forget all about
careers and education
and the dreary school world.
The weekend off
I’ve got the weekend off.
No McDonald’s,
no schoolwork,
and thankfully no parents –
Mum has a conference interstate,
with Dad going along
‘for the golf’.
It only took three days
of arguing to convince
Mum and Dad that, at seventeen,
I can be trusted on my own,
even though I can’t.
And what is trust anyway?
No, I won’t burn the house down.
No, I won’t drink all the wine.
No, I won’t have a huge drug party.
But
yes, I will invite Billy over
and yes, I will enjoy myself
in this house,
this big ugly five-bedroom
million dollar brick box
that we live in.
Hobos like us
Every morning
I wake Old Bill
with a bowl of Weet-Bix
and a cup of coffee from McDonald’s,
kept hot in a thermos overnight.
I pour us both a cup
and sit in the sunshine
as Bill groans and complains.
He sits with me and eats
and tells me how he used to be
too busy for breakfast
when he worked,
and he laughs,
a bitter, mocking laugh,
‘Too busy for breakfast,
too busy for sitting down
with people I loved.
And now I’ve got all
the time in the world.’
But at least he eats.
And sometimes he comes with me
to Bendarat River
for a laundry and a bath.
And when he does
and he dives
fully clothed into the river
his laugh becomes real
&nb
sp; and it’s a good laugh,
a deep belly roar.
I laugh as well,
sure there’s hope in the world
even for hobos like us.
The kid
I like the kid.
I like his company.
He’s got me waking early
and eating a decent breakfast,
and yes
I drank away most of the cannery money,
but I saved some,
just to show myself I could.
Billy and I go to the river,
we dive and swim
and wash
and for a few hours
I almost feel young again.
Billy deserves more
than an old carriage
and spending his days
trying to keep an
old hobo from too much drink.
I like the kid.
The shadows
I knock gently,
like I always do,
so just Billy would hear,
no-one else.
It’s Friday morning
before school.
I want to tell Billy
about my parents’ weekend away.
I knock again,
then I hear voices
from the next carriage
and I’m scared.
Maybe he’s been discovered?
I creep around the back,
keeping to the shadows,
and I see Billy
in the carriage
with an old man
and Billy’s pouring coffee
and giving it to the man
and he’s pouring milk into a bowl
and handing this across
and the old man coughs
and groans and swears
and Billy sips his own coffee
and helps the old man
out of the carriage
and into the sunshine
where they sit beside the track
sharing breakfast.
And I stay in the shadows
watching
Billy and the old man
who’s finished his breakfast
and Billy washes the bowl
and pours another coffee
for the old man
who is fully awake now
and the old man
looks up at Billy
and says ‘thanks’
and that’s when I turn
and run to school
without ever leaving the shadows.
The afternoon off
I stopped running
when I reached school
and as I entered class
I felt like a real idiot.
I sat through Maths
and Science
and English
trying to understand why I ran
and all I can think
is that seeing Billy
with that old hobo
made me think of Billy
as a hobo
and I was ashamed,
ashamed of myself
for thinking that.
Hadn’t I known
that’s how Billy lived?
Hadn’t I seen him
stealing food,
and hadn’t I seen
where he sleeps?
By lunchtime
I decided
I was a complete fool
and maybe I was more spoilt
than I thought,
maybe there was something
of my parents in me,
whether I liked it or not.
And I walked through the school gates,
and I walked slowly and deliberately
back to the railway tracks,
determined not to run away again.
In the sunshine
He was in the sunshine
reading a book.
He saw me coming across the tracks
and waved,
and he stood, closed his book,
and he smiled,
and said welcome,
welcome to my sunshine,
and he jumped into the carriage,
brought out a pillow
for me to sit on.
He offered me coffee
from the same thermos
I’d seen this morning
with the old hobo.
He kept talking
about the book,
his favourite,
The Grapes of Wrath,
and the honour of poverty,
that’s what he said,
‘the honour of poverty’,
and each word he said
made me more ashamed,
and more determined
to sit with him
here
in the bright sunshine.
A man
I know it was shame
that did it,
that made me do it,
but I asked Billy
and his friend, Old Bill,
to dinner at my place tonight.
I only wanted Billy
but the thought of me
running to school
shamed me into asking.
Billy seemed pleased
and he told me about Old Bill,
the saddest man in the world –
that’s what he called him –
and as he talked
I understood
what I’d seen
this morning
and I realised
that Billy was sixteen years old
and already a man
and I was seventeen,
nearly eighteen,
and still a schoolgirl.
Cooking, and eating
I hate cooking.
I hate touching raw meat
and cutting it into thin slices
and peeling vegetables is boring,
so I do it all quickly.
I throw the chicken,
potatoes, beans, carrots into a pot,
I add stock,
and curry from a jar,
and I let it simmer
for hours.
I go downstairs to Dad’s cellar
and choose wine,
a few bottles of red,
one white,
expensive wine
for my valued guests.
I go upstairs
and run a hot bath,
put some music on,
just quietly,
and I lie back in the full tub
and I forget cooking.
I think of eating.
I love eating.
The moon
I almost laughed
when they arrived.
The two neatest hobos
I’d ever seen,
with their hair combed,
slicked back,
and their faces rubbed shiny clean.
Old Bill called me ‘Miss’
and offered me a box of chocolates
he’d brought
and he looked around the house
as though he was visiting the moon.
Billy saw the wine,
already open,
and he poured three glasses
passed them around,
and as we raised our glasses
Billy said,
‘To the richest house in Bendarat’
and we
laughed.
My cooking even smelt good
and Old Bill kept
wandering from room to room
discovering
another side to the moon.
Stories
We couldn’t sit at the table.
It looked too neat,
too polished, too clean.
We sat on the floor
near the fireplace
and we ate the curry
with a fork
and we dipped our bread
in the sauce
and we drank just enough
to forget where we were.
Billy and I talked
and planned picnics
and nights off from McDonald’s.
I told them about school
and its stupid rules
and about Petra and Kate
and the gossip about
the two Physical Education teachers
that swept the schoolyard.
And Billy told us about Irene
and their library deal
and reading books beside
Westfield Creek while jigging school.
Old Bill sat quiet,
a faint smile
as he slowly drank
Dad’s expensive wine
and listened
to our exaggerated
stories.
Simple gift
I shook the young lady’s hand,
and Billy’s.
I thanked them for the meal
and took my leave.
I walked back
through the rich streets of town,
the neat gardens,
the high timber fences,
the solid gates with
the double garage behind them.
I hadn’t drunk too much,
the wine was too good to ruin
with drunkenness,
and I’d listened
to Billy and Caitlin talk
and I’d noticed
how they looked at each other –
their quick, gentle smiles over the food –
and the way they sat close,
and I realised as I walked home
that for a few hours
I hadn’t thought of anything
but how pleasant it was
to sit with these people
and to talk with them.
The Simple Gift Page 5