Smythe's Theory of Everything

by Robert Hollingworth

  ‘Don’t want no bloody relatives coming to claim me,’ he said. And we knew exactly what he meant.

  One morning about a month later Milo didn’t come out of his room. We heard him arrive the night before, coming up from the cellar as usual. But by lunchtime we were sure something wasn’t right. We went to his room and pushed the door wide open. A piece of blanket was pinned at the window and it hung to the side letting in weak light. Everything he owned was arranged neatly along one wall: a plastic bucket, a little stack of books, a candle and an old wireless hooked up to a 12-volt battery. On the opposite side there was a camp stretcher - where he’d got it is anyone’s guess - and on it Milo lay sprawling with his boots on. His arm was over the side and his palm rested on the floor, his big old knuckles standing up like speed humps. His head lolled off the edge of the bed at a horrible angle. I said, ‘Milo?’ but I knew he was dead.

  It was only then that we realised how much we’d grown to like the old man. In fact I don’t even think he was that old, just tired. And he was the sort of man I wouldn’t have minded for a father. I think Kitty felt the same. She walked out of the room and I found her standing at one of the windows. The lower panes were rippled glass covered with a thick film of dust so who knows what she was seeing. I walked up behind her; she turned and put her arms around me. She was as tall as I was but that day she put her face into my neck and made herself small. Then she cried; I felt it in my own chest. I don’t think Kitty had ever cried before - and just two days off her fifteenth birthday.

  High above us street noises came through a broken window pane and I heard a big motorbike’s rowdy blatter. Those windows faced McKillop Street and nearby there was a popular bike shop. We were used to the big choppers starting up and then the noisy blattering as they came past our place. Our place: Kitty and me and dead Milo in a big old factory, no power, no water, no anything.

  ‘Don’t worry Kit,’ I said at last, ‘we got the best thing that anyone could wish for; we got each other and nothing else matters.’

  But it hardly soothed her; she just kept on sobbing against my shoulder as though the only thing decent in her life had suddenly been taken away.

  ‘You still got me,’ I added, though I wasn’t sure about the compensation.

  After a while we went into the Office to figure things out.

  ‘We’ll have to go to the cops,’ I said.

  Kitty sat silently and stared at the floor.

  ‘We’ve got to let them know, Kit.’

  ‘No we don’t.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘What about what Milo said? What about the promise we made?’

  ‘We didn’t make a promise.’

  ‘Yes we did. I did,’ she said.

  She stood up and I found myself following her back to Milo’s room. She just went over and started getting him out of his coat. Reluctantly, I helped her. I was so scared my knees shook. He was skinnier than I imagined and we easily rolled him onto his blanket. Without a word we wrapped him up and tied it off with his own belt. Then, in the weak light coming through the window, we both stood and faced each other.

  ‘You take the heavy end,’ she said in a soft voice.

  I couldn’t touch him. Instead, I held fast to the blanket and we dragged him to the cellar door. Kitty went down first and took his weight as he slid down the stairs. We dragged him to the trapdoor.

  ‘We come back tonight, Jack. And we do what Milo said.’

  I was happy to get out of that dead dark cellar and hoped that by nightfall Kitty would have changed her mind. But sometime before dawn she shook me awake and I found myself again standing in the complete blackness of the cellar with Milo’s body somewhere before us. Out of the void I heard Kitty say that I’d have to heft his weight up the steps and into the outside world.

  ‘Can’t we call the cops?’ I whispered, staring blankly into the dark.

  ‘We can do it,’ Kit said. ‘Don’t give up.’ I heard her near the trapdoor and when she lifted it a trace of weak light fell on the bundle.

  I took a deep breath and stepped forward. I was hardly a robust boy; skinny legs and bony chest, but I was ready to give it a go. I lifted the lump of him and a long throaty sigh burst from his body. It muffled horribly under the blanket and I never felt so frightened in my life. His slumped body felt heavy and human and his limbs shifted stiffly as though he was still alive. I let out a groan of my own and shoved him up and out and when he was finally on the ground I jumped back, hyperventilating.

  ‘The blanket,’ I said, ‘it’s all wet!’

  Kitty drew close to the long bundle.

  ‘That’s normal,’ she said, ‘that’s what happens.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just know, Jack.’

  ‘Well what now?’ My voice was high and panicky.

  Kitty hesitated.

  ‘We have to take him,’ she said flatly.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I can’t! Not now.’

  She looked briefly at me and even in the dark I felt her steely blue eyes.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I can do it now. I’ll take him.’

  ‘No!’ I walked around and took deep breaths. ‘I can do it.’

  Kitty let me gather my nerve.

  ‘You take that end,’ she said.

  I could barely touch him, my hands shook so much. I closed my eyes and grabbed the bundle. It could be a sack of potatoes, I told myself. And with Kitty on the other end, at 4 a.m. while the city was all closed down, we got him under the fence and began to stagger off down the street. Whenever a car came by we just sat right down on the footpath. Then I’d steel myself again, lift him up and off we’d go. And in this way we finally got him all the way to York Street.

  There we took Milo’s old belt off the bundle, tied it around the metal grid and pulled it up. We were both out of breath and dizzy with the trauma of it. Then, without ceremony, we pushed him into the culvert and I heard the thump as he hit the bottom. We put the grid back and dropped his belt through the grate. Then Kitty put her arm around me and, side-by-side, we went down to the toilets to clean up.

  2

  You might wonder why I relate this story. The morning after we gave Milo his burial, I went into his room alone and just stood there with the morning sun shining dimly in. I could still smell the presence of that old man and it wasn’t unpleasant at all. I saw his old enamel mug - it still had water in it. And then a great wave of despond-ency came over me. Maybe it was because of Kitty but for some unknown reason my face was suddenly awash. I remember this well because I found myself kneeling on the floor going through his few possessions and as I picked up one book after another I could not see the titles through my watery vision.

  Then I came across a little notebook with a title written in Milo’s hand. I used my palms to clear my eyes and read, The New Theory of Everything. My heart jumped. I snatched it to my chest and took it out into the Office. Kitty was not yet up and I found some comfort holding Milo’s precious diary and thinking about what we’d lost. What could we rely on? Nothing. Nothing except each other.

  In the morning light I looked at that spiral bound book, took a breath and carefully opened it. The first page had nothing more than a simple list of supermarket items. I turned the page and found a list of names and birthdates. The third page mentioned a halfway house in Fitzroy and details on how to get there. The next had directions for some other place, and beyond that, pages of simple sums in pounds and pence, daily reminders.

  There was no New Theory of Everything.

  Did Milo have one? If so, he kept it locked within his old skull and it died with him, along with all the other things the man stood for. What could that theory have been like? That night, when the whole city was quiet and Kitty snuffled beside me, I decided to write it. Why not? Would a certificate of some kind help me understand something that no-one has ever seen? Could I not have an idea as clear and valid as any other person about a subject which is only understood in principle?
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  Someday. Someday I would write that Theory, when I had time to read up on what other people had said - especially about the origins of things. I would write a detailed and comprehensive new scheme like Milo might have done and I would write it for him - for the three of us - so far, anonymous. A new theory would change all that: people would see us; they’d know we stood for something.

  In the meantime, at least we’d given the old man a proper burial. Frankly, I think he had a more fitting end to his days at the old Daco building in 1958 than what we got here at so-called ‘Eden’.

  The only consolation here is my little room which I am getting used to. Adequate is the word that comes to mind. A single bed, a white laminated wardrobe with an oval mirror about 60 cm x 30 cm and a heavily bevelled edge, greenish curtains made out of a shiny polyester-type fabric. Wooden floor of hardwood and a little rug about one and a half times as long as it is wide. Walls a kind of beige with a few hooks sticking out, though I have nothing to hang on them. At least I have my 14-inch TV, set up on a shelf over my little hand basin and plugged in where my razor goes.

  Christopher has delivered some of my other belong-ings though they are still in the boxes. Don’t want to unpack in case I see a way out of here, but I have noticed there’s Epsom salts leaking out of a carton which I will have to attend to.

  So far I’ve only found my traveller’s alarm clock, dictionary, ashtray and calculator - the ‘essentials’. I keep my window open to the courtyard so I can have the occasional smoke. And I’ve put a little side-table under the window. I got one of the other inmates to pinch it from the lounge. He’s one of the few still walking - the walking dead. Any questions, I can always say I had nothing to do with it. Now I’ve got all this time on my hands. Which is why I’m writing about my life with Kitty and the day we put old Milo down the culvert so he could be near the long-dead Aborigines.

  You might wonder why we didn’t get caught. Well, of course we did. It so happened that somebody said they’d seen something and then it was only 24 hours before the police cut the lock on the factory door and found us. Believe it or not, they knew we were living there all along.

  ‘You knew about us?’ I said at the station.

  The police officer didn’t even look up; he just kept tapping away with two fingers on the typewriter, slapping those inked letters hard against the official form.

  ‘You think we don’t have enough to do without worrying about every runaway? It’s only when you muck up that we come down on you.’

  I glanced at Kitty. She wasn’t scared. She was just sitting there, quietly defiant. I knew that expression. But in that office environment I suddenly noticed how rough she looked. She had holes in her pants and also in her shoes and shirt, and her once neat haircut was now a jet-black snarl and I felt a little uneasy about letting her go like that. The cop raised his head and stared at her.

  ‘How old are you?’ he said.

  My heart jumped. For the first time I realised that being a certain age could be a problem. It was the first time it came home that society had preconceived ideas about what people should be like according to their age. Kitty saw it to.

  ‘Eighteen,’ she said. I sat up instantly. In one way she’d read the situation right, but in another I knew we were in real strife if we started that. I just looked at her and said, ‘Tell the truth, Kitty.’

  Kit had really sharp features and when she looked hard at you, you felt pierced. Now she turned her ice-blue eyes on me and it triggered something I’d never experienced; my face reddened and my eyes welled. A whole minute passed and then I saw her shoulders slump. ‘Fifteen,’ she said without averting her stare.

  ‘I’m nearly seventeen,’ I said as though it might help things; raise our collective age.

  The cop rolled his eyes.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ he said. ‘You’re juvenile delinquents. I could have you institutionalised.’

  I stared at the floor. We were in his hands now. But at least we told the truth; it was the only way. We’d been through the whole story just like I’ve done now. We’d told him how much we’d come to love old Milo and how we carried him to his grave. And in the end we simply signed off the paperwork and our mother was contacted. They took our photos and as we posed it suddenly occurred to me that our young age had actually worked in our favour.

  Late in the day a man from Social Services drove us home. And there was our mother, still with the bed crammed into the little lounge thick with smoke. She said she was worried sick, that she thought we were dead, that she missed us, that things would be much better from now on.

  Back in our room we slammed the door and laughed so hard the tears ran down our faces. I think it was just the relief of being away from the police, away from the whole idea of people trying to box us up in some way and throw away the key. Kitty tapped my planets poster on the wall but Haley didn’t come out. The next morning we were gone again.

  A person breathes 370,000 cubic metres of air in a lifetime. At sixty-two I have a lot of cubic metres left, though some in here are way over their quota.

  A good program on the ABC: Where to next? About the exploration and travel into space. In my view we’ve been getting ready for this for fifty years - we want to construct our own future world. Each day more and more synthetic stuff in our lives, not just the artificial products and plastics but the whole attitude to what we like and what’s best. A lot of people prefer to take a vitamin than eat an orange. A lot of people type an email rather than talk. A lot of people would sooner watch a documentary on TV than go to Africa. Me, I’d rather go to Africa. I still might.

  So far 270 planets have been found in our galaxy. There are 50 billion galaxies visible with telescopes. We can therefore estimate that there are at least 100 billion galaxies. Each galaxy has billions of stars, let’s say at least 100 billion, on average. That means the total number of stars vastly exceeds ten thousand billion billion or in proper terms, ten sextillion. If there was only one planet orbiting every one millionth star - not a number of them like our own solar system - there must be a minimum of ten million billion planets. And if just one in a million can support life, there are more than ten billion life-supporting planets. And so far we have seen 270 planets in total. Like an infant knowing the world from the inside of its crib.

  At least I’ve had a go at it; I have attempted a Theory of Everything. I’ve kept that stuck up my jumper since the day it was written - apart from the copies that were sent out, so far, to no avail. What’s wrong with the world? Doesn’t anyone want to know how it all came to be, how the universe works?

  Still can’t get a handle on how I have ended up in this place. Lisa’s choice of course. Eden Aged Care Facility my arse, ‘house of the dying’ more like it. Before I came here I was quite happy at The Grace. Hardly ever saw the other tenants except on the way to the bathroom. I had a good room onto Very Street and I could always go to the lounge for a quiet drink and a game of pool - one of the few boarding houses to allow a bit of responsible alcohol. And cheaper than here! All very well while you have your health.

  The good Matron Collier just stuck her large pro-boscis through my door, no doubt checking to see if I’m smoking. I enjoy the way they just march in. I wonder what she’d say if I came over to her house, walked right into her bedroom to check her socks and undies? I’ve only been here a few weeks but it’s obvious she’s no Mother Theresa. Hates her job, hates the people and runs this camp like the Gestapo. Messages over loud-speaker: Residents may NOT close their doors during daylight hours. Residents caught smoking in their rooms will be evicted. Residents caught washing their clothes in their hand basin will be evicted. They charge six dollars a time to take your clothes to the wash and then they are gone for a week. Never mind if you need a shirt or a clean pair of socks. Can’t afford to buy more on the Invalid Pension.

  Invalid: Enfeebled or disabled by illness or injury. Verb, to invalid someone: Remove from active service, send away. Oxford p. 423 (also see invalidat
e).

  A few of the others in here: Dooley the ex-publican. Don’t know his other name. Everyone calls him Dooley and it seems his great claim to fame is that he once owned a pub in Fitzroy. Won’t say which one - or can’t remember. Only lucid about 50 per cent of the time and then the only thing he talks about is his days at the hotel. A bit of a loudmouth, but harmless.

  Joe. The closest thing to a skeleton other than death itself. I’m thin but this bloke takes it into a new realm. Walks OK, if painfully slow, but he’s bent double like a gerbera left in a dry vase. All he ever sees is the floral carpet, poor bugger. Must be at least eighty-five or ninety but still gets around. Don’t yet know what’s wrong with him.

  Ivan Radish or Radisich? The one who stole my little table for me. He has a way of leaning in so close that you can hear his lips smacking. He wears bottle-neck glasses and I’m of the theory that he thinks he’s further away. Also Clem in a wheelchair, all ears and nose. Speaks in riddles but when he looks at you it’s clear he hears well enough. Look at his eyes and you can tell he’s not like all the other dementia inmates. I’d bet a fortnight’s pension he knows what people are saying. He tries to use his wheezy little voice and what comes out is hard to comprehend. Unfortunately all the carers treat him like the other senile ones, shove him in a corner facing the TV, lock up his wheels and there he stays until supper time.

  Collier is the registered nurse. Then there’s Osborne, Stinson and Gillies who aren’t nurses but registered carers, by degrees all sharp and economical. I’m talking about their comments not their care. Can’t get too close to the dying I suppose. And in truth that’s exactly what I’ve got in here, the walking dead waiting for a heart attack, or die in their sleep. Or just fade away like an accidental stain on the carpet.

  Just back from lunch - the muster in the dining room. Hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. First, Joe was sitting in my spot and I asked him to move - only to learn he’d arrived at the table without his hearing aid. I’d have shouted in his ear except I didn’t want to get that close. I’m on a table with five others - some of the more ‘capable’ ones, all men. Keep the men and women separate.