Smythe's Theory of Everything

by Robert Hollingworth

  ‘Why don’t you bring the kids to visit?’

  ‘They wouldn’t cope five minutes, you know that as well as I do. Tell you what, as soon as you feel up to it why don’t we arrange for you to visit us?’

  I have to say that idea doesn’t appeal. I don’t get an ounce of pleasure going to Lisa’s. Carlos shakes your hand and disappears, the kids cannot be extracted from ‘Nintendo’ or the TV and Lisa just sits with one eye on the street and the other on the clock. Not her fault; we have nothing to talk about. I like fishing and petanque and she likes … well who knows what Lisa likes. I can have a smoke with her and that’s about it. The only common thread is her mother who is well and truly gone from this good earth.

  Lisa left exactly at 2.25 p.m.. Folded up the Father’s Day wrapping paper and took it with her; I think she intends using it again next year. I did not mention my rods and tackle. Nor the balls. They are a very good set of ‘professional quality’, not like you buy in an average shop. I began playing when I was at The Grace, perhaps the first time I’d engaged in group sport since I tried football as a teenager. Some of the other tenants got me going. From my window I used to see them playing in the gravel behind the boarding house. One day I went down and asked them what they were doing. Petanque, they said, a French game requiring steel balls and a cochonnet or ‘jack’.

  Within a month I had my own set. I did not buy the street quality but spent nearly two week’s pension on Obut ‘professionals’. They weigh in at 700 grams and measure 74 mm diameter which is about the middle of the range. In no time I was playing with as much skill as any of the others. And then in January my legs went. And then the gall bladder. I did not appreciate Lisa’s parting remarks about her getting stuck with the St Vincent’s Hospital bill. As a pensioner I should never have been billed at all.

  I want my balls back. And I intend keeping on about the photos. Like pulling teeth out of a piranha. I have given up on seeing Chris as Lisa seems to think he has gone to an ashram near Ballarat.

  Not so! Christopher paid me a visit tonight. Timely, as I was feeling very low. It’s very cold and wet and the heater has broken in my room. It’s so cold in here I can’t open the window to have a smoke and it’s too wet to go into the courtyard. When Chris walked in I thought the sun had finally broken through.

  ‘Happy Father’s Day,’ he says and gives me a navy blue V-necked pullover and a giant bottle-opener that he also bought in India. It has a wooden handle with an intricate carving of a monkey and a cobra, or a monkey whose tail is turning into a cobra. The jumper is brand new. It did not fit him so he thought of me.

  ‘You put up my Shiva,’ he says, noticing the statue on the wardrobe.

  ‘Lisa thought you went to Ballarat.’

  ‘I was going to, but I couldn’t get the time off work.’ Then he asks me how I am and what I’ve been doing and I decide to tell him again about the chemical baths.

  ‘I am very upset about it,’ I say. ‘The nurse makes me strip off in front of her!’

  ‘Why don’t you say no, Dad.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have a bar of it,’ I tell him.

  ‘Just refuse until they leave the room.’

  I can imagine what that would do. Anyway I’ve given up refusing things. All my life I’ve tried to be a decent person but it has no measurable effect on anything. Good people get hurt the same as the bad. You either don’t believe in God or you believe in a God who allows good people to get hurt. And if you do that then something is seriously wrong with you. I told that to Christopher.

  ‘That’s Christianity, Dad,’ he says. ‘A God that punishes you for your sins or the sins of the world. In Hinduism we don’t believe any of that, we believe in karma and the eternal law.’

  ‘And what might that eternal law be?’

  ‘We seek it through meditation, the self must be realised.’

  ‘ Realised? Chris, my “self ” is having trouble getting out of bed. My “self ” is having trouble dealing with this mausoleum on an hourly basis.’

  ‘Then why don’t you leave?’ he says. ‘Why don’t you put your name down for a Commission Flat and get out.’

  I could have said: Great idea! You could give me the money that you inherited from Heather as it was mine in the first place. But I didn’t of course.

  ‘You know I couldn’t manage it, Chris. Not at the moment. Right now it looks like I’m stuck here, unless by some fluke a good Samaritan should take me in.’

  I see his mind racing ahead like a startled hare.

  ‘I’d have you come and live with me Dad, if I didn’t travel so much. You know that, don’t you? One day I’ll get a place of my own and then we should talk about it.’

  ‘It’d be good karma if you did, Chris.’

  ‘Of course it would.’ He sees my carton of smokes.

  ‘I hope Lisa didn’t give you those.’

  ‘No, bought them myself.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t, Dad. Why don’t you give them up?’

  ‘Then what do I do with my time?’

  ‘Why not meditate? I can give you a very good mantra …’

  ‘Rather suck on a fag, mate. Get to heaven a bit quicker.’

  Chris stares at me. He’s feeling very sorry for his old dad.

  ‘I’ve just about had it in here, Chris. They keep wanting me to get out of this wheelchair - but what for? So I can get to the dinner table a bit quicker? I mean, what’s the bloody point? The whole thrust of this place is just sit still and stay calm and try not to shit your pants until you drop dead. That’s what this whole place is about. There’s no point fighting it.’

  Chris gazes at me. ‘Well, that makes sense, Dad.’

  ‘It does? How?’

  Chris’ brow furrows lightly. Even with the reduced weight his face is still round. He could safely drop a few more pounds.

  ‘You have to bend like the reed before the wind, Dad. Otherwise …’

  ‘You snap off.’

  ‘Well, you do, Dad. You have to decide. It’s your decision. You either go with it or …’

  ‘Go with it?’

  ‘Yes: go with it.’

  ‘Go with what?’

  ‘With the situation. With the way things are. Sometimes things just are, Dad.’

  He gazes at me with such sincerity that I decide to leave it. We watch some old soul shuffle past my doorway.

  ‘Did you ask Lisa about my fishing rods and petanque balls? You were going to pick them up for me.’

  ‘Didn’t she bring them over? I really haven’t seen her. Are they any good to you in here?’

  My heart sinks like a sea anchor.

  ‘Chris I just want them. I just want to look at them. They belong to me.’

  He looks at me with sad eyes.

  ‘You know, you really should try meditation, Dad. It really settles you, I’m not kidding.’

  He looks at his watch.

  ‘You know Mum got into Hinduism before she died, don’t you?’

  ‘Did she now - did you know she got into Hinduism before you were born?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Chris lets that sink in.

  ‘She understood the principle of the afterlife,’ he says.

  I suddenly recognise something new about my son.

  ‘You’re hoping to see her again,’ I say. ‘You think you’ll see her on the other side.’

  He looks away. ‘That is only for Krishna to know.’

  A new day and I decide to cut Jim’s hair. My logic is that he may have been the original source of the scabies or nits. But as he’s been given a clean bill of health I might trim back the nest to avoid another infestation. The good news is that Jim’s condition turned out not to be scabies after all but another skin disorder which is not as contagious. Also I feel a bit sorry for the old man.

  I am only allowed to do it in my own room and was ordered to ‘clean up thoroughly’ afterwards. As a hairdresser I have to say I still have my old touch,
one of the few valuable things I learned from Heather, though Jim’s scabied head is not a pleasant job. And he has a rather off-putting odour.

  ‘Thanks for doing this, Jack,’ he says as the hair begins to fall.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say, ‘but I don’t want to make a habit of it.’

  ‘Course not. Wouldn’t put you through this again.’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ I say.

  ‘You watching the new Rex Hunt Fishing Adventures?’

  ‘No. When’s it on?’ I ask.

  ‘Thursday night, Channel 7, after dinner.’

  ‘You were a piscator.’

  ‘A what?’ He lifts his head.

  ‘A piscator; a fisherman. I was a piscator, used to do a lot of fishing when I lived in Brunswick.’

  ‘I don’t fish, Jack, but I still find the show very interesting, a bit of a Boy’s Own Adventure if you like. Better than most of the rubbish on TV these days.’

  ‘Hard to find a decent thing to watch,’ I say. I am using the Wahl very gently around his neck, No 2 attach-ment. I find his flaky red skin a bit hard to look at and I don’t want to touch it.

  ‘Sorry about my skin,’ he says. ‘Damn syphilis.’

  ‘Syphilis?’ I jump back about four paces.

  Jim starts his cackle. ‘Eczema, actually, though the clap might be better. Bloody thing won’t settle down - anything seems to set it off, soaps, detergent, perfumes, even the bloody chlorine in our water.’ He glances up at me. ‘It’s not contagious, young fellow.’

  ‘Never thought it was,’ I say. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t let you in here.’ I make a couple of extra adjustments on top and place a part where none previously existed. Then I brush away the loose hair and remove the towel. I have a hearth brush and shovel that Dell Williams has lent me. I give Jim a good brush down including his wheelchair.

  ‘Think the girls will go for me now?’ he says.

  I’m glad he has a sense of humour. At his age you’d stuff a sock down your throat if you didn’t. I hope to hell I don’t end up like Jim in twenty years.

  ‘Why don’t you come over and watch the fishing show on Thursday?’ he says.

  ‘Thanks, Jim,’ I tell him, ‘but I’m trying to write a story.’

  ‘What kind of a story?’

  I tell him a little bit about Kitty. I say she deserves to have her story written.

  ‘I had two sisters,’ he says. ‘Managed to outlive them both. Doesn’t make sense really.’

  He rolled out the door and I swept up the floor and put the rug back down. I cleaned my equipment and created a special drawer for it - my socks and undies will have to share a space. I think I’ll see if I can hang onto the brush and shovel. Of course I do intend to watch the fishing show but I couldn’t do it in Jim’s room. He smells so bad I can only imagine what his room is like.

  At dinner I receive many accolades. Pistol Pete whistles. ‘I used to pay top brass for a cut like that!’ Dooley the publican runs his fingers through his hair. ‘How much?’ he says. ‘Give you a hundred dollars to do mine!’

  Ivan up the end is bald on top. ‘I like mine shaved off. You cannot have ze hair and ze brines too!’ He gives a very stupid laugh that reveals his senility, a state he occupies handsomely.

  Sad sack Clem says, ‘Clip, clip, clip, the last man’s head, head, head, off !’

  Dooley glares at him. ‘ Chip, chop, chip, chop, you idiot!’ Poor old Skeleton Joe seems uninterested; he just goes on shakily spooning his soup, his chin almost resting on the plate.

  I notice as well that Patricia on the other table is looking across, though that gesture is not uncommon - she’s always observing. What’s she up to?

  And even the nurses seem to think Jim’s haircut is pretty good. Dell comes over and says, ‘What about having a go at Joe’s? He needs it pretty bad.’

  ‘I would Dell, but I got a lot on my plate at the moment.’

  ‘Soup!’ pipes up Clem. ‘Pumpkin soup!’ Dell doesn’t look at me but Jim raises his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m trying to write a story, as a matter of fact,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘By the window, burning the midnight oil.’

  I didn’t think anyone had noticed. She’s probably seen me puffing away as well - and she hasn’t reported it!

  Piscator. From the Latin: angler. Oxford p. 614.

  The Oxford gives no derivation for the word syphilis.

  6

  The first city of Sydney was in Canada, named in 1785 after First Viscount Sydney. Three years later they named another city after him in New South Wales. Never mind that the man called himself Sydney because of an ancestor whose actual name was Sidney. Sydney’s real name was Townsend, which might have done equally well for our city by the harbour.

  Around the end of 1980 I took the trip north. I wanted to go and see Debbie because I knew how terribly remiss I’d been. And I was appalled to think how long it was since I’d seen Kitty. The plane got in late and I ended up with a single room at the Koala Motor Inn. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anywhere else to stay. These days, someone would just look it up on a computer but back then everyone relied on their street knowhow.

  Originally I thought I’d stay at Kitty’s but when I got to her door I found she’d moved. It felt strange to think that for years I’d held an image of her flash apartment in Elizabeth Bay with the view of the harbour and yet all the time she was living somewhere else. I pressed her buzzer around 9 p.m. but the new tenant didn’t even know her, let alone where she might be.

  That’s when I went to the Koala Motor Inn. From my room I could see right across the rooftops to where I’d just been, to where Kitty used to live. In one direction I could see the Harbour Bridge and streams of head-lights. In another the fluorescents of offices, the flicker of TV blue in apartment windows and shops with neon lights pulsing. One of those fruit bats flew right past the window.

  I tried to imagine where Kitty might be, somewhere out there within that view, in another apartment watching TV or sitting in a restaurant with some man. At midnight I looked out again. No doubt she’d be asleep by then, out there somewhere among the apartments and offices, exhausted after a long working day right at the top of her professional tree. Things might not have worked out for me but at least Kitty proved it was possible. Education might be important, but Kitty showed it wasn’t the only way forward. Hope for all of us.

  The next day I went out to Debbie’s in Cronulla. But she’d moved as well. I should have known; she was always on the move, I don’t think she ever quite knew where she wanted to be. Right then I began to feel stupid for not keeping in contact and for being away so long. At least the new owners knew where she now lived; they’d kept her address to forward the mail. She was in Beach Street, Clovelly. I went there and found she’d moved again - around the corner into Clovelly Road.

  I found her street number and went through the gate. I really didn’t expect her to be home, knowing how she always hated being cooped up, but there she was coming out the front door. She had a big black Labrador on a lead.

  ‘Jacko!’ she said. ‘What a lovely surprise.’ We put our arms around each other and she planted a big lipstick kiss on my cheek.

  ‘Just taking Winston for a walk, want to come?’ Suddenly we were heading towards the park.

  ‘See that old bloke?’ she said as we crossed the street. ‘That’s Bryan Gillies. He used to be a signwriter like you. I asked him once if he knew you - or Jeff Burgess - but he didn’t.’

  Aunty Debbie was as trim as ever and still fit - I had a job keeping up with her. She still had the blonde hair but now it was short and tied with a leopard print scarf.

  I thought about my old signwriting boss. ‘I guess Jeff must have died ages ago,’ I said. ‘He was old when I knew him.’

  Aunty Debbie tugged the dog away from the nature strip. ‘It’s such a pity he never got to come out. That generation just never had the chance.’

  ‘Come out?’

&n
bsp; ‘Yeah, you know, Jack, tell the world he was gay.’

  ‘What? What do you mean? He was married.’

  ‘So what? What’s that got to do with it?’

  I found myself right back there with my boss, working around each other in the signwriting shed or bumping along in his Toyota Hi Ace, Jeff forking pickled mussels right out of a the jar. ‘Want one?’ he’d say. But I hated them, warm from the truck’s interior. Such a kind man, I always thought of him as thoughtful and introspective, but not for a second did that other business cross my mind. I wish I’d known.

  Suddenly Debbie said, ‘You still into the meaning of the life?’

  I looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You were always going on about the universe and extra-terrestrials - all that stuff about planets and stars.’

  We marched on and I tried to recall a single moment when those subjects had come up. Kitty hated that kind of talk. ‘Away with the fairies,’ she said.

  ‘Kitty’s moved,’ I said at last.

  ‘Yes, somewhere in Paddington. Last I heard she was having a bit of trouble meeting her bills. This ‘economic downturn’ as they call it. Recession more like it. Petrol’s soaring, everyone’s getting rid of their V8s and going for Datsuns and little Corollas. Have you noticed?’

  ‘What happened to your Cadillac?’ I said.

  ‘Ha, you remember that! Conked out one day way out on the Pacific Highway, so I sold it.’ She seemed to study the grass as we walked. ‘I wonder where it ended up?’

  ‘What have you got now?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m not working now. Can’t afford a car the way things are.’

  ‘People say we might not recover from this recession; it’ll just keep getting worse.’

  ‘Nah, we’ll get over it. It’s just a social pulse, Jacko, pure and simple.’

  ‘Have you got Kitty’s new address?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Not since she moved. I’ve got a phone number but no address. I tried to look her up in the phonebook but there was no listing for a K. Smythe. You don’t suppose she’s married?’