I began to hate him. And I might have done him an injury if the affair hadn’t slowly run its course. It lasted about six months, then it was on and off over the next half year or so. But I was very relieved when Kitty finally made the decision not to bring the man home at all.
For a while she went quiet - introspective, some might say. And that was when I tried to raise the subject of her childhood again. For a long time I’d felt as though I’d been written out of a story that should have affected the both of us; I felt I should have been allowed to share the unpleasantness.
‘Kitty,’ I said one morning as she sat with her coffee, ‘if ever you want to talk about the past, you know, things that might have troubled you once, you’d let me know, wouldn’t you?’
‘What are you talking about, Jack?’
‘The past, Kitty. The trouble you had with our father. I don’t mean to pry but …’
Kitty wobbled her head.
‘Jack, can I … When will you understand there’s nothing to discuss? Everyone has some good and bad in their lives but they don’t go around reliving it. It’s not worth the effort, Jack. I’m fine, you’re fine; what more do you want?’
I thought about pressing the point. Then I just left it. I hated the tension; I did not want bad blood between us.
That aside and the business with old Matty, those three or four years together in the Richmond flat were good times and for a while we were as close as we were as children. It was a period when I really got to know that sister of mine. The way she hummed softly as she put on eye makeup and bit her lip when putting in earrings. And the way she made a noise like a hairdryer when she was towel-drying her hair. Typically, she’d march right into the bathroom and plonk down on the toilet in front of me, no different than when we were kids. And the way she’d slide down the couch and fall asleep watching some late night movie. I’d flick off the set and she’d just stir and smile. And in the morning she’d have oranges squeezed before I was out of the shower. I think it was a Sydney thing.
Just put a small fly in my Venus Flytrap as it doesn’t seem to be having much luck on its own. It closed around its prey immediately. The fly wasn’t a mosquito or a gnat but something in between. If I had a magnifying glass I could describe it more accurately. It would be ironic if I had just discovered a new species of insect and fed it to my plant. I will measure how long the digestive process takes. Quicker than mine, no doubt. Had to make a runner to the bathroom again this morning. I vomited up a lot of sour bile, with black flakes in it. Since I no longer have a gall bladder it might have been some sort of black coating on my stomach where the bile now collects - if you know what I mean. I limped back to my room where I have just spent the last half hour trying to ease the ache out of my calves and the front of my shin muscles. Though I am pleasantly surprised by the newfound strength in my legs in an emergency.
Also ran into Craaayyyg again this afternoon, the handicapped lad. I ran into him literally. I was going around the corner just as his bed, pushed by Stinson, came charging the other way. By the time she pulled him up his bed had piled into my chair. The man made a lot of noises; no doubt it was the most exciting thing that’s happened to him this year. Later, on my way back I saw him parked by a window as usual. He caught sight of me and his arm went up at a strange angle and a lot of new noises came out of him. I got the distinct feeling he recognised me.
For the hell of it I said, ‘Fancy bumping into you!’ There were more strange gestures. I wonder what’s going on inside his brain?
In 1984 Heather got really sick for the third time. Just when she thought it was beaten and she was getting her life back, the worst news was delivered. At that time Chris was twenty-one and still living at home. Lisa had gone to live in Charters Towers so she rarely saw her mother. As for me, Heather wouldn’t let me near her.
It wasn’t until they put her in hospital that I managed to get within shot of her. I walked into the ward and she tried to turn away. But I saw her well enough, only forty-six yet a woman I could barely recognise … I knew the old Heather was gone. She wouldn’t speak to me. I sat by the bed and tried to remember the vital young woman I once shared a bed with. I remembered an afternoon in Sydney when Lisa was a baby. We tucked her into the cot and then Heather and I shared a joint. I don’t know where she got the stuff but she always had some around. For the next few hours in the direct rays of the sun we lay on the carpet and did things that would shock these nurses right out of their uniforms, an encounter that would require a new chapter in The Joy of Sex.
But when Heather was on the hospital bed I looked at her and felt nothing but despair. How unforgiving is the passage of time. How appalling that it should turn a vital human being into something shrivelled and weak, a wasted organism as pointless as a diseased pear still clinging to the branch when it should have gone back to the soil. Suddenly she turned her face towards me and I saw the sad and hostile eyes, her thin lips set hard and all of it surrounded by skin unnaturally tightened.
‘Why are you here, Jack. Come to see me die?’
‘You won’t die.’
‘Course I will. For once, why don’t you face the facts?’
I didn’t want a fight.
‘I’m sorry, Heather. Sorry if I mucked things up. Perhaps it was the accident … If my legs hadn’t been …’
‘Legs my arse. Always the legs. Wake up to yourself, Jack Smythe.’
She turned away.
Heather has never understood the full effect of my smashed legs. No-one has. All that time convalescing and not being able to hold my life and family together. Things can turn on you when you can’t keep up the pace; the world leaves you behind.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ I said.
‘Go away. That’s what you can do. Get the fuck out of here.’
I sat there quietly for a good while. Heather was facing away and I heard her sigh. A nurse came in to check something but she looked right through me. I looked again at the body under the tight bedcover. I remembered the first day when a young, freckle-faced girl bailed me up on Graham Street and asked me for cash. And the day we sat in Charlie’s Bar and she flicked her hair back and told me she was ‘up the duff ‘. How could this be the same person? How could time have been so ruthless?
Then I just stood up and walked out. In the lift I tried to think of something that another person might have done to improve things. But what was there; what could anyone do? Nothing at all; I was sure of it. I began to feel nauseous and nearly threw up in the elevator.
The elevator has one particular oddity - the fact that it is called an elevator or a lift - when in fact it takes people down 50 per cent of the time. Why couldn’t it just be called a shaft?
Collier’s gardenia has a lot of buds on it. I did not notice them at first but there they are. The old bag must be frightening the shrub into life. She pointed her fat rump at me this morning as I observed her from my window. She was bending down to scrutinise the bush, probably ordering it to hurry up and bloom. She didn’t see me and doesn’t know she’s being observed. Frankly, I think her dull shrub is not half as interesting as my little Venus Flytrap. There is no trace of the fly I fed it so now I should catch another one. We are getting quite close, me and Jaws.
I think Clem may have noticed Collier’s plant as well. He has the next room to me. At lunch, Osborne told him to eat his greens. He said, ‘What about those flowerpot greens. Can’t eat those!’
Today is a very good day. My darling daughter Lisa brought over my things! Not the photos or the claw hammers and other tools, but I got my big clock radio. Brown, ‘General Electric’ brand, made in Malaysia. About 25 cm long, 16 deep and 6 cm high. The speaker hole is on the top. I had this clock radio at The Grace. There was a house cat living there and some mornings I’d let that cat into my room where it would take up a position sitting on top of the clock radio, I think because of the warmth. But it would park its bum directly over the speaker hole and I hoped that one day it might open it
s mouth so I could hear the music. Red digital numerals have two settings, bright or dim. It has a ‘snooze’ button, two wakeup times and I can listen to the morning news by setting the alarm to ‘radio’. Why do they call it an alarm? It isn’t one; it’s a waker.
Alarm n. Call to arms; warning sound e.g. of a bell to announce danger. Oxford p. 18. Of course, when you find Jan Osborne in your room at dawn that is alarming.
Lisa also brought my rods, a carton box full of tackle and the petanque balls! The blue canvas case for the balls is very rough and dirty but I think I can clean it up with a bit of Napisan from the laundry.
Lisa didn’t stay. ‘I’ve started another job,’ she said and with no further information, turned around and left. Frankly, I don’t care.
I have since spent a couple of hours cleaning and reorganising my fishing gear. Two rods, both Jarvis Walker, one a two-piece spinning rod, the other more of a boat rod but very good the way I rig it up. My large tackle box is still intact. Three reels, one a sidecaster and the other two are spinning reels, a Penn and a Daiwa, both good brands. I put 12 lb line on the Daiwa and left the old line on the Penn. I have a range of lures including spinners, poppers and Wonder Wobblers. Sinkers include balls size 0 up to 4, snapper sinkers, spoons and stars. Hooks need replenishing. A few good gar hooks and smaller suicide hooks but many have rust on them and should not be used. Also two squid jigs, a packet of swivels and other sundry items. Not bad, considering.
I have hidden it all in my wardrobe in case having it in my room creates a bad reception from the overlords. Especially the knife. It’s a very good cleaning and scaling knife with measurements in centimetres running the length of it. Before stashing it away I used it to measure my room: 2.5 metres x 3.2 metres or in old terms, eight feet by ten feet.
Later I suddenly decided to cut Pistol Pete’s hair. He’s harmless for all his ‘prowess’ rantings and he said he’d give me five dollars for the job. And of course Dell wanted it. She got the clearance and set me up in the bathroom. Pete and I both sat on the plastic shower chairs, a bit awkward but the only way.
‘All off,’ he says, ‘Down to the bone. None of this namby-pamby poofter rubbish!’ Then he adds, ‘How’s your love life?’
‘Terrific,’ I say. ‘Got my eye on a hole in the fence.’ I know he likes to be crude so why not bait him?
‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘When I was in Korea, that option was presented. Only we had a little lady on the other side!’
‘You fought in Korea?’
‘Course! Shot more commies than you’ve had hot breakfasts! Then I had my heart set on a little princess from Pohang but I had to come home.’
I push the No. 2 clippers right over the top of his hard old skull. My Wahl buzzes through, no effort at all. Pete puts his head down while I zip up the back.
‘Hard to believe,’ he says into the towel. ‘Put myself in all sorts of danger over there. Put myself in all sorts of danger here as well. Then I’m to go out with a bloody stroke.’
‘You’re still alive,’ I tell him.
‘Bet you don’t know how I got the stroke?’ he says.
‘No idea.’
‘Poking three TV models at the same time!’
Just then Clem comes to the door in his wheelchair. He sees us on the white shower chairs and our wheelchairs standing empty. He just sits and stares, first at the wheelchairs then at the plastic chairs. He’s nearly had it.
I finish with Pete and give him a good dust off with the hearth brush. With a lot of trouble I manage to get him back in his wheelchair. I’m forced to stand so I grab hold of Pete’s chair and Clem gets out of the way so I can shove him into the corridor. ‘I’m right now,’ Pete says and wheels off with one arm. He has a special chair with two hand rims on the one side, one for the right wheel and one for the left - or he can turn the two together so he can go straight. Quite ingenious really; wish I’d thought of it myself. Suddenly he stops and calls, ‘I must be truthful, Jack. I didn’t really do my heart in with the three maidens.’ Then he turns around. ‘It was four!’ I can still hear his stupid cackle as he zigzags up the hall.
Clem won’t go.
‘What is it, Clem?’ I say as I sweep up.
‘My hair’s hanging down,’ he says.
Oh no - what the hell have I started.
‘Not today,’ I tell him.
‘Not today, not tomorrow, not the end of the week.’ He doesn’t move. His old grey eyes shift about, all watery like a seal pup. Just because I brought in my bloody clippers!
‘Five dollars,’ I tell him. I was certain that would settle it.
‘Five dollars. Now that’s handy,’ he says.
‘Clem, why don’t you forget about it and go back to your room? You’ll be dead by the end of the week anyway.’
‘Dead one day, gone the next.’
He is not leaving. I assess how long it will take - what a nuisance the man can be.
‘Just get your ugly head in here,’ I say.
‘Ugly is hardly a kind word.’
‘A good one though.’
‘Good is hardly a kind word either.’
It’s like talking to a drugged parrot.
8
The same month that Heather died I lost my job at Wilson’s. I can’t remember whether it was soon after or just before, but the two things came together like a bad storm and a flood. I was in the factory and down on my knees trying to get the lid off a tin of printer’s ink. As I struggled with it I was suddenly aware that the boss was standing over me.
‘What’re you doing, Smythe?’
‘Getting the lid off, Mr Falconer.’
‘Leave it, Smythe, and come to the office.’
‘I’m letting you go,’ he said then, as though I was suddenly free. ‘You may not be the only one,’ he added. But I knew I was. I always thought I was fairly useful - I wasn’t a qualified screenprinter but I could do a day’s work as well as any of the others.
When I walked out on the last day, no-one spoke. They just stood silently and looked at me as though I was a village outcast. And all I remember is the paint tin. I don’t think my struggle with that lid caused my demise but in some way I think it helped. It reminded Falconer on that particular day that he should put me off. And so he did.
After that I went right down in the mood stakes. And Kitty changed as well, forever restless, going off without me and coming in at all hours. I ended up doing all the cleaning, shopping and cooking. Then one night Kitty came in late, took no notice of the dinner I’d cooked for her, flopped down on the couch and turned on the TV.
‘You going to eat?’ I said. I had mine in front of me. We always ate together.
‘Not hungry,’ she said.
‘You’re getting thin, Kitty.’
‘Fuck off. I’m the same as ever.’
‘Well you don’t look it. You don’t look well.’
‘What’s eating you?’ she said. ‘Go to bed, will you.’
‘Go to bed? It’s 9.30. What are you talking about? And why are we eating at 9.30?’
‘I’m not eating, you are.’
Her eyes did not leave the TV. Suddenly she said, ‘I’m leaving, Jack.’
‘Leaving?’
‘I’m sick of all this.’
I put down my fork.
‘Sick of all what?’
‘Everything! This place, this … fucking TV! Sick of Richmond, sick of you, Jack.’
‘Sick of me? What have I done?’
‘That’s it. What have you done? What have you ever done? What are you doing right now - with your life?’
‘With my life?’
‘Yes, with your life!’
She said that as if I was supposed to list my achieve-ments, as if I was supposed provide a summary of highlights and prove I was a ‘somebody’. Did she think I should be a TV star, a famous musician? Was I supposed to be saving the poor in Africa? I once tried to be a healer and ended up a cripple. I had my life, full stop. It was true,
I happened to be between jobs. And I wasn’t necessarily at the centre of the world, entertaining the masses - but neither was she, when it came down to it. She was a barmaid, for God’s sake - what was she doing with her life? I was about to say that when I realised the mistake.
‘I’m just … happy, Kit. OK?
‘Well I’m not.’
I glared at her. My sister was tossing me a big vote of no confidence.
‘You’ve got anger in you, Kitty,’ I said. ‘And I wouldn’t mind betting it goes right back to that awful business with our father. And I still fail to see why you can’t tell me about it. I thought we trusted each other. I thought we shared everything, no matter what. I thought …’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up! I knew it was a mistake coming back to Melbourne!’
I jumped to my feet.
‘Then why did you? Why did you have to come down here and disrupt my life? And all the while harbouring secrets! Hiding stuff from me that you could have … that you might have …’
‘Fuck, you Jack! Nothing happened alright? Nothing!
Got it?’
She jumped up and marched into the bedroom.
Next morning I walked into the lounge to find her sitting on the couch in her flannel pyjamas. They used to be Matthew’s. The TV was on and there were crumpled tissues all over the coffee table. At first I thought she’d been watching some soppy movie. Then I realised she was not seeing the TV at all.
‘I’m sorry, Kit,’ I said. ‘That other stuff, it isn’t any of my business.’
‘You’re right, Jack; it isn’t any of your business. If I wanted to discuss it I’d have mentioned it long ago. But I understand you asking.’
‘Want a cup of tea?’
‘No.’ She sniffed loudly, the way she does. Her hair was a tangle of toss-and-turn knots; her skin pale in the TV’s light. There was an earthquake in Mexico City, thousands killed. We studied the screen and then I started to stand up.
‘I’ll have first shower, OK?’
Smythe's Theory of Everything Page 17