A plastic bag two feet long.
Jim tries to see. ‘What is it, Jack - a snapper?’
‘A wrapper-snapper, Jim!’ Pete yells. ‘You’ve hooked a 20-pound Safeway Special!’
‘What?’
‘You caught the bag limit in one go, old man!’ says Pete and everyone bursts out laughing.
Jim peers down at the water.
‘What about the fish? Where’s the fish? I felt it tugging.’
‘There might have been one,’ I say, loud enough for all to catch on, ‘but it’s got away, Jim. The bit of rubbish might have tangled around the line and caused your fish to get off.’
Suddenly Pete spins his chair away from us.
‘Here comes the military!’ he shouts, and we all turn together.
A procession of cars and an ambulance with lights flashing pulls up on the road a hundred metres away. And down come the troopers one, two, three! Up jump the fishermen - well, no-one jumped in the bloody river, thank God, otherwise I might be up for manslaughter.
Matron Collier and Jan Osborne are there, I’m very pleased to say, and the look on their faces is reward alone. Mortification would sum it up nicely. No doubt they have already figured that they will cop the blame for the whole event: The Great Escape took place right under their noses!
So here we are back in our little cubby holes awaiting the outcome, each of us with a grin from Eden to purgatory. Too bad about the damn rods; hopefully Collier will fall on one and it’ll pierce her wooden heart. This afternoon I secretly wheeled up the passageway and found Craig in the sunroom again. At least they don’t blame him for what happened - one of the advantages of cerebral palsy.
I go in, and close the door - another transgression. Craig beams and waves his arms around.
‘Not bad eh?’ I say. ‘We fucked those nurses over like there was no tomorrow!’
The young man makes some more noises that sound a little like, ‘Yaaaaas’. I could be wrong.
‘There is no tomorrow, Craig. You know that, don’t you? No tomorrow, no yesterday. All invented as part of our self-awareness - a brain that wants to know stuff.’
I park closer so I can talk quietly, confidentially.
‘The past is only in our memories so it doesn’t really exist - as an actuality. The future is only in our specula-tions so that doesn’t actually exist either.’
Craig waves a long-boned hand.
‘No good thinking about palmistry, Craig. No future there, only speculation. So when does the past finish? Well, just now, as I speak. And when does the so-called future begin? Well, just now as I speak. So what is real? Exactly! Only the present, my boy, only the present. Something which I have termed the everpresent - which is not between anything. There’s no gap for ‘now’; the everpresent just is and only is. That make sense to you?’ Craig’s listening, I’m sure of it, though it’s hard to tell.
I glance around the room. I can see why they call it a sunroom; there’s not much else in it but a bit of warmth magnified through the toughened glass, marinating the carpet. In one corner there’s a square of depressed carpet where a pedestal once stood. Dell said there used to be a budgerigar in a birdcage sitting upon it. Various rumours abound regarding what happened to that bird, but Dell will only say, ‘it died of a mystery illness’. I’m suddenly aware of a motor outside, I think a whipper-snipper rather than a motorbike. Then I remember Kitty taking off for Queensland, escaping a past, looking for something not yet seen.
‘If you live in the present, Craig,’ I glance at him beside me, ‘like you do - seize the day as they say - then you can’t go wrong.’
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’m aware of the silence and stillness, like a hub of something where nothing happens.
‘Frankly, Craig, I don’t care if the world isn’t changed by my being here. I mean, why stick your neck out?’ The boy’s head jerks sharply sideways and then back again. I don’t think he got that last point.
I look at him. ‘If you have any ideas or arguments, don’t hesitate to let me know.’
I study his posture, his situation. I suddenly decide to try a little experiment. I put my hand out and tentatively slide it palm downwards under his hand which rests on the bed.
‘Are you with me on all this?’ I say. ‘Press once for yes.’
I wait for a response. Then Craig’s head rocks and he lifts his forearm a little and brings it down quite firmly on the back of my hand. I feel sure it was deliberate.
‘Time is a liar, Craig, it is no more real than a metre, a mile or degrees Fahrenheit. You agree with that?’ I try to detect a muscle twitch in his hand.
‘Of course time is precious, I don’t pretend it isn’t. Imagine trying to take a long trip without it.’ I look at the boy. ‘Though I imagine that’s one task you’ve never had to worry about.’
I hear sounds out in the hall again and start to get nervous - we are supposed to be in our rooms.
‘The bottom line, Craig, is that time is a way of measuring based on the revolutions of planets. And it works very bloody well. But it goes awry on one important occasion: when it comes to sizing up the true nature of the universe.’
I turn my chair around and wheel to the doorway. Then I turn again.
‘Come to think of it, it goes awry on another occasion as well: when it comes to sizing up the true nature of people, that is, judging them by their age. On that score, you wouldn’t want to write off the likes of you or me! Or … or I suppose some of the others around here when it comes down to it.’ I wheel out into the corridor.
Despite the curfew, as I approach my bedroom I suddenly swing left into Jim’s room and catch the old fisherman waving his cane around like a three-piece rod.
‘Best time I ever had,’ he beams. ‘I did get one, don’t you think, Jack?’
‘I reckon so, old man. No plastic bag could take the line like that. It’s well known that when a good fish is caught it will often dive and look for something to wind around in a desperate bid for freedom.’
‘Well in that case I’m very pleased the big bugger got away,’ he pants. ‘The most precious gift of all,’ he says and stares past me. ‘ Freedom.’
Then he looks at me with those reddened watery eyes and I can read his mind as if he’s holding a placard.
‘What are we going to do now, Jack?’
I can hardly look at his saddened face.
‘Not a lot we can do, Jim. I suppose we just have to start getting used to things. Unless we intend outliving the likes of Jean Stinson, or Osborne or Collier.’
‘Why don’t we see if we can get into the paddock next door? We could at least move around out there - we could throw those silver balls of yours.’
‘You really think Collier would arrange a gate through the cyclone fence and let us out there when she won’t even let us wash our own socks? When she won’t even let Dooley have a beer stein? It’s just a big overgrown paddock, Jim. Can you see someone around here pushing a lawnmower over it once a week?’
Jim looks dejected. It wasn’t my idea to make him feel bad, but he has to face the facts. I dislike this place as much as he does. And in my case it was just bad luck that Lisa picked this hellhole and not another one. ‘It’s what you can afford, Dad,’ she said, knowing all along that she’s bought a nice house with Heather’s money - and knowing she could take me in. But why have an old man around the house?
The fact is we are all old in the eyes of those who are younger. What else can you expect? We count the years and treat people on a rigid scale of one to hundred. But I meant what I said to Craig: time is a poor indicator of the true nature of people - of the individual. Yet we still do it; judge people by ‘age’, by turns around the sun. I’m just as bad, I know. We can’t help ourselves.
Nine-thirty p.m. and Pat Ryan has just left. Frightened the life out of me. I was trying to get into a pair of trousers without standing up and I had my back to the doorway. I’m in the chair yanking at my waistband, puffing an
d panting when I hear, ‘Should I come back another time?’ Christ! I hastily get my fly done up.
‘I was changing my trousers.’
She doesn’t say anything. I hate it when people do that - say nothing. I take the belt out of my other pants.
‘I read your manuscript - well, not all of it but enough to know you’ve got something.’
‘You think so?’
‘I sent it off to a professor of philosophy, a friend of mine. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘He should tear a few strips off it.’
Then she just sits there in her wheelchair staring at me.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I was thinking about your ideas of past, present, future. I think it sounds pretty right - in theory.’
‘In theory.’
‘Yes, in theory. But let’s not forget we don’t live in theory, Jack - well, maybe some academics do. But we have to live in reality, don’t you think?’
I stare at her.
‘You believe in palmistry, Pat?’
‘Not really.’
‘Neither do I. What about the Higgs Boson?’
‘Don’t know anything about it.’
‘An elementary scalar particle that is supposed to explain the existence of mass in the universe. The thing is, it’s never been seen. So far it only exists in the minds of modern physicists.’
‘Why would I be interested in that?’
‘I favour a Higgsless model, Pat, a different kind of mass generation. You see? I live in reality.’
Pat brings her wheelchair in a little closer.
‘Why don’t we put that aside for the moment, Jack, and talk about our situation right now - and the possibilities for the future.
She stares back at me.
‘What kind of possibilities for the future can we expect in this place?’ I say. ‘What kind of possibilities do you think you and I have that young Craig doesn’t have?’
She tips her head slightly. I notice she has little drop earrings under her short grey hair. She’s wearing pale blue trousers again like she wore to the river, and a cream short-sleeved blouse. Her arms are freckled.
‘The thing your theory doesn’t seem to deal with is consequences, Jack. You talk about the past and the present, but nothing about our actions. You don’t talk about the future consequences of what we do now. How we can influence things.’
I fold my arms.
‘It so happens, Pat, that I wrote my Theory for that exact reason. To create something of my own and influence things. To make our lives stand for something.’
‘Our lives?’
‘Me and Kitty.’
‘You think you have to write a grand theory to make your lives mean something?’
‘Well, who knows? Anyway, what the hell does it matter; it never worked.’
‘You’ve still got time, Jack.’
‘Time? Time for what?’
‘Time for anything, Jack. You choose.’
Bloody old duck, what would she know? She wheeled out into the hall and it was only then that I realised my underpants were sticking up above my trousers. I tucked it all in and wheeled over to the window. Time? Time is a figment I should have said to her. But then, what would be the point, exactly how would that truism change anything? Time, time, time. Stupid word. Don’t stare at it too long; it even begins to look stupid.
Another day and I’m trying to think of something else to say but I think my story has run its course - like Phar Lap waiting to be poisoned. In some ways it’s a pity, because writing things down offers some distraction from everything else. The most bizarre event of the day so far was yet another visit from Pat Ryan.
‘You again,’ I say. ‘At least I’ve got my pants on this time.’
‘I realised last night that I forgot to thank you for taking us out.’
‘I didn’t take us out. Don’t blame me.’
‘We wouldn’t have gone without you.’
‘Course you would have. I just supplied the rods, which I might add, I no longer possess.’
‘Yes, that is a bit crook. Anyway, I know the others appreciate …’
‘Pat, I didn’t do anything. I don’t want people thinking it all depended on me because it didn’t.’
She sits facing me in her own wheelchair and I pretend to be rummaging in a drawer. I really don’t want to discuss it.
‘Have you ever been over to the other wing, Jack?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Do you know they have weekly excursions in a bus?’
‘They’re not invalid pensioners, Pat - they pay twice as much as we do for the privilege. They also have a hairdresser and they get tablecloths and a glass of wine with dinner.’
‘How old are you, Jack?’
‘You mean, how young?’
‘Either or.’
I have to think carefully before deciding on the truth.
‘Sixty-two.’
‘How old do you think I am?’
I glance at her. ‘A hundred and three.’
‘I’m sixty-four. Are you and I going to put up with the way things are around here for the next twenty years?’
She takes one good look at me and then turns around and leaves.
Christ, twenty years in here! I will admit she has frightened the life out of me. Twenty years! When you say it like that, it’s a life sentence! Why did she say it? She’s shot me right out of the sky. Now my mood has plum-meted like a WW2 Spitfire going into the sea.
This morning another bad turn. Jim did not show for breakfast. I waited until our breakfast staffer was out of the room and then I took Clem’s plastic cup with the lid on it, filled it with my tea, put it between my legs and wheeled down to Jim’s room. He looked pretty crook in my opinion, and he wasn’t interested in the tea. He has four pillows on his bed. Osborne came in soon after and she asked him how he was doing. ‘Not too good,’ he said. Then Osborne went off to catch the doctor while he was still in the building.
Jim’s room smells all Pine O Clean and flatulence - though I cast no aspersions. I look at the photo frames on his side-table. One shows Jim as a younger man standing between Jim Cairns and Gough Whitlam. You can tell they’re waiting for the cameraman to get his focus and take the shot. Another photo has three women and in the corner there’s a cut-out picture of Jim pasted in.
Suddenly Jim gets his arm out from under the blanket and reaches for my hand. I don’t know what to do. Perhaps he imagines I’m family, or Pheona. It’s not really my style, but in the end I wheel up close and kind of put my palm over his.
‘We had a good time,’ he says.
‘We did, Jim. We sure gave ‘em a serve, eh?’
‘It was a fish, wasn’t it?’
‘It sure was, Jim, and a bloody big one.’
Then Osborne comes back with the doctor so I make a hasty retreat.
It’s now 3 p.m. and the worst news has arrived. Jim has had another cardiac arrest and they’ve taken him to hospital. Oddly, the one who seems most worried is Bronson. He’s taken up a position right outside Jim’s door, sat right down on the carpet and crossed his legs. I have closed my door but I can still hear him murmuring to himself. Maybe they once knew each other. I wonder if Jim might’ve done something for Aboriginal people that he never mentioned?
Did not go to breakfast. Woke to find Collier in my room. Light suddenly goes on and I’m blinking up at her, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes.
‘Mr Smythe. Just thought I’d inform you that Jim Southall died last night in hospital. Since you were instrumental in getting his blood pressure up last week, I thought you’d want to be the first to know.’
Then she’s gone.
I just turn over into my pillow and pull the sheets over my head. Collier’s voice won’t leave me. Then I hear Jim’s: I did get one, Jack, didn’t I? Can you tell Pheona? Don’t forget to tell her about the fish, Jack. There’s other voices in the passageway. I get out of bed, close my door and take a piss in the hand-ba
sin - do I look worried? I get back into bed and disappear under the sheets again. I must have stayed like that a long time.
Sometime later, Dell comes by.
‘Go away!’ I tell her. ‘Get out of my room and leave me in peace.’
‘I’m not leaving until you get up, Jack,’ she says.
One thing I have learned: these bloody nurses are painfully stubborn, even the solitary good one. So here I am, sitting in my dressing gown and it’s going on for two o’clock. I am not getting dressed. I am not eating. I am not leaving this desk. I’m sick and fucking tired of fucking ‘Eden’.
This morning Pheona. She came by to clear up her grandfather’s things. Then she comes to my door and what is she carrying but her brother’s box of six petanque balls.
‘Get rid of them,’ I tell her. ‘I have no use for them.’
She puts them down near the door and comes over and sits on my bed.
‘I never said you could come in,’ I say.
She’s got a little blue book in her hand and then I notice that her eyes are red, the makeup washed off. I just about cry myself.
‘Pop kept a diary,’ she says. ‘Like you.’
‘I don’t keep a diary,’ I tell her.
‘Whatever.’
She sighs.
‘Thought you might be interested in this.’ She puts a sheet of paper on my chair and then stands up.
‘Guess I better go,’ she says, then hesitates in the doorway. ‘I’ll see you around sometime.’
‘Doubt it,’ I say. ‘What human being in their right mind would deliberately come into this hole?’
She stops abruptly and looks at me.
‘You’re right,’ she says, ‘no-one would choose it.’
Then she’s gone. I go to pick up the bit of paper and suddenly she’s back again.
‘Jack, you told me you ran away from home - twice. I ran away from home as well - three times. I’m over it, Jack. Don’t you think we should stop running away?’
That from a seventeen-year-old.
Smythe's Theory of Everything Page 24