This Excellent Machine

by Stephen Orr

  At last she said, ‘It was him or me, and you wouldn’ta wanted to be brought up by him.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  And then I felt I couldn’t continue. Whatever the reason, I’d have to hear it from someone else.

  She said, ‘Here,’ and indicated a space between two cars. ‘Try your reverse parallel.’

  ‘I know how to do it.’

  ‘Show me.’

  I indicated, slowed and positioned myself. Reverse, angle, in, straighten. ‘Okay?’

  ‘You don’t have to get smart.’

  ‘I was just saying, is that okay?’ I pulled out, continued along a road lined by factories and warehouses, an industrial island in the middle of Windsor Park.

  Then she remembered. ‘I was cleaning your room …’

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘That book of yours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where you write what you think of everyone.’

  ‘You read it?’

  ‘I’s hoping it was schoolwork, but no.’

  The Datsun just kept going. I said, ‘It’s not what I think of everyone, it’s a book of observations.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I dunno. It’s just interesting.’

  She wasn’t happy with this. ‘How do you know everyone’s IQ?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But that’s what you write. Mr Champness, you said—’

  ‘It’s just a guess, based on what I observe.’

  She didn’t get it. I couldn’t explain.

  ‘It’s just me thinking aloud. I don’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘No one’s better than anyone else, Clem.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They could write things about you.’

  ‘They’re welcome to.’

  ‘You look at Dr Scheer. He’s clever, but nice. He can afford to think he’s better than us, but he doesn’t. See, that’s the mark of the man: how gracious he is.’

  ‘Well, sorry.’

  ‘Ernie Sharpe, fifty-eight points … what was it, moron?’

  ‘It’s just a classification.’

  ‘Like we’re all insects.’

  I’d had enough. She was like a mower starting on a very big paddock. I made a U-turn and headed home. When she said we needed to do more, I shrugged.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  So she said, ‘And the way you describe people. That bit about Wendy.’

  ‘Christ, how much of it did you read?’

  ‘You don’t know what she’s been through, so you shouldn’t write stuff like that.’

  3/v/82 She ran away from him. Down the drive, the road, and didn’t come back till after eleven. Quite pathetic, really, that she can’t stand up to him. Or at least call the police …

  ‘Been through what?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘See, that’s just it!’ I pulled over. ‘How am I meant to know things if no one tells me? If you won’t tell me. If you burn all the …’

  The car idled. I’d made my point. You had to be honest with kids, or they’d assume the wrong things.

  A city red with fire. The distant ring of hills surrounding us, alight. A northerly pushing flames up hills and down valleys, consuming homes, halls, whole towns, cars full of mums and kids attempting to escape. Even from this distance we could see how fires were growing, joining and consuming the ranges no one had back-burned for decades. We were told there were people dying. Someone had a tranny and we listened to the reports and learned that half the state was on fire. Every metropolitan and country unit was fighting the inferno. They’d run out of men and trucks and some of these sat burned-out, too, black bodies smouldering through the afternoon. By two pm (they let us out early), as I walked home, the streets of Gleneagles were full of smoke.

  I turned into Lanark Avenue to see people in their yards, arms crossed, talking, looking to the hills. Peter Donnellan, clutching his rusty scythe, cutting arse-high grass. Mum had said something to Val, and she must’ve got him onto it. Mum often said her bit. Listen, Val, we’ll come and give you a hand with that rubbish out the back. You call the council and they’ll come and collect it. What d’you reckon? And Val would never disagree. I guess she knew things needed doing, but didn’t know how. One in a wheelchair, and the other in his room (aged forty) reading Proust. What could you do?

  ‘Hi, Peter.’

  He stopped and looked up, surprised. He was always in his own world. ‘How are you, Clem?’

  I studied the hills. ‘You reckon there are many dead?’

  ‘They say there’s eighteen already, but when they search the houses …’ He continued working.

  ‘You should borrow our Victa,’ I said.

  No reply. Why would you bother when cold steel could do the job?

  ‘Do you want me to go get it?’

  And without stopping: ‘No, thanks.’

  It seemed a funny time to be scything. Shouldn’t we all be gathered, muttering consolations, watching the fronts surge and recede? Plus, he was red-faced, the veins in his temple pulsing to the day’s irregular rhythms. ‘I could do it for you,’ I said. ‘Have it done in ten minutes.’

  Again, no reply. As though he was doing it because of the day, not despite it. As some sort of mea culpa on behalf of Lanark Avenue, or all of Gleneagles. Perhaps, if he worked hard enough, the wind would drop, the flames die, clouds gather, rain fall. A scything Jesus, complete with beard full of biscuit crumbs, yellow-tipped fingers, like his mum, long fingernails, because who did he have to impress?

  ‘Is it heavy?’ I asked.

  ‘Very.’ He offered it to me. I put down my bag, took it and tried to copy his actions. He sat in his brother’s shady spot, lighting a cigarette, and seemed pleased. I wasn’t sure if this meant I should keep going. ‘You ever seen it like this before?’ I asked.

  ‘Not this bad.’

  The Donnellans’ yard was its own disaster: fist cracks full of weeds and rat holes with snakes (Mum said she’d seen one). It had its own Mediterranean climate (in the shade of an olive tree) and libraries of old catalogues that had blown about for years.

  ‘Hard work, eh?’ I said to Peter.

  He smiled, smoking with the fag cupped in his hand.

  Fuck it! It was too hot for anything. I sat down and he offered me his smoke. I accepted, dragged, returned it.

  ‘I know all about you,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve seen you and Curtis, on the way home.’

  ‘Just have one occasionally.’

  ‘What would your mum say?’

  ‘She prob’ly knows.’

  He didn’t care. Six years at law school had taught him that rules were only for the people who made them. ‘It’s a bad habit.’

  ‘I got a bad attitude.’

  He smiled again, and punched my arm. ‘This isn’t the kid I used to babysit. You don’t remember, do you?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  ‘Yer mum’d come in and say, I gotta go to town, you wouldn’t do me a favour? And she’d present you two, and a pack of chips. Then I’d get out the Monopoly and you’d get bored and five minutes later you’d be chasing cats around the backyard and Mum’d be calling, Clem, leave them alone will yer?’

  We started to laugh, but it was too hot.

  ‘Then you’d come in and we’d sit you down in front of the Channel Niners, and you’d be off again. I remember you on the roof.’

  I could hear sirens from the main road. The world might be burning, ending, even, but there was no world beyond Lanark Avenue.

  ‘But then it got dark and yer mum wasn’t home so we bathed you and put you in yer jarmies and then it was even later, so we put you to bed, and I read to you. You don’t remember that, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘David Copperfield. You just said there’s no pictures, but I read anyway, and you listened and fell asleep and later, when yer mum came in, I scooped you
outa bed and carried you next door.’ He waited, and closed his eyes for a few moments.

  Further down the road, people had run out of conversation and gone in. You couldn’t stop fire with words, so what was the point?

  ‘She was lucky she had you,’ I said.

  ‘That’s how it used to be. Not so much now. Like him’—and he indicated number thirty—‘and his seat covers. Like it’s gonna make him millions.’

  ‘Sorry if I was a bitofa shit.’

  ‘Didn’t say I cared. Just remember. That used to make Mum’s day, when yer mum asked. She’s always loved having you and Jen … Me, David, too. We knew what it was like.’

  It seemed cooler now, but that was just David’s shade.

  I said, ‘Maybe it was worse for you. You knew your Dad.’

  ‘Better, worse, doesn’t matter. You get on, eh?’

  ‘But … how he died.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter how you die. Days after he’d gone, me and David decided, Righto, let’s make this work. We had the house looking nice, me on the dishes and hoover, David cooking, making beds.’ He turned again. ‘You just gotta decide how it’s gonna be.’

  ‘I didn’t get to decide.’

  ‘It coulda ended worse.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s not my place to say.’

  He stood, returned to his scythe and continued.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘He was a good man, your dad.’ As he swung. ‘We helped him paint Jen’s room, and yours, before you come home from hospital. He bought cots, and all the gear, had it nice. Doted on yers. Used to parade you up and down the street. He was a changed man for a while. Your mum thought things’d come good.’ He stopped again, realising he was about to say the same thing. ‘He even hired a photographer, and he set up in your living room and took photos, and they gave us a copy.’

  Me and Jen in soft focus. I stood, approached him and tried to take the scythe. ‘Here, let me, you’re gonna have a stroke.’

  He wouldn’t yield.

  ‘What do you mean, a changed man?’

  ‘Just saying, don’t think he didn’t care about you. Don’t think it was that simple, why he went away.’ He realised he couldn’t go back. The grass fell in sheaths, and sat neatly on the ground.

  ‘You can’t tell me half a story.’ I’d never seen him like this before. Maybe it was the heat, the smoke, the ash in the air.

  There was no point pursuing it; he wasn’t about to reveal any more. He’d let my dad slip out of his box, and knew he had to go back in. He stopped, surveyed his lawn, then went inside.

  Curtis rode past. ‘Forsaken now, like some old, mouldering thing …’

  He’d predicted it, I guessed. But if you’re pessimistic enough, you see everything coming. Peter Donnellan was Curtis Burrell’s arch enemy. They fought, and insulted each other in speech bubbles. Good versus evil. Beard versus clean-shaven. See, life is simple. You can boil it down to a comic book plot. Jaysus, and the Baptists’ heaven, versus Dante’s and Curtis’s hell. Even at sixteen years of age, I wondered if everyone saw the world like me.

  There was a rosella on the fence. I stepped towards it and held out my hand and it fluttered onto my finger. I looked around; the street was deserted, but the fires were still raging. I picked up my bag, threw it into our yard and crossed the street, bird still perched on my finger. Up the gravel drive to the porch where Les always sat. ‘Mr Champness?’

  And a voice, above the wind that had stripped the skin off the road, the sides of tress, the gravel and fences. ‘Round here.’

  I walked down the drive and found Les beside his aviary, pegging a sheet to the wire to keep the wind out. ‘I found this one,’ I said.

  He studied it. ‘It’s not mine.’

  ‘Where do you reckon it came from?’

  He’d never said more than a few dozen words to me. Just when we were getting in the car, and he was out watering, and Pop called, ‘How are yer, Les?’ and he just waved, or said, ‘Hot.’

  ‘Eastern rosella. They’re not uncommon.’

  ‘I’ve never seen one. Nice colours, eh?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He examined it quickly, but didn’t seem interested. Perhaps because he hadn’t bought it, fed it, adopted it. Still, a bird was a bird.

  ‘What do you reckon I should do with it?’

  ‘Let it go.’

  I shook my finger, waved it in the air, but it didn’t want to go. ‘How do you …?’

  He took it, put it on the top of the fence, and watched it for a while. ‘Doesn’t seem to want to do anything.’

  ‘Maybe it’s hungry?’

  But he just looked at me like I was stupid. ‘Right.’ He reclaimed the bird, opened his aviary and placed it on a perch. ‘Another one to feed.’

  Not exactly the response I was hoping for. I turned to the hills, the fires, and said, ‘Pretty bad, eh?’

  The same look—like he just didn’t get me.

  ‘I just remembered … was it true you used to keep rabbits in there?’

  ‘No.’

  A fairly clear message. I walked off.

  ‘I know you’ve been watching.’

  I turned. ‘Sorry.’

  He pointed to my room. ‘That yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see the reflection—and the telescope, when the curtain blows.’

  I could feel my heart racing. ‘Mum got it for me. I like astronomy.’

  ‘You’re not gonna see many stars looking out there.’

  His eyes, I thought, reflected the flames.

  ‘You better watch yerself, Mr Whelan, or I’ll be over to have a talk to your mum.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Words? No point. I crossed the road, realising I lived far too close to this man.

  Mr Sharpe, returning from the Windsor (where he tied Fi-Fi to the verandah post while he drank with mates for hours on end; where Fi-Fi had learned to stay away from the main road; where the publican, a Mr Loussier, had placed a bowl of water for the dog and sometimes, after tea, scraps from the half-eaten roasts-of-the-day), could be heard coming from some distance. ‘Next door to me, next door to me, the girl next door to me.’ He stopped in front of 31, sat on the fence, farted, and continued; ‘A dog with a healthy bite, a nibble on his pants last night.’ Although he was facing away from me (and greeted Mr Champness, sitting on his porch) he knew I was watching. ‘Have you made a note, Mr Whelan?’

  I sat silently.

  ‘Does it read a little something like, Mr Sharpe, coming home sozzled …’ He checked his watch. ‘Ten minutes late, so perhaps he found a friend.’

  Fi-Fi struggled to sniff a fence post, but he jagged her back.

  ‘Mr Sharpe believes in portergaff …’

  ‘Is that you, Mr Sharpe?’

  ‘Evening, Clem. He’s as regular as clockwork. The old girl, Ida, is always complaining, but Mr Sharpe says a man needs a drink at the end of a long day. Don’t you agree, Clem?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sharpe.’

  And called, ‘What do you think, Mr Champness?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Man needs a drink at the end of a long day?’

  But Les wasn’t about to buy into it. He returned to his paper.

  ‘I don’t make any notes, Mr Sharpe.’

  ‘Mum reckons you wanna be a writer?’

  ‘I observe but … I don’t write it down.’

  ‘Her brother belongs to the boxing ‘pros’, And he knocks a rat-a-tat on the tip of my nose.’

  ‘Give it a rest,’ Les called.

  ‘Sorry, Les. Just having a word to young Whelan here.’

  Les shook his head. ‘He’s been warned, too.’

  ‘How’s that, Mr Champness?’

  ‘Just get home, Ernie. You’re a disgrace.’

  ‘Next door to me, next door to me … You there, Clem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Every street has one, don’t you think?’

  ‘What’s that, Mr Sharpe?’<
br />
  ‘A disgrace. But there’s a lot worse than grog, sung without licence or fee, except in music halls.’

  ‘A lot worse.’

  ‘Like miserable old cunts like him.’

  We both watched the pages of the paper turning.

  ‘Where I grew up, Clem, people looked out for each other. Two up, two down, and the kids on the street. Someone like him’—and he said it discreetly—‘they’d be let know. Workers of the world unite!’

  ‘Get home!’ Les called.

  ‘Mr Sharpe is quoting Marx again. He was an old Red, organised for some union, and he lives in the past. Do I, Clem?’

  ‘No, Mr Sharpe.’

  ‘It’s all o’er the town that I can’t sit down.’

  ‘Which union was it?’

  He turned. ‘You interested?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He indicated, pulled Fi-Fi along, and jogged home. I slipped on my sneakers and followed. Life was long, and there was a lot to be learned. As I walked down the drive, and turned towards number 35, Les said, ‘You oughta keep away from him.’ I didn’t reply.

  I knocked, and Ida let me in. She was wearing her too-tight leotards, T-shirt and wrist bands. There had been sightings in the neighbourhood, generally when she went out to check the mail. And on the telly, Richard Simmons offering encouragement. She offered me coffee and said, ‘Is Ernie behaving himself?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  Fi-Fi was already dozing on the lounge, a belly full of chicken schnitzel. She was an overweight poodle, dragging her guts along the pavement between the Windsor and Lanark Avenue, wearing off the hair (you could see where).

  ‘He’s in his study,’ she said.

  I followed a hall of more old-world colourised photos to the lair: a desk, a portrait of Marx and Engels on the wall, bookcases full of hardbound volumes with titles like Theses on Feuerbach, and The Modern Theory of Colonisation. I guessed Mr Sharpe was smarter than he seemed. Here was a world of European history, economics, politics, as well as the remnants of Ernie’s past: photos of him and other men with banners proclaiming ‘8-8-8’.

  ‘Sit here,’ he said, and lifted a pile of papers from a seat. I did as I was told, and he placed a photo album across my knees. ‘This is how I got started,’ he said, indicating a black-and-white photo with a young Ernie, continental sideburns and slicked-back hair. ‘Age thirty-two, I was elected shop steward at Morphett’s. They made switchboards.’ He and several other men stood in front of a banner: ‘Electrical Workers’ Union of Great Britain’. ‘I met a lot of good men, and they educated me.’