by Stephen Orr
I did as I was told, and found a Jag hood ornament. ‘No way.’
‘But, but,’ he said, ‘promise me? It’ll be the very last thing you do.’
‘How much did it cost?’
‘Don’t worry about that. You gotta have one.’
It was heavy, perfect, polished. ‘I can give you something for it.’
‘No, you can’t. She’s gonna cost a lot. I’ll help out where I can.’
A few minutes later we were back at it. More Lenin, and how I’d structure an essay on Bruce Dawe. ‘It’d be better if Pop helped,’ I said.
‘We’ll be okay.’
‘When it gets to the engine. He’d be the one.’
‘Well, he’s decided.’
‘I keep asking him.’
‘That’s all you can do.’
‘I thought, after the trip, things might change.’
We sat silently, thinking.
‘It’s the keeping going,’ Peter said. ‘When you can’t see the point.’
Then, Val, in the distance. ‘Pete, you comin’ in?’
Like he was seven, still, out on his bike, and she’d cooked his tea.
‘Comin’.’ He stood, took his bottle, and said, ‘Bout another week and it’ll be ready. I promise, drinkable, at least.’
And was gone.
Perhaps I was complicating life. I’d already learned, it was all about asking the right questions. Meeting Ron on his way to the shops the previous day, saying, ‘Mum only goes to Tom the Cheap now.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Reckons those girls are rude down at Woolies.’
Then he’d said, ‘You thought about that problem I posed you?’
I’d taken a moment. ‘The subject almost completed his education; almost received a scholarship; almost secured a teaching position. But life had other plans.’
‘Keep it scientific.’
‘And with the death of both parents, what had seemed important, no longer seemed important.’
He’d said, ‘And who told you that?’
I’d just smiled. He knew, of course. Don had the answers to everything.
‘So?’
‘I guess that’s enough to make anyone rethink things?’
‘At some point you lose your ambition and settle on something. But car seats, that’s something I enjoy. Something my dad taught me, so I guess, in a way, I owe it to him.’
So maybe Pop was asking the God of Datsuns what really mattered? And maybe He was saying, Spend time with your family, Doug. Plenty of other people know how to fit a timing chain.
As the big, white (lost) rabbit of the universe sniffed about for food. Les, in the distance, calling, Carn, Susie, I gotta lettuce leaf for you.
I remembered Pop saying, Somewhere near the hutch. Stripped-back Pop, covered with a fine layer of dust, wandering the backyard looking for something he’d lost. Me saying, What is it? What are you looking for, Pop?
The rabbit.
There must have been hundreds, millions of them by now. Ernie’s inbred bunnies, spread across Gleneagles. But why was it you never saw them?
Near the hutch …
As I wondered, stood, walked behind the shed, and sorted through the wood pile. Old fence posts, eaves, the lot, and a little door, with a back and sides and bottom, with shit on it.
I tried to remember. Had we had rabbits?
There was wire, too, off the front, and you could see where teeth had tried to chew it.
I couldn’t remember a hutch. I walked behind the sheds, searched, around the sides, the concrete ring where the pool had been, the fence line, where me and Jen had put up the ladder to get to Don’s. And there, in the back corner, the sawed-off bottom of four posts. The size matching the timber. I scratched it with my foot, and wondered.
Near the hutch …
Dead grass, cracking soil, and sand. In all these years, I’d never noticed, but there was a thin layer of sand, like it might’ve been a pit.
I ran to the shed, found a shovel, returned, and began. A foot down, two, then a metallic clang. I dug until the truck took shape: a Tonka tipper, rusted, but still operating. I dragged it from the earth, sat it on the ground, pushed it around, even put some sand in the tray. Trying to remember, sitting here, in my pit, running my hands through the soil, building cities, as the rabbit watched me, as Pop came out, sat with me and said, We should start a quarry.
And me, wondering what a quarry was.
I couldn’t remember, but it must have happened. A million things I didn’t know about, because they were too long ago. I reckoned I could stay in my sandpit forever: filling, moving, tipping, listening to Pop saying, These things can carry fifty tonnes. Maybe we could drive one? What d’you reckon, Clemmy? You and me?
I could see him, squeezing my hand, flicking sand from my face, and getting me ready for the world. No words. Just the noise of the factory, the flapping of wet clothes on the line, not-so-distant traffic, Sherbet playing somewhere.
I picked up the tipper and went in and showed it to Pop, who couldn’t remember it, of course. I placed it on my desk, studied how it opened and closed, the door, even, and how the steering wheel turned, and realised, Ron was wrong. There was no way to find out; no way to explain.
‘I can remember,’ Vicky said.
‘Bullshit.’
‘He’d just mowed the lawn, and bent over to pick a weed or something, and you pushed him and he fell, and then you jumped on his back: Giddyup!’
‘How can you remember that?’
‘And then I got on, and he carried us both.’
It might’ve happened, I thought, or maybe it just suited the moment. I breathed again, deeply, and saw the green world, and us kids, running around inside its borders.
‘And then he collapsed, and Dad said, Leave Doug alone, and Doug said, Na, it’s okay, Ossie.’
I sat up. It would’ve been nice, if it had happened like this.
I noticed Pop come out of the Sutherland wing, stand with the woman who had shown us around, and work his chin in his hand, like he always did before making an important decision. ‘It looks very nice, Ms Smith,’ I said.
‘Call me Fiona, Mr Currie … Doug.’
I studied the woman’s face, her work tunic, with its woven St Margaret’s logo.
‘If I need to share a room, I wouldn’t want a Paki.’
‘You’re so wrong,’ Vicky said.
‘They have this terrible habit of passing wind.’
It’d been Pop’s idea. He’d pulled me aside and said, ‘What you doin’ Saturday?’
‘Studying.’
‘Got an hour spare?’
‘I s’pose. What’s up?’
‘I wanna get your opinion on something.’
‘What?’
But he’d just tapped his nose. Then, on our way, he’d said, ‘A nursing home.’
This I didn’t get. He was a hater of nursing homes. Of order, made beds, people in tunics with woven logos. ‘But …’
‘Just to have a look. Can’t a man be curious?’
Vicky had said, ‘You don’t wanna go in one of those places, Doug.’
‘Didn’t say I was gonna.’
It had ended there. We’d arrived, met Fiona or whatever her name was, had a tour of the Bradman wing, before Pop went on without us.
Vicky watched the woman and said, ‘We have bingo at five every night, Doug. Oh, I like a bita bingo. And the ladies have Feres in to set their hair. Feres, eh? Bit of a poof, isn’t he? Yes, of course, but the ladies like that. Joyrene comes once a month with a selection of frocks, but we can arrange for some gentlemen’s wear.’
‘She’s not saying that,’ I said. ‘She’s saying, You come live with us, Doug, gis yer pension, meat and three veg every day. How’s that sound?’
‘What’s he thinking?’
‘I dunno.’ I really didn’t. Death was better than Doonican (sorry, Ern). Three o’clock charades (she’d already told us about them). Four o’clock bow
ls. ‘She’s saying, None of us are getting any younger, Doug.’
We watched them talk. Or, her talk and him listen.
‘I can remember,’ Vicky said. ‘His back giving way, and us rolling on the lawn.’
‘He used to like the races.’
‘And us running through the sprinkler, with the clover and the bees and the stings and the Condy’s crystals.’
We could hear the old girl; like a lawnmower.
‘Pity it’s gotta come to this, eh, Clem?’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘But it does. One day you’re talking …’
Pop was still a healthy man, and whatever was going on upstairs, it was still early days. ‘I don’t even reckon they’re right,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Alzheimer’s. He’s got a good memory, mostly. Except when he goes out with his jarmies on.’
‘Well, you can take yer boiled cabbage and yer pissy carpet and shove it up yer arse,’ Vicky said.
‘Excuse me, Mr Currie.’
‘Can we have prostitutes?’
‘What about me?’
‘No, decent ones. You haggard old sea dog.’
‘I go like an outboard motor.’
We laughed, rolled again, and Pop called over, ‘What’s wrong with you two?’
‘Nothing,’ I sang, sweetly.
My opinion, apparently. That’s all I’d been brought for. But maybe, he guessed, there was a good chance I’d tell Mum something he’d sworn me not to.
‘He needs to learn to listen,’ Vicky said.
‘I reckon he’s made his mind up. Mr Currie, we have a Greek fella who sings, but your grandson says you enjoy a bita that.’
‘Greek?’
‘Singing.’
She grinned at me. ‘You’re obsessed with it?’
‘What?’
‘Sex?’
‘What’d I say?’
And continued grinning. I wondered, if we hadn’t been sitting on St Margaret’s lawns …
‘Carn,’ Pop said, motioning.
We followed them inside. Fiona stopped in front of a door and said, ‘This is our wanderers’ ward.’
A nurse exited after entering a code. Fiona said, ‘You just put in one, two, three, four, but they can’t work that out.’
They, I thought. People like Pop. Inside, a few old girls in dressing-gowns wandered, stopped, talked to themselves, blew on their hands.
‘Bit depressing,’ Vicky said.
Fiona smiled. ‘It’s how you look at it.’
‘Depressing.’
Pop was watching some old man rocking to and fro. ‘Better here than Woolies, or the main road.’
Better the main road, I thought.
We continued. The Palmer wing. Double rooms, but bed-bound. Two old fellas watching car racing. One said, ‘Holdens this year,’ and the other replied, ‘Fords.’
Fiona’s pager went off, and she found a phone. I took the opportunity to say to Pop, ‘This place is horrible. What d’you reckon, Vick?’
‘You’re not seriously thinking about it, are you, Doug?’
‘My age …’
But Fiona was back.
The first man said, ‘Holdens this year,’ and his mate replied, ‘Fords,’ and I said, ‘They seem to have made their minds up,’ but Fiona just looked at me like, I reckon you’re a bit of a smart-arse.
As the girls walked ahead, I said to Pop, ‘Me and Jen and Mum’ll look after you.’
‘I know you will.’
‘Is it cosa what Mum said?’
‘Na.’
We both knew; when we’d returned from the desert. Mum, on the porch, ‘Bloody ridiculous, a man your age. If you can’t be trusted we’ll have to find somewhere to look after you.’
‘I know why,’ I said to Pop. ‘Cos Mum reckons she’ll sell the house.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It is. You’re calling her bluff.’
Vicky overheard. ‘He’s right, Doug. You don’t wanna go before you have to.’
‘You know what Mum’s like,’ I said. ‘Half the stuff she says she doesn’t mean.’
‘She means it; all of it.’
A small room, smelling of spearmint leaves. A faded poster, with instructions for fitting deadbolts. Light blue walls, for pacifying, I guessed, but judging from the holes in the wall, it hadn’t worked.
I could still see the coppers, taking him away. Me and Pop standing in the drive, Pop approaching them and saying, ‘Why’d you wanna put him in handcuffs?’
All this before we’d found out what had happened.
There was a small window, and you could see across the road to Gleneagles High. Ted Hunter, smoke in hand, stood watching the Year Eights as they ran around, forming a pattern that’d last into adulthood. Now, I could see the point of the pool hall. Nothing they told you was true; or necessarily true. Fitness didn’t make you happy, or smart, or get you a good job, or keep you out of this place, apparently.
Pop had said, ‘He’s not eighteen,’ then one of the coppers had replied, ‘How about you leave it to us?’
A small table, chipped melamine, with a plastic seat each side. So he couldn’t hurt anyone, I guessed.
Pop had said, ‘No need to twist his arm.’
But he wasn’t talking about John.
Round and round, before he made them start jumping jacks. Like, if the blood flowed, everything would be okay. Exercise and matrices and anaerobic respiration would make us better people.
A fan, clunking, although it wasn’t particularly hot.
Pop had said, ‘If you’d just stop, let him be, he’d calm down.’
Curtis had looked at him like, Don’t worry, Doug. It doesn’t matter.
Before they’d put him in the van, bolted the door and driven off, as other cars arrived.
I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a spearmint-smelling room, waiting for my best friend. Life has a way of warping, changing, and throwing up piles of caramel-coloured shit, but nothing like this.
Teddy Hunter gave them softballs, and they started throwing them at each other. I could just hear him. Carn, you mob, get yer arses inta gear.
But the oval seemed a long way away; across a road of years, and a thousand front lawns. Whatever had happened there had happened before we could remember.
The door opened and a constable peered in and said, ‘You’re Clem Whelan?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Righto. Ten minutes. And careful, you’re being watched.’ He pointed to a camera in the corner.
Curtis came in and stood, waiting. ‘Now this, this is like something out of Easy Rider.’
But not funny said it. More, observational said it.
‘Prisoner.’
‘Carn here, you fat slag.’
But then he deflated, realising there was no point. He sat, waved to the camera, and said, ‘You’re number three.’
I waited.
‘Mum, Dad …’
‘What’d they say?’
No reply. He was wearing his own clothes; his own jeans, and shirt. I wanted to ask about the overalls, and slippers, but knew I couldn’t.
‘Yes, quite strange,’ he said. ‘Me, locked away.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘There’s a view of the school, so if I can’t go I can at least watch.’ He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Pessimum.’ And looked at me. ‘Doesn’t work.’
‘Guess not.’
‘I was gonna have a top ten hates of the day. Number one: John. He was always the top. Number two: White. Number three—’
‘Your own room?’
‘For now. Though I’ve been told …’
‘What?’
‘If I’m tried as an adult …’
We both knew. Strange, that one minute you could be reading a book (I’d seen him, half an hour earlier, on his porch), and the next, sharing a room with a rapist.
‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘It’ll all come out.
You had to … yeah?’
‘Didn’t have to.’
Now they had a game going: pitcher, batter, bases. Me and Curtis in the outfield, where we couldn’t do any harm.
‘Hunter,’ I said.
‘He was okay.’
‘You never had him.’
‘Yes, I did. Year Eight.’
But it all returned to the room, and the spearmint smell. He was watching the game. ‘They should tell you what happens after all that.’
Or during. Since John had first jumped down from his tree, beat his chest, stolen a few packs of chips while Don was out the back.
‘… it’s nothin’ like that, eh?’
‘Guess not.’
‘Guess not. You always say that, Clemmy. Guess not. Little Tom Sawyer, eh?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘With yer little dimples. Guess not.’
I smiled; for his sake.
‘And how’s yer girlfriend?’
‘She’s not.’
‘Way she looks at you, like she wants to lay back and let little Clemmy—’
‘You didn’t have a choice,’ I said.
‘I did.’
‘You’re not gonna tell them that?’
He studied my face. ‘I can see what she sees in you.’
‘What?’
‘You’re sorta good-lookin’, in a non-poof sorta way. Compared to the Burrells, who are all … blocky. See, that’s what the chicks like.’
I didn’t know if I could bring him back, or should. ‘What, he’d just got home?’
‘Walked past me and said, What you readin’? And, as instructed, I ignored him.’
It didn’t matter. I already knew. How John had returned in syrupy, smoky clothes, two weeks’ growth, needle marks, the lot. How he’d gone in, and within minutes was shouting at his parents.
‘What’s the food like?’ I asked, as if it mattered.
‘They like chicken. Roasted, fried … I asked who made it and this prick says, Why do you care? But it seems strange. There’s only six or seven of us, so you wouldn’t think they’d have a full-time cook.’
He looked down. No thought, it seemed, could cancel out the thought. John, on a trolley, wheeled from the house, as Gary comforted Anne, Les and Wendy watched from their lounge and me and Mum and Pop stood waiting for answers. Pop telling a detective, ‘He was a bad egg. Anything Curtis mighta done, he woulda had to.’
Then the detective had taken a statement, and our names, and said, ‘We’ll come back and talk to yers when we got a bit more time.’ And went in.