Stream System

by Gerald Murnane

  The man had seen in the background of his mind plains of green grass crossed by a winding stream of silver water bordered by a few trees with dark-green leaves. He had seen in the foreground of his mind, beneath overhanging leaves, a young woman wearing a sleeveless white robe and holding up a glass goblet. Silvery water bubbled out of the goblet and down to the grass and then away in a stream across the plains of green grass. On the dark green of the leaves above the young woman was printed the word Schweppervescence.

  The man who had remembered at Hepburn Springs in 1987 the image of Hepburn Springs that had appeared in his mind during 1960 and 1961 had seen only a whitish blur where the face of the young woman should have appeared in his mind. The man who had seen the whitish blur in his mind had not remembered whether he had seen in his mind during 1960 and 1961 a whitish blur or the face of the young woman, but the man seeing the whitish blur in 1987 had remembered that the young woman whose image had appeared in the poster in the years soon after the Second World War had been one of the young women that he had fallen in love with during those years.

  * * *

  During the years 1961 and 1962 the man who had seen in his mind at Hepburn Springs in 1987 a young woman who had caused silvery water to flow across plains of green grass had lived alone in a bungalow of one room behind a house in a suburb twelve miles south-east of Caulfield Racecourse.

  In the morning and in the evening of each school day during those years the man had travelled by train between the suburb where he lived and the suburb where he worked as a primary teacher, which was nineteen miles south-east of Caulfield Racecourse. In the morning of each of those days the man had travelled in the same compartment with one or two or three young female teachers from the school where he taught. In the evening of each of those days the man had travelled alone to the suburb where he lived after having drunk beer and talked with a group of male teachers in a hotel in the suburb where he taught in a primary school.

  Whenever only one young woman had been travelling with the man, she and he had talked together. Whenever two or three young women had travelled with the man, the young women had talked mostly among themselves while the young man had filled out a crossword puzzle in the Age.

  Whenever the young women had talked among themselves, each young woman had talked about the American films and the television programs that she had watched recently or about the places in the countryside near Melbourne where her boyfriend had taken her recently in his car or about the parties that she and her boyfriend had attended recently. The man who is the chief character of this story had often listened to the young women while he filled out his crossword puzzle and had noticed that the young women seldom talked about their boyfriends. Whenever a young woman talked about her boyfriend she seemed to the man filling out his crossword to be assuring the other young women that she had not fallen in love with her boyfriend.

  Once in every few months the young women had talked with more zest than usual. They had talked with more zest on a morning when one of the young women had told the others that one of her girlfriends had become engaged to be married. They had talked about the ring that the engaged young woman was wearing or about the shower tea or the kitchen tea that would be arranged for her or about the block of land that the engaged couple would buy in an outer suburb or about the wedding day in the future.

  When one or another of the young women had been alone in the compartment on a Monday morning with the chief character of this story she had sometimes asked him what he had done during the previous weekend. The man had answered truthfully that he had played cards with a few friends on the Friday evening and had gone to the races on the Saturday and had stayed at home on the Sunday. The man had hoped that the young woman would suppose that he had done some of these things in the company of a young woman.

  On one Monday morning in June 1961 the young women had talked with much more zest than usual. The man who was travelling with them had soon learned that one of the young women had announced her engagement to the man who had been her boyfriend for three years. During the next weeks the young women had talked with much zest each morning about the engagement ring that the young woman was wearing or about the shower tea or the kitchen tea that would be arranged for her or about the block of land that she and her fiancé would buy in an outer suburb or about the wedding day in the future.

  On one Monday morning in July 1961 the young woman who had recently announced her engagement and the man who is the chief character of this story had travelled alone together on the train. While they had travelled the young woman had asked the man what he had done during the previous weekend.

  When the young woman had asked this question, the man had suspected that the young woman knew that he had never had a girlfriend and that he had not asked any young woman to go anywhere with him for more than four years and that the young woman was inviting him to confide to her something that he had not previously confided to any person.

  After the young man had suspected these things he had not told the young woman what he had done during the weekend, which had been to play cards with four other men on the Friday evening, to go alone to the races on the Saturday, and to sit alone in his room drinking beer and reading on the Saturday evening and on the Sunday. Instead, the man had told the young woman that he had gone to a picture theatre on the Saturday evening and had seen an interesting Swedish film.

  The young woman had asked him the name of the Swedish film.

  The man had said that the name of the film was The Virgin Spring.

  The young woman had seemed not to have heard of the film, but the man had watched the film named The Virgin Spring on the previous Wednesday evening after he had first drunk beer with the male teachers in the hotel and had then bought a parcel of fish and chips and a flask of vodka and had travelled by train into the city of Melbourne. During that year the man had gone to a picture theatre in the city of Melbourne once in every two or three weeks, but he had always gone on an evening of a weekday. If the man had gone to a picture theatre on a Saturday evening he would have had to sit alone among couples and groups of friends.

  The man had then described to the young woman the few images that had stayed in his mind after he had watched the Swedish film. He had described the image of a girl with blonde hair that had looked almost white who had travelled alone on a path at the edge of a forest in Sweden. He had then described the images of two men and a boy who had watched the girl from among the trees beside the path and who had then run along the path towards the girl and had made panting noises. He had then described the image of the boy’s vomiting on the path when he had seen the two men beginning to rape and to kill the girl. The man had then described the image of water bubbling from a spring that had appeared at the place where the girl had been raped and killed.

  * * *

  On a hot evening in January 1964, the eight persons who had later gathered at Hepburn Springs in June 1987 had travelled with fifteen other persons in a boat upstream along the Yarra River to a point about five miles from the centre of Melbourne and then downstream and back to the centre of Melbourne in order to celebrate the second anniversary of the wedding of the man and the woman who had first met on an ice-skating rink in St Kilda.

  At about the time when the boat had travelled upstream for as far as it was going to travel before it returned downstream, the man who was celebrating the second anniversary of his wedding had struck a spoon repeatedly against an empty beer bottle until the persons celebrating the anniversary had stopped talking and drinking. The man had then announced to the people the engagement of the man who is the chief character of this story and a young woman.

  The chief character of this story had first met the young woman on the morning of the first school day in 1963 when he had been aged twenty-four years and nine months and she had been aged nineteen years and six months and when she had travelled with him on a train beside the shore of Port Phillip Bay towards the outer south-eastern suburb of Melbourne where h
e had taught for five years in a primary school and where she was about to begin teaching in the same primary school after she had trained for two years at a teachers’ college conducted by the Education Department of Victoria. The chief character of this story had not asked the young woman to go anywhere with him until a certain afternoon in June 1963 when he had not gone to the hotel where he drank on most afternoons but had travelled by train to Caulfield in order to drink with a man who was connected with a racing stable. The young woman had been travelling on the same train in order to buy clothes in the city of Melbourne. When the train had been passing the high dark-green fence along the eastern boundary of Caulfield Racecourse the man had told the young woman that he went to the races on every Saturday afternoon. The young woman had then said that she had never been to the races but that she would love to go on some Saturday afternoon. The man had then asked the young woman to go with him to the next race meeting at Caulfield Racecourse. The young woman had then agreed to go with him.

  While the boat had been travelling first upstream and then downstream in the Yarra River the chief character of this story had drunk beer continually and had talked continually with his fiancée and with other persons. Sometimes the man had looked out of the boat and across the water towards the lights of houses among the trees overlooking the Yarra River. While he had looked at the lights, the chief character had seen in his mind the quince tree and the boxthorn bushes and the jonquils on the patch of short green grass where the men named Cotter, the bachelor great-uncles of his father, had lived in a house overlooking Lake Gillear in the south-west of Victoria.

  On the following morning the man looking out from the boat was going to travel with his fiancée in his cream-coloured Volkswagen sedan to the city of Warrnambool in the south-west of Victoria. The man and his fiancée were going to spend a week of their holidays in the house belonging to the unmarried sisters of his father. When the man looking out from the boat had seen in his mind the place where the brothers Cotter had lived on the hillside overlooking Lake Gillear, he had planned to take his fiancée to that place on a fine afternoon during their holidays and to be alone with her there.

  The man seeing in his mind part of the hillside overlooking Lake Gillear had previously been alone with the young woman who had later become his fiancée only during the last hour of each Saturday and the first hour of each Sunday from the first week in November 1963. The man had been alone with the young woman during those hours in his room and had kissed the young woman and had put his right hand inside one or another piece of her underclothing but had not tried to do any more to the young woman because he and she had not yet announced their engagement and because the young woman believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church and the man had been afraid of what she might have said to him if he had tried to do more to her.

  The man travelling on the Yarra River and seeing in his mind the grassy paddocks around Lake Gillear had intended to travel on a fine afternoon during the following week in his Volkswagen sedan and with his fiancée beside him five miles from the city of Warrnambool to the grassy paddocks around Lake Gillear. He had intended to tell his fiancée while he and she walked across the paddocks from where he had parked his Volkswagen sedan that he had walked across those paddocks many times during his summer holidays in past years. The man had intended to lead the young woman past tall tussocks and clumps of rushes and to show her patches of green grass where water had lain on the surface of the paddock during winter and where the soil under the grass was still damp. He had intended to confide to the young woman that he had walked past those patches of green grass on fine afternoons during the summer holidays of past years and had wanted to see in his mind himself alone with a young woman on the green grass but had been walking with his unmarried uncle towards the place where the unmarried great-uncles of his uncle had lived on a hillside overlooking Lake Gillear and had not thought of himself alone with a young woman because he had been afraid of what his uncle might have thought if he had guessed what the nephew walking beside him had been thinking.

  The man who had intended to do the things mentioned in the previous paragraph had intended next to take the young woman to the place where the house had once stood in a garden overlooking Lake Gillear but where only a quince tree and a few boxthorn bushes and a few clumps of jonquils grew in January 1964 and only a few bricks lay. The man had intended finally to ask the young woman to sit and then to lie beside him on the green grass.

  * * *

  The man walking beside Spring Creek with the woman who had been his wife for twenty-two years and five months and with three other husbands and wives remembered having driven his cream-coloured Volkswagen sedan from Warrnambool towards Lake Gillear with his fiancée sitting beside him early in the afternoon of the last day of their holidays in the south-west of Victoria in January 1964. The man remembered that his fiancée had packed a basket with cakes and fruit and lemonade and had brought a travelling rug after he had told her that he was taking her to a place where they could be alone in the shade of a tree overlooking a lake. The man next remembered that he had turned his Volkswagen aside from the road towards Lake Gillear when he had almost reached Lake Gillear. He had turned the car aside in order to introduce his fiancée to his unmarried uncle, who still lived in a farmhouse near the Hopkins River in the district of Allansford although his two unmarried sisters had recently gone to live in the city of Warrnambool, before he took his fiancée to Lake Gillear.

  The man walking towards the hotel in the evening of his last day at Hepburn Springs remembered his fiancée’s meeting his uncle and asking him about the history of the house where he lived alone among overgrown gardens and orchards near the Hopkins River. The man remembered his uncle’s taking the young woman through the empty rooms of the house towards the room that he called his bedroom-cum-study and unlocking for her the glass doors at the front of the tall bookcase. The man remembered his uncle’s lifting out from among the books about history and travel and racehorses and Australian birds and poetry two ledgers with marbled paper on the insides of their covers and his showing the young woman first the ledger where he had written the notes and had drawn the charts for the family history that he had once planned to write and to have published and next the ledger where he had written the notes and drawn the sketches for the book about the birds of his district that he had once planned to write and to have published.

  The man remembering the things mentioned in the previous paragraph next remembered that he had frowned at his fiancée for a few moments while she had been looking up from one of his uncle’s ledgers and while his uncle had been looking down at the ledger. He had frowned in order to remind her that he still intended to take her to a place overlooking a lake and that she ought to prepare to leave his uncle’s house. After he had frowned, his fiancée had looked at him with an expression of aloofness.

  The man at Hepburn Springs remembering on a winter evening the summer afternoon in the district of Allansford remembered that he had foreseen after his fiancée had looked at him with an expression of aloofness that she would later ask him to bring the basket from the car so that he and she could share their cakes and fruit and lemonade with his uncle on the veranda of his house before he left for the paddocks in order to call his cows for the afternoon milking. The man remembered that he had foreseen at the same time that he and his fiancée would arrive at the end of the road in the paddocks near Lake Gillear and would begin to walk across the paddocks late in the afternoon and that a cool south-west breeze would be blowing from the Southern Ocean when he and she reached the lake. The man had foreseen also that his fiancée would ask questions about the house that had once stood on the hillside overlooking the lake and about the men who had lived in the house. The man had foreseen also that he would not be able to answer the young woman’s questions and that he would then turn and would lead her away from the lake and across the paddocks towards the road.

  * * *

  Early in the evening of the l
ast Saturday before Christmas Day in 1959, the man drinking beer for the first time and looking between the tops of trees towards some of the dark-blue water of the Southern Ocean had heard in his mind his best friend talking from a telephone box in the main street of Lorne to his girlfriend in the house at the corner of St Kilda Road and Albert Road. The man had heard his best friend saying that he had nothing else to do that night but to sit on the balcony of the holiday flat at Lorne and that his friend had nothing else to do than to sit beside him and to drink beer.

  While the man on the balcony had heard these words in his mind he had seen in his mind his best friend speaking into the mouthpiece of a telephone in a public telephone booth outside a post office. After the man on the balcony had heard in his mind the words that his friend was reported as saying in the previous paragraph, the sight that the man on the balcony saw in his mind had been divided vertically into two equal parts in the same way that the image on the screen of a picture theatre had sometimes been divided when the man on the balcony had been a young man or a boy watching an American film in which one scene was of a man and a woman speaking by telephone. The man had then seen in the right-hand side of his mind his best friend in the public telephone booth and in the left-hand side of his mind the girlfriend of his best friend standing beside the telephone in the lounge room of the house at the corner of St Kilda Road and Albert Road.

  When the man drinking beer alone on the balcony at Lorne had first seen in the left-hand side of his mind the girlfriend of his best friend speaking into her telephone she had been wearing a set of summer pyjamas that left her legs and arms bare. When the man had first seen her in his mind she had had on her face an expression of aloofness, even after she had heard what her boyfriend had said to her from the public telephone box at Lorne. Later, after the man had drunk more beer, the expression on the face of the young woman had changed. Then the man on the balcony had heard in his mind the young woman speaking into the telephone and telling her boyfriend that her mother was going to borrow her best friend’s car, that her mother and she were going to set out in a few minutes for Lorne, that her mother was going to bring with her a dozen bottles of beer from the stock remaining after the party and a hamper of food from her kitchen, and that she, the young woman, and her mother would arrive at Lorne at midnight and would have supper with the two men on the balcony and would talk and drink continually with them afterwards.