by Kim Kelly
‘What’s she cranky about?’ says Harry.
‘The war.’ No bullshit about that at least. ‘But I reckon she’ll be all right in a tick.’
She is. She comes back round the corner and says: ‘Sorry about that. Not out of my system. But I have to plan it better next time. Got to Mount Vic and realised I don’t know anyone in Sydney any more, apart from the lawyers, and even if I did they wouldn’t understand your … monsters. And I don’t want to be locked up for a lunatic. I’d rather be locked up for more newsworthy sedition.’
She might too. She is a lunatic but she’s got more bottle than I have.
She says: ‘Help me put them back in their box, will you? I’m about to fall over.’
We do, and I don’t mention anything to the kids about it — bit too odd, this one.
Charlie asks about it later anyway: ‘What was that thing you put in that room? What’s in that room anyway?’ Which has a lock on it now.
I tell him: ‘They’re paintings. Ugly ones. And I don’t want you to see them.’
‘Did you paint them?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are they of?’ Don’t you just love kids. I’ve decided that they should be able to ask anything, even if I can’t answer it, and Charlie is taking full advantage. Good on him.
‘The war,’ I tell him. ‘But they don’t tell the full story. Just some ugly parts. They’ll frighten you, so I don’t want you to look at them.’ I don’t want to look at them either.
He has a think about that and then says: ‘So are you going to paint the rest of the story?’
‘Maybe,’ I tell him. ‘But I’d rather paint pictures of Aunty France.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Because I love her, and she’s not very ugly.’
He screws up his face, no idea. He’s priceless. He changes the subject: ‘Aunty France says you’ve got some really good scars.’
Good on you, Aunty France. No time like the present, may as well have a wash now anyway. ‘Yep. Want to see them?’
‘Yep.’
I’ve stripped off and he’s looking at the big one on my leg. ‘Wowee, how’d you get that?’
‘Being an idiot, not doing what I was supposed to be doing, being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a shell exploded. Spent nearly four months in bed for it. Not nice.’
‘Four months!’ Charlie says. ‘That’s horrible.’ Too true. He shakes his head. ‘When I got a fever once Mum tried to make me stay in bed all week, and that was horrible. I snuck off. Did you?’
‘I certainly wanted to,’ I tell him, then I notice Harry’s snuck off somewhere; he’s not interested in this sort of talk just yet, if he’ll ever be. He’s a bit too quiet; reminds me of someone I know.
Charlie’s saying: ‘What’s a shell?’
‘It’s like a bomb that gets fired out of a gun, like a cannon, or dropped from an aeroplane. Smashes things up.’
‘What’s it like getting shot at?’
‘Very horrible, frightening.’
‘Lots of soldiers have died, haven’t they?’
‘Yes. Millions.’
‘You didn’t, though. You came back.’
‘I was very, very lucky.’
‘Did you shoot anyone?’
Good question; unanswerable. ‘I didn’t want to.’
He frowns at that, as in: where’s the logic there? Spot on, but it’s a bit hard to explain that one to a seven-year-old, let alone myself. He says, looking at the other obvious scar: ‘Did you get shot in the arm too? Like my dad did?’
‘No. Not like your dad, Charlie; and he got very sick from it. I never got sick, and I managed to wreck my arm all by myself, falling over. And it doesn’t work properly now.’ I show him.
‘You did that just falling over?’
‘Yep, into a big hole. Again, being where I shouldn’t have been.’ I’ll spare him the details. ‘Whenever you fall over, Charlie, roll with it, don’t put your arm out, no matter how much you’ll want to.’
He nods, like he reckons that sounds like good advice; and it is. ‘Are you a hero?’
Crack it: ‘No.’
He says, frowning again: ‘I reckon you must be.’
As much as his poor little head has been filled with rubbish — inescapable, he’ll have been getting the hero jabber at school all year, and it’s all over the papers, everywhere — he’s not talking about the war. I think he’s telling me he’s happy he’s here, and not with his poor mum and million sisters at Grandma’s. I think this must be the first proper conversation he’s had with an adult. Even when Mim’s at her best, there are too many kids to yell above; she forgets their names half the time.
I tell him: ‘I’m really, really not any sort of hero, but I’m happy you think so. I reckon you’re a pretty good bloke too.’ That’s very easy to say to him, because this is the easiest conversation I’ve had since I came back. I’m having a chat with someone I love, who I haven’t upset. Best medicine: should be bottled.
And it gives me the shove I need to tell France a bit more of what she needs to know. I tell her outside, on the front step again, in the dark, because that talk will never go on inside the house. And I have to tell her, so she doesn’t wonder, so she knows something of why I carried on like that the last time we were here. That it wasn’t just what I’d put in the paintings; it was that sometimes I thought I’d be better off dead, was dead; sometimes all day, day after day, and the sedative couldn’t take that away. I don’t tell her, though, that without the sedative the grind of it got a bit worse than that before it got better and I thought about buying a pistol in London — easier to get hold of than a toothbrush — that stupid, and I don’t know the answer to that one: why you’d want to top yourself right when the fact of being alive had started to sink in, when I’d just had my first walkabout on my own without any assistance, been told by the physical therapist that was the fastest trip to ambulation he’d ever seen. Instead I tell her the answers that make sense: that it cut one time too many that Dunc bailed me out, then copped it himself; that I never thought I’d ever get home, and the want of it, the want of her, was only matched by how ashamed I was of what I’d done to myself, inside and out, in the name of nothing. All true enough. And I’m still ashamed.
She looks at me, thoughtful, calm, when I’ve finished battering her with it all, says: ‘I knew something was wrong. I mean something like that: wronger than wrong.’
‘What do you mean? Everything was wrong.’
She tells me about her morbid moments, saying it felt like I was disappearing, ‘Like something being shaken and torn from my soul.’
I’m wondering if neurasthenia might be contagious, or maybe there’s a special form of it called AIF Wife. ‘That’s a bit hocus pocus, isn’t it, France? I’m not surprised you had a few panics — gave you a few decent reasons.’
‘Yes you did.’ She kisses me, and then there’s the sweetest smile under her eyes that say: You arse. ‘But you’ve got to admit my salvos worked against it.’
‘They did.’ I’ll believe in that magic. ‘I’m still getting hit.’
Everything I want to say to her about it has been said now. We’re pure again. Please.
Now we’re free to concentrate on how France is going to get herself locked up for sedition.
But not until I’ve sorted Harry out. It’s Sunday, the boys have been here only four days, and he’s wandered off, been gone since some time this morning. He’s not at Mum’s; careful to avoid mentioning his disappearance to sister and mother; just popped in to say a quick hello; no thanks, won’t stop for a cup of tea. I stalk back home; France is getting frantic and so am I, quietly. Don’t know where to begin looking for him and there’s a lot of places to look. He doesn’t know Lithgow. Glad it’s summer and not winter, because the sun is going down and he’d freeze to death if he slept out in the valley. He’s nine, he’s smart, he’ll be around somewhere, hopefully not lost, not bitten by a brown snake
or fallen off a ridge, and when I grab him I will be trying very hard not to hurt him.
Tea’s on the table, and I’m not very hungry. He is, though: he’s just walked back in.
I say: ‘Get out the back and wait there for me.’
He does as he’s told and I start eating. France shoots me a disapproving look.
I tell her: ‘Better he waits there for a while, than me belting him right now.’
Horrified look. I’m sure she’s never been belted in her life; she’s got no idea on this score.
When I’ve finished eating, not that I wanted it, I go out onto the verandah and Harry stands there looking at me with a challenge. Yep. Looks very much like someone I know.
I say: ‘Don’t ever do that again. You leave this house, you tell someone where you’re going and how long you’re going to be. Do you understand?’
He says: ‘I don’t have to do anything you tell me.’
What? Not even I would have pushed a challenge that far at that age. Not at any age with my father. But I’m not Harry’s father, am I.
I say, trying to rein it in: ‘Yes you do, while you live in this house.’
‘I don’t want to live in this house.’
‘Why not? You were happy enough to be here a couple of days ago.’
No answer.
‘Do you want to go back to your mum, to Grandma’s?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘They don’t go to church either.’
That stops me, hadn’t even crossed my mind. It’s Sunday. Roy was a churchgoer, not particularly religious, but went to please his mother, though she lives out in Dubbo. Can’t even remember which mob. Presbyterian? Mim had always played along, but stopped taking the kids when all this happened.
But it gets worse. Harry says: ‘And you’re all German.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say before I can stop my idiot mouth. Try again: ‘I’m sorry about church, mate, but we don’t go. You can if you want to; we’ll sort something out.’ Evan can take him to the Methodists — it’s all the same thing. ‘As for being German, well, a lot of people are, including part of you. But we’re Australian here.’
I think I’ve put the pieces together: not only is it Sunday, but he can’t understand why his dad’s not here and I am; he wants something to blame, and he’ll have a go at the lot, no matter how stupid. France and I were talking about the papers being full of hatred yesterday too; he’d have heard us: German town names changing in Adelaide, Lutheran schools being closed down, Fritz fever in the Sydney editorials and letters. Even the local rags are full of it: look out for nonexistent spies. The fear’s important to keeping the machine going, because everyone’s losing heart again at the losses in Flanders, twice Pozieres, and Hughes is having another referendum on conscription next week, but it’s all a special poison for this kid here. Mim would make a joke of it, calling herself Fritz, but she was never serious. Harry knows that, I’m sure, but he heard me slinging off yesterday too, didn’t he: at King George changing his name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor; I’d said to France it’d be an easier signature on all those death warrants, just to turn my own anger around. I don’t know how to turn Harry around right now, though: he’s still giving me the challenge. He’s got a nerve, that’s for sure. He’s so charged, he looks like he really is going to have a go.
I say: ‘You settle down. Right now.’
No. He’s not going to do that. He is going to have a go. He’s nine years old. I’m six and a half feet tall. He doesn’t care. He’s laying into me like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know what to do for a second, before I grab him, trying not to hurt him. That’s why he’s let fly, I realise, suddenly: because he knows I’m not going to hurt him. He’s bloody strong, though; and he’s kicking me now I’ve got hold of him. ‘Settle down!’ He’s still going, and then he pushes it too far, really too far, dropping down as he tries to get out of my grip, yanking my favourite arm with a good deal of force to where it does not like going: straight. I yell and mean it,’ Jesus fucking Christ,’ not at him, but at that particular sensation, as I let go.
He stops, just stares. Wish I’d blasphemed a little earlier.
France is out here now. ‘What have you done to him?’ She’s asking me, not the kid. I can’t speak yet.
Harry’s burst now, in angry tears; I could join him soon.
Penny drops for France when she sees I’m having difficulty: ‘Oh dear.’ Then: ‘Serves you right for being brutal.’
‘He went for me.’ I sound like I’m nine too.
She’s got her arm around Harry; he’s worked himself right up now, not angry, just awful grief. I say: ‘Harry, I wasn’t swearing at you.’ He can’t hear me; he’s inconsolable. Swig of opium-laced brandy and off to bed for him.
Francine takes care of him, and Danny and Charlie too, while I stay out on the verandah trying not to be angry. It’s a big effort. Harry will be all right, eventually, we’ll see to that however we can. But how many kids are going through this rubbish? Tonight. Never mind yesterday and tomorrow. All over the world. Sliced up by grief and propaganda. Finding it a bit hard to float away from this one.
‘Are you all right?’ France comes back out.
No. ‘Yes.’ Dull throb now, very pleasant.
She stands beside me. ‘Apologies for jumping to conclusions earlier, I …’
‘I wasn’t ever going to belt him,’ I tell her. Don’t think I could ever belt a kid, any kid.
‘Good,’ she says, and she sounds so sad with it; I can’t look at her.
But I ask: ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ she gives me a soft little laugh. ‘In spite of a few good beltings’
That makes me look at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Our Lady of the Leather Strap, at school. Hideous.’ She winks: ‘And I never did a thing to deserve it of course.’
Gut knots again at that thought; what sort of a grub would you have to be to hit Francine?
She adds: ‘You don’t have to work too hard at being intimidating, Daniel, and he’s only a little boy.’
‘I know.’ And I do, very much, so I tell her: ‘Losing Harry after four days didn’t do much for my temperament, did it. I’ve lost less to just about do my head in, and not even mates, France. I didn’t have mates over there, only a few, and you can work out why, but Harry is a fair bit more than a mate, and if I was a bit rough on him when he came in, then too bad. He won’t leave this house again without telling anyone where he’s going, will he. He’s not going to push it that far a second time to find out.’ I am barking.
‘No.’ She puts her hand on my hip and says: ‘But if he does, he knows how to disable you now.’ Very funny, France, but she cracks me anyway. Then she says: ‘If you’re not going to paint or do anything else in particular, then maybe you should see about getting that elbow fixed, if it can be.’
No, for all the same reasons. ‘Missed that boat, I’d say.’
‘Daniel,’ she’s talking to a moron,’ a Sydney surgeon, a Sydney anyone will do anything for money, especially now. Don’t think you’ve got a problem with cobbling together funds and just asking for it to be done; you can relax your frugality for a minute and splash out on yourself.’
It’s not my frugality that needs relaxing. ‘You want an indoor bathroom,’ I say. ‘Maybe after that.’
She laughs, loud: ‘Capable as you are at everything under the sun, darlingest, I doubt you’ll be able to put in an indoor bathroom on your own. Not as a community undertaking either: you are not getting Evan and friends to do it for their Danny for the love of it. That’s immoral.’
‘That’s not immoral — that’s the way we are.’ Though she has a point. I could ask Evan to get me the moon and he would, and he’d never take anything for it. We are all idiots. Complain about the unfair distribution of wealth and then knock back a bit of equaliser. For a mate. Jesus. ‘All right, I’ll pay for help then.’
‘This is a stupid conversation,’ she says. ‘I can w
ait for a silly bathroom. But you didn’t look too well just now. I didn’t realise it gave you any trouble at all.’
‘It doesn’t.’ It does though; I’ve done that to myself a fair few times to know about it; done it in bed, that’s why I like to put her up on the sideboard whenever I can. ‘It’ll be all right in the morning.’
Everything always is, isn’t it.
No it’s not, and it’s not just the fact that grinding throb kept me awake half the night. It’s more that I feel like something filthy at the bottom of a trench. It’s come back and hit me like a cave-in and I don’t want to get out of bed. Rats have stopped to watch and listen. I can hear France outside the bedroom door, talking to Charlie, who wants to kick the ball around if I’m not going to work, and asking why I don’t go to work. She’s saying: ‘Oh, we sometimes sleep in on Mondays, any old days, when it’s required. We do things a bit differently round here whenever we can.’
I could smile at the whole truth of that, but my face won’t work. I didn’t even hear the whistle this morning, and I hear it every morning, bar Sundays, even when I was going mad out the back. I should get up and talk to Harry, let him know everything is all right, or will be. But I can’t picture myself actually speaking, saying something useful to him yet, apart from, maybe: thanks a lot, you little shit. The fact that I know what this is this time doesn’t help. The very last time this happened was that day in London, when I went to the gallery to drag myself away from it. That worked. Didn’t it. I have to do something like that now. Paint my France; dull angry throb; won’t be today. Can’t make a fist, let alone hold a pencil. Nothing for me at the Wattle either, apart from resuming hostilities with Drummond, and I couldn’t be further from arsed. What does he do all day? Read the papers, talk to a few people, look at the books, look important, get together with other important people at this place and that and talk about how important they are and how wonderful the war is. I don’t know where I fit in. And I don’t particularly want to fit in. Anywhere.
I’m just thinking about how quick chloroform would kill you without you knowing about it, when France shoves open the door, closes it and whispers: ‘Whatever it is that’s going on in here, just stop it.’