Time's Long Ruin

by Stephen Orr

  Con took a pair of scissors and cut a strand of hair from my head. Then he took a pot of glue and stuck it down on the letter. He used his thumb to wipe off the excess glue and then kept reading. ‘“And tall. Not so tall as Alex, but by then Alex was nearly ten.”’

  This was when his son died, in 1942. Alex Pedavoli, the only son of Con and Rosa Pedavoli. The tall, goat-herding, soccer-playing hope of their lives. Alex Pedavoli, the real reason, I’ve always supposed, Con and Rosa came to Australia. Still, who’s to say? Olive-skinned Alex, smiling down at them from a dozen different picture frames, posed with school books he never bothered reading . . . Alex, now living in the healing tree in Con and Rosa’s front yard.

  Con folded the letter, placed it in his top pocket and sighed. Then he slapped his knees with his hands. He raised his finger to the timetable and said, ‘Come on!’

  We went out and closed one gate each. Just as the city express thundered through, Doctor Gunn came out of his clinic and waved at me. ‘Still on for Thursday?’ he called, and I waved. He did some stretching against the wall, lifted his face to the sun and took a deep breath. Then he turned and went inside.

  As Con started opening his gate I said, ‘Want to play?’

  He winked. ‘You’ll never catch me up.’

  I ran across the road and into the playground that joined Croydon station. If I was to say there was a place where I did most of my growing up, this was it. And I measured my growth against the height of two tall, shabby-looking palm trees that shot up like a pair of flagpoles in the middle of the playground.

  I would sit on a swing and make the biggest arc I could. If I straightened my body and looked out past the tips of my toes they’d reach up the side of the trees. It was only when I was nine that I could swing high enough for my toes to pass the top of the palms. Now I’m fifty-four, and when I try, as I often do, I can only get my feet quarter of the way up. And I don’t think those palms have grown all that much.

  I went and sat in my melaleuca tree. This was my tree. It was hidden from the rest of the playground by other trees. When I managed to climb up and sit in its bottom fork I could see across the station platform and all the way along the tracks to Brompton station in one direction and West Croydon in the other. The minute I saw a train or puff of smoke I would take my cub whistle on its lanyard from around my neck and blow loudly. Con would then come out and start closing the gates. This would mean I’d won. If Con came out and started closing the gates before I’d blown the whistle, he’d won. If he came out first I’d call out, ‘Too early,’ and he’d reply, ‘Come and check the timetable,’ and I’d say, ‘Not my fault, it’s late,’ and he’d say, ‘Doesn’t matter, my point.’

  Then he’d go inside his coffin-sized hut and put a mark for the victor on a small blackboard beside the timetable. At the end of every session he’d tally the point and change the total on the bottom.

  And this is where I sat, for years, in my tree, blowing my whistle like some kind of spastic. Until some kid in the playground heard me and came to look. ‘What yer doin’?’

  ‘Lookin’ out for trains.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m helping Con.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just am.’

  The only time I stopped helping Con was when I was seven and had my foot operated on. They put me to sleep and cut some tendons and sewed something and reattached something else. Then they put me in a cast up to my bum. For the whole six weeks of my summer holiday I rested in bed, or hobbled around the house, or went and sat out back under the Rileys’ almond trees. Janice would come over and read to me, or show me her movie star cards, and Anna and Gavin would recreate the battle of Stalingrad in Lego on my bedroom floor. All I can remember is sitting in my hot room trying to scratch my leg with a knitting needle, looking at my plaster-cast foot, pointing straight ahead instead of at an angle. And wondering, will it stay that way?

  But it didn’t. Six weeks later I was back at school for another year, dragging my foot around like Quasimodo. Mum and Dad were livid. They wanted to sue the surgeon, but apparently they’d signed something that meant they couldn’t. So there I was, my holidays wasted, walking to school with Janice and the little ones, as everyone from Room 7 came up and looked at my foot and said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘It didn’t work.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Something didn’t take.’

  ‘They gonna try again?’

  Then Mama Quasimodo appeared with my forgotten lunch. ‘No they’re not, and that’s enough said . . . go on.’ She turned and headed home, straightening her own foot, invoking the name of her dimly remembered Catholic God, promising him to be more accepting in the future, to live with the multiple blessings we’d been given.

  And here she was again, on the second of January 1960, still in her slippers and dressing gown, standing at the end of Thomas Street where it was stopped by the Croydon playground. ‘Henry, you over there?’ she called.

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Come home now, I’ve got jobs for you.’

  ‘Coming.’

  I climbed down from my tree and called to Con, ‘Mr Pedavoli, I gotta knock off.’

  His hand emerged from the gatehouse. ‘See you tomorrow, Henry.’

  Nine years old, at last.

  I started the day with presents: a dressing gown and chess set from my parents, a writing set from Nan and Pop, and an Australian atlas from Grandma Page (Grandpa had died of the fags a few years earlier). All very Henry sort of presents – no bikes or footy boots, a kite maybe, one year, but someone else would have to run with it.

  Mum set up a morning tea in what passed as our dining room, an area adjoining the kitchen, separated by a piece of old lattice Dad had salvaged when he took on the wisteria along the fence. It had a concrete floor, painted red, and galvanised-iron walls fastened onto studs made out of old fence posts. Mum used to call it the sauna room – a touch of Norway in the Australian suburbs.

  It was hot that day. It always seemed to be hot back then. Mum was icing a cake in the kitchen, wiping sweat from her forehead with her forearm, stopping to pick up her fag, take a puff and blow the smoke up into the rafters.

  Meanwhile, the grandparents were at it. There was no love lost between Grandma Page and Pop. They were a pair of roosters in a very small chook house: you could tell by the way they looked at each other, disagreed on every matter, and competed for my attention. Why, I couldn’t say. Perhaps because Pop had done so well in dentistry, shifting from the working west to the leafy eastern suburbs, lazing beneath a hundred-year-old myrtle in Unley Park as Grandma Page mopped birdshit off the verandah of her Kilkenny flat.

  It was always the way. Grandma Page screaming out for attention. Picking up Pop’s empty teacup and looking at the leaves. Turning the cup three times and then placing it on the table in front of her. Squinting. Grimacing. Shaking her head. But then looking pleasantly surprised.

  ‘What is it?’ Pop asked.

  ‘There’s definitely something there,’ Gran replied.

  He smiled, shook his head and looked at Nan. ‘Tea leaves.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Dad went to take the cup from her but she put her hand around the rim.

  ‘C’mon, Mum,’ he said, guessing what was coming next.

  It all went back to the war, to when Grandma used to work in the ‘Comfort Shack’. This was a sort of improvised coffee shop located outside the Adelaide Railway Station catering for soldiers, sailors and airmen in transit. The story goes that Grandma was a volunteer waitress. She’d walk from table to table, kitted out in an apron and hairnet, serving hot tea and making small talk. Then she’d come around with meringues and sultana cake, and later her trolley, collecting dishes.

  One day she collected a teacup from an American soldier. Without even meaning to she noticed something in the tea leaves. It was a child, lying flat and motionless on the ground. She showed the sailor, and he showed his friends, and they all agreed �
�� a child.

  A few days later the soldier came back in. He handed her an American ten dollar note and said, ‘Thanks, lady.’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I managed to telephone home. I told my wife about the tea leaves. She said our son had been sick – a burst appendix.’

  ‘Is he alright?’

  ‘He’s fine now.’

  Grandma framed the ten-dollar note and hung it in her lounge room. Pop always said she made the whole thing up, and maybe she did. But that was Grandma, always the first to get her feet wet, and to tell everybody about it.

  So there she was, staring into Pop’s cup. ‘It looks like a house,’ she said.

  ‘Whose house?’

  ‘A big house, with a verandah, like yours.’

  Pop stood up and walked around to the cup. He looked in and shrugged. ‘Where?’

  ‘You can’t see it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It takes a special eye.’

  Pop looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I smiled, almost gagging on my cold tea.

  ‘Wait,’ Grandma Page continued, suddenly looking worried.

  ‘What now?’ Pop asked, sitting down.

  ‘The leaves are moving.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It could mean . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Dad grabbed the cup and stirred the leaves with his finger. ‘It could mean some people will believe anything.’

  ‘No, what do you mean?’ Pop persisted, looking at Grandma.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Grandma replied.

  ‘Are you saying our house is going to fall down?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, she’s not,’ Dad interrupted. ‘She’s just having a bit of fun.’

  ‘Fun?’ Pop shook his head. ‘Why would you even bring it up?’

  Nan tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, it’s Henry’s birthday.’

  ‘She brought it up.’

  ‘I was just – ’

  ‘Now you’re having a few bob each way.’

  ‘Children,’ I said, loudly, firmly. ‘Stop it.’

  Dad ruffled my hair. ‘You want to report this lot, they’re troublemakers.’

  But Pop just sat there, his arms crossed, refusing to smile. Grandma looked at him, and then across at me. ‘Nine, eh? You’ll be in high school soon.’

  ‘A long time yet.’

  ‘High school’s the last thing on his mind,’ Pop whispered.

  And so it continued.

  We were saved by Bill Riley, standing on the back porch. ‘Shop.’

  Dad shot up and opened the flyscreen door. ‘Bill.’

  Liz followed a few steps behind, carrying a present wrapped in brown paper and string. She handed it to me, and I smiled and said, ‘Thanks, Missus Riley.’

  Anna followed them in, running around the table and hugging me, shouting hello to everyone and making me move across and share my seat.

  ‘Hello Liz, Bill,’ Mum called from the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll get you a beer,’ Dad said to Bill, but Mum just said, ‘I’ll pop the kettle on.’

  There was no doubt about it. The present was soft and spongy – you never got Meccano from the Rileys. As I unwrapped four fresh, white singlets, Grandma stacked the dishes and Liz helped her carry them to the sink.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, holding up the singlets, trying to smile, as Bill Riley shrugged as if to say, ah, nothing really. Then a whole new thought came into his head; his eyes narrowed and he turned to Dad and whispered something. Dad smiled and shook his head and then said, ‘I can’t tell you nothing, Bill.’

  ‘C’mon, Bob, it’s me . . . who the . . . who was he?’

  ‘We don’t know, Bill.’

  ‘Sure you don’t.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Pop asked.

  ‘That fella they found on Somerton Beach,’ Bill replied. ‘Forty-eight. The body in the suit. Bob’s been workin’ on it, haven’t yer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They reckon he was a Russian spy,’ Grandma offered, joining her hands in her lap, daring to venture into a dark, unpleasant part of her son’s life.

  ‘Wasn’t he a ballet dancer?’ Nan asked.

  Dad almost laughed. ‘No, we ruled that out. Although there were marks.’

  ‘Marks?’ she asked.

  ‘On his feet, like he’d worn women’s shoes.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘We don’t know. He might have been . . .’ Dad stopped short and looked down at me. ‘We’ve got DC Page on the case.’

  Bill wouldn’t give up. ‘I read it was suicide. But they didn’t find a mark on him, did they?’

  ‘Could’ve been poison.’

  ‘And nothin’ in his guts ’cept a pasty?’

  ‘That was twelve years ago. They didn’t have any tests back then. If it was today . . .’

  Bill’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why don’t you dig him up?’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll grab a shovel.’

  ‘They cremated him, Bill.’

  Bill stopped. ‘Uh . . . why’d they do that? Shouldn’t they have kept him on ice?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Listen, I shouldn’t be talking – ’

  ‘I read it began at the railway station,’ Grandma continued, becoming braver. ‘He bought a second-class ticket – ’

  ‘He ate your marble cake at the Comfort Shack,’ Bill Riley laughed, and we all laughed.

  Grandma shooed him away. ‘He bought a ticket to Henley Beach, walked onto the platform, but then changed his mind and went back out to the cloakroom. That’s where he left his suitcase. You got his suitcase, Bob?’

  ‘We’ve still got it.’

  ‘So why did he change his mind?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘That’s one of a hundred things we don’t know.’

  ‘Then he climbed the stairs to North Terrace,’ Gran continued, ‘crossed the road and caught the bus to Somerton. Why d’ you reckon?’ she asked, slowly, her voice full of real concern. ‘Why?’

  There was silence, and then a loud piercing scream from outside. Chairs were thrown aside, the table knocked and the sugar bowl upturned as we all rushed out. Gavin was standing in the middle of the dry, parched lawn, pointing to the woodshed. ‘A snake,’ he cried, slowly turning and lifting his arms for Liz to pick him up.

  ‘Hold on,’ Dad called, running up the three steps to the laundry and grabbing his spade. Meanwhile, Pop wandered over to the path between the woodshed and back fence. ‘Oy, look here,’ he said, smiling at Grandma, ‘it’s the Somerton mystery man.’

  We all laughed, except Grandma, who folded her arms and smiled one of her holier-than-thou smiles.

  ‘There you go,’ Dad said, handing the spade to Bill.

  ‘Never used one.’

  Dad took the spade and slowly approached the woodshed. He looked inside, stepped into the doorway and lifted the spade into the air. Bill thought he was joking and yelled out, ‘Careful.’ Dad just turned and looked at him. Then he thrust the spade down into the floor. For a few moments there was silence as we watched him watching the snake. Then he leaned forward, picked it up and stepped outside the shed.

  ‘Just a baby,’ Bill smiled.

  Dad stepped forward and flicked the snake at him. Everyone squealed and scattered. ‘Bob,’ my mother scolded, but he didn’t hear her. Then he took the brown snake and hung it over the back fence as a warning to other snakes. Wiping his hands he looked at Mum and said, ‘That cake done?’

  ‘Where’s Janice?’ she asked Liz.

  Liz shrugged. ‘Prob’ly down the playground. Anna, go grab her, will yer?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I offered, stepping forward.

  And that’s how I missed my own birthday party.

  I headed off for the playground, past the Housemans, our neighbours on the other side at number five. Their front door was open and the smell of corned silverside drifted out from the kitchen, down the hallway, flooding their front yard and the in
tersection of Thomas and Robert streets.

  You couldn’t do it today. You’d have someone in your bedroom stealing your pearls. Not that anyone cooks silverside any more. It’s not a popular cut. Now it’s organically raised chicken cut into strips for a stir-fry. I didn’t know what a stir-fry was until the 1980s. But years ago Mr Wells used to tell me, ‘I sell more silverside than anything’. Still unbeatable. Served with white sauce, boiled potatoes and a mountain of soggy cabbage.

  Ron Houseman was a chemist in the city somewhere and his wife Kathy (Kazz) was just another homemaker, like most of the ladies in Thomas Street. The Housemans never had any kids. Why, I couldn’t tell you. Mum used to say she was frigid (seemingly unaware I knew how to use a dictionary).

  But Kazz was a woman before her time. One day she walked up and down our street, depositing handwritten business cards in everyone’s letterbox.

  Kazz

  Spiritual Counsellor and Spirit Photographer Are you grieving, want questions answered about the life beyond? Want to learn how to recognise the signs the other side gives you? Beginning your own journey of discovery? Exploring the spirit world? I can help you. You will leave me feeling inspired and with the strength and courage to go on.

  Phone 46 78 92.

  Love and Light

  Later that night I watched from my window as Mr Houseman, still in his white tunic, shaking his head and muttering to himself, walked the length of Thomas Street taking the business cards out of every letter box. Mum said she saw him later, taking another card down from the noticeboard outside the Acorn deli.

  I remember playing in the backyard one day when Dad, looking through a hole in our side fence, whispered, ‘Henry, come here.’

  And there was Kazz, with a Box Brownie set up on a tripod, taking pictures of an old back shed that was mostly a pile of rubble. Dad stuck his head up. ‘Hi, Kazz, what you doing?’

  ‘Hi, Bob,’ she replied. ‘He used to make furniture in there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old fella that used to live here.’

  ‘Yeah . . . so . . . what you doin’?’

  But Kazz just smiled and tapped the side of her nose. Then she came over to us and said, ‘D’ you know what I saw when I opened my back door this morning?’