by Murray Bail
The visits of relations soon petered out and the house returned to its stillness. Mrs Shadbolt remained indoors. While Karen worried and tried to help, Holden's interest transferred to the openness of the clearly defined streets. In any other era an androgynous machine with one wheel smaller than the other, dwarfed by an expressionless rider in shorts, would have appeared grotesque. A time of material shortages was a time of improvisations—all kinds of contraptions were allowed—and Holden only attracted attention for his resolute speed (orientalising his eyes and wind-sweeping his hair into an Italian futurist film star), and for an ostentatious cornering technique which defied the laws of gravity. It occurred in relative silence along street emptiness. He could shout into the wind and nobody could hear. Overtaking trams and British four-cylinder saloons was a breeze; Holden became enamoured of speed.
On a hot afternoon in December he came in as usual with a large patch of perspiration spreading on his shirt. The heavy canvas blinds at the back were unfurled, the house creaked like a becalmed ship. Both his mother and Karen were in the kitchen waiting for him. And this was odd: his mother was standing, not sitting, and wearing a cotton dress. Holden looked down at Karen, then back at their mother. She was young and fresh and smart again. Holden's concern that it might only be temporary introduced an aura of fragility, as if his mother's pigeon-bones might at any moment snap. Wiping the sink with her back half-turned she assumed a determined, independent air. Holden noticed her new sandals were slightly too large. The thick straps exposing her bruised heels made her look determined, yet curiously vulnerable. Karen, though, displayed complete approval by fastening an immense expectant smile upon her.
‘Now sit down, both of you.’
She still had her back to them.
‘There's something I want to tell you both.’
Folding his arms Holden remained standing.
His mother didn't seem to notice. Facing them, she fidgeted with the throat of her dress.
‘Your father didn't leave much to go on.’
Branching off at a filtered tangent she murmured something about the greys and the yellows and the browns. Seems that these represent the passing of time: khaki tones, her afternoons. ‘That blind needs repairing,’ she added vaguely.
‘It's been like that for ages,’ Holden stirred. ‘It was like that before Dad died.’
Ignoring him, Karen placed a hand on her mother's arm. Together they turned to him.
‘You're a big boy now,’ his mother smiled. ‘Look at you.’
Fatso, Samson, Goliath and Tiny were other terms people tried. At the funeral a joker had said, ‘How's Mount Lofty today?’
Their mother confided, ‘We are three of us, all that's left in this world. We must stay glued together, blood is thicker than water—’
That sounded more like it; Holden began nodding, when a voice from outside contradicted.
‘You there Mrs Shadbolt? Anybody home?’
An apparition in ballooning khaki filled the back door, hands on hips, and as Holden squinted, the flyscreen stippled the figure, draining it of flesh tints, and focused into an exactly realised halftone of a soldier. It was like a newspaper photograph. The ruled screen—which coincided with the streets of Holden's city— magnified the standing figure, giving Holden all the time in the world to memorise it.
This was the earliest known example of Shadbolt's famous ‘photographic memory’. For the rest of his life he'd see the tightness of the chin-strap, the small-diameter eyes, which suggested a future of perspiration and overweight, two shaving snicks, the expression of…Not exactly a photographic memory. The dilapidated screen endowed the figure with authority out of all proportion. Unlike a snapshot of Holden's grandfather, say, where the process was only chemical, an act of preservation, this coarse-grained soldier on the verge of grinning had the appearance of being singled out, as if he had stepped forward from a major news event. He exuded the power of endlessness.
Photo-sensitive, Holden took in everything. In its patience the figure appeared to address itself directly to him. At the same time something had been held back. Some vital essence filtered or ‘screened’.
‘Is anybody home?’ the man inquired, although he and the boy were staring at each other.
His mother gave Holden a shove, ‘Well, let the bloke in!’
Prescribing an arc, the screen returned the figure to the glare of normal colour, light and movement. The expanse of khaki, its falsity, was then startling. Everything in place, buttoned down and polished the pleated symmetry was broken only by the slouch hat, its calculated angle. Uniforms—the word says it—are issued for their anonymous qualities. The soldier becomes one with a geometric mass. He moves forward under the illusion he can be destroyed only if the entire uniform army is destroyed. Similarly, the enemy is confronted with an advancing agricultural mass whose identical parts appear to be instantly replaceable. Holden had noticed some soldiers in the street wearing Rommel's binoculars or a cigarette behind their ears, and others with their arms crawling with tattoos of Rosella parrots, all in an effort to establish a degree of individuality. This corporal too had made the attempt by shooting a bullet through the side of his hat. Only a .22, it left a modi-hole, nothing more.
The corporal quickly understood his position. While he searched his pocket for smokes a nodding informality overran his features.
To Holden's surprise it was cut short by his mother who stared at the hat. Whipping it off he held it over his warm heart and—what a ham!—bowed. No one in their house had bowed before. Holden's mother, with Karen, eventually smiled; and his mother seemed to bow slightly herself.
Corporal Frank (‘Bloodnut’ to his friends) McBee was short and had beer-coloured hair. No eyelashes: he'd lost them at Tobruk. But he was one of life's positive thinkers.
Before Holden could blink with pleasure or surprise the corporal shadow-boxed him in the ribs. ‘What do they call you?’
Smiling as he maintained the southpaw stance his chin narrowed into a glossy carbuncle.
‘Holden?’ He mulled it over. ‘All right, that'll do for now. Put it here, Holden-boy.’
Winking at Karen to gather additional votes he squashed Holden's hand. Then for no apparent reason and without warning he suddenly pulled three or four faces of flaring, canine ferocity, which must have been how the petrified Italians in North Africa and the Japs in New Guinea saw McBee as he landed boots and all in their crumbling trenches, blindly lungeing and hissing with the bayonet.
Poor man. What horrors he must have gone through. Mrs Shadbolt, about to move her hand towards him, withdrew.
The world became more complex; it was an education. The presence of a foreign body altered their kinship to one another and to local time and space. Holden could see their house consisted of corridors with worn corners, something he hadn't noticed before. The breathing presence of Corporal McBee only a few walls away introduced a range of foreign sounds, and the porosity of his flesh and clothing released odours in the narrow passages, tobacco-laden and sharpened by Californian Poppy.
It was as if each of the Shadbolts had been fitted with stethoscopes. The creak of his iron bed transmitted an audio-visual solitariness. They could hear the man clearing his throat. Some nights came the stutter of machine-gun fire and the exertions of hand-to-hand fighting, loud enough to wake the entire house. (Next morning? Only a few shaving snicks, and cracking jokes as if nothing had happened.)
Corporal Frank McBee established himself in the chair by the icebox previously occupied by their father. In front of his plate he placed two or three bottles of beer like mortar bombs. After wiping his mouth he liked nothing better than to lean back and let smoke drift up past heavy-lidded eyes to the ceiling. All three—beer, tilted chair, tobacco—were taboo, or rather, never before seen in their kitchen. No one wanted to censor him. Not because he was an economic force, or even a physical force—a soldier—but because he was an ‘unknown quantity’. How he'd react was anybody's guess. Corporal McB
ee came and went at all hours, ‘going about his business’. To answer their questions he raised his hands in mock surrender with his mouth nonchalantly full, or clicking his heels and putting on a German accent, obeyed the Geneva convention, repeating only his name, rank and number. Had he killed many or any of the enemy? Holden wanted to know. He also had technical questions concerning tanks. Do they get bogged? They must be hot inside. Did they really have Rolls Royce engines? Several times his mother asked if he had brothers or sisters. When his mood was especially gay he answered with a snappy salute, barking out ‘Colonel, suh!’ which at first disconcerted and later irritated her. Meanwhile, he left his lethal razor in the bathroom basin, muddy bootmarks through the kitchen and live ammunition scattered among his loose change and hairbrush on his chest of drawers. All these things somehow suggested the defence of the city was in good hands.
Other families billeted soldiers. But Holden was unable to separate McBee from the image imprinted by the screen. At school he tried to explain the man's superiority in terms of body-weight and air of command, yet when he invited selected connoisseurs to the house, in the hope of catching a comparative glance, he found they were quickly disappointed, immediately ridiculing his red face and ginger hair. They couldn't see it. Instead of feeling embarrassed or at odds Holden felt protective towards his soldier.
Holden liked to get home early to see how he was getting on. Hanging around the bedroom he watched him cleaning webbing and spit-and-polishing his boots and brass. If McBee called for something Holden tripped over himself to oblige.
It was here that Shadbolt first learnt to handle a weapon. He swung McBee's .303 to his shoulder, and with his mouth agape his opinion of the man who'd allowed it rose in inverse proportion to the savage downward thrust of the rifle's weight.
‘H-how do you hold it?’ he laughed.
The corporal shrugged. ‘After an hour of blasting away with that thing your bloody shoulder's black as pulp.’
The two trigger pressures were explained. He was shown how to elevate the sights. Removing the bolt he saw the rifling, the moon of light at the end of a dizzying tunnel. In the magazine the bullets were copper-snouted fish. McBee kept it loaded in case any Japs came over the back wall. Holden was shown how to present arms and how to clean the rifle.
All this was explained matter-of-factly by McBee lying on his bed in singlet and underpants.
Other times hardly a syllable or a sigh passed between them. Holden was content to bang his bum against the architrave while the boarder lay full length, fingers dramming behind his head, humming the national anthem.
One afternoon he surprised Holden by saying, apropos of nothing: ‘Nine-tenths of a world war is boredom. That's the real killer.’
And still gazing at the ceiling he felt for his cigarettes.
Another time, even more surprising, ‘I'm looking at the future. It's there staring at me in the face.’ And slowly he formed a soccerball—or was it a woman's hips?—in the air with his hands.
Tossing his head Holden looked thoughtful. The corporal behaved differently here than he did in front of his mother and Karen.
It was not seriousness or silence so much as self-absorption.
Showing him the two snaps of his lance-corporal grandfather, because he thought he'd be interested, McBee commented, ‘Yeah…’ and handed them back.
He was thinking about the future.
Holden proved his usefulness in other ways. That black Saturday night when the rain poured tons of wheat on the tin roof: over and above that and the slapping and hissing of vines, Holden heard the intermittent slithering, some muffled swearing and grunting. The camouflage qualities of the fatigues made recognition difficult. Near the rubbish bins Holden found the soldier entangled among the dead marines and in the barbed-wire spokes of his bike. It took all his strength to drag him onto the verandah. Images of the Kokoda Trail passed through the straining boy's mind: surely this is what war is like? Sodden in his striped pyjamas and with the corporal streaming water and mud, a prisoner was assisting his captor.
‘That's the boy. And in the nick of time. You've saved my life. I've strayed from the beaten path. One foot over and a man gets into terrible strife.’
‘Shhh. You'll wake her up.’
McBee only laughed. He began drying his hair with his shirt.
‘What have you done with my frigging hat? Good man.’
The boy watched as he made his way shirtless towards his room, adopting a very determined air.
Karen sat up. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He said he was.’
She clicked her tongue, ‘Poor man.’
They listened as he reached the maverick floorboard outside their mother's room. It creaked accordingly. But—what's this? It creaked again. It went on creaking.
‘I'd better give him a hand.’
Karen shook her head, ‘No.’
Any hopes that he'd move on without waking their mother were wrecked by the next sound. Normally employed on street corners or from the backs of axle-whining army trucks McBee's wolf whistle was channelled by the low-ceilinged corridor, its lasso effect unmistakable in its intentions.
‘No use hiding. Is that a smile? I think she's smiling. And a shoulder, I see a bare shoulder. Cover that up, whatever you do! That's better. The sight of flesh—in the moonlight of Ad-elaide— can drive an honest man crazy, yours especially. It's a weakness of mine. Some would say a strength, I would say a weakness. You know all about the Horsestralian soldier, and I know all about your shoulders. I've been studying them. You may have noticed. I know them like the back of my hand. Oh, you're a good-looker. The minute I saw you! You don't believe me? I've been unable to—how do you say? unfasten my eyes off you. And I haven't gone past your shoulders, not yet. You haven't noticed? Look, Mrs Shadbolt! You're a corker cook, A-1, no complaints, but I've been off my tucker, I've had trouble eating. Bet you've noticed. Food clean missing my gob and falling on the floor. Not eating, unable to, has then made me weak in the knees. I have trouble standing for long periods. It's because of you. Why's that? A good question. Oh, I'm buggered. It would take me all night to answer. It's your bodily presence. Hey, now listen, if you look the way you do, why so shy? With me, of all people. I'm one of the family. We share the same bathroom. Move over, so I can whisper. I'll explain it all. What about the edge of the bed then? Only keep that shoulder covered! OK, OK, down at the very end. Anything you say. You see a slave standing before you. Ask and ye shall receive.’
A degree of mockery was needed and McBee wove it into his spiel. Cut the cloth for the customer; otherwise a woman could never swallow it all.
The spillage of words reached Holden and Karen loud and clear. The man they knew as Corporal Frank McBee they pictured in darkness, on his knees. They heard their mother's voice, steady but inaudible.
‘OK, fair enough,’ said McBee loudly. ‘I'll meet you halfway. I'll stretch out on the floor, right about here. That'll do me. I'll close my eyes, I won't think about you. I'll concentrate on something else. How's this for starters? Do you know there's a war on? Half of Europe has gone up in flames. It'll be over soon. I have that on the best of authorities. I have my contacts. Our planes are dropping bombs on the Japs. I won't go near your bed, no siree. I won't even tickle your little feet.’
More murmurings from their mother.
‘So this is it? The old cold shoulder? I'm in no condition. You're right. You're sticking to your guns. You've every right. Fair enough! You're no ordinary woman. Some other time, when I'm in better shape.’
Beating a retreat McBee stumbled over some shoes.
He swore—‘Excuse my French!’ They heard his light switch on, and some scattered light machine-gun fire and cries of wounded. Almost immediately the house fell silent.
He seemed to have been dislodged by the immense forces of Northern history, and flung out to the bottom edge of the world, an impression which was exaggerated when the streets periodically emptied, and McBee appeared t
o be the only soldier left alive. With so little known about him the smallest bits of information became important. In his absences the Shadbolts reported their discoveries and observations. Nothing much to go on though, nothing much of substance. Mrs Shadbolt listened, appeared thoughtful, but hardly contributed.
‘He seems to be your friend,’ she turned to Holden. ‘What does he have to say?’
There was his name, rank and number. Yes, yes, aside from that…well, the corporal said he luckily escaped from Dunkirk in a vulcanised rubber dinghy. Crete was a complete bloody fiasco from beginning to end. ‘He said the officers should be lined up and all shot.’ He was there when the Bismarck went down. His own ship was torpedoed under him off the Rock of Gibraltar, ‘thanks to the drongo of a captain’. By the skin of his teeth and with ‘Mother Luck on his side’ he escaped the fall of Singapore. He survived the siege of Tobruk. He was dropped behind the lines in Yugoslavia—a dark night—it could have been Czechoslovakia (‘the pilot was a halfwit’). Firing from the hip, leeches and mosquitoes glued to his arms and legs, he fought his way across the jungles of New Guinea. He'd been machine-gunned on the beaches, mortared in slit trenches, doodlebugged while running across the bridge at Chelsea, potshotted at by a telescopic sniper in a vineyard near Reims, landmined and strafed and divebombed at El Alamein, and bayonet-charged in a rain forest at Milne Bay. Physically, all he'd suffered was a sprained ankle. If any man deserved a medal it was Frank McBee. Why only a corporal? The old story…couldn't stand being given orders by ponces. He'd been AWOL several times. He knew where to find the dancing girls in London, Naples and Alexandria (parting the bead curtains). In a village outside Dijon in France, as in ‘pants’, he'd lined up a collection of great old violins and machine-gunned the lot. One night over Hamburg he and a flight sergeant mate from Warragul dropped a consignment of sewing machines on the sleeping city—‘that would have given the bastards something to think about’.