Honour & Other People's Children

by Helen Garner

  She stayed with him all day, as he burned away in the bed, sometimes laughing childishly to himself or champing his jaws as if chewing. Once he half sat up and saw her sitting there and let out what sounded like a sob. ‘Oh, hullo sweetheart!’ he said, and dozed off again. Towards late afternoon he was sleeping more gently, and his temperature had dropped.

  She cleaned up his dismal kitchen, emptied food out of its packets into airtight jars and lined them up in the wire-fronted meat-safe which served him as a cupboard. At ten o’clock she went into the bathroom and cleaned her teeth, brushing noisily with the water running. She turned off the tap and the silence it left was filled with the quiet sound of rain.

  When she woke at six in the morning, his skin felt cool and dry. She put one arm carefully round his back and lay there in the dim tingling of hope, the optimism of simply existing, that comes sometimes to the wakeful one in a house where others are sleeping. She heard the wind cradling the house, moving endlessly in the concrete spaces of his yard.

  In the afternoon the sky was clear and the air had stilled. Dennis would not stay in bed, though his face was shadowy with thinness.

  They came into the gardens at the top corner where the big eucalypts stand becalmed, their bark wrinkled at the junction of trunk and branch like human skin after an idle winter. On the northern horizon, beyond the city, there gathered mighty palaces of cloud, pale Italian pink and of complex, fat design.

  No, Dennis would not do it.

  ‘What’s wrong with the way things are now?’ he said, sliding out his chin and twisting his head about as if he were wearing a tight collar.

  ‘You don’t look after yourself,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Oh, yesterday!’ He clicked his tongue. ‘That was nothing. That was different.’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Ruth. ‘Sometimes people need –’

  ‘I don’t wanna get married!’

  ‘I didn’t mean that!’ she cried. ‘I never meant married! You know that’s not what I meant!’

  ‘Well,’ he said sullenly. ‘I don’t wanna live with anyone, either. With a woman, I mean.’

  ‘Why not.’ Her voice was already dull with defeat, but she slogged on.

  ‘You know what happens to couples! What do you bloody women talk about in these groups, anyway!’

  ‘There hasn’t been a group for two years,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Find another woman to live with, why don’t you, if you don’t like the set-up you’re in now.’ He threw up one hand and glanced after it, as if hoping for a materialisation. ‘Find one with kids – you’d get the full sympathy syndrome.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Ruth. ‘I want to live with you.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘But why?’

  He punched one fist into the other palm and said in exasperation, ‘Time. Time, mostly.’

  ‘What do you mean, time.’

  ‘I haven’t got any. I go to work, I go to meetings.’ He turned his face away, almost laughing with embarrassment.

  ‘We’d have more time, if we lived in the same house,’ she said, flogging the hopeless argument.

  ‘Look, Ru. If you wanted more than what you’re already gettin’, you’d have to ask me to give up politics.’ He threw down his trump card with a defiant flourish, watching her out of the tail of his eye.

  Ruth’s head came up, as he had foreseen. ‘Oh, I’d never do that,’ she said, chastened.

  They sat opposite each other at a weathered timber table under creepers thronged with green and yellowing leaves, a tray of Devonshire tea between them. Ruth was almost crying, fumbling for her tobacco.

  ‘I mean – you see blokes,’ said Dennis, frowning and grinning and forcing the spoon again and again into the sugar bowl, ‘blokes who walk round as if they’ve got a sack of cement on their shoulders, and the woman’s sittin’ there full of resentment, and he’s wishin’ he could –’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Ruth again, in misery. ‘I meant – it’d be collective. Not like a couple. We’d have separate rooms –’

  ‘Nah, Ru. It’s not on, mate. Giss a scone.’

  She shoved the plate towards him and they ate, a caricature of the couples around them, unable to look at each other. She felt stuffed with food, and ate to comfort herself, though she could hardly swallow. A wasp dived repeatedly into the jam dish, then fled sideways. They eyed it, nervous of its sting. ‘Shit! Oh, shit!’ said Dennis, swatting, a small blob of whipped cream on the end of his nose.

  They walked round the lake, wading through oceans of dead leaves. The gardens were as busy as Bourke Street: whole Jewish families, parties of nuns and old people from institutions moved along the curving paths, gesturing graciously and casting their eyes to left and right like courtly dancers. There was no hope for the human race. Everything would end in greyness.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ru. Cheer up!’ said Dennis, dropping an arm across her shoulders.

  ‘People always say that to me,’ she said bitterly, in a low voice.

  ‘No they don’t. Come on,’ he insisted. He hugged her shoulders till they cracked, then gave her a hard thump between the shoulder blades. ‘I’m with you all the way,’ he said, and put his hands back in his pockets.

  ‘Why don’t you come round more then.’

  He could hardly hear her. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, Come round more!’ she yelled at him. ‘You reckon you’re on my side, but you’re never there, except to sleep.’

  He writhed his shoulders. ‘I don’t like it at your place,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel comfortable there. Scotty puts me off.’

  ‘She puts me off, too,’ said Ruth. ‘I hate her.’ She looked almost noble with wretchedness. ‘She’s always tellin’ me what to do.’

  ‘Kick her out then.’

  ‘I’d rather go myself. I’ve got some pride.’

  ‘I’ll help you, soon as you get a place,’ he said, safe enough now to be generous.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ruth dully.

  She saw a dead sparrow lying half covered in leave sat the corner of a garden bed, and gave it a kick with the toe of her shoe. The little corpse flipped up oddly, its wings stiffly spread, and dived back head-first into the thick, papery carpet. She glanced crookedly at Dennis, as guilty as if she had killed the bird herself, but he had witnessed the display of sadism with a half laugh of respect, even of comradeliness. She began to talk in a rush.

  ‘The kids used to always have funerals for dead animals,’ she said. ‘Laurel used to make little crosses for the graves, ’n’ everything. Then when the budgies started keelin’ over from old age, first they had mass graves, then the kids got sick of it, ’n’ the last one that died, Wal just chucked it in the bushes.’

  Dennis laughed out loud in relief. ‘That’s the spirit. Good on you,’ he said, as if admiring a skilful performance.

  Ruth laughed without mirth. ‘Next thing you’ll be sayin’ “Well done”, like Scotty does,’ she said. ‘Talkin’ like a teacher.’ She tightened her lips and mimicked Scotty: ‘Well done!’

  She took another breath, but before she could speak again he had veered off the path and wandered down to the edge of the lake. He crouched there above the burnished surface of the water, looking for fish perhaps, and she stood watching him from behind, her arms wrapped round herself. In that moment she saw him separate from herself, forgetful of her, about to emerge whole into the outside world. She fell back weakly into love with his past, with the things he knew which she did not. She loved him and would appropriate for her own son the accoutrements of this idealised working-class boyhood: bare laminex tables, sagging single beds with heads made of curved iron, cheap tartan slippers, slug guns, grey tube-like shorts, playgrounds ringing with harsh cries and encircled by peppercorns and cyclone wire. The tears shrivelled in her chest: the temper of her blood was already adjusted.

  *

  Scotty knew, when Wally stuck out his tongue at her at the bottom of the stairs, that Ruth must be back. The
re was new resolution in the air, in Ruth’s firm step and grim, purposeful expression; at dinner time people kept their eyes on their plates, embarrassed at the possibility of conversation. Only Wally seemed relaxed and oblivious of tension.

  ‘Hey Lol,’ he said, shoving a handful of rice into his mouth. ‘You know that kid Sharon that I fucked?’

  ‘You?’ Laurel blushed. ‘You never fucked anyone! You’re too little.’

  ‘I – did!’ shouted Wally. His cheeks were greasy with food. ‘Down the creek! Me ’n’ her –’

  ‘That’ll do,’ cut in Ruth. ‘Eat your dinner. Here, Wal. Use a fork.’ She pushed one into his fist. Wally looked up with his squinting grin.

  ‘Wanna know somethink?’ His smile became secretive. ‘We might be movin’ out. An’ if we do, it’ll be because of someone.’ He ran his triumphant eyes round the assembled household. Horrified, they stared at him. Wally glowed and blossomed. ‘Someone at this table,’ he said. ‘Someone fat, with sorta black hair.’ His eyes came to rest on Scotty; he raised one rice-smeared hand and pointed at her. ‘It’s you, Scotty! ’Cause you treat us like shit!’

  Wally and Scotty stared at each other. Alex and Ruth dropped their eyes, excruciated lest someone laugh.

  ‘An’ Alex, too!’ shouted Wally, angry now as he felt the transitoriness of his moment of power. ‘’Cause he made us eat cod!’

  Laurel cried out in indignation. ‘You never told me, Ruth!’

  ‘I was gunna, mate,’ she said wearily.

  ‘Won’t we have a meeting?’ said Alex.

  There was a pause.

  ‘I don’t think we need to have a meeting,’ said Ruth, staring with eyes of glass at the wall beside Alex’s head. ‘There’s nothin’ to say. Only a few loose ends to tie up.’

  ‘You mean – it’s all settled?’ said Alex.

  ‘It’s time to get out,’ said Ruth. ‘I wish I’d gone last year.’

  There was a run of movement round the table. Laurel turned to Ruth again and said, shocked and excited, ‘We’ll have to find a really good house, won’t we, Ruth! What sort of house will we find?’

  ‘Oh, nothin’ special, matey,’ said Ruth with a sharp sigh. ‘Just s’long’s it’s a roof over our heads.’

  With one accord Ruth and Scotty got up to clear the plates. They skirted each other widely in the confined space, their faces stiff with shame and hatred. People ate their desserts in haste, standing up in different parts of the room.

  Ruth led the children into the lounge and turned on the television. It flickered at them where they sat in tight formation on the couch, Ruth in the middle with an arm around each child. On the screen a jet took off in California with a stuntman rigged up and strapped erect to its top.

  ‘That’s Spiderman,’ said Laurel. She stuck her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Wally. That’s the Human Fly.’

  The man’s face must have been hideously stretched with the pressure of the air.

  ‘Ruth,’ said Wally.

  ‘What, mate.’

  ‘You know Jimmy. Well when’s he comin’ back? ’Cause I miss him so much.’

  She squeezed him harder against her side, feeling the springy give of his little rib-cage.

  ‘We should be hearin’ from him any day now,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, but when.’ He was quite loose against her.

  ‘I told you, Wal. Any day.’

  Laurel took her thumb out. ‘Ruth,’ she said. ‘What does the Human Fly do when he’s finished?’

  ‘Collects his pay cheque and goes home, I suppose,’ said Ruth.

  In the kitchen Scotty and Alex washed and dried the dishes, without speaking. Scotty passed the lounge room door on her way to the stairs, and glanced in. Laurel’s head was the only one to turn. She looked straight at Scotty, and moved her left hand, on the arm of the couch, in a furtive salute.

  *

  Over the river, Scotty walked straight into the sepulchral house, past the foot of the stairs and towards the kitchen, from which conversation could be heard. She paused outside the door.

  ‘I think we should allow for each other’s idiosyncrasies,’ said a man’s voice, slightly raised.

  ‘Each other’s what?’ said a woman.

  ‘Do you mean laziness, Tony?’ said another woman.

  ‘There’s no need to get personal,’ said the man.

  ‘How can you talk about idiosyncrasies and not be personal?’ said the second woman.

  ‘I think you’re being a bit sharp with me,’ said Tony, sounding wounded.

  Scotty let herself be seen in the doorway. It was a dim room whose window was half-obscured by ivy, and no one had turned on the light, though some activity seemed to be in progress. A tall man who had rubber-banded his hair into a tight little club at the back of his neck was crossing the room holding in his fist a bunch of what looked like flowers: he passed Scotty and she saw that they were cooked sausages. Madigan was not present. The sausage-eater was drowning his food in tomato sauce and paid her no attention, but one of the women looked up at her and smiled.

  ‘I was looking for Madigan,’ said Scotty.

  ‘He’s out in his room, I think,’ said Myra. ‘Like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No thank you,’ said Scotty. ‘I don’t drink tea.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Myra pleasantly. ‘What do you do all day, then?’

  Scotty would not admit Myra’s gentle joke. She stood by the fridge with her hands plunged into the pockets of her zipper jacket, her eyes travelling warily round the room, her dark face cold with shyness, ready to judge.

  ‘Which is his room?’ she said.

  ‘Out the back, past the dunny, and keep going,’ said Myra.

  The shed was shut. She knocked.

  ‘What.’

  She opened the door and slid in. He was lying under an eiderdown with a book open on his chest. He stared at her. The small area of room which was not bed had a temporary look, clogged with things half-unpacked from boxes, as if he had just arrived or was contemplating leaving. There did not appear to be any source of light, or air.

  ‘You’ll go blind,’ said Scotty, ‘trying to read in that light.’

  ‘I’m hiding in here,’ he said.

  ‘Have you got your pyjamas on? At seven o’clock at night?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘What are you hiding from?’

  ‘Oh, the women want us to wash up more, and do the shopping.’

  She grabbed the corner of the eiderdown and whisked it off him. ‘Get downstairs then, bludger.’ He was revealed on his back, fully dressed, with his hands up holding the book in front of his chin.

  ‘What is this?’ he cried in a rage, not moving. ‘The rape of the Sabine women? You come bursting in here while a bloke’s trying to have a quiet read – is nothing sacred?’

  ‘Oh bugger it,’ she said, turning away from the bed with a gesture of disgust. ‘I’ve got enough house problems without sticking my nose into yours.’

  ‘You’re so rude!’

  ‘Am I? Sorry.’ She sat down on a stool. ‘I feel terrible. I don’t know what to do with myself. I just hopped on the bus and came over. Want to come out for a coffee, or something? I promise I’ll be nice. Not manful.’

  ‘Give me a minute to think about it.’

  ‘I’ll pay, even.’

  ‘Let me think, will you?’

  ‘Entertain me, for God’s sake! I’ll be crazy in ten minutes. Go on – I helped you, the other night.’

  ‘You call that help?’ he scoffed. ‘I’ll never forgive you for that night. I felt – contemptuous.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were pathetic. You were so forgiving you nearly made me sick. You should’ve kicked me out.’

  ‘Oh I should have, should I?’

  She stood at the end of his bed looking down at his heavy crumpled figure, his thick mousy hair and resentful expression, and suddenly hurled herself on him, sending the book fly
ing. She straddled him, grabbed a handful of his shirt front and wrenched at it violently. There was a satisfying sound of ripping cloth, and buttons peppered the wall.

  ‘Hey!’ he roared, electrified. ‘I liked that shirt!’

  ‘Stiff shit.’ She pinned his shoulders to the bed and pounded him against the mattress till his teeth rattled, but he recovered his wits and got her leg in a lock: she fought hard, but the best she could do was to keep the upper half of him immobilised, and by now they were weak with laughter and effort.

  ‘You know what you are, Scotty?’ he gasped. ‘You’re a star-fucker.’

  ‘Who, me? You flea-bitten mutt.’ She could only dig her fingers into his shoulders, deadlocked as they were.

  ‘Why didn’t you kick me out?’

  ‘Because you looked as if you wanted to stay.’

  ‘I was bored!’

  ‘Bored! Bored, were you? Well, fuck you! If you were bored, why didn’t you say so, and go elsewhere?’

  He looked abashed, and slid his eyes sideways. ‘I was shy.’

  ‘Oi was shoi,’ she mimicked him. ‘Why don’t you just work out what you want to do, and then do it?’

  ‘I thought I had – but suddenly I found you tickling my back.’

  ‘I didn’t hear any complaints at the time.’

  ‘How could I complain? It was like sleeping with the district nurse!’

  She let go and so did he, and she stood up, still panting, and tucked her shirt in at the waist.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and have a coffee.’

  ‘I haven’t got much money,’ he said automatically.

  ‘I’ve got plenty. Come on.’

  ‘Don’t rush me, Scotty! You’re so precipitate.’ He got off the bed and scrounged under it for his shoes, which he pulled on and began to lace up in a complicated fashion.

  She stood by the door waiting.

  ‘Actually,’ said Madigan, as he finished tying a bow in the first shoelace and turned his attention to the other, ‘I can’t really go out for a coffee. There’s something I have to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sing.’

  Tonight?’

  ‘Yes. In this old folkie club up the top of Collins Street. It’s the sort of joint where earnest young chaps play those guitars that don’t make any noise.’