But she doesn’t tell Peter what she’s decided, even though he has arrived at the same place. Neither is wholly comfortable with it, and neither has told Robert what they think.
They halt these talks, slowing down and looking around, and before too long they’re discussing the pair of free-range rabbits she just bought. She’s considering working some prunes and maybe bacon into the red wine braise she’s planning for Anne and Emmett tonight. Pete says, ‘How about a bit of mashed parsnip with that? The old man loves a bit of parsnip.’ And he grabs the handle of the jeep and is off to a pyramid of parsnips further down the aisle while Louisa gets her coat on.
51
As they age, they all look more like Emmett. The wide face, the big eyes, the cheekbones, they might even be Slavic. But who cares anyway? As Emmett would once have said, ‘We’re all of us just plain old bastards like every bloody one else in the world. No one is anything special and that includes the Queen her Royal self.’
These days when he walks, Peter keeps his head down a little and there’s a subtle stoop to his back. You can only see it from the right angle, but his thinness tells you all about it.
He likes plain clothes, square jackets with deep pockets. Shoes with thick treads that he wears until the uppers collapse. His hair is fading gently rather than going grey. When he lifts his face though, he’s mostly smiling. And when he smiles hard, his eyes nearly disappear into the creases.
He lives with Lily in a cream weatherboard house in Flemington not too far from the river. All the trim, after much negotiation, is indigo. There are two windows at the front and a small verandah. Round the back, the park washing up to the back fence is rimmed with peppercorn trees. Peter used to regard them as weeds until Anne said she liked them and then he began to see the stringy beauty of them. He often likes things his mum likes. It seems that she knows the best things.
He works from home servicing Apple Macs. He’s a computer technician with his own practice and he fits work around home duties. He cooks dinner every night and sometimes he still rings Louisa to talk about food. ‘Tried the new season’s asparagus yet? I got some really fat stalks the other day at the market...’ Or ‘Rocket pesto. What do you know about it?’
When anyone’s in trouble Pete is on the phone talking a bit of calm into the situation. When Jess briefly wanted to leave Warren once years ago, it was Pete she combed through it with.
‘He’s such an old man, he just sits and corrects and he lectures me about whether or not I clean up the kitchen properly or not. He can just go jump, I’ve had him.’
‘You’re joking Jess,’ he said to her, incredulous. ‘You’re not going to leave him ’cause he wants you to clean up after yourself, you’re not really that mad, are you? Warren’s got a lot going for him.’ And then he listened while Jess talked herself into staying with Warren.
And Anne calls Peter when Emmett goes walkabout. He has the knack of finding the old bloke and that’s true enough, though he’s not deluding himself. She probably calls the others too but he’s the only one who can spare the time. To Pete it doesn’t matter much who finds Emmett, he’s sick to death of the competitions with siblings, there’s always one of them better at something than the others, always bloody will be.
The truth is, he finds Emmett three out of the five times he has bolted and the police get to him the other times. The first couple of times Emmett nicks off Anne is nearly hysterical, not at all like the most serene woman in the world. This day the side gate wasn’t shut and Emmett has strolled out.
Peter grabs his coat, hops into the kombi and though he floors it, it still takes a while to move. He’s heading from the Maribrynong River over to Footscray. The sky is a darkening dome and in the park the peppercorns are whipped by the cold wind.
Anne has called the police and is waiting in the kitchen in case, by some miracle, Emmett comes home. She’s given the description to the young policewoman, a lass named Constable Schultz, who she tells Louisa, is really kind.
The Constable reads the description back to Anne: ‘Elderly man, blue eyes, silver hair, wearing bottle-green cardigan, checked blue shirt and navy trousers with black braces, wearing Adidas running shoes. He has a Parker pen inscribed with Emmett Brown.’ And it takes Anne a few seconds before she is able to speak.
***
Driving through Flemington, it hits Peter that Emmett will go home to the market. He doesn’t ask how he knows stuff like this, he’s just glad he does. He realises the knowledge is the same as when you’re fishing; you just click into the larger consciousness and then you listen and it comes.
He knows he’ll find the old man, but it takes longer than he imagined. He trawls those streets around the market for some time. It’s not a market day so there are barely any people. A stray sheet of newspaper flaps like a bird past towers of stacked-up crates. And further off, way up in the grey, pigeons are swinging around in the clean wind. The sky is heavy with low-slung cloud.
It feels like there might be a downpour and though the drought is eternal and every single human being in the city is praying for rain, Peter prays it won’t. The thought of Emmett getting drenched is not good. Poor old bastard wouldn’t know what was going on.
He decides he’ll see the old man better in the little lanes where the car can’t pass, so he parks at a meter, fishes in the ashtray for a gold coin and then runs off with the coin in his hand, such is his panic.
It’s at least another half an hour of scouring the streets around the market before he catches sight of Emmett, barefoot and moving surprisingly fast. Peter jogs up behind him and draws up level before he puts his hand on his shoulder and says, ‘G’day Dad, where you heading on a grey old day like today?’
Emmett seems angry when he turns towards Pete. ‘No time for that’, he says crossly.
He’s lost the dental plate that held in the false teeth (most of the teeth on one side went years ago in a fight) so a dark gap looms. He scowls and says urgently, ‘I’m bloody late for tea. Nana’ll kill me.’ Pete agrees that he’s late too and this works. ‘You too, poor bugger eh?’ Emmett says, and they both laugh as if it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.
Peter steers him over to the crates, gets him to sit down on one. Emmett tells Pete he has to see Chook and Eric, his mates. Peter doesn’t know what he’s talking about, so he asks him where his shoes are. Emmett doesn’t hear him but he’s jiggling his bloody feet around as if the ground were on fire. Little creeks of blood have sprung up everywhere on them.
Pete finds some jellybeans in his pocket and he pops a red one into his father’s mouth. Emmett narrows his eyes and gets ready to eject and then the taste of sugar speaks, and he smiles a little sideways smile.
He chews the lolly vigorously on his good side then Peter puts his arm around him and guides him to the car. He’s walking slowly now as if the air is all gone from his tyres. Getting him into the car scares him and he rises moth-like against the window. The glass confuses him. Is it there or what?
He doesn’t like to sit, but Peter is patient and finally gets the seatbelt on him and he settles. At a phone box, he calls Anne and tells her he’s found him and he hears her tears, though no mention is made. Emmett keeps trying to touch his bleeding feet and gets blood on his face.
They plough through the packed, pushing traffic and Peter thinks of distance and time and how it is so long ago and so far away from the days when Emmett was well. Who’d have thought dementia would improve anyone? Peter reflects. He cleans Emmett up with a bit of spit on the tail of his shirt before they go in.
52
Anne’s backyard is as tidy as a ship’s deck. Not a speck dares land. She’s out there sweeping in the shining morning, when everything is still and quiet, apart from the occasional train down the back and the river of cars out the front. The crabapple Louisa gave her years ago is about ready to release its rosy blooms. Anne touches one of the plump pink pouches and hopes the mean old wind stays away this year. Last year it strippe
d the branches bare. Still we live in hope, she thinks grimly, sweeping away a few last grains of something before storing the broom on its hook and going inside to sew in the alcove between the shop and the kitchen. Emmett is sitting in the kitchen at the blackwood table with his hands in his lap. At the end of the week he’s going into the Woolamai Hostel.
The little tele is turned into Kerri-Anne on the morning show. She’s so bright, Anne thinks, she gives you a lift just by being there but Emmett’s not watching, he’s looking at the light out the window. His head is still and it is impossible to know what he sees.
Anne’s working on something for Noreen Nugent, one of her oldest customers. Noreen just keeps getting fatter and she rounds up her wardrobe every few months and gets Anne to let out all her clothes. How long the seams will keep offering something to her is anyone’s guess. Still, while it lasts, it’s a breeze for Anne and will bring in a good twenty bucks. Money is an eternal comfort to her.
She’s never more herself than when she sews. Something about the busyness of it and the noise of the machine; she becomes part of it. She thinks she will leave the old machine to Louisa when she dies, but she’s not sure why.
She glances over to check Emmett and hopes a sparrow or something passes occasionally to interest him. He doesn’t ever look at the tele, just watches the light. Anne wonders whether there must be someone who would care to know about Emmett. But there’s no one. Drinking friends don’t count, never did.
The only person she can think of is Chook Sash, his old mate from North Melbourne. She knows he moved to Werribee not long before Daniel died, she remembers he came to Danny’s funeral and that meant something – and still does.
Emmett had once told her he used to call Chook ‘Dugong’ at school because he looked like one, whatever that was. Emmett had laughed and she had offered a tiny smile, though she never considered calling people names to be funny. He didn’t notice her lack of commitment. ‘But most of the kids didn’t know what a dugong was so I changed his nickname to Chook ’cause he sold eggs.’
He’d told her Chook had been with him in most of his fights at school. ‘Always loyal, always available,’ and he laughed again, ‘but he was a plain boy, old Chook, a very plain boy. Used to wear his hair long. Gave him something to hide behind.’
Anne had liked Chook instantly, had seen in him that inconceivable thing, a man she could talk to. At Daniel’s funeral he was a consolation. Though she wasn’t noticing much, she always remembered the home-grown roses Chook had thrust at her with their kindly smell.
He was a gentle presence in the family until Emmett had banished him after a fight over politics. Chook was never a confirmed Labor voter, unlike Emmett who was violently passionate about Whitlam and, surprisingly, even about Hawke. Chook never could see much difference between the sides.
Being an adult had improved his looks. Still pale and large, he kept his faded hair short and he was no longer troubled so much. His face was studded with scars gouged by acne. His eyes had become amber and were flecked with leaves of light. He made a reasonable living as a plasterer. The pay was okay and he got to be inside most of the time which suited him because in the sun he was toast.
When she rings, Anne gets hold of his wife, Wendy, and there’s a bit of enquiring about kids (they have three girls, one’s a worry, the others are fine). It isn’t easy for Anne to reveal herself to Wendy. There’s an ache there and she wishes she could just talk to Chook and not parry with details. Wendy says she’ll pass on the message to Mervyn (she doesn’t like people calling him Chook) that Emmett isn’t doing too well. Anne thanks her, hangs up the phone, and sits looking at it.
53
The next day Chook is at the door of the shop banging away with no intention of not being heard. She opens the screen door and it takes a while to recognise him. But when she does, she sees that he’s a roomy man and still shambolic. And now, standing there engulfed in plaster dust, there’s a ghostly quality to him. His hair is streaked with plaster.
He edges into the kitchen shyly, as wary as a horse moving uncertainly into a stall way too small for him. They get a cup of tea going and then go out to the backyard to look at Anne’s lemon tree in a pot. Chook seems more comfortable outside. It’s easier to talk out here under the shade of the peppercorn. A wind picks up and touches the lemon buds lightly. Emmett is upstairs in his room sleeping in the cradle of the afternoon.
‘I don’t know, Chook,’ Anne says, and then she surprises herself and starts crying. God, it’s a rotten nuisance all these blasted tears. She tells Chook about the brain scans and the dementia and how fast it will go. ‘I just wanted to talk about Emmett with someone who really knew him.’ Chook puts his hand on her shoulder and tears slip down their faces.
And even Chook is suddenly and fiercely amazed that Emmett means this much to him. He has been gone from him for so long. Then they sit at the green plastic table splattered with chalky bird-shit circles and after a bit Chook starts talking and thinking together. ‘I knew that I had grown to love Emmett as a mate, but I knew he didn’t ever love me. It didn’t matter in the end, he was something else. I’ve never met anyone like him.’
He tells Anne stuff about Emmett that she has never heard. About the orphanage. ‘He got sent there time and again, poor little bastard, when his Nana couldn’t afford to keep him or when he went wild or when his mother decided he should go back in the orphanage to be with his little brother, Jimmy, but it wasn’t just one he went to, he went to them all over, even went to that awful one at Royal Park. It was bad in there and worse in the foster homes. He wouldn’t tell me what the foster father did to him, but as I got older I could imagine. He hated that bloke.
‘He wasn’t an orphan as you know, he just had a useless mother who couldn’t be bothered looking after him and then she kept having more kids by different fathers, all over the place, there were at least four halves, you know, half-brothers or sisters. Springing up everywhere.’
Sitting there in the yard, their eyes are towed to the lemon tree as if by mutual consent. Over the fence, the top of the Uncle Toby’s Oats silo just shows and goods trains hustle by along the fence-line making long clacking in the afternoon. A couple of Screen-master James Stirlings spread upwards near the fence, a mesh of olive green leaves as big as raindrops. A daisy bush takes the sun and a mauve hydrangea, its singed leaves as wide as wings, clings to the mercy of shade.
But the lemon tree in the cobalt blue pot is the undisputed star of the yard. It even has its own shade cloth cape constructed by Anne to fend off the sun on killer days. Today it has four lemons hanging from it like yellow balls.
Their eyes shuffle from one lemon to the other. Anne knows some of this stuff, but she doesn’t let on what she knows or doesn’t know. She’s mining a rich lead here. She asks Chook how Emmett ended up in North Melbourne with his grandmother and he speaks as if this was something he’s been waiting to say. He’s an authority on Emmett.
‘Eventually it was his uncles who saved him from the orphanage. I think it was his Uncle Spud who said he should just stay put with them at Nana’s. Left the other poor little bugger Jimmy in the home though. Don’t know what happened to the other halves. Unbelievable, the way they treated kids in those days.
‘You know, he loved my mum so much. She’d ruffle his hair and make him eat and tell him he was a handsome boy. I came home one day and Emmett was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea with her. Now I know she was a kind woman and everyone loved her and she was not a bad mother unless she was pissed, which was most of the time if I’m honest, but I got a bit shitty seeing Emmett Brown sitting there helping himself to a slice of bread and dripping and a second cup of tea. After a while, I made Emmett uncomfortable with my bad manners and he got up and left. He gave Mum a peck on the cheek and it seemed to me they had some kind of understanding.’
Chook pauses for a while and then says, the fact was, he was only a kid himself. Left unspoken is that he was always touchy about his mo
ther, probably still is. In the quiet that follows his words, Anne knows she’s just gathered more about Emmett than she ever has. She puts her head down on the table and leaves it there resting on her arms.
The Book of Emmett Page 25