He pictured the hunched figure of his father disappearing along the dirt road in the rain, navigating the potholes and puddles by the sparsely placed streetlights. And he recalled the local doctor speaking very quietly in the kitchen one morning to Michael and his mother. He had spoken slowly so as not to assume anything and an important lesson be understood.
Michael had woken that morning, a year ago, to the sound of his mother’s screams. She was calling out his father’s name, again and again, and Michael had rushed into his parents’ bedroom to see his mother standing by the bed, his father straining for breath and froth coming from his mouth. Later, the doctor had arrived, examined Vic, and that was when he had sat Michael and his mother down in the kitchen and explained to them what had happened.
At one point the doctor had spoken in French. These, he explained, were medical terms, but said in French. There was grand mal and there was petit mal. Michael’s father had just suffered a grand mal. It was frightening to watch, but as long as he took his medication and didn’t drink he would be all right. The grand mal was more frightening than the petit mal because it lasted much longer and looked worse. A petit mal might last only a few seconds, or even minutes, like a sudden memory loss. It quickly passed.
But during that time the mind would be muddled. Thoughts and messages would be sent to the mind but make no sense. The memory would be lost for a short time, and Vic would need help to unscramble his mind and make it right again. During that time, the doctor added, he will be frightened because there will be a part of his mind that knows that the rest of it is muddled.
There was an old wooden spoon in the kitchen drawer for when it was worse. For when his father suffered a big fit, and would not wake until the fit was finished. It could go on for an hour or more. The doctor had told him that during that time, when his father was unconscious, there was the danger that he might swallow his own tongue and choke on it. It hardly ever happened, the doctor reassured Michael and Rita, but it could. For during these fits, the doctor went on, his father’s jaw would shut tight like a steel trap. His teeth would be clamped together, they would grind against each other, froth would bubble from his lips and he would moan as if he were in pain. But he wouldn’t be. They would have to remember that. It always looked worse than it actually was, and when his father woke he would be tired more than anything, and his jaw would ache.
Because he is already the stronger of the two, Michael’s job during these times, and it is nearly always in the early morning, is to take the old wooden spoon that is kept in the kitchen drawer and prise his father’s mouth open so that the spoon sits in between his front teeth and keeps his father’s tongue in place, so that he won’t swallow it and he won’t choke. He must be careful that he is not bitten, not that his father will mean to bite him, but sometimes his jaw will suddenly snap shut despite Michael’s best efforts. These are the worst times, and it is Michael’s job to sit by his father’s side throughout the fit. Till his jaw relaxes, his eyes open, and he returns to consciousness.
This morning was easy. Michael lay back in the darkness of his room, alone in the house, thinking about all this. His father had just had a petit mal. That was why he didn’t know the details of the day. And that’s why his eyes were confused and frightened, because he knew that his mind had briefly gone and he could never be sure he would get it all back again; his mind, and the world, the lifetime of memories it contained.
Done with all the talk of the sky and the warmth of the night for the time being, the conversation in the street stops and the two families move forward again in parallel lines towards the Englishman’s house. Soon, they will be at the Bedser’s party and they can already hear the faint sounds of music issuing from the opened windows of the house and pouring out into the warm suburban air.
Michael is looking forward to the party, to the ice cream and cakes and lemonade. But he is also thinking of those nights when he sits by his father’s side waiting for the fits to pass or unmuddling his mind, and wishing it didn’t happen.
13.
Diesel and Steam (I)
The deep rich blue of the engine, the long, sweeping yellow line along each side, the yellow crest at the front like that of a magnificent bird about to take flight, and the VR insignia at the centre of it all.
Paddy likes the new diesels, but he keeps it quiet. Many of the drivers still prefer the steam, but Christ only knows why. They say there’s no art in the diesels. No heart. It’s just a job now and everybody might as well be driving buses, that only steam had that touch of class, of poetry, and that the diesels marked the end of the true art of engine driving.
But Paddy smiles at the drivers who say all this. In the sheds and the yards and standing by the rails at the change of shifts they talk a lot about steam and diesel.
Paddy quietly smiles at their fear of the new diesels and their pronouncements about the end of true driving. There’s an art to driving them all, he tells himself, as he stands on the platform beside the diesel with his Gladstone bag at his feet. It’s just a different kind of driving.
The diesels are clean and warm from the moment you step inside. No filthy coal, no cinders, no muck all over your face and hands, no rain and wind and sudden gusty drafts. None of that. Just a warm, clean cabin in which to work and a soft seat on which to park yourself.
Paddy takes another look at the sky then picks up his bag and steps up into the cabin. He places his cigarettes in the breast pocket of his overalls. The overalls are no longer really necessary, but Paddy still wears them. Like the faded blue cap he wears when driving, the overalls are his uniform. They are also his link with the past, for although he approves of the new diesels, he is also a sentimentalist. For the same reason he also wears a collar and tie under his overalls. He has done so since he first entered the Big Wheel in 1936. It is a reminder of the days when engineers were as revered by children and admired by the public as airline pilots. Paddy remembers the days when to be an engine driver was that important. When all the drivers sat at their seats in shirts and ties, and the confidence and assurance they exuded flowed back through the whole train and everybody, even the most apprehensive passengers, were put at ease. A driver should have that effect on a train. So that when passengers and well-wishers gather round the engine to glimpse the driver inside the cabin, they see a professional with the unhurried manner of someone who has complete confidence in his ability.
Paddy sits and nods to his fireman. He is a new fireman and his name does not automatically register with Paddy. Besides, he’ll be gone soon, driving himself before he really knows how. Routine takes over. Paddy checks the brake valves, the brake travels and the lighting, while his fireman makes sure the detonators, the tool kit and the headlamp are all there. By now the platform is filling up with travellers and well-wishers, those who have come to wave the passengers goodbye, those who will miss them and those who are glad to see the last of them, all stand peering in through the carriage windows. Paddy eases himself into the soft driver’s seat and positions himself for the drive. When he has adjusted the side window, he takes a tea-stained metal mug from his Gladstone bag behind him on the floor and passes it to the fireman.
The fireman takes the mug and a packet of tea. He then opens a hatch and steps down into the nose of the engine. It is only a few steps, but while the fireman is there preparing the tea, he can see nothing of the world outside or of the cabin just above him. Nor can he hear anything. He is completely cut off. When he has finished making the tea he takes two mugs back up into the cabin where the two men sit in silence, sipping the brew. Without the fireman noticing Paddy swallows a small, white pill, then observes once more the miraculous, beery glow of the summer sky hanging over the Spencer Street yards, noting the way it tints the rails and washes over the sheds and signal boxes and turns the clouds to froth.
At six twenty-eight the platform staff are closing all the doors. The train is full. The platform is crowded. Two minutes later the Spirit slowly eases out of the pla
tform into those amber yards and on towards North Melbourne Station.
From now until they reach the border the minutes don’t matter. There is no wish to be somewhere else, no desire for time to quickly pass into the future or roll back into the past. There is only the job at hand and Paddy is at his happiest. He is doing the job he was born for and over the next few hours he will become lost in its intricacies.
14.
The Arrival of a Bicycle
The music of Bedser’s party becomes clearer. It is old music. Old songs. His parents’ music. Michael imagines the sleepy eyes of Mr Bedser waiting for his guests. He thinks of the daughter for whom the party is being held. The Patsy Bedser he knows from the milk bars of the suburb and its streets. The familiar Patsy Bedser. Then he thinks of the other Patsy Bedser, the one he discovered on his bicycle late last summer.
When Michael’s bicycle arrived a year ago, it arrived in bits. A frame painted in green house paint, rusted handlebars, and wheels from separate bicycles. It didn’t matter. Like a jigsaw everything fitted eventually and he spent the afternoon assembling the parts that would become his bicycle, greasing the chain and the sprockets, shining the spokes, tightening the handlebars and adjusting the seat. When it was finished and he’d pumped the air into the tyres, he stood it up against the clothesline in the back yard and contemplated it.
A bicycle meant freedom. He could travel beyond the street, beyond the suburb. He could cycle into the countryside, to the old towns and out to the valleys and streams and rivers where the fish were. Or he could just sit in an open field and eat sandwiches. A bicycle meant all that.
Soon, he knew all the towns, the farms, the yabby dams and the streams. Anywhere that was within a day’s ride of the street. The farms through which you couldn’t walk because the farmers wouldn’t let you; the houses where the dogs ran at you. He eventually came to know it all. Even where the small roads led. But, in the end, it wasn’t a fishing spot that he found.
One day the previous autumn Michael was cycling up a long, difficult hill. His fishing rod was strapped to his bicycle and his pack was on his back. It was a school holiday and he was looking forward to fishing in one of the cold, clear streams in the countryside beyond the suburb. There were redfin in those streams and he intended bringing some home with him that evening.
He had been cycling for almost two hours, but because he left early, before the street had stirred, there was still mist and fog in the hollows and valleys he crossed along the way. There was a small valley further inland, near an old church where the water was clear and swift, and it was possible to see the fish. He had seen the place before on a previous trip, noted the river as he crossed the bridge, seen the large schools of redfin in the water, and determined on returning with his fishing tackle.
But it was further out than he recalled, and as he approached every turn in the road he expected to find the old church, his landmark, before him, but he didn’t. Perhaps he was on the wrong road. Perhaps he didn’t know all the roads and tracks of the area as well as he thought. He was even considering stopping, at the point of calling the whole expedition off, when he turned into yet another curve in the road and the bluestone church was suddenly in front of him.
There were two cars parked in the siding. A pale green Morris Minor and a black Wolseley. He leaned his bicycle against a tree and looked about but couldn’t see anybody. Without knowing why, he was wary. He was convinced that two parked cars in a deserted part of the countryside in the middle of the day meant something. When he looked more closely at the cars he realised he knew one. The Morris. He was sure it was the pale green Morris Minor owned by Patsy Bedser.
He walked slowly forward, crouching as he crossed the wide expanse of the dirt siding. The church door had been left open, and although he knew he shouldn’t approach it, he did.
They were almost directly in front of him. Ten feet away. No more. But they didn’t see him. It was dark inside the church but he could just make her out, on an old pew that had been left behind and pushed up against the wall. At first, they were like two shadows crawling over each other in the dark. So quiet you wouldn’t know they were there. She was facing Michael, who had frozen in the church doorway, but her eyes were on the ceiling and she didn’t notice him. And even though her eyes were wide open she didn’t appear to see anything at all. The man had his back to Michael. His hands were inside Patsy Bedser’s dress and hers were around his neck. It was hard to tell where their legs were. Besides, Michael only got a glimpse before he darted back from the light of the open doorway and flattened himself against the outside wall of the church.
A glimpse was enough. That was it. That was what it looked like. All legs and arms in the dark. And quiet. Like they didn’t want to be found out. Like they didn’t want anybody to know they were doing it because they weren’t supposed to be. The man looked like he could have been quietly strangling her. And he could have been, no more than ten feet away on the other side of the church door. But Michael knew full well that something other than strangulation was taking place in the shadows of the doorway. He’d have loved to look again, properly, to see what it looked like but he heard a low whisper. The voice of Patsy Bedser. The sound of clothes. The sound of the man. Only the wall separated them from Michael. They were whispering to each other in the old church and their whispers echoed like prayers. He could almost distinguish the words they were saying and wondered if they could hear his breathing. Then came the laughter. Loud and musical. The unbuttoned laughter of Patsy Bedser.
Michael barely dared to breathe in its wake. His hands and legs were still. He didn’t know then that he was calm because his fear was buried deep down in his shoes where it wouldn’t affect him. He moved along the side wall of the church, conscious of the sound of his shoes on the gravel and constantly looking about him as he left. Once he reached the end he saw the flat, open expanse of land, the dirt siding that he had to cross in order to reach his bicycle. There was no sign of anybody, and after waiting, Michael judged his moment, and ran, expecting at any moment to be seen, hear a voice or footsteps following him.
It was the look on Patsy Bedser’s face that he took with him as he scrambled back up the path with his pack still on his back. Whenever he saw Patsy Bedser on the street or in the milk bar she smiled. She always said hello and made little jokes to which he could never think of a response. But he wasn’t meant to. He’s just a kid, he knows that and his shuffling silence is expected. That was the Patsy Bedser he knew. The Patsy Bedser who inhabited milk bars, the only person he knew who made him want to be older, who made him want to grow up fast so that when she made her little jokes he would know exactly what to say and she would see him as being more than just a kid. But the Patsy Bedser he had just observed was someone else.
When he looked again he saw that the church door had been closed. Michael ran towards his bicycle, took it from the tree he had left it resting against not long before, and cycled away as quickly as he could, occasionally looking back over his shoulder, noting the details of the place and fixing them in his memory. And it was only then that he felt the trembling swelling up from his shoes, into his knees and legs, flowing along his spine, into his shoulders and arms and down into his hands and fingertips. He knew if he kept his eyes fixed on the road before him, if he gripped the handlebars firmly with both hands and if he peddled hard, he would ride the trembling out of his body.
Later that afternoon when he arrived home he told his father about the day but left out the church. His father was pouring stew into a tin billy for the night shift. When his father left for work Michael waved goodbye but he was distracted. His bicycle was up against the front fence and he was flicking the pedals around with his foot, watching them spin.
Now, as he recalls the musical laughter that came from inside the church that afternoon, he knows that its music was not like the music he can faintly hear coming from Bedser’s lounge room. Not the music of his parents. No, Patsy Bedser’s laughter that day had been
loud and exciting, like the loud music he hears in the hi-fi shop.
15.
Pay Day
I leave the city behind me every night after work when I take the northbound train. As we leave the station I watch the river, the bridge and the park, the palms and trees on the other side of the bridge recede. Even now I think I’ve caught the wrong train. My city is still south of the river.
All my streets, my laneways, my shops, my picture theatres, my magazine stalls with their latest movie gossip and my green, trimmed parks, all my memories, are now on the other side of the city. On warm, summer nights I would walk back from work through the gardens all the way to Prahran and into the wide, spacious house that mama bought, with my face in a movie magazine. That was me.
My sisters all stayed south of the river, the river that slips away from me every night when my train leaves the platform and we curve across the city to Spencer Street, North Melbourne, Newmarket and on. When, at the end of the suburban line, I see the flour mills in front of me towering over the flat paddocks and square houses, I should feel like I’m coming home but I don’t. And when I step off the train and see the wide, open paddocks and the timber houses, looking like they could all be swept away by a good storm, I still wonder what I’m doing here.
Rita looks at the Millers on the other side of the street. They should feel like neighbours but they don’t. The street should feel like home, but it doesn’t. They are all going to the party, and they all have the party in common. But it’s not enough. And as she eyes Vic, and Michael, who is suddenly catching up to them after having fallen behind, she wonders if the street will ever feel like home.
Don’t marry him they all said. Everybody. My mother, his mother, his aunts. All four of them. They all said don’t marry him. Naturally, I married him.
The Art of the Engine Driver Page 6