by Tim Winton
‘We’ll talk when I get home.’
‘Why don’t you just put the cuffs on him and do the right thing?’
‘I said we’ll talk later.’
‘There’s a shovel in the shed.’
‘Lockie—’
‘No one’ll ever know.’
The Sarge hauled the stroller and all the shopping out. Lockie felt himself hoisted out by the collar, smiling all the way.
op got the hiccups. He said the morning’s little incident with the windscreen had shattered his nerves and when he got nervy, dear old Pop got hiccuppy as well. They weren’t the cute kind of hiccups that Blob got when you made her giggle too much. They were huge racking jobs that sounded like a fifty-kilo rooster waking up in your loungeroom.
‘Erkk!’
‘Eerrkk!’
‘Eeeeerrrrrkkkkk!’
Old Pop could really hiccup. Man, he could represent his country at the Olympics. He hiccupped all afternoon, erking and arking and groaning and moaning until Lockie and Phillip and Blob locked themselves in the laundry and made monster faces out of Play-Doh. But it was hard to make any progress at Play-Doh with Blob around because she tended to eat whatever you were building before you could get it finished.
‘You remember collecting Mum from hospital once when we were little?’
‘When Blob was born?’ said Phillip.
‘No, before. Way back.’
Phillip squinted, thinking. ‘Nope.’
‘Funny.’
‘What was she in for?’
‘No idea.’
Phillip moulded a particularly awful-looking ear to fit on his ghoul’s head and was reaching over to stick it on when Blob lunged and half the ear was instantly gone.
‘Hate to see you in a feeding frenzy, Blob,’ said Lockie. ‘Someone could lose an arm.’
‘Aren’t the tofu kebabs enough for you, Blob?’ Phillip muttered.
Blob looked at each of them, her jaws working, cheeks balled up. And then a change came over her features. She gobbed the gumhacked Play-Doh onto the floor and said, ‘Mumma?’
The boys stared at her.
‘She talked.’
‘Mumma?’
‘Her first word, Phillip.’
‘Better late than never.’
‘Mumma?’
Lockie and Phillip looked at each other, each thinking the same thing. Their mum wasn’t here to see it.
After dinner that night, which wasn’t much of a success because Lockie had never cooked lamb chops before and Nan wouldn’t touch meat with a forklift, the Sarge pulled Lockie aside for a moment. They went out into the yard.
‘What’s the story, Lockie?’
‘With the oldies?’
‘They reckon you’re being sullen. Uncooperative.’
‘Geez, Sarge!’
‘Take it easy. What’s going on?’
‘What’s going on is this. Our flamin’ grandparents—’
‘Just inside the house there, so bring it down a bit.’
‘Sorry. But it’s hopeless, Sarge. It’s more work with them than it was without ’em. They’re driving me crazy.’
‘They can’t help being old.’
‘I don’t mind them being old. Let them be old. Let ’em be two hundred and forty six in the shade. The thing is, they’re no help!’
‘They’re your mum’s parents, Lockie.’
‘Well, you can’t get a refund, I know. But it’s wrong, Sarge. It won’t work. I promise you it’ll be better without ’em. They’ve got their minds on other things. They seem to have the idea that Mum’s just slacking off. In their day they were made of better stuff—that kind of stuff. Anyway, how was she?’
‘So-so.’
‘I hate all this.’
‘Me too, mate.’
‘Blob said a real word today.’
‘Yeah, Phillip said. Your mum would’ve been over the moon.’
‘Can we visit her?’
‘Soon.’
‘Can we stick the oldies on the morning bus?’
The Sarge sighed. ‘Look at it from my position. It’s gonna be horribly awkward if I tell ’em their services are suddenly no longer required.’
‘I don’t think they’ll be offended, Sarge. They’ll be relieved. They can hit the greens the moment they get home. You know today I half expected them to be gone off for a round of golf when I got home from the shop. They’ve got some kind of addiction thing. And it’s like they can’t quite get interested in us. Or Mum. If I was them I would’ve broken down the door to see my sick daughter.’
‘Thankfully that hasn’t happened,’ said the Sarge. ‘It’s a delicate time, mate.’
‘But you know what I mean.’
The Sarge kicked at a bit of gravel. ‘Yeah, they’re different alright.’
‘Put ’em on the bus. Please.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I love it when you say that.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll see. The parent’s classic answer.’
The Sarge grinned. His teeth showed white in the half-light. ‘Would you prefer a straight “no”?’
‘Has a chicken got lips?’
Faced with another big night of you-know-what on the telly, Phillip joined Blob in the Sarge’s room and Lockie made up his bed in the laundry. Lockie knew he was safe wherever the nappy buckets lived. That stink was like a force-field and the oldies wouldn’t come within coo-ee. So he stacked a pile of cushions and pillows in a corner on the lino and made himself a nest. Homeless in his own home. Homeless on the Range.
He listened to tapes on his battered Walkman for a while, lonely, sad songs by the Cranberries and Joan Osborne, things that made him think about his mum. He wondered what was going through her mind, if she was awake somewhere in a hospital room thinking about home. He wondered if this—all this—was how things would be from now on. Maybe everything had changed forever. He couldn’t bear to think of his life going on like this.
Lockie pulled his earphones off after an hour or so when he heard raised voices over the boom of the TV.
‘I don’t think you understand, Barney,’ the Sarge was saying. ‘She’s not away on a holiday, you know.’
Pop muttered something Lockie couldn’t hear over the TV. Lockie got up and opened the door a crack.
‘In my day,’ Nan said, her voice dipping under the golf now and then, ‘a girl who got married and had kids was expected to be independent. We didn’t look for excuses. We couldn’t afford to get sick. Sometimes I think the whole country is going soft.’
‘Well,’ said the Sarge, ‘we can’t afford it either. Sickness isn’t exactly Joy’s hobby, you know.’
‘Everyone complains about stress, stress, stress. We’d never even heard of stress in those days. No one wants to work anymore. Everyone’s slacking off if you ask me.’
‘Look,’ said the Sarge, ‘maybe the world doesn’t look real stressful from the fairways of a golfing resort—’
‘Now look here, young man!’
‘—But I see things from the other end every day,’ said the Sarge all fiery, ‘and I can tell you that life is tough on people. People don’t look so soft from where I stand. I see the worst in people, in my job. I see the worst that life does to them. It’s enough to break your bloody heart. You people have . . . I think you’ve forgotten what it’s like, that’s all.’
‘The whole country’s spoilt and soft.’
‘So that’s our problem! We’re just soft. Your daughter’s soft?’
‘You need to be tough to get ahead,’ said Pop. ‘If you’re soft you’ll always live like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like losers.’
‘Look,’ said the Sarge, his voice trembling with barely controlled anger, ‘I think Joy deserves a little more respect and support. That goes for the kids, too. It’s been hard for them with this transfer. They’re not spoilt or soft. They’re heroes, as far as I’m concerned. All of them. They could teach you a thing or two.’
‘Well,’ said Pop. ‘That’s gratitude.’
‘No wonder the kids give us lip,’ said Nan. ‘With your example.’
‘Yeah, no wonder,’ said the Sarge.
‘I don’t appreciate your tone.’
‘I’m tone-deaf, ask Joy.’
‘You’ve worn her down,’ said Nan. ‘With all this squalor.’
‘I warned her about you,’ said Pop. ‘I knew you’d be unreliable, reading all that poetry. Not enough steel in you. No guts.’
‘Well,’ said the Sarge, ‘on that cosy note I’ll bid you goodnight and thank you for your wonderful support. It’s been a pleasure and an education.’
Then there was just the sound of the golf on the telly. Lockie closed the door and lay in the dark, his heart thumping. Go Sarge!
Before breakfast the Sarge woke Lockie quietly.
‘Um, listen mate. Nan’s not feeling too good. It’s her . . . her arthritis. She needs to go home.’
‘Oh’ said Lockie keeping a straight face. ‘What a bummer.’
‘Well, they’re packing now.’
‘Both of ’em?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Arthritis, huh. I hear stress makes it worse’
‘Stress, eh?’
Lockie kept a straight face. It wasn’t easy.
t was a long, slow, silent ride in the car to the bus depot. Now and then you could hear the clank of the oldies’ clubs in the back as the Falcon hit a pothole, but no one said a word. Lockie’s grandparents sat like statues. The Sarge looked like he’d been holding his breath since breakfast. But for Lockie it felt like a second stab at Christmas. He could barely keep the grin off his face long enough to load the oldies on the bus.
The Greyhound snorted and heaved itself onto the road. The Leonards waved like they were suddenly the Brady Bunch.
‘Well,’ said Phillip, ‘looks like we just won the Golf War.’
Everyone cracked up, even the Sarge.
‘I must be mad,’ he said. ‘I am mad. I’m already up poop creek and I’ve just thrown away the paddle. And I’m late for work. I’m an irresponsible idiot!’
‘But that’s what we like about you, Sarge,’ said Lockie.
When the Leonards got home there was a casserole sitting on the front step. Beside it was a bunch of daisies. They just stood there for a while like Japanese tourists gawking at a kangaroo. At first it was really strange. Lockie felt a bit unnerved by this sudden appearance. It meant someone knew about his mum. Lockie hadn’t told anybody, that’s for sure. He was kind of uncomfortable about people knowing. But bit by bit he felt a bit of a glow inside him, a warm patch, as he realised with relief that they weren’t alone. Someone had thought of them. Geez, it felt good.
That day Lockie tried to get the house back to how it was before the fateful arrival of Nan and Pop. The Sarge went to work, leaving behind him a bomb-site, and in four hours Lockie had it back to being a simple, ordinary shambles. He put two loads of washing through the machine, scrubbed the bathtub, vacuumed the curtains the way his mum did and cooked Burgers à la Human Torpedo for lunch. He swept the kitchen, mopped the floor, bulldozed Blob’s toys into one corner of the loungeroom and tried to get Blob’s hamburger patty off the ceiling.
Then he thought—what the hell—so, he went the full distance and scrubbed the toilet. He put the Spindoctors on the tapedeck, stuck a peg on his nose and really gave that S-bend a tickle. The house boomed with music Blob hung onto him from behind, pulling the hairs out of his legs and tugging on his shorts.
‘Say Ah,’ said Lockie to his porcelain patient. ‘Now, Mr Sir, this won’t hurt a bit.’
Later in the day he watched Phillip pulling Blob round the yard in an old shopping trolley. Washing hung all wonky and cock-eyed from the line. Golf balls stood around like hail stones in the weeds. He wondered who it was who’d left the food and flowers on the step. Was it all over town in a single week? Joy Leonard in the loony bin. Captain Planet becomes a space-case. Lockie hadn’t heard anything at all. No one had phoned. So who was it? One of his mum’s environmentalist friends, maybe? They weren’t exactly the casserole-and-daisy type. Most of them were coffee and nose-stud vegetarians. Besides, none of them had been around since the harbour campaign ended. Lockie’s mum had wondered aloud about being too straight for them. Married to a cop and everything. You could tell she was a bit disappointed about it. One week the house is full of dreadlocked sisters and the next week nothing. No, thought Lockie. It wouldn’t be them.
Someone from church? Not likely, not after all that eco-fuss. Most of the people from church loved their neighbours like the Good Book said. As long as their neighbours weren’t hanging around with greenies and hippies and women with hair under their arms.
Hmm . . . maybe he was being too cynical. But he couldn’t for the life of him think who it could be. Whoever it was, he’d like to say thanks.
While the house was quiet he went into his parents’ bedroom and opened the wardrobe on his mum’s side to sniff the vanilla smell that hung there. He pressed his face to her clothes and thought of her. After a little while he sat on the bed and opened her bedside drawer. There were a few earrings in a cut-glass bowl. Some library cards. Paperbacks about raising kids by people with initials before during and after their names, mostly American women with Big Hair. There was a drawing by Phillip—one of his big golden suns from last year when he seemed to have beaten the bedwetting business.
Lockie closed the drawer, suddenly feeling like a snoop. What was he looking for, a clue, a reason for all this weird sadness that was drowning his mum?
When he came out into the kitchen again, Phillip and Blob had a swatch of happy snaps on the table.
‘Mumma,’ said Blob, fingering a photo of their mum at the beach.
‘She’s always smiling,’ said Phillip. ‘Look. Every picture.’
Lockie wanted to look away. It was almost more than he could bear just now, but he looked at the laughing, smiling photos and nodded gravely.
‘That’s . . . that’s her alright.’
The Sarge came home tired and grey-faced. He had no funny stories to tell. He looked knackered. When the others were in bed, he helped Lockie with the dishes.
‘You going to see Mum tonight?’
‘I sneaked around there today.’
‘How is she?’
‘She’s so happy her parents are looking after us.’
‘Oh.’ Gulp. That bad.
‘I can’t go in tonight, Lock. I really need some sleep.’
‘That’s cool.’ Lockie looked down into the suds.
‘Sarge?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Is it the baby blues that Mum’s got?’
‘Post-natal depression? Seems a bit late, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know anything about it. I saw something in the Women’s Weekly, that’s all.’
The Sarge sighed. ‘No, I don’t think it’s that. Women who get post-natal depression come down with it pretty soon after having the baby. Blob’s been around more than a year. No, I reckon it’s other things, like a whole pile of stuff ganging up on her at once. You know she hasn’t slept well since Blob was born.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Actually this was news to Lockie.
‘So she’s always running on empty. Kind of makes you vulnerable to other strains. Like moving here to Angelus last year. That’s been very tough on her. Starting cold in a new town, especially in this palace. When you’re home with a baby it’s hard to meet new people. All the other police wives play darts and bowls—you know the sort. She doesn’t fit. She doesn’t see herself as a police wife and who can blame her. Well, you know what it’s like to feel you don’t fit. I feel the same way myself. Some days I feel like the only emu in the chookhouse.’
Lockie chewed on all that for a moment.
‘It just hasn’t been easy,’ the Sarge went on. ‘She’s been a bit down since the harbour business. Flat, exhausted, you know. And all her greenie mates are nervo
us about me, of course. I’m a copper so I must be a beer-swilling racist male thing. She takes things hard, your mum. She feels responsible for everything. Like Phillip starting to wet the bed again. As though it’s her fault.’
‘You mean, like the stuff with Blob? Not walking and everything.’
‘Yeah, that most of all.’
‘That’s just crazy,’ said Lockie. He blushed crimson even as he said it. ‘Um, well, you know what I mean.’
‘Well,’ said the Sarge with a sigh, ‘there’s a reason for that.’
‘Oh?’ said Lockie in a tiny voice.
‘You see, your mum lost another baby once. A miscarriage.’ Mum coming out a bit pale and wobbly with that Listerine smell. That day in the car. The sad, quiet calm ride home with something just not right.
‘Oh, man. I remember. Before Blob.’
‘Yeah. Gee, you’ve got a memory. We didn’t tell you boys. I s’pose we thought you were too young. Losing a baby before term . . . it’s tough to live through. Maybe you just never quite get past it, not if you’re the mother. So when Blob came along your mum was extra careful, you know. She just wanted everything to go right. But Blob always had her own ideas. She weaned herself very early, whereas you and Phillip breastfed till you were nearly voting age. Your mum was anxious about that. Blob crawled late, got teeth early, still doesn’t walk or talk. She’s perfectly fine, but your mum worries about her. And with all the hoo-ha about the harbour this summer she just got exhausted and all these things piled on top of her. Seems you go from coping to not coping pretty quick. That’s how I see it, but Fm no shrink. Anyway, I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this stuff.’
‘You’ve got no one else to talk to,’ said Lockie. Geez, a baby. A baby that died. Now it made some kind of sense.
‘You’re right. There isn’t anyone else. And suddenly you’re old enough. Look at you, you’re nearly a man. Anyway, it’s all beer and footy and boob jokes down at the station.’
‘Sounds like school.’
‘I just feel rotten. Guilty, you know. Like I should have seen it all coming and done something about it. And maybe that it’s my fault anyway.’