Most people in Currawalli Street know about the war and they look upon it as one of the foibles of their community, along with, say, the apostle birds, or the ‘T’ that has recently fallen from the wall of the church, or Patrick’s recitation of train timetables. It is something that just happens. There’s no need to pay it much attention. Upper Lance doesn’t talk to Debra about it but she knows. She shakes her head in mock despair when he takes out the bin.
And that’s how it is in Currawalli Street. Strangers drive up the street only to visit the church; dogs that don’t live in the area turn up sometimes and bark; casual strollers and people walking home from work in the next suburb use the path behind the houses. Sometimes people use the street to walk home from the pub, but only if they know the way around the back of the church that leads onto the next street to the east. It is a backwater of sorts.
Gail Henderson from number eight climbs up onto the bottom rung of the side fence and peers into the house next door, as she does every morning. She remembers hearing the first gunshot; by the time she had turned down the TV and eliminated in her mind every possible cause for such a sound except a gunshot, the next one followed.
The first thing she did was climb up on the fence and look over to the back of number ten. She saw Mrs Oatley’s legs poking through the bamboo string curtains at the back door. She blinked for a while before she realised that she might be in danger. She climbed off the fence and ran inside, slamming the door shut, then ran through the house locking all the windows. She thought about ringing Craig before she rang the police, but he would only tell her to hang up and dial emergency, and so she sat on the kitchen floor out of sight of the windows and dragged the phone down to her.
The police arrived quickly and eventually there was a knock at the door. She looked out the lounge-room window to make sure it was a detective knocking and not a murderer. She realised then that she couldn’t tell the difference; the man knocking was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, had a gun on his hip and most likely hadn’t shaved that morning. He looked like he might be a murderer. But there were enough police cars out on the street for her to assume that her life was not about to be put in danger.
She opened the door and told her story.
And that is why every day now she stands on the bottom rung of the side fence and looks at the back door. She can’t get over the fact that she saw a fresh murder victim’s legs sticking out over the door mat. The blood was still running fast but she was no longer Mrs Oatley, she was a dead body: a real murder victim.
Ever since they came to Currawalli Street, Gail and Craig Henderson have always been known as a pair. They are always known as ‘the Hendersons’ or, if discussed individually, ‘one of the Hendersons’. They have been lumped, packaged, boxed together. That is because they do everything together and one doesn’t answer a question without a silent referral to the other. Even the smallest of societies needs a scapegoat and for the residents of Currawalli Street the Hendersons are it. They don’t help themselves much. Gail tried to have all the peppercorn trees along the rail line removed. She has suggested to Mary to keep Patrick at home. To keep the ‘poor man’ safe.
Craig is not much better. To illustrate this, the neighbours tell the story of the broom.
One day there was a broom leaning on the front fence of number seven. No one knew where it came from. Patrick swept his front path and veranda with it and then on an impulse leaned it on the front fence of number five, in case it belonged there. A few days later, old Mr Travers swept his path with the broom and placed it in front of number three. Bill Casey swept his path and the gutter with it and leaned it against the fence of number one. Rodney came down from his tree and swept the yard and then Eve took it across the street to number two. And so it made its way around the street. By the time it was worn out, it had been around seven times and Kim Oatley replaced the head without thinking about it too much. And so on it went.
Until the Hendersons came. Craig Henderson discovered it leaning on his front fence as he was leaving for work one morning and he snapped it in half and threw it beside his rubbish bin, planning to throw it out when the garbage truck was next around. The handle snapping was heard metaphorically around the street and the snap marked the Hendersons as outsiders who didn’t really want to belong and most likely didn’t deserve to.
Gail Henderson steps down from the fence just as a train passes her yard, straining up the rise. A boy is leaning out the window, and the train is moving slowly enough for the boy to make eye contact with Gail. He waves. She doesn’t. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, it’s just that she is too busy with her day. And besides, the boy shouldn’t be leaning that far out the window. What is his mother thinking to let him behave so dangerously?
The postman is running on time today, and he delivers two letters to number seven, both addressed to Mary. One is from her sister in London; she will read this later and savour every copperplate word. The other is in an official envelope marked victorian railways. With a sudden twinge of dread, she opens it.
Dear Mrs Cummings,
It has come to my attention that your husband Patrick Cummings has been harassing our customers regularly at Choppingblock Station. I must therefore ask you to ensure that he henceforth refrains from doing so. He is permitted on railway property only as a paying customer. I notify you in this way as a courtesy due to his forty years of service. I have no wish to notify the authorities, but should Mr Cummings’s behaviour continue I will have no choice.
I trust that this letter has found you well.
Yours sincerely,
Bernard Sweeney
Victorian Railways Manager, Western Lines
Still standing at the front fence, Mary can hear Patrick inside the house singing to himself. She scratches her head and looks along the footpath. Perhaps she is looking for someone to help her. Perhaps she is just trying to get her mind around this. That it is an insult, she is certain. It also has the potential to break Patrick’s spirit and maybe his will to go on living. That she will not have. A curse on Mr Bernard Sweeney, Victorian Railways Manager, Western Lines. He would not even have a job if Patrick had not done his own so well. The father cuts down the trees, digs up the roots, puts up the fences, sleeps in the cold. The son grows up and looks down from his tower on all the green pastures and the warm farmhouse as if they have always been there. So it is with the railways. Mary shakes her head.
She notices Jim standing across the road in his front yard also holding a letter. She smiles at him. On an impulse she calls him over. He slowly walks towards her.
‘I have yet to welcome you home,’ Mary says contritely.
‘Thanks very much. It feels . . . sort of strange to be back.’
‘I’m sure it does. I wish you had returned in better circumstances. Are you coping alright in there on your own?’
‘Well, to be honest, I have grown used to a faster pace of living. This slowness is beginning to unsettle me.’
‘Ah . . . good. I don’t mean it like that. I mean . . .’ She thinks for a while. Mary was once a weak woman who has had to grow strong. Jim can sense that. She stands like a well-established tree that was staked crookedly when it was first planted.
She suddenly changes tack. ‘Jim, would you like a job? A temporary one?’
‘Doing what?’
‘Turning our front veranda into a railway station platform.’ Seeing Jim’s surprised expression, she shows him the letter and then tells him about Patrick and his routine. ‘It never bothered anybody before. The new stationmaster keeps saying that Patrick is an asset. The passengers are all friendly. No one seems to mind. Except . . .’ She looks over at number eight. The Hendersons’ place.
‘Ah,’ Jim says. He has no wish to involve himself in any neighbourhood disputes. But a bit of hard physical work might be just what he needs. The army taught him to build, and he wouldn’t mind p
utting those skills to use. ‘Have you any idea how you want it done?’
‘Well, the notion has only just come to me. For a start, the steps should be at the end of the veranda and not at the front. Can you do that?’
‘I think so. There’s not much to it. When do you want me to start?’
‘Whenever you can. The sooner the better. It will break Patrick’s heart if he realises what the railways have done to him.’
‘I can start right now. I’m not doing anything except trying to find the courage to start clearing my mum’s clothes out of her wardrobe.’
‘I can do that for you. Let me. I would like to be able to do something to help.’
‘In that case I can start straightaway. Thank you, Mary.’
‘Patrick has some tools in his shed . . .’
‘And I still have Dad’s tools.’
‘Come and have a look then.’ She opens the gate for him but he holds up a finger and takes a step backward.
‘I had better lock the front door first. I’ll just be a second.’ He hurries back over the road. Mary wonders why he needs to lock his door when he will only be across the street. The younger generation. Perhaps it is something they do.
Jim returns and they walk to the steps, centrally located at the front of the veranda. A path leads from them to the front gate.
‘We can lay a path from the new steps. I’ll dig up the old one after I have finished the new one. The first thing is to shift the step.’ He bends down for a closer look. ‘I would be inclined to use new timber rather than try to salvage the timber from this step.’
‘Of course. This step is as old as the house. It was built in 1914, so it is probably due to be replaced.’
‘Is the hardware shop still in Battlefield Street?’
‘Yes, it is. Still the same people running it.’
‘Old Mr Berbain?’
‘Yes, Mr Birdbrain. Still there. Still grumpy.’
Jim nods. ‘I’ll work out what we need and walk around there now.’
‘Thanks Jim, I really appreciate this. If Patrick asks what you’re doing, you can tell him you are replacing some rotten wood.’
About to turn away, Mary stops. ‘Jim, what about payment?’
‘A cup of tea, some of that coronation cake you used to make and the odd sandwich. That’ll do. The army is still paying me.’
‘That doesn’t seem fair . . .’
‘It’s fair. We’re neighbours. It all balances out in the end. I’ll be happy to have a project to do. You still make the coronation cake?’
‘I do. I’ll bring you out a piece with a cup of tea when you get back from Birdbrain’s.’ Mary watches him leave through the gate. When she went out to collect the post this morning, she wasn’t even contemplating turning the veranda into a railway platform. Now, fifteen minutes later, it is all happening. She turns towards the house. Patrick is still singing to himself.
I like his voice, she thinks to herself. I always have.
Lower Lance is sitting in his car, parked in the driveway of number two. He doesn’t drive it much nowadays. He has nowhere really to go. His sister moved to Norway a year ago and she was the only person he ever used the car to visit. So now he sits in the driveway. When he hears people walking past his front fence, he pretends to be looking at something under the dashboard but the rest of the time he just sits there. It is really comfortable and the windscreen being so close means that everything looks filtered and a little bit distorted. And nowadays he prefers that to the real world. He knows that he is acting like a really old person and that he isn’t even close to being that old. In fact he is only forty-seven, but life has just got too difficult for him.
He works at Coveys, a map and atlas shop in the city, and his days are spent surrounded by maps of the world. The only people who come into the shop are those who are about to travel and are excited. He is tired of their excitement. He wants to be the one buying the maps. One day it will be him—if he doesn’t get too old first. That’s what he fears.
Meanwhile he sits in his car.
Suddenly there is a knock on the passengers’ side window. He jerks in fright, recovers and looks across. A woman with long brown hair looks in at him. It takes him a moment to realise who it is. Eve, the widow from number one. He leans across and winds down the window.
‘Eve, hello.’
‘Are you going somewhere?’ Eve asks as she opens the door and slides in beside him.
‘No, not really. I was just looking at the . . . ah . . . indicator wires. They’re playing up.’
‘My dad used to love sitting in his car and not going anywhere. When I asked him what he was doing, he always said just that. The indicator wires,’ Eve says conspiratorially.
‘Oh.’
‘You shouldn’t feel ashamed. Really, most people would love to sit in their cars if they had the chance.’
‘Really?’
Eve looks at him with amusement in her eyes. ‘I don’t really know. I made that up. But it sounded good.’
‘It did. It did sound good.’
‘I came over to ask if I could borrow a spade for the afternoon. The handle just broke on mine and I have some bulbs that I have to put in the ground. They’re spread out on the lawn.’
‘Of course. I’ll go and get it. It’s around the back. Shall I bring it over?’
‘Okay, if you don’t mind. Say, do you know what the Vietnam soldier boy is doing at Patrick and Mary’s place? He’s torn out their front steps.’
‘Let me see.’ Lance climbs out of the car and walks to the front fence. He looks up the road to number seven. ‘It looks like he’s building new steps at the side. Want a cup of tea?’
‘Yeah. Why don’t we have one at my place? I just baked some biscuits,’ she says, as if delighted by something else.
‘Okay. I don’t really have anything at the moment. Hang on, I’ll get the spade.’
Eve waits until he returns and then they cross the road together. Lance speaks as they reach the other side. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, how come you’re being nice all of a sudden? Normally you just say hello and even that looked hard.’ He is quietly spoken but this is softer still and so Eve has to lean forward to hear him. His question and her leaning forward makes him feel awkward.
‘Did it? I just didn’t feel like talking to anybody. I didn’t feel like getting to know anybody. Did you know that everybody says you’re grumpy and hard to get on with?’ They both laugh.
‘Do they? I thought they didn’t want to talk to me. Oh well, I don’t have much to say anyway, so it’s probably for the best. But you feel like talking to people now?’
‘Yep. At least the neighbours.’
‘So you can put faces to the names that appear in your son’s logbook.’
‘Logbooks. Plural. He’s on his ninth, I think.’
‘It’s harmless stuff.’
‘I hope he’ll grow out of it. Come around the back way.’
They walk down the side of the house and turn into the backyard. Lower Lance has never been in here before. ‘I didn’t know you had so many apricot trees!’ There must be at least twenty. It is like an orchard. The biggest is next to the fence; it is in that tree that Rodney does all his surveillance work.
‘Yeah, I’ve made plenty of apricot jam if you ever want any.’
‘As a matter of fact I love apricot jam.’
‘Good. It’s coming out our ears. Come in.’ Eve holds open the back door. Lance walks through into a kitchen straight from the 1940s. ‘I know.’ Eve grimaces. ‘One day I’ll do it up.’
‘No, I like it like this. It reminds me of my nan’s.’ He sits at the table. ‘You’d better tell me about yourself. Just so I know whose house I’m in and who I’m drinking tea with.’
Eve fills
the kettle and puts it on the stove. ‘And then you tell me about your life. Although I already know that you work at that big map shop in town. Why aren’t you working today?’
‘Sick day, I didn’t feel up to it. I’m not really sick. Who told you where I worked?’
‘Mary from up the road. She knows everything. Did you know that Alfred Covey used to live in this street?’
Lance nods. ‘Number nine. He built it.’
‘And Mary’s house. Patrick is his grandson.’
Over four biscuits and two pots of tea, Eve and Lance share their stories. For a while, they have no choice but to listen to Bill Casey next door as he curses his lawnmower.
‘He goes mad at it a lot,’ says Eve apologetically. ‘We hear him all the time.’
‘He’s always been like that.’
‘Has he? Apparently his wife left him some time ago. Ran off with someone, they say.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘Mary up the street. She knows everything.’
Lance turns his cup around in its saucer and then says, ‘I knew her—Mrs Casey. He was alright to her, but it . . . wasn’t enough. I remember the day she left. I . . . helped her go actually.’ Lower Lance smiles. He looks at the window as he continues. ‘Bill’s not too bad. That’s not why she left. She just happened to fall in love with someone else, that’s all. I miss her. We were good friends.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that. He loves apricot jam, that’s for sure.’
Lower Lance nods. He is suddenly sad again. Eve sees that.
When Rodney comes home from Choppingblock Primary School, he looks at Lance with a certain amount of suspicion, goes outside and climbs the apricot tree. Surveillance has begun.
When Lance comes out of the front gate two hours later, crosses the street, and goes inside his own house, the first thing he does is pull down from the cupboard the map outlining his own proposed trip overseas. He looks at it, feeling that somewhere there is something different. Somewhere on the map. Somewhere in his head. Maybe it’s finally time to go.
Currawalli Street Page 19