by Peter Carey
‘I was three years old.’
‘What is this serving?’
‘For Chrissake.’ Benny kicked out and smashed the glove box. It flipped off and fell on to the floor. ‘I’m trying to show you my fucking life.’ He looked at her. His eyes were big and filled with tears. ‘You wouldn’t come with me. I wanted you to come with me. I can’t stand that.’
‘Benny, what can I do? I’m a stranger to your family.’
‘You’re kind,’ he said. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He picked up the glove box lid and tried to fit it back on. ‘I know you’re kind.’
‘Benny,’ she gave him a tissue from her bag, ‘just take my word for it – I’m very selfish.’
He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. ‘You care about other people, I know you do. You live all by yourself and you’re having this baby. That’s not selfish.’
Maria looked forward out the window, not wanting to hurt him, fearing his anger, wishing it would end.
‘You could have had an abortion.’ He persisted with the glove box lid. Every time he closed it, it dropped to the floor.
‘I often wish I had.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘You want to know the truth? I wanted to hurt the baby’s father. That’s why I’m having a baby – to make him feel sorry for the rest of his life.’
Benny took the glove box lid and squinted at it, as if trying to read a part number.
‘You’re kind,’ he said. ‘You can’t put me off by lying to me. I can replace this glove box,’ he said. ‘If you come back tomorrow I’ll replace it free.’
‘Benny I’m not coming back. I’m sorry.’
‘You come out here, you try to screw my life. I’m interested in you. I’m interested in your baby, everything. I like you, but you don’t even take the trouble to see how I live. You know how I live? I live in a fucking hole in the ground. You wouldn’t even use it for a toilet. Come and look at it. I’ll show you now.’
The Tax Inspector shook her head. She looked down at her skirt and saw it rucked above her knees. They looked like someone else’s knees – old, puffy, filled with retained fluid. In the middle of the anxiety about Benny she had time to register that she had developed œdema.
‘You can’t just dump me. You think you can go away and leave me to rot in my cellar, just let me rot in hell, and nothing will ever happen to you because of it.’ He was folding his jacket. He was opening the car door. He was leaving her life.
Maria Takis waited for the door to slam. It did not seem smart to start the engine until it did.
50
Granny Catchprice had made her life, invented it. When it was not what she wanted, she changed it. In Dorrigo, she called them maggots and walked away. She had gelignite in her handbag and Cacka was nervous, stumbling, too shy to even touch her breasts with his chest.
There was no poultry farm, she made one. There was no car business, she gave it to him, out of her head, where there had been nothing previously. She freed him from his mother. She gave him a yard which he paved with concrete so he could hose it down each morning like a publican, a big man in his apron and gum boots. He was Mr Catchprice. She was Mrs Catchprice. She hired boys and girls in trouble and showed them how they could invent themselves. Little Harry Van Der Hoose – she tore up his birth certificate in front of him. He watched her with his mouth so wide open you could pop a tennis ball inside.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘What are you?’
Years later he wrote a letter from Broome where he had a drive-in liquor store. He said: ‘Before I had the good fortune to be employed by yours truly, I was what you would call a dead-end kid. Whatever life I enjoy here today, I have you to thank for.’
Mrs Catchprice stood in the annexe on Wednesday afternoon and watched them bring the horrid-looking ‘Big Mack’ tour truck right into the yard. It belonged to Steven Putzel, the pianist – a nasty little effort with sideburns and a tartan shirt. They had to move the Holdens and that black foreign car to one side. They made a mess of the gravel doing it.
Her daughter ran out from under the LUBRITORIUM sign, carrying guitar cases.
‘That’s a joke,’ Frieda said. She lit a Salem and folded her arms across her prosthetic chest. It was a bumpy, silly thing and she was sorry she had put it on.
‘What is?’
She looked and saw Mort was standing next to her. This sort of thing happened more and more. She damn well could not remember if she had known he was there or if he had sneaked up on her. She said nothing, gave nothing away. She held out the Salem pack to him. He shook his head.
‘What’s a joke?’ he said. She remembered then – he gave up smoking when he married Sophie.
She looked out of the window at her daughter who was now struggling out into the sunlight carrying a big amplifier.
‘Where’s she think she’s going?’ she said.
‘You know exactly what she’s doing,’ Mort said.
She guessed she did know. ‘She can’t sing.’
‘Jesus, Mum. Give up, will you?’ Mort grinned. She was a tough old thing, that’s who she was.
‘She used to sing as well as you. She used to sing the “Jewel Song” for your father. People would pay to hear that.’
‘Come on, lay off – you know she’s popular.’
‘Is she?’ said Granny Catchprice. ‘Truthfully?’
Mort folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her with a thin, wry grin on his face. ‘You’re not going to get a rise out of me.’
She was not sure if she was taking a rise out of him or not. She knew, of course, that Cathy sang in halls. She was popular enough to sing at a dance in a hall. She could sing for shearers, plumbers, that sort of thing.
‘She’d do anything to get herself written up,’ she said.
‘Our Cath always did like attention,’ he said. ‘It’s true.’
‘And you were always so bashful.’ Cathy was trying to climb into the truck and Frieda felt nervous that she had somehow allowed this thing to get this far. ‘She could be a bit more bashful with that backside.’
At ten years old, you should have seen her – a prodigy. She never knew what Country & Western was. She knew Don Giovanni, Isolde, Madame Butterfly. Her teacher was Sister Stoughton at the Catholic School. She sang ‘Kyrie Eleison’ at St John’s at Christmas before an audience which included the Governor General. There was no ‘Hound Dogs’ or ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. The nearest she came to Hill-Billy or Rock-a-Billy, she had a checked shirt and jeans with rolled-up cuffs to go and learn square dancing at the Mechanics’ Institute. She did not know anyone with duck-tailed hair or Canadian jackets. She did not like square dancing either, said it was like going fencing with a wireless playing. She was nine years old when she said that.
Frieda said: ‘I suppose she’s got our money entered in her bank book.’
She was trying to enlist him, but he took her shoulder and made her turn towards him.
‘Look at me,’ he said. He held her too hard. It hurt but she did not tell him. ‘Listen to what I’m saying – whatever Cathy is, she’s not a criminal. Now come on, be a good stick, eh? You’ve pushed her this far. You let her go ahead and jump.’
‘I’m not any sort of stick.’
‘Let her do what she wants to do.’
‘I’m going down to talk to her.’
‘You’ve already talked to her.’ He stood in front of her and for a moment she thought he was going to block her way. He was frightening – big, and emotional, like a horse that might do anything.
‘Come with me, Morty.’
He shook his head, but he stepped aside and held the door open. ‘You told her you didn’t need her. That was the message you gave her. If you want my opinion, you are incorrect …’
‘If I’m incorrect, then help me talk to her.’
‘No, Mum.’ He shook his head with those big teary eyes, like his father.
‘You don’t know anything about Cathy and me. You ne
ver did understand.’
‘You’ve got her like a monkey on a stick.’
‘Rot and rubbish.’
‘You’re very cruel, Mum.’
That hurt her, hurt her more than she could imagine being hurt but she did not show it.
‘You always panic,’ she said. ‘You’re like your father.’
That made him sniff and put his mouth into a slit. ‘You’re the one who should be panicking,’ he said.
She let that pass.
‘Walk me down the stairs?’
‘No,’ he shook his head.
So she walked by herself and left him sulking.
She met her daughter in the old lube bay, carrying a big cardboard box of papers. Cathy brushed past, saying nothing. She passed the box to Steven Putzel and then hurried back across the cracked, oil-stained lube bay floor where Benny had painted the skull and cross bones and the Day-glo no admittance sign. Frieda remembered when that concrete floor was wet and new. You could have written anything in it. Cathy began to go up the metal stairs to the flat. Frieda followed her.
Half way up, Cathleen stopped and turned.
‘Just leave me alone,’ she said.
‘I’m not stopping you,’ Frieda said, but she saw then – in the way Cathy was standing – that it was not too late to stop her. She started feeling better than she had.
‘You’ll fall and break your hip.’
‘I’ve every right to see my house.’
‘It is not your house any more.’
But she had invented it. There had been nothing there before she started. She had chosen that red marbled Laminex, that lemon wall paint. The floors were strewn with newspaper, record covers, sheet music. In the middle of the room was the yellow vinyl chair she had covered for Cacka. He used to sit in that to listen to his records. She loved to watch him listen. His big eyes would fill with moisture – glistening like in the movies when people were in love. Now it was his daughter who stood before her, red faced, her hands on her hips, her lips parted.
‘You know I won’t live too much longer,’ Frieda said.
‘Don’t start that …’
‘We got through this far …’
‘Just don’t, O.K.?’
Howie came into the living-room. He stood back in the corner as if none of this was to do with him.
‘You never had children, Cathy,’ Frieda said. This was not exactly aimed at Howie. She did not mean it this way, but she glared at him when she said it. ‘Unless you’ve been through labour you couldn’t understand.’
Cathy began to give that nervous laugh and shake her head like she had water in her ear. ‘Listen, Ma – it’s not going to work …’
She got that ‘Ma’ from Howie. It was common. Frieda hated it. ‘You’re going to be alive a long time yet, Cathy. You’re the one that’ll have to live with the guilty conscience.’
‘Mrs Catchprice,’ Howie said. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms folded. ‘You’ve got no right to say these things to her.’
He was a no one. She had made him, invented him. He came into her shop with his greasy hair and brothel creepers and a note from the police sergeant.
‘I’m her mother, Howie.’
Cathy said: ‘You never did what a mother should have done.’
‘You mean that business with Mr Heywood’s cat?’
‘You know I don’t mean that. Don’t make me say it. Just don’t make it hard for me to go.’
Howie spoke out of the shadow near the bedroom door frame. It was so dull there you could not even see his eyes. ‘He used to rub her tits,’ he said.
Frieda felt she had missed something.
She looked up. Steven Putzel was there at the doorway next to Howie, listening.
‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ she said, but she was confused by the circumstances and did not speak with her full force.
‘He used to rub her tits.’
‘You little filth.’ She could not believe the language.
‘He’s not a filth,’ Cathy said. ‘He’s a decent man.’
Decent?
‘He is a filth, all right,’ she said. ‘I knew he was a filth when I saw him. I thought I could change him but look how wrong I was.’
‘He used to lie on top of me so I could not breathe.’
‘You were the one who wanted to marry him.’
‘Your husband. My father. He used to lie on top of me so I could not breathe.’
‘He loved to tease you,’ Frieda said.
‘For Christ’s sake, Mother, our father was a creep. He used to touch my tits. He used to lie on top of me. You saw him do it. You used to watch him do it.’
‘I did not.’
‘You did, you old fool. You used to sit there, in the same room. He used to do things to me while you were knitting.’
Cathy had her by the arm, squeezing her, pulling at her, shouting about ten hours of labour, but Frieda had already slipped away. She was running through the ring-barked trees, down the wet clay road. Walking towards her was Cacka, smiling, in his Magpies jacket.
She had the gelignite in her handbag when she met him. She had it in the butcher’s. The detonators clinking around her neck. She had it there from the beginning.
51
Ghopal’s was hot and busy when Govinda-dasa took the call. When he heard the old woman’s voice he had a mental picture of a demon with tusks, one of the servants of Yamaraja, the lord of death, who came to claim the soul of Ajamila.
‘O.K.,’ he said to Vishnabarnu. ‘It’s her.’
Vish picked up the phone and cradled it between his big smooth chin and yellow cotton shoulder.
‘Hi, Gran.’ He continued to ladle out the Sweet and Sour tofu. He passed the plate to Ramesvara and then began to fill a blender with banana and milk, yoghurt, cinnamon, honey.
‘Vish,’ Gran Catchprice said, ‘I need you out here.’
‘Oh no, Gran,’ Vish said. ‘I’m sorry. One sec.’ He turned on the blender and mouthed to Govinda-dasa: ‘It’s O.K.’
‘I don’t think there’s too much I can do about Benny any more, Gran,’ he said as he poured the smoothies into their tall green glasses. ‘I think he needs to see a doctor.’
‘I’m the doctor,’ Gran said.
‘Good luck, Gran.’ He smiled. He handed the glasses to Govinda-dasa who added the mint sprig and placed them on the counter top for Ramesvara.
‘You’re the doctor,’ she corrected.
‘No way, José.’
‘But I’m going to follow your prescription – let the business go to hell, wasn’t that it?’
‘Gran I can’t come back now. I’ve gone now. I’ve gone for ever. I’m sorry.’
Govinda-dasa turned his back and began to dish some stuffed eggplant. But if Govinda-dasa understood Vish perfectly, Granny Catchprice would not.
‘Isn’t that what you told me?’ she said. ‘Let the business go to hell?’
‘It is hell,’ Vish said. ‘That’s the truth.’
‘I think so too,’ she said.
Vish shut his eyes, puffed up his cheeks, blew out air.
Govinda-dasa made a sign with his finger, like a record going round. He meant: don’t enter into argument or discussion, just keep repeating it – I – AM – NOT – COMING – BACK.
‘Gran, I’m not coming back.’
‘Not even to get your brother out of his hole?’
‘I’m not coming back.’
‘You don’t care what happens to your brother?’
‘Gran,’ Vish turned back towards the wall and the painting of Lord Nara Sinha, ‘he’s sawn off Grand-dad’s shot gun. He’s suffering from delusions. The best thing you can do is keep away from him. Don’t go down there.’
‘I’m not going to go down there. I’m not going to even talk to him.’
‘Well, I’m not either. Gran, there’s nothing anyone can do.’
‘Oh yes there is.’
‘What?’
‘I
can’t say on the phone.’
Vish grinned and turned back to look at Govinda-dasa who was making the record sign – I – AM – NOT – COMING – BACK. ‘This is not Dorrigo,’ he said. ‘There’s no operator listening to the call.’
‘I know it’s not Dorrigo,’ she said. ‘Do you really think I don’t know that? I’m going to wind this business up. It makes me sick myself.’
He said nothing.
‘It makes me ill in my stomach just looking out of the window. I feel like such a fool …’
He did not ask her what she felt a fool about. He smiled at Govinda-dasa and played the record: ‘Just the same, Gran – I can’t come.’
‘You never want to see it again?’ She was persistent, like a salesman. ‘As long as you live?’
‘Gran. I can’t come.’
‘You don’t want to see it, but it’s always there. It won’t go away. It just goes on and on like some bad dream …’
He did not answer her. He nodded.
‘If you could wave a magic wand and make it go …’
‘A magic wand …’ he laughed. ‘Sure, Gran.’
‘Well, yes or no?’
Govinda-dasa was all the way over at table 14 but he saw what was happening. He walked rapidly back towards the counter, making circular motions with his index finger.
‘Did you hear me?’ she said.
‘Yes I heard.’
There was a long silence on the phone while Vishnabarnu felt the cool dry wall against his cheek.
‘I’m not talking to my father,’ he said.
52
Jack Catchprice was scared and amazed by what he had brought off. The thing happened so fast. Really, he was just enquiring – could he do it? He was testing his strength – did he know the guy who knew the guy? Did he have the clout with the first guy to get him to use his clout with the second guy? Did he have enough in the favour bank to get this investigation stopped? The truth was – he was flirting with it. But then he was in the deep end and suddenly he was in a very dark place and it was, like, you want it or not, yes or no, shit or get off the can. ‘Sure,’ he said. What the fuck else could he say?
Thirty minutes after she left the Bilgola house, without her knowing anything had changed, Catchprice Motors was no longer a part of Maria Takis’s professional life.