The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  ‘Yes. You know, makes them want to kiss you a lot.’ She looked at me simply.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, looking at the Duke again. ‘It would certainly do that. I can quite imagine the effect on a man confronted with a girl acting like a hen drinking.’ I laughed. ‘By jove I can! Would it bring him on! Good Lord!’

  I leant forward to answer the phone. When I had finished dealing with the call Mary had passed to the main office. I could hear her humming as she swept.

  I was in Sydney on business for three weeks and had almost forgotten George when I returned. Mary had not, however. She was busy at work when I arrived at the office.

  ‘George’s mother’s mad,’ she said to me, almost without any preliminary.

  ‘Go on!’ I said.

  ‘She’s always saying to me that it would do George good if I went out with other boys. She says it would make him value me more and that. She said you should make them jealous.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ I said.

  ‘I know George doesn’t like it. He has gone out with other girls but gets narked if I want to go out with other boys. Yet his mother keeps saying I ought to go out more.’

  ‘The mother can’t like you,’ I said.

  ‘Oh! she does. So does the father. I think she’s right. I don’t see why I shouldn’t go out with whom I like.’

  ‘Well, if you want to go out with other boys, go.’

  ‘Yes, but other girls are in love and go out with other boys.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘I wouldn’t like a girl of mine going out with other men.’

  ‘Oh! but I’m different. I wouldn’t do anything.’

  ‘I’m sure of that.’

  ‘You see, George is getting worse. It would do us both good if we went out with others. You see, he has been engaged. I’ve never been engaged; but I could have been. I know boys that I could have had.’

  She was silent a moment, thinking.

  ‘It’s not that I want to go out with other boys, but George’s mother keeps telling me,’ she added, almost plaintively.

  ‘She might be trying to come between you and George,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh! no she’s not,’ said Mary, quickly. ‘She loves me; so does the father.’

  Two days later she walked into the office in high spirits. She laughed as she removed her coat.

  ‘Look, I must tell you. I went round to George’s last night. I went in and there he was washing the dishes. Look, I nearly died. He had one plate and was rubbing it up and down—you know. . . . Look, I nearly died. They were going to the pictures and they left him to do them. I had to go into the dining-room. Laugh! I nearly died.

  ‘We went to the pictures after. George is lovely to go to the pictures with. He is real funny. Though I say it myself, he is the wonderfulest chap. You like people seeing you with him—you know. . . . He says lovely things to you and that. I know lots of girls who would love to have him. But his mother hates him to talk about other girls. It’s only me she likes. But she likes me too much. She won’t leave me alone. She always talks to me when I go there and George and I never get a chance together. George told me last night that she’s not speaking to him. He had a row with her over something or other.’

  I was called from the office and heard no more that morning. However, two days later Mary came in looking troubled and began again.

  ‘Talk about worry! George is sick. He’s got the influenza. Mother went round yesterday morning with the eggs. She was there. She said, “It’s that daughter of yours upsetting George!”

  ‘Mother said, “Excuse me.’

  ‘But she took no notice. She still doesn’t talk to George. But she was rather nice after. She brings him in lemon drinks. George says she said to him, “It’s a wonder your girl hasn’t been round to see you”—sort of sarcastic like.’

  She looked at me and added, sadly, ‘You see, I’d go round but George wrote and told me not to.’

  She didn’t say any more for some time, then, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t put one over me by making bad over something I’ve said.’

  ‘You want to have a talk to George about it,’ I suggested.

  ‘George doesn’t like me running her down like that. He’s got to like her.’

  Mary walked slowly round the office moving chairs.

  ‘I missed my train this morning to see if I could catch his father and hear how he was, but he’d gone.’

  ‘You go round and see him,’ I said. ‘Take no notice of what any of them say.’

  For the next fortnight I was late arriving at the office and missed seeing Mary. On the Friday, however, I was sitting at my table writing when she entered. I bid her good morning without raising my head—I was at work on a balance—but some atmosphere, some note in her voice made me look up. She had her back to me hanging up her coat. I watched her. She turned and walked to a chair still without looking at me. I said, ‘What is wrong, Mary?’

  She raised her eyes then, and we looked at each other. Hers were bewildered, suffering.

  She said, in a toneless voice, ‘I went round to George’s last night. I didn’t knock. I just went in. I saw—George—and his mother. . . .’

  She stopped and looked at me. She lowered her face to her cupped hands.

  Grey Morning

  He called out, ‘Hey!’ so I walked over.

  The dust from the Naumkeg machine had given Tom Seddon a cough. The blowing system of the Modern Shoe Company was not efficient. It only drew away part of the dust. The remainder floated around his machine.

  An inflated pad covered with emery paper revolved at terrific speed before him. He held the sole of a shoe against it. It grated and vibrated.

  A large galvanised funnel gaped over the spinning pad. Emery and leather dust flew from the shoe and was sucked into the blower’s mouth. A dull roar came from the cavity. Behind it a large tube like a snake stretched along the wall and out into a collector standing in the yard.

  Dust that escaped the uprush of air floated around Tom’s head. His hair was sprinkled with dust. It clung to the edges of his nostrils and to his lips.

  He placed the shoe on the rack and hurriedly rubbed his hands on his hips.

  ‘I brought him home last night.’

  ‘Did you!’ I replied. ‘Was he as ill as you thought?’

  ‘He’s crook all right. We got up there about seven o’clock. It’s right in the bush. The ambulance blokes reckoned we’d never make it.’

  ‘Had he met with an accident?’ I asked. ‘The telegram didn’t say much.’

  He placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes as if there was gravity in what he was about to say.

  ‘He’s gone cranky,’ he whispered. ‘Mad. . . . He’s as mad as a snake.’

  He wet his lips. His face took on an expression of bewilderment. ‘It’s not in the family. It’s . . .’ His lips fumbled. His eyes were desperate hands that clung. ‘How is it? . . . What? . . . I dunno. . . . He’s only eighteen. . . . He’s only a kid. His poor mother . . . I dunno. . . .’

  ‘How do you mean, “cranky”?’ I asked. ‘Was he delirious?’

  ‘No! No!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘He’s just plain cranky.’

  He glanced round the factory. He moved his face nearer to mine and whispered with conviction, ‘It’s them bloody books that done it. The books and the bush and . . . and . . . He’s so young . . . bad habits, see . . . bad habits. . . . When we was comin’ home he says, “You oughta told me about it when I was young, dad.” See. He’s not mad all the time. He’s sensible sometimes. And he says that just lookin’ at me like . . . in the ambulance and the blokes drivin’ . . . and me sittin’ there. . . . “You oughta told me about it when I was young, dad.” . . . Just that. . . .’

  I moved helplessly then said, ‘Poor chap.’

  Tom coughed. He drew a handkerchief across his mouth, gathering the spittle into its folds.

  ‘Did he know you when you got there?’ I ask
ed.

  ‘Yes. The farmer chap he was workin’ for met us at the gate. He said he sent us a telegram as soon as he saw the way Ted was goin’. Ted didn’t sleep in the house with them. He had a hut away across the paddock. We walked over in the dark. You could hear him singin’ a mile off.

  ‘The farmer chap told us when we were goin’ over. He said he looked into the cowshed one day and Ted was kneelin’ down holdin’ two dogs by their collars. He was holdin’ them apart, see. One was a hell of a fighter and savage like; the other was a quiet dog. Ted was sayin’ to the wild one, “Now you must learn selfcontrol. Til get you like this dog in time. Don’t you go pickin’fights.” The farmer said he knew he was cranky, then.’

  ‘What happened when you got to the hut?’

  ‘One of the ambulance blokes knocked. Ted came to the door and said, “Who the hell are you?” The ambulance bloke said, “Your old man’s out here.” “You’re a bloody liar,” Ted said. Then he came out of the hut and saw me and he said, “God! it is the old man,” and he shook hands and said, “What the hell you doin’ up here, Dad?” and I asked him was he sick and he said said, “Sick as a dog, Dad. Sick as a dog.” Then he grabbed me by the arm and says, frightened like, “I get visions. I see things. I see things at night, Dad. By God, I do!”

  ‘So we got him to the ambulance.’

  Tom’s arms hung heavily by his side as if he were tired.

  ‘Did he make any fuss about leaving?’ I asked.

  ‘No, he just came quiet. But he kept pickin’ the ambulance blokes comin’ home. He says once, “Are we on the right road?” and when one of the chaps said, “Yes,” he said, “Excuse me, you’re a bloody liar.” They didn’t like it. One of them said, “He’s not so mad,” and Ted went off the handle then and said, ‘I’ll slap you down, son. I’ll fix you. I’ll kill you.” I said, “You’ll kill no one,” and he says, quietly like, “Yes, that’s right. I won’t.”’

  ‘You got a doctor, I suppose?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Tom. ‘When we got home I didn’t know what to do. I went in first. His mother’s a good woman. She was knitting in front of the fire. They were all up. They waited up for us. I said to Mary, “Now don’t be alarmed,” but she jumped up and dropped her knitting and looked at me and didn’t speak, and the girls there, frightened. . . .

  ‘And then she said, “Tell me. What’s wrong with him? Tell me, quick,” and I said, “He’s just a bit delirious. Don’t take any notice.” Then Ted came in and danced a jig and us all round him lookin’, and he kept singin’ “Ta ra a boomdeay”. His mother cried. She is a good woman.’

  His head dropped. He looked at his thick, calloused fingers and the hairs on the back of his hands, grey with leather dust.

  ‘The doctor said he’d have to have a lot of baths.’

  ‘Cold baths, I suppose,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Cold baths are too invigorating, he says. They are to be very hot. We got to weaken him, the doctor says.’

  ‘That’s strange, but I suppose he will know what he is doing.’

  ‘Look,’ said Tom self-consciously, ‘I was telling the wife about you. You know about people and that sort of thing. Come out one night, will you? You could quieten him down. He frightens them now. I told the wife. Could you come out and have a talk with him. We haven’t got much of a home. . . .’

  ‘Of course I’ll come out,’ I said. ‘To-morrow night? Will that suit you?’

  ‘That’ll do fine.’

  I climbed the steps on to the veranda and knocked at the door. The life that had breathed from the house was suddenly stilled. Then the noise of moving chairs and the patter of bare feet on linoleum.

  The door opened. I looked down on a little boy, the whiteness of whose ragged shirt was slashed by the leather bands of old braces. Their hold on his trousers was insecure and depended on the strained necks of three buttons.

  ‘Is your father in?’ I asked.

  Against the lighted doorway of a room at the end of a passage Tom appeared carrying a baby.

  ‘Is that you, Mr McCormack? Come in. Here—’ He handed the baby to a little girl behind him. He strode down the passage and behind him the doorway filled with the black shapes of other children.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Look out for the step. Run inside, Jim. Now do what I tell you. Look out you don’t trip over the mat, Mr McCormack. I’m always telling Mum to shift it.’

  I entered and stood waiting.

  ‘Go right through. They’re all here. We’re glad you came. Are you there, Mum? Here’s Mr McCormack.’

  A stout woman pushed aside the children and waited at the entrance to the room. She wiped her hands on her apron. I shook her damp hand and smiled at her. She stood aside for me to enter and I saw a blue dress—unbelievably blue and beautiful—a rumpled heap of silk in the middle of a clothless table. An electric sewing machine crouched behind it, and before the machine, a thin, tired girl who looked at me a little self-consciously. Other dresses lay heaped in a basket at her feet.

  Beside the girl sat a young man. His thickly knotted tie formed a half-circle from his neck to the V of his striped, navy-blue vest. His oiled, wavy hair was brushed straight back. Above the delicate tongue that swept along a cigarette paper’s gummed edge his hazel eyes surveyed me with soft friendliness.

  An old woman sat before the fire.

  ‘This is my mother, Mr McCormack—Mrs Rodgers.’

  I clasped a blue-veined hand and looked into a face broken with crevices like the dried bed of a swamp. Her eyes, like two remaining pools, looked thankfully upon me as if I were blessing her by my presence.

  I held her hand and said, ‘You look young to be the grandmother of so many children.’

  ‘Dear me, yes. Dear me.’ She looked around at them. ‘They’re all my grandchildren except Mick here, and he goes with Annie.’

  ‘How are you, Mick?’ I nodded at the youth with the tie who held his hand out across the table. I took it, then held my hand towards the girl who shook it gravely.

  ‘And that’s Ted over there,’ said Tom.

  A tall, well-built youth was sitting in the corner behind the grandmother’s chair. He was looking at me with the interest of a child at a circus, his lips apart. His sad face was dark-ringed beneath his tired eyes. His cheeks were hollow. He rose and came round to me. His people were silent and still.

  He took my hand and said, ‘I know you, don’t I? No, I don’t know you. You’re a friend of the old man’s. How are you?’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘You’re bald,’ he said looking at my head.

  There was a embarrassed silence so I laughed and said, ‘Yes, I’ve been that way for twenty years.’

  Ted returned to his seat and sat watching me. Annie continued her sewing. The machine whirred.

  ‘What did you think of the fight last night?’ asked Mick.

  ‘Good,’ said Ted.

  ‘Shut up. You weren’t there,’ said Mick.

  ‘No. I saw it in a vision,’ Ted said.

  I discussed fighting. Mick was a boxer. Occasionally Ted made irrelevant interjections in a loud voice.

  The children were sent to bed.

  ‘Ted’s got photos of all the fighters in his room,’ said Mick.

  ‘Take Mr McCormack in and show them to him, Ted,’ said the father. ‘I’ll get your hot bath ready.’

  ‘I don’t want no hot bath,’ said Ted rising. ‘Come with me.’

  I followed him into a room opening off the passage. A single bed was against the wall. Above the bed hung a large coloured picture of Christ. His heart was exposed, surrounded by thorns. Drops of blood clung to his body. He was pointing to a hole in his hand from which blood also flowed. The face was characterless and insipid.

  Ted sat on the bed. I pulled a chair from against the wall and sat opposite him. He looked vaguely round the room. He moved his finger through the air. ‘It’s winning. Yes, it’s winning.’

  ‘Who’s winning
?’ I asked.

  He looked at me as if he had not seen me before. He leant towards me and said, pointing to the picture of Christ, ‘See that bloke there. You think he’s a pansy because he’s got curly hair.’

  I looked at the picture and said, ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘He watches me.’

  ‘That’s nothing. Don’t take any notice of him.’

  ‘No.’ He spoke thoughtfully. He raised his head and looked round the room like an animal in a cage.

  ‘I’ve been up in the bush,’ he said.

  ‘I like the bush.’

  ‘They had pigs up there.’

  He turned to me and said earnestly, ‘They fed them on pollard. Now I had a scheme.’ He tapped the palm of his hand with a finger. ‘Those pigs were getting too much nourishment. I put water with their pollard instead of milk. They got like racers. They were healthy and used to rip round the yard.’

  ‘I’d like to have seen those pigs,’ I said.

  ‘I know things. I’ve got knowledge. That’s only one of the things I thought of.’

  He suddenly changed his tone. ‘Can you fight?’ He thrust his head towards me.

  I smiled. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I’ll go you. What do you thinl of politics?’

  ‘What do you?’

  ‘Look, are you giving me lip?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you’re windy,’ Ted went on. ‘You never want to be scared of anyone. A chap came at me up in the bush. I was going to have a swipe at him, but he was too big. But you don’t want to show ’em that you’re windy. I knew a little cove up there. When I say, “Sit down or I’ll crack you,” he sits down straight away.’

  He put his head back and began laughing. His laughter was silent and shook his big body. He rocked and laughed.

  I watched him. ‘What are you laughing at?’ I asked at length.

  ‘You know old Bonner, the chap I worked for?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s a bloody fool.’

  He kept on laughing. I grinned and then began laughing with him. He placed his hand on my shoulder. We looked into each other’s eyes and laughed together.

  I’m rats, I thought.