Illywhacker

by Peter Carey

  "Rain Shadow," Stu said, "Christ Almighty!"

  I am making Stu O'Hagen sound like a pig-ignorant bastard, and it is not fair to the man. If I look back on my life I can hear myself saying similar things every day. We all did it, and it has been our loss.

  The Werribee Rain Shadow kept Stu amused for the last hour of the afternoon. He kept up a steady niggling stream of witticisms and the boy with the stolen ears worked silently with the colour slowly rising from beneath his frayed collar. It was not the son he was attacking. It was his wife's ears, I swear it, that drove him crazy.

  When Goose decided to join in the baiting, Goog stood slowly and walked to where his brother was working. He waited for his brother to finish the sapling he was felling and then dropped the young boy with one round-house punch. Goog fell on top of him, pummelling him around the head. Stu walked over, watched them for a moment, and then kicked them until they stopped.

  "All right," he yelled, "you can get off of him. Goose, you can do the chooks and pigs and when you're finished you can do the milking. Goog, you can prepare the meal."

  Goog kicked a blunt boot sulkily into the broken soil. "How do you mean, prepare it?"

  "God help me," his father yelled. "When they were telling you about shadows of rain, didn't they tell you what 'prepare' means? Prepare it. Prepare it."

  "It means get ready," Goog said quietly, his face burning red. "I know that."

  "Well, for Christ's sake, do it."

  The two boys walked off, Goog in the rear, still red-faced, muttering threats at his brother who looked back continually over his shoulder. Stu and I watched them go down the eroded gully and climb the fence on the other side. "They're good boys," Stu said.

  Goose, seeing Goog was gaining on him, began to run towards the sheds and Goog, having half-heartedly thrown a rock in his direction, trudged unhappily towards the house with long ungainly stride, all boots and wobbly ankles.

  "Wife's staying at her sister's," Stu said, looking at me carefully for any sign I might not believe him. His pale eyes looked frightened.

  I tried to think of something comforting to say, but it evaded me.

  "No dancing tonight," Stu said. His mouth quivered. He turned abruptly and began packing the thermos and files into a hessian bag. He picked up the axes, looked at the sky, and then put them down again. Then he fussed around covering them with bark.

  "Might as well leave them,"' he said, but his accusing eyes were not concerned with either rain or axes.

  "How about a run in the car," I said, "before tea?"

  "Directly," he said, fussing about with the bark.

  I was always offended by what I understood to be the Irish sense of the word "directly" which did not mean, as it appeared to, something that would be done in a direct manner, immediately, without delay, but rather the opposite – it would be done indirectly, after taking time, having a smoke, wandering about, having a piss down the back and then approaching the object under discussion along a meandering sort of a path. It meant maybe. Or later.

  But the meanders on this afternoon were shorter than I had feared and after Stu had satisfied himself that Goose was attending to the animals and after he had glanced with satisfaction at the eroded hillside in the south and the box-thorns in the east, we began to walk towards the T Model while the yellow dog threw itself hysterically against its chain.

  As we passed the crooked front fence of the little cottage, Goog came out, holding a leg of mutton like a club.

  "Dad."

  Stu sighed. "Have you prepared that yet?"

  "I dunno," said Goog.

  In four angry strides Stu was through the front gate and on to the veranda. He snatched the leg of lamb from his cringing son. He swung it in the air and belted it so hard against the veranda post that the whole house shook and a wooden bench, heavily loaded with lifeless flower pots, collapsed and spilt dry red earth and dead vegetation at his feet.

  He swung the mutton again, and again. The veranda post quivered and then fell. It landed on the ground at my feet with a single rusty six-inch nail pointing at the sky.

  "There," Stu said, handing the leg of mutton back to his son, "it's prepared."

  A hundred evicted maggots writhed amongst the dry red earth on the veranda floor. Stu stomped on them with his boot and made a half-hearted attempt to kick them off the veranda.

  "Now," he said, "cut up the spuds."

  I was never a fussy eater, but I did not care for maggots. I took a few steps towards the car and spat. It felt like I had a maggot stuck in my throat.

  "You're staying for a feed," Stu said as we resumed our walk towards the car. "I've got a few bottles in the house."

  "Kind of you," I said.

  The storm was coining down like a boarding-house shower: water all round the hills on the edges and dry in the middle. I was inclined to grant Goog some credit for his Rain Shadow, and saw that I would be able to do my demonstration in the dry.

  "Now," I said, "you'll be wanting a drive. Have you ever driven an auto before?" The biggest job was always to persuade a farmer that he actually needed a car, but once that was done he would normally buy the car he drove first. (I wasn't too worried about his remarks about the Dodge which cost two hundred pounds more than the T Model.) So I did not do what the Yanks at Ford said you should do which was to go round the car, starting with the radiator, and point out the features in a methodical way. My first objective was to get the customer behind the wheel.

  Stu, however, did not appear to be listening. He was looking back over his shoulder where he found, as he'd suspected, that his son's attention was taken up with the car and not the spuds. Goog stood on the veranda with the leg of mutton still grasped in his bony hand.

  "Go on," the father bellowed, "get on with it before I come and give you a clout across the ear-hole."

  Goog disappeared into the house.

  "Have you driven an auto before?" I asked.

  "They're good boys," Stu said, "but they never batched before."

  "Have you ever driven an auto before?"

  "Not a lot in it, is there?" he said, not wanting to look at me.

  "You'd need a few lessons."

  "Lessons. Everybody wants me to have bloody lessons," Stu said and I did not ask him whether it was dancing lessons that he had on his mind. "Patrick Hare tells me there's nothing to it. I'm not a boy. I'll get the hang of it without any lessons. You charge for them, do you?"

  "Only three pounds."

  Stu nodded bitterly. "That's right," he said.

  We were now circling the car, but not in the manner recommended by Ford.

  "That's three quid I wouldn't consider," he said, scratching his balls, "if I was going to consider making a purchase at all", he paused, "of a Ford."

  "It's a useful machine," I said, "and very reliable."

  Now we were back at the radiator and Stu was nodding his head towards the car. It took me a moment to realize that my customer wanted to see the contents of the engine compartment.

  "Show us its innards," he said.

  "I think you'd be making a mistake," I said, "to skimp on the lessons." But I did what he asked me and opened it up.

  He looked over the engine like a man checking something as familiar as the contents of his own suitcase: toothbrush, trousers, two shirts, etc. It was O'Hagen's weakness that he could not stand to make a fool of himself so he tried to give the impression that he knew what was what with a motor and was suspicious that some vital part might be missing.

  When he let me know he was satisfied I closed the compartment.

  "All right," he said. He took in his belt a notch and jutted his chin. "Start her up."

  The sun emerged from a keyhole in the clouds and bathed the weathered whiskered face. Goog and Goose came out on to the veranda where they stood, silently, side by side, staring at the gleaming car whose radiator was suddenly full of golden light.

  By 1919 the Ford had a starter motor. No crank was needed. I simply turned it
on and the engine caught first time.

  "Hop in," I said.

  O'Hagen shook his head and plunged his hands deep into his pockets.

  "No," he said, "I want to watch it go."

  I did as I was commanded. I drove around the house, passed in front of the imprisoned dog, and heard, above the noise of the engine, the clumping boots of Goose and Goog as they ran from one side of the house to the other.

  I was a ballerina on a show pony. It seemed a damn fool way to make a living.

  23

  Goog was wide awake. He lay amongst his bundle of grey blankets and listened to the noise of drinking. The drinking was a new thing. He didn't know what to do about it. Goose was no help. Goose was asleep and nothing would wake him. Goose had slept all last night while their father chopped up dinner plates outside the window. It was Goog who had put their weepingfather to bed. It was Goog who lay sleepless while his father vomited in the kitchen sink.

  He could hear the voices clearly and if he sat up he could see, through a chink in the shrunken wallboards, his father pouring sweet wine from a demijohn into Herbert Badgery's glass.

  "To life," Stu O'Hagen said.

  "To life," said Herbert Badgery.

  "I'm not a drinking man," Stu said, "but by God it warms you."

  There was a pause. Stu traced unstable patterns in the spilt wine on the oilcloth.

  "I never liked the idea of lessons," he said. "I never took a lesson in anything."

  "You've done well."

  Stu tilted back in his chair and surveyed the room. He picked up the kerosene light and held it above his head.

  "I built it myself. I was working for a real estate agent, selling blocks of land in Melbourne. I was doing well. They wanted to promote me. But I had it in my head I wanted to make something myself. You could say I had tickets on myself, but I wanted tomake something, not just sell things. So I bought this land and I didn't know a sheep's head from its arse."

  "You've got a lot to be proud of."

  We drank. I made appreciative smacking noises with my lips which were sweet and sticky with the wine.

  "Lessons were something I had no time for. No one gave me a lesson. But look at it."

  "It's a fine house."

  "It's a shamozzle," Stu said firmly.

  "Come on, man…"

  "It'll fall over."

  "No."

  "You haven't been here in a southerly. You wouldn't know. You haven't lain here like I have listening to the damn thing moving in the wind." He stood up and carried the lantern across to the outside wall. The studs showed on the inside, the outside was clad with rough-nailed weatherboards. He held the lantern high in one hand and banged the wall hard with the fist of the other. The wall bowed and shuddered and a plate fell from the dresser on the other side of the room. Stu kicked at the broken pieces.

  "I never learned to dance," he said as he sat down. "I never got the hang of it."

  I was embarrassed. I had a bad conscience about my motives for visiting O'Hagen's. I leaned to pick up the shards of plate.

  "Leave them," Stu said. "I've been wrong. I've been very wrong."

  I didn't know where to look. "You've got two fine boys", I said, "and a good wife."

  "That's true," he said, "about the boys at least." His eyes were brimful of moisture. "I'll buy the car," he said, "and I'll pay the three quid for the lessons."

  I had the papers in my pocket and I could have signed him up there and then. I sat there, worrying at them, folding them back and forth.

  "No," I said, "I couldn't."

  "Yes, I've been a fool. I've been a fool in most things. The bloody German is a better farmer than I am. The little coot looks like he'll blow over in the wind, but he's made something of that place. He'smade something. He's a lovely little farmer."

  "He is."

  "I'll buy this Ford," Stu said, "and I'll take lessons."

  "I couldn't," I said. "I couldn't let you."

  O'Hagen blinked.

  "Well, what", he said, pulling the demijohn back to his side of the table, "did you come here for?"

  "To show you the Ford, that's true."

  "You came here to come dancing," O'Hagen said. "You came here to prance around my kitchen."

  "No, I assure you."

  "Well, what for?"

  I could not sell a Ford to a weeping man. He made me feel grubby. I too was smitten with the desire to do something decent.

  "I told you," he said, "I'll take the lessons. I'll take them." Tears were now streaming down his cheeks. "I'll pay the three quid. I don't care who laughs at me."

  "No one will laugh at you. That's not the point. The point is the Ford is the wrong car."

  He wiped his eyes with his grubby sleeve. "So Patrick Hare was right then? The Dodge is a better car."

  "Not the Dodge. The Summit. It's the Summit you should have."

  "What in the name of God is a Summit?" Stu shouted.

  "A car," I shouted back. "A vehicle, made in Australia. An Australian car."

  "An Australian car," O'Hagen said. "What a presumption."

  "A what?"

  "A presumption. Are you sitting there and telling me we can make a better car than the Yanks? God Jesus Christ in Heaven help me. Mary Mother of God," he whispered and seemed to find her in the gloom above the roof joists. "You're a salesman, Mr Badgery," he said. "The country is full of bloody salesmen. You don't have to know anything to be a salesman. All you need to do is talk. That's why everyone does it. But if you want to really do something you need some bloody brains, some nous. Now tell me, tell me truly, is this Australian car of yours a better car than the Ford?"

  "It's not the point about better," I said, "it's a question of where the money goes. You'd be better off with a worse car if the money stayed here."

  "You're cock-eyed, man. You're a bloody hypocrite. You go around making a quid from selling the bloody things, and now you tell me I shouldn't buy one. You're making no sense," Stu sighed. "Sell me the bloody Ford before I lose my temper."

  "I will not," I said. "If you give me leave I'll travel up to Melbourne and pick up a Summit and bring it down here. It's a beautiful vehicle."

  "Is the Summit", Stu said slowly, "as good as a Ford?"

  "The difference is not worth a pig's fart."

  "A subject", my host said, "of which you would be ignorant."

  I was never good with drink. I got myself too excited and I did not express myself as well as I might.

  "Do you want Henry Ford", I roared, "to tell you when to get out of bed in the morning."

  "Sell me the Ford," Stu roared. "Give me lessons."

  "I won't."

  "Sell it to me, man, or by God I'll learn you."

  "Learn you! Learn you! You talk as ignorant as you think."

  "Ignorant," said O'Hagen quietly, "but not so ignorant I don't know why you came here." He stood and walked unsteadily to the wood stove. I paid him no attention.

  The poker crashed down on the table. It missed my hand by less than an inch.

  "You silly bastard," I hollered, leaping up, and falling backwards over my chair.

  And then everything was confusing. I wrestled the poker away and O'Hagen was on the floor but someone was still pummelling me.

  I found Goog, in a nightshirt, punching me around the head. And then Goog was lying on the floor in the corner near the stove. A small trickle of blood came from his nose. He was whimpering.

  I was sick at heart as I stumbled from the house. In my mind's eye I could see, not Goog, but a brush-tailed possum laid waste in the fallen branches of a tree.

  24

  I woke just before dawn. The Ford was in the middle of the saltpans and my mouth tasted disgusting. I had run off the road on the north side of the crossing and the meandering wheel marks on the saltflats had left no corresponding impression on my memory.

  Rain was falling in a fine drizzle. My right shoulder was wet. The line of dwarf yellow cypress pines along Blobell's Hill was sm
udged by dull grey cloud and nothing else in the landscape was distinct except the particularly clear sound of a crow above the saltpans flying north towards O'Hagen's. It sounded like barbed wire.

  My whole body was stiff and sore but my hands, still clamped around the wheel, were stiffer and sorer than any other part of me. The skin on my palms was torn and blistered from the axe work and had dried hard. My knuckles were bruised and broken. I felt everything that was wrong with my character in those two painful hands – the palms and knuckles always in opposition to each other.

  My mouth was parched dry. My head ached. I regretted hitting the small-eared boy. I regretted wishing to put my head between Mrs O'Hagen's legs. I regretted that my actions confused people. I regretted being a big mouth, a bullshitter and a bully.

  I was thirty-three years old. I turned the rear-vision mirror so that I could see my face. It teetered on the point of being old. One morning, I knew, I would look into a mirror and see rotting teeth and clouded eyes, battles not won, lies not believed.

  It was then I decided to marry Phoebe.

  It came to me quite simply, on the saltpans south of Balliang East. I would marry Phoebe, build the aeroplanes at Barwon Aeros, be a friend to Jack, a son to Molly.

  When I stepped from the Ford I found the distance between the running board and the ground unexpectedly short. I stumbled and, stepping back, found the T Model up to its axles in the salt-crusted mud.

  A crooked smile crossed my face.

  "Serve you right," I said.

  The Ford had been a tumour in my life. I had fought battles with it in the way another man might fight battles with alcohol or tobacco. I had walked away from it and returned to it. I had rejected it only to embrace it passionately. I admired its construction, its appearance, the skill that had produced it so economically. And these were also the things I loathed.

  So on this Tuesday morning at six thirty a. m., when I walked away from a T Model in the saltpans, I felt an enormous relief, a lightness. I was finished with Fords and the dizziness, the dryness in my throat, the pain in my hands, did not stop me appreciating the beauty of this landscape with the black motor car stranded and dying like a whale.