Tamarisk Row

by Gerald Murnane

  The people of Tamarisk Row look out of their windows

  Whenever Augustine returns from taking Sternie to gallop at the Bassett racecourse, Clement listens eagerly to his father’s conversation for news of Mrs Moy, the jockey’s wife. But Augustine mentions her so rarely that Clement sometimes has to ask in his most innocent voice – did Mr Moy ride Sternie this morning Dad? and when Augustine says – yes of course he did, to ask – did he come in his big Studebaker? and when Augustine says – how else would he come? to ask – did Mrs Moy come with him to watch him ride? The answer to this is usually – no she did not. Clement, who is always alert to such things, notices the hint of embarrassment in his father’s voice and guesses that there is something about Mrs Moy that he (the boy) is not meant to discover. He guesses that on some summer morning when the sun was already blazing and the wind had set in from the north, Augustine went to the Moys’ modern brick house that sprawls among trees tall and leafy enough for a dozen birds’ nests and saw through the fly-wire door at the front (because the frosted glass door had been left open all night because of the heat) that the Moys when they are alone together do the things that Clement himself, soon after he had first glimpsed in Mrs Moy’s dark glasses a racecourse shaped differently from any that he knew and wondered what shapes she herself saw from her side of the sultry glass, discovered the man and his wife doing in the isolated homestead of Tamarisk Row. That place is still so remote among plains and the view of those plains that the people there see when they look through windows darkened by vines and creepers towards places dissolving in sunlight is still so changeable that the only likeness to it that Clement knows is the landscape that alternately expands and contracts in the polished panels of a woman’s sun-glasses. During the days when Clement does not disturb them, the man and the woman behind the glass see a great flat expanse of paddocks run together into one white molten globule no bigger than the pupil of an eye, or a road that leads on like the straight of a racecourse deflected so that it sweeps boldly towards but never reaches some distant landmark. Sometimes, when the man points out to his wife through the shaded glass the big pink pizzle dangling beneath the horse Tamarisk Row, a monstrous glowing column of fleshy pink appears above their lawn and gardens. Sometimes even on their own side of the glass they see sudden freaks of light – the margin of an inch or so between the horse Journey’s End and the winner of the Gold Cup in the photograph in the lounge-room is magnified until it looms like a broad shadowy gulf that can never be crossed but before which they must stand every day of their lives, and when they walk through the house naked on the hottest days some obscure corner of the woman’s body now and then floats in the troubled glass as if it would merge there with the focused essence of the throbbing plains outside. At last Clement hears his father telling his mother that he isn’t keen to take the boy to the racecourse of a morning because the woman often turns up and Clem seems to have taken a silly fancy to her and he’s bound to be blurting out and calling her Mrs Moy and although that’s apparently what she wants to be called he (Augustine) feels a bit of a fool knowing as he does now that she’s someone else’s wife. Augustine says – it makes me feel very disappointed in Harold but I couldn’t bring myself to sack him after all the years we’ve known each other on the racecourse. Clement is sorry that he may not see Mrs Moy again but pleased to learn that the Moys turned out after all to have a secret behind their glass.

  Clement learns a girl’s secrets at last

  A man steps out of a car at the Killeatons’ front gate, and Augustine hurries to meet him before he can come inside. The man goes back to his car and sits waiting. Augustine tells his wife that the man’s name is Ray Mendoza, that he owns a lot of horses, and that a while ago when Augustine was going well at the races Mendoza tried to talk him into leasing one of his good three-year-olds, that of course Augustine cannot possibly afford to lease another horse as well as Sternie but that he’d like to visit Mendoza’s place and at least have a look at his horses before he tells him politely there’s nothing doing. Mrs Killeaton tells him to take Clement along for the ride. Mr Mendoza drives Augustine and Clement out to a suburb named Franklin’s Flat near the racecourse. The Mendozas’ brick house and their front garden are about five times as big as the Killeatons’, but the huge lawn and the wide driveway are almost bare of trees and shrubs. Behind the house, too, is a smooth bare lawn with only one tree set in it, so that any boy or girl who lived there could never do anything around the yard without being seen by people going past or by parents peering out of the tall windows. Mr Mendoza takes Augustine straight to the stables. Augustine starts to say that circumstances have changed quite a bit since he first hinted he might be interested in leasing a horse, but Mr Mendoza puts an arm around Augustine’s shoulders and says – just wait till you see the horse Gus – just wait till you see him. While the men move towards the horses’ stalls, Clement pushes open the door of a feed room and steps inside. A pair of hot sweating hands reaches out of the darkness and covers his eyes. A girl’s voice says – guess who it is and I’ll give you three wishes. Clement says – I give up. The girl grabs him by the shoulders and wrenches him around to face her. In the half-light of the shed he sees the girl who is Therese Riordan’s best friend, the same girl that he has met several times at Riordans’ place. She closes the door of the feed room and leans her head on one side to listen. Clement decides that if only her face was not so ugly he would have her for his girlfriend. The girl says – you can have your three wishes anyway because it wasn’t fair to make you guess like that – wait on – I know what you’re going to wish before you even start – first of all you want to know what my name is – well it’s the same as Therese’s middle name – second you want to see Therese’s Foxy Glen – well the next time we’re up at Riordans’ together I’ll probably get it and let you look at it – and I bet the third wish is you want to see me with my pants off. Clement says – there’s something else I want to ask you too – what did you used to do with that big boy Silverstone who used to live in Leslie Street – and did you do it in his backyard or at Riordans’? She laughs and says – I used to do it right where you’re standing now and it wasn’t just with the boy from Leslie Street either but dozens of other boys too. Clement says – but what sort of things? The girl says – the same things that you told me you’re always doing with the big girls next door to your place. She thinks for a moment, then says – that means you’ve already had three wishes but just because you’re one of Therese’s boyfriends I’ll let you have your other wish. Clement says – did Therese Riordan really tell you I’m one of her boyfriends? – The girl says – hurry up do you want your wish or don’t you? Clement says – yes please – and I’ll take my thing out too for you to look at. She says – you needn’t be bothered – I’ve seen so many boys’ things I’m sick of them – just tell me are you circumcised or not. Clement says – I think so. She says – that means you must have a little pink knob on the end the colour of a baby mouse with no fur on – you’d better give me a quick look just to make sure I’m right. Clement takes out his cock. She looks at it and says – yes I was right again. She tugs at it gently and teases it with her fingertips until it grows bigger and more rigid than Clement has ever seen it. Then she tells him abruptly to put it away out of her sight before she belts it with a stick or a stock-whip. Clement pokes it back awkwardly into his trousers and says – you still haven’t taken your pants down yet. The girl says – I’ll let you look at me if you tell me first what I look like. Clement says – your cock isn’t much like a boy’s because it’s flatter and half stuck in to your skin between your legs and your balls are tiny and hardly wrinkled at all and they’re pressed up close to your skin too. The girl looks hard at him for a moment and then grins. She says – hang on a minute and I’ll show you how stupid you are. She turns her back on him, pulls her white silk pants down around her knees, crosses her legs tightly, looks down at herself, does something with her fingers between her thighs, and then, stil
l with her legs crossed, turns around to face Clement. He looks eagerly between her legs but sees only the white skin of her belly disappearing between her thighs, which are pressed tightly together. She says – there you are you were wrong after all – I’ve got nothing there at all. He says – I know you’re hiding it between your legs. She turns away from him and says – I am hiding something – look. When she turns back to face him, he sees two long fine golden-brown hairs growing out of the otherwise bare white skin at the very lowest part of her belly. She says – tell the truth have you ever seen anything like that before? He says – no never – but isn’t there something for you to do piss with? She says – only a stupid little hole that you wouldn’t be interested in. He reaches out a finger to touch one of her hairs and is startled to find her skin warm, when he had thought it would be cold like silk or marble. She jumps up and pulls her pants on and says – now I know you never really did play with those big girls next door and pull their pants down did you? He feels so grateful to her that he says trustingly – no I didn’t really. She says – when I tell Therese how stupid you are she probably won’t even bother to talk to you again. He says – please don’t tell her – anyway you promised you’d help me find out about her Foxy Glen. He stops suddenly and says – do you think Therese would pull her pants down for me if you told her you’d already done it with me? She says – get out and find your old man or I’ll go and tell him what you’ve just been doing. She opens the door, and the two of them walk along the passageway towards the two men. Augustine says – hullo where have you been son? He looks so keenly at Clement that the boy blushes. The girl steps forward and says sweetly – I was just showing him a lovely little nest of baby mice in the feed room – all pink and soft and cuddly – would you like to come in and see them Mr Killeaton? Augustine smiles and says – some other time thanks. As the men walk towards the car, Mr Mendoza says – look Gus there’s still time for you to change your mind and come inside right now and sign the lease papers and this very afternoon I’ll send the horse over to your place in a float. In the car on the way back to Leslie Street Mr Mendoza says – now Gus the minute you decide on something give me a ring and I’ll call round in the car and drive you back to my place again and you can take as long as you like to look around. In the back seat the girl Mendoza pinches Clement hard on the thigh near the edge of his trouser leg.

  Clement has doubts about Barbara Keenan

  Augustine and Mr Mendoza stand for a long time near the Killeatons’ front gate, still talking. The girl Mendoza asks Clement – who’s your little girlfriend at St Boniface’s? He says – I’ve got one but I’m not telling you her name. Then although the girl pleads with him he refuses to reveal the name Barbara Keenan which stands for a face as aloof as the marble above an altar but in whose serene pallor a few oddly placed, delicately tinted freckles never fail to surprise him and to suggest that the girl may be pleasantly unpredictable in her ways and may even agree one day to be the wife of a racehorse owner on condition that he leads in the winner of the most famous race in a land of mighty plains and, while the lustful owners of a dozen beaten horses are clutching and kneading their wives’ bodies and trying to forget their defeat, may allow her husband just once, as a reward for a great win, to undress her and mate with her before she becomes again the reserved unsmiling unapproachable woman that he cheerfully woos for months with stories of great races yet to be won. The girl Mendoza says – it doesn’t matter because I can ask Therese to find out the girl’s name or I might even stand outside St Boniface’s gate myself one afternoon and see for myself which girl looks like the sort of girlfriend you’d pick because don’t forget I know a lot about you now and the sort of girls you’re after. Clement is not worried by this threat because he knows that God or Our Lady or Barbara Keenan’s patron saint or guardian angel makes sure that no one but himself, who would not dare to lay a finger on her body until long after he had married her, ever notices how beautiful she is. He remembers a day when Barry Launder and some of his feathered friends were gathered round a photograph of their grade trying to bag the prettiest girls for themselves and Launder said – I bag Pauline Duffy – she’s the best-looking tart there is, and Michael Hannan said – you bugger Launder I wanted Duffy for myself, and Clement began to fear for Barbara Keenan because the girl Duffy had such a sweet innocent face that he had never suspected that Launder and his gang would want to get her pants down or fall in love with her or might even have seen between her legs already or touched her there, but even though some of Launder’s gang started bagging more than one girl for themselves not one of them mentioned Barbara Keenan and Clement knew that she would be safe until the end of the year when all the boys in the grade would leave St Boniface’s school for the Brothers’ College and she would almost forget about boys and concentrate on keeping the pages of her school books neat and earning holy pictures for good work. The girl Mendoza says – well have you told the girl you love her or passed notes to her desk or tried to kiss her on the way home from school? Clement wonders whether he should tell Barbara Keenan by just one sign that she is his girlfriend before he leaves St Boniface’s, where the only sports are the few confused races that he himself struggles to organise among the mobs of heedless boys and which few girls ever stop to look at, for the college where every Wednesday every boy wears a coloured sash and plays for his House in a football or cricket team or in November runs in sprints or distance races but at sports grounds where no girls ever come to watch, so that a girl whose face inspires a boy to come from fifty yards behind in a mile race might hear, a few months later, only a vague story about a race in which some little-known runner appeared suddenly wide out at the top of the straight and made the watchers gasp, but no more. The girl Mendoza says – why don’t you tell the little girl what you want to do with her and see what she says? Clement remembers an afternoon in grade three when Michael Hannan, who was always talking about boys and their cocks and balls and girls and their holes, who often tried to persuade Launder’s gang to tell stories about girls they had chased or even to chase them on the way home from school, and who came to school one day with the story that Clement laughed at but was not quite sure he understood – there was this little kid and he came home from school one day and said Mum what’s a cock and his mum said don’t worry son a cock’s just a hat so he came home the next day and said Mum what’s a shit and his mum said well son a shit’s just when you sit down and have a rest so he came home the next day and said Mum what’s a fuck and his mum said a fuck’s when a man and lady have a talk together so the next day the minister came and knocked on the front door and the little kid went and answered it and said come in and hang your cock on the wall and have a shit in the front room Mum won’t be long she’s out the back having a fuck with the baker, told all the boys he was going to write a note and pass it across to Pauline Duffy and her girlfriends in school because he wanted to see which would be the best one to take down the creek on the way home one night and Clement himself read the words in Hannan’s best writing on a whole clean sheet ripped from the back of one of his exercise books – what is a fuck a fuck is when you take a girl into the bushes and take her pants down and get on top of her, and trembled with embarrassment as he passed it on its way because it had to travel across the desks of Barbara Keenan and some of her friends who were shy and innocent like herself before it reached Pauline Duffy and her friends. He still does not know for certain whether or not Barbara Keenan opened the note and read it because he buried his face in his hands and prayed that Miss Callaghan would come back into the room and that Hannan would get scared and grab the note before the girls could read it, but outside in the yard afterwards he stood listening while Hannan told everyone how all the girls enjoyed his little message and giggled over it, and for days afterwards he was on the point of deciding that he would have to find a new girlfriend from one of the junior grades – a girl who had not been spoiled by boys like Hannan because Barbara Keenan had probably giggled when sh
e read about girls having their pants pulled down and would not be satisfied until she found out from boys like Hannan what it was really like in the bushes beside the creek. The girl Mendoza says – if you’ve never kissed your girlfriend or told her you love her she’s sure to find someone else for her boyfriend – I bet she’s already found a place in her backyard like that feed room in my old man’s stables and you know what she’ll be doing there any day now with her new boyfriend. Clement is pleased to see Mr Mendoza getting into his car and beckoning to his daughter. When the Mendozas have gone he walks past all his farms and looks into all the homes of the people that he has known for years, but nothing that he sees there helps him to decide whether Barbara Keenan really does think often about her pants and would giggle if a boy talked or wrote to her as Michael Hannan wrote to Pauline Duffy, in which case he ought to forget about her and try to learn as much as possible about girls from the girl Mendoza in the feed room and then ask Mendoza herself to find him a girlfriend who likes doing the things that she does or even ask Mendoza herself to be his girlfriend until he can find someone whose face is not so ugly, or whether the girl Mendoza is lying because she wants him for her own boyfriend who will go into the feed room whenever she asks him and let her do what she likes to him, in which case he might let Mendoza have her way and then one day a long time afterwards, perhaps when he is making his last desperate run in some great race and looking up at the crowd he sees a pale beautiful face watching him, Barbara Keenan will show him what she thinks of a boy who lets an ugly non-Catholic girl with warts on her fingers twist and tug at his cock day after day in a dirty room in a stable and turn her face away and walk off with some Catholic boy who really did believe that she was pure and innocent and leave him to make his run with only Mendoza, who would never understand such a subtle thing as racing, to watch him, or whether Barbara Keenan is not only not as Mendoza has described her but is so spotlessly pure and free from sin that she would not have understood a word of Hannan’s note and even if Mendoza herself told her exactly what she and Clement did in the feed room would not know what the non-Catholic girl was talking about or believe that Clement could have done anything that made him unfit to be her boyfriend, and, best of all, so utterly different from the ugly, sniggering Mendoza girl that when Killeaton, perhaps years afterwards after he and his horse have proved themselves and he has earned the right to undress her in some comfortable homestead, finally does take down her pants he will see between her legs something very different from the uninteresting skin that Mendoza was once so coy about and begin all over again with Barbara Keenan to discover the things that a pure Catholic girl has kept hidden for so long and forget all about the girl who once tried to trick him by sticking two hairs from a chestnut horse between her legs and pretending that they were all she had to show.