Just Relations

by Rodney Hall

  – I came, Uncle spoke again, because I see you’re back with her and that cuts me out.

  – Cuts you out!

  The idea was grotesque, his own grandfather victim to foolish hopes of a woman sixty years younger than himself. You ought to be laughing and not angry. Bad as the five-legged calf McTaggarts put a bullet in that morning.

  – I’m going to blow up the Golden Fleece, Bill said on impulse.

  – So’s you can open up a lead to the seam, is it? Or are yer hopin to pick up lumps a the stuff? Better let yer father know then yous can go down on your knees together and make proper fools a the family. In this way he threw up a defensive barrage behind which his Intelligence Section got busy with the facts: it could only mean that Billy didn’t know gold in the mass when it hit him in the eye, probably neither of the young ones knew what was laid out in front of them up at the highway site. Bill, being a steady fellow, should perhaps be told. But then he was young too, and the young have got their own way of looking at things. Could you expect him to turn his back on all the worthless rubbish a fortune can buy? Would it be fair? Would it be safe? And if that bugger George ever got to hear, there’d be no holding him.

  – I mean to close the shaft, Billy said. Block it for good.

  Rain cast a silvery net over the roof. They felt themselves trapped by what they knew.

  – That’s different then, Uncle apologized.

  A gust of wet grass-odour swept through Vivien’s house with memories of Annie. The pinetrees could be heard shivering. The passageway darkened. The mountain heavy and blind, a green impenetrable mass.

  – What’re yer thinkin about Billo?

  – Whitey’s.

  – Who’s goin to help you with the job? Uncle’s clear diction gave him away: of course he’d guessed, Bill had her in mind.

  The cloud from the mountain threw down its hot rain methodically now. They stood in the narrow passage, one listening, the other watching. Only now did it occur to Bill that his grandfather might be drunk; he recognized a whole farce of corroborative evidence, not least of which was the old cove’s judicial slowness in all but that single whirling gesture of pain at his insult. He observed the shrivelled ankle bared between trouser-cuff and boot, a forgotten leg stuck out one side as Uncle rested on the tripod of the other and the two sticks.

  – Soyouve foundiday? the drunken tribune munched his words. The Golden Fleece?

  – I’ve found out where it is, he replied pedantically, slurred speech being contagious.

  – Have you spoke to Missy Brindle or the saint?

  – What do you take me for? Billy felt unreasonably irritated. And after them selling me the gelignite too.

  At this moral problem Uncle coughed a few bleeding hunks of laughter. He spat into a crusted handkerchief and stuffed it incompletely in his pocket. The rain intensified, its drumming on the roof now the solid roar of wind through a tunnel.

  – Their store shed that collapsed a few years back…

  – Is that where it is?

  – Under that shed.

  So Brinsmeads had known right through the years what the rest found out yesterday.

  – Winnin form! They’re an amazement when you think about it. All this time. You’ll need a decoy then, to get them safely out a the way. Unless you do it by night with a smaller charge to be sure you don’t blow up the house and that.

  Watching his grandfather’s face sent a chill of sympathy through the young man, reminded of something he’d seen not long ago. The old coot’s skin lumpy and discoloured like a relief-map of mountain terrain, there were moles, and a glossy knob on his forehead held together with tiny purple veins, his ears stood straight out from a tufting of hacked-at hair, like a ruminant elephant he was, unpredictable, careless of what he might collide with. The lower lids of his eyes sagged, drained pink and rheumy. He held his head slightly sideways to make better use of the least deaf ear.

  – God you’re an ugly bastard, said Billy lovingly because he was afraid of what he now knew (that this was the face of the mad digger, the rotten corpse who’d fired his rifle after he’d died, and you’d never have thought Uncle could appear like that, yet of course the chances were they shared a bloodline, like most other people, but oh my god fuckingbastard a lifetime of sickness for gold, not Uncle, the same gluey eyelids though … there had been that dreadful rasping as he drew the back of his hand down Kel McAloon’s cheek with its hollows set hard: this is what he knew).

  – Oh man, he breathed his sorrow.

  – What’re you keepin me standin here for as if me legs was as young as yours? Uncle shouted against the din of rain pummelling Vivien’s house.

  – Are we related to the McAloons, apart from grandma?

  – A course we are. Mrs Nell McAloon is my aunt. Though I don’t know but she might only be an aunt by marriage. Why ask? The puzzle was too deep for him sorting back that far, and the storm too loud. What’s more he hated the possibility of the talk turning to his wife, the troublesome Miss Bertha McAloon as she’d re-christened herself fifty years ago. He edged forward, nudging his grandson toward somewhere they could sit down. The changing light transformed his head to that of a Greek philosopher with eyes too deep to look into, a noble front of forehead, two vertical slashes of quick irritation between the eyebrows offset by fans of wrinkles pinching his cheeks into a perpetual smile, the wide sensuous mouth, broad cheek, the large simple question mark of his ear.

  – Yes I’ve got gelignite and I’m going to blow it up, Bill Swan yelled with joy as he turned to lead the way out to the verandah. And was brought up to a sudden halt, face to face with a dripping wet Senator Halloran. Senator Halloran with the rain running off him in sparkling cords like those from the rotten gutter beyond, Halloran apologetic with wetness, his shoes exuding a secretion of water, his trouserlegs clinging and slocking.

  – May I speak to Miss Lang please? the enemy pushed his request forward like a hostage between them.

  But the showdown was past. Billy could only speak with fear for what this man might have overheard.

  – Why don’t you fuck off?

  – I lost my dog, replied the statesman helplessly. He was a black dog, curly-haired labrador, had him with me a long time now.

  What had he overheard? How could he have failed to hear? Gelignite: the plan? I’m going to blow it up?

  – If we find yer dog, Uncle promised, you needn’t worry because we’ll definitely put a bullet through his head for you.

  – Is Miss Lang here? the intruder demanded coldly in a voice used to commanding respect. Yet he was afraid. Law of the jungle. Movies about redneck violence. Easy-rider. Deliverance. You never knew. Lot of truth in the media.

  They didn’t answer. So Frank Halloran, friend of the friends of the needy and ally of Worthy Causes, turned his back. It was hopeless. He himself had chased the dog away. Who knows, Ocker might even now have set out on one of those heart-rending journeys across the continent, the symbol of loyalty on bleeding paws. And some wit had left a scrap of paper in the car with a mocking message, signed by a dog:

  I love you. Do you love me. Then come and

  let me out. I’ll come home with you. Please

  wait for my sign and be ready to leave

  straight away.

  Love,

  Fido

  He turned his back and retraced the puddles of his footprints out to the edge of the verandah. His shattered teacup of that morning still lay there in a heap, the faint tea stain around it. He didn’t care to notice, couldn’t understand callousness. He was keeping his eye on the enemy now as he delivered the parting shot of a state dignitary.

  – The dog’s name is Ocker, he said. They have my phone number down at the shop.

  Rain rattled against his coat and he was having trouble keeping his balance on the steep sticky path outside, hobbling with the bruises of last night’s shameful adventure.

  – What sort a name is that? Uncle wanted to know. What’s Ocker mean? />
  The senator slushed away out of earshot, isolated in the world of his intentions.

  – Let him think what he likes, Uncle answered his grandson’s unspoken fears. Let him worry if he overheard anything. Do him good.

  They sat so they could watch the small birds dancing and singing for the wet while above them one hawk spread the sodden umbrella of its wings. The downpour wiped out the coastal plain and made the mountain an island. Uncle spoke again.

  – I had a dream last night mate and it’s been nagging at me ever since. Not that I’d do meself a favour wastin a good dream on a rough little rogue like you, but I always was a generous cove, and these sort a things has somethin invitin about them. I dreamed I was standin on top of a hill, very smooth and grassy with not a tree in sight, gazing out across a lovely stretch of country, fields ploughed up and looked after so beautiful you’d want to eat them. When I noticed somethin comin towards me, still a long way off mind, straight as a ruler it come up hills and down gullies, over creeks, never mind the creeks, it kept straight like a religious sort of thing it was, just holdin to that straight line was what counted and give the arse to everythin else. It was a road, white road, I could tell that. Dream brought on by that highway up there I dare say. But this road in me mind had a kind of head like one of them furry caterpillars, sort of tufts of red and white, and kind a rippling so that I didn’t like her at all. More of a nightmare than dream, a quiet one but.

  Already the yard outside was awash, dead leaves and sticks swirling downhill past the house. Bill squatted silently, waiting, to see if Uncle had finished. He hadn’t.

  – It came a bit closer to me but never enough to get a clear sight on them tufty things. That’s what I don’t like about a dream. Not the same as Rememberin, with Rememberin you’re always right in it and you can tell what’s happenin to you. Anyhow, whatever I was watchin made me wake in a sweat, I can tell you. And I got up to ease me bladder. Just on dawn it was. And I went to go outside for a piss when I caught sight a this man asleep on the kitchen floor. Well you see I’d forgot you was stayin with me. Felt me heart thuddin, I can tell you. Damn near waded into you with my sticks. You might a had a proper beatin whiles you was still rolled up in your blanket. My stars, I said, that’s our Billy. And I felt better after.

  – You got the highway on the brain Uncle.

  – I dare say I have too, Uncle growled with dissatisfaction (the dream hadn’t sounded right in the telling, when you put words to it you lost a hold of it).

  But young Bill had the spirit in him, he knew what to say and how to go about it. He sat there jabbing the palm of one hand with a shard of china cup, denting the tough skin, ruminatively working at the sensation. The rain poured down evenly, so intense and purposeful you couldn’t imagine it was possible to get above it.

  – Who was Albert Swan, died on the eighteenth of November 1894?

  – My old pa who married Louise McTaggart. Where did you see that?

  – On a gravestone when me and the boys took dad’s Bedford up round the mountain a few months ago.

  – I know that gravestone. Not much left I suppose? I haven’t been there in twenty years. Waste of effort, graveyards, if you ask me. Once dead you’re dead. My old ma had that stone slab put there and a damn lot a good it did her. She made me promise to put one up for herself when she died but I never did; it was me livin mother I promised, and I’d have done anythin for her. Dead, I owed her nothin. Yes, I know the place you mean Billo.

  – Foundations. That’s the only thing left. And graves.

  – Last to live there was Tommy Whitey. They named this place after him but he put off comin here and joinin other folk livin by the fall.

  – What was the place called?

  – London.

  – London! Billy laughed with astonishment.

  Something nagged the old man’s memory, as an amputated limb is said to weigh on the nerves, still passing faint messages. He was being observed by his grandson who pushed one big toe into a puddle left by the senator.

  – I near smashed that johnny’s face for him this morning, Bill said to help out. But it didn’t help. His grandfather was already lost in a thicket of allusions and broken connections. So they lolled at ease, only the walkingsticks as reminders that anything had to be done. Having left home was such a luxury, able to forget the cattle, the fences, jobs crying out to be done, motors to be fixed and somehow kept going in the face of ruin, the filter to be cleaned, the bull bar for the Ford, Mum’s new cooker rusting in the yard for want of a weekend’s effort installing it. Things pleasant to think of, longstanding pressures cancelled out.

  – Of course, Uncle began speaking. Whitey’s used to have a mayor. Used to have a good couple a thousand living on the mountain one place and another when I was a boy. What’s it now? Forty-nine? Forty-eight since little Mercy’s gone. Plus this new girl, Annie’s girl. Sorry to see Elaine and Eric pack up, those kids of theirs was a bit of life around the place. Specially young Fred. Had a soft spot for him, young fellow after me own heart. Yes, forty-nine and that’s Wit’s End included. We used to have a mayor all right. Wasn’t Lord Mayor I don’t think, just the plain sort. School of Arts was his office. Last mayor but two was the blacksmith. Died young. Big fat bloke and only fifty-seven. Used to watch the sweat come off of him, when he shook his head you’d see drops fly out good as rain. We never knew what took him. When he died the idea of havin a mayor went with him, you could say. Last of the line he was, for a while. Before him Shorty Collins was mayor but he never had the figure. No dignity. Specially comin only two after old man Brinsmead. Brinsmead was that dignified when he was alive you could have screwed a tap into him and drained the dignity off by the bucketful. Oh, years later, someone did get the idea of starting up the mayor thing again, there was a committee if I remember asked young Seb to accept the chain. But you couldn’t expect it, so high and mighty Seb held himself though he wasn’t more than thirty I’d guess. Now look at him (Uncle coughed as if laughing into a mug of pea soup): storekeeper’s brother and useless prop for the wall. Shorty Collins’s son Ginger wanted it. Don’t know why. So we gave it him on trial. He carried on for a year or so till he broke down cryin over the figure work. He never could sort figures out in his head. Nanny McTaggart reckoned her Artie was the man, a giant he was, like half the McTaggarts are. He looked his best when he was standing still. He looked good when he was praying or on the platform. As long as he didn’t have to move quick and as long as he didn’t have to speak, he was okay. It was him who had the great idea of a drinkin fountain for the poor. Put all his effort into that. And he had it built. Not that it ever worked. It never did, not even for the opening ceremony. When Artie died we put on a bumper funeral for him because there wouldn’t be another mayor of Whitey’s Fall. Nanny would’ve had the chain buried with him like them Egyptians did. She’d have seen to it too if it hadn’t of been for a possum that crept in in the night before they nailed the lid and grabbed it out of our dead man’s hands and made off with it into the trees. Next morning there was fourteen big ironbarks felled to try to find that chain. We never found the bugger. But I’ll tell you what, there was enough wood in them logs for the whole town to stay warm through five winters. Those warm winter fires were Artie’s one success as a public figure, his memorial in a manner of speakin. Who knows?

  Billy started messing the chips of china. He loved to hear the old man talk, as a rule, but not today. Something of this unexpected irritation must have communicated itself because Uncle switched mood, hoisting himself free of the bog of sentimental times gone by.

  – Help me up mate, he grunted. I’m going. He prepared to brave the rain. I’ll tell you about London one day.

  – Yeah.

  – I knew you was in love with her right from the first, Uncle remarked, in the passion of the moment his words coming out with pedantic clarity. The day Mercy died young Elaine McTaggart came and fetched me from the pub you see and told me the two of yous was elopin on the
motorbike. I told her to mind her damn business and leave me to mine. Ah well, this house’ll be your place now I suppose. I only come up to find out. Only come up for a last look around. I don’t doubt it’ll be my last sniff of what a young woman’s clothes smell like for a power of years. He turned gay, adding, What if I was to go up to one a them fashion judies, them tourists, and said mind if I have a sniff a your skirt! that’d give em somethin to think about.

  Then he turned his hateful old back, bent legs capering, the headful of dirty thoughts nodding, one walkingstick dangling as he clawed at the rail, easing his weight from crooked foot to crooked foot, and tested the security of the wet ground when he reached it.

  Bill could crow into the tomb. He was cock-a-hoop of a grotty little cottage. His ninety-one-year-old rival had gone down admitting final defeat. Down in the mud and out. You could signal for trumpets and put out the flags. The clouds had shifted and the dark mountain hung in fragments from the sky, an underwater explosion about to cascade pearl chandeliers into the paddocks, flat as the curved earth would allow. Only then did Bill remember what was worrying him all along: Vivien left back there in the clutches of Madbag Brinso and Mum Collins, her pleading eyes full of fear and surprise, her neck so twisted you could see the gristle of her adam’s apple plain as a man’s. He went back indoors, king, to decide what to do next. He threw himself on the bed because wasn’t it his? Wasn’t it?

  Eight

  As he edged on to the track, Uncle was shaking, not just from cold and rain, nor the scene with Billy and the appearance of the enemy government man, but from a memory of London. When still a young man he had gone back there with an uncle of his to get the wheels off an abandoned dray while they were still good. When they’d finished the job he wandered alone among the creaking rotting buildings while his uncle sat back for a smoke. Despair drove people from the town, you knew it and you could still feel it: not fire, not lack of water; they were not forced out, not evicted. Despair written on the place as it might be one day on Whitey’s. Slow rot. He recollected the curiosity of finding a kind of fungus, small flaps growing all over the door of an unroofed barn. He’d looked closely. Couldn’t remember what. Couldn’t imagine what. Dry leathery flaps. Till he saw the nail through each one, old nails rusting into the wood. They’re ears! he croaked and hurried for somewhere he could wash the hand that had touched. Ears. Nothing to worry about, as his uncle had smiled, only off of the Chows and the Blacks in the early days. But you knew the old fellow was already queer in the head and once had a tattoo cut from his arm by a Melbourne surgeon at a cost of nine pounds, and then paid a taxidermist at the museum to have it preserved and mounted on a plaque. Remember the plaque. And the tattoo which was a blue falcon. It must have meant something or he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble and expense to have it taken off…