Datsunland

by Stephen Orr

  ‘It’s twenty to seven.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, go.’ She stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Without your rudeness, young man.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to,’ he whispered.

  She placed three coins in his hand and closed his fingers around them.

  He stood, slowly, slipping the book into his satchel, glaring at her as he fastened it, before slinging it across his shoulder and leaving without a word.

  The small boy, George Barham, trudged through Draper in the early light of day, past the railway station, through Swansea, Largs and Lulu Terrace. There was a foundry on Sugar Street. He could see flame from inside a giant shed, the still shadows of horses and men, machines thumping hard against themselves, and the earth, spitting out rivets, hinges and metal plates for the big ship. There was a row of shops along Musgrave Street. Some had their lights on, but only one had its door open. It was Skurray’s, the boot-maker, dark apart from a smoky candle; quiet, apart from a tap that hissed somewhere in the back room. George stopped at the door, studying the boots lined up on the floor, the work table covered in scraps of leather and tools.

  I could steal a pair, he thought, studying new-looking hobnail boots a few feet from his reach.

  But then he heard his father’s voice: There’s only one thing I ask, son.

  He turned and studied a wooden box perched on a stand. Read the big gold letters at the top: ‘The One-Eyed Merchant’. There was a dial on the front, broken into twelve segments—six images of heaven and six of hell. He studied the harps and pitchforks and noticed the words: ‘Your fortune for a Penny’.

  Before he’d even thought about it he’d slipped a penny into the slot. Mr Gordon could always be convinced. The wheel turned six times and then stopped on the border of a fire-scorched hell and a blue-sky heaven. He read the painted words: ‘You are proud, defiant and strong-willed. All of the world’s riches will fall into your lap’.

  He walked to Mr Gordon’s shop. Waited outside. The light was on but the door was locked. He stepped up to the big, glass door and knocked. No one appeared. ‘Mr Gordon,’ he called. ‘My ma wants flour.’

  No one. He knocked again, fingering the two coins in his pocket.

  Five minutes later he could smell the river. Cabbage and oil; coal-smoke and the dead fish they took away for fertiliser. He followed the road that led to Cable Wharf. The giant sheds of McFarlane and Sons, Shipbuilders, consumed most of his morning sky. More light seeped from the seams between roof and wall, the walls themselves, and he thought, If the shed itself was launched, it would sink in five seconds flat. ‘When father papered the parlour, you couldn’t see him for paste …’ Singing, as he continued, imagining a shed growing legs and arms, a head full of a thousand teeth, reptilian skin—moving along the bank, knocking over the Duke, squishing the early shift as they brewed tea, and screamed for mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy! No such luck. The way their brains would pop from their skulls. He smiled. ‘Bad luck, boys!’ Continuing: ‘Slapping it here, slapping it there, paste and paper everywhere.’

  He followed a set of tramway tracks as they entered the sheds from the rear and reappeared several hundred feet later at the front. On one of the old doors someone had scribbled in chalk: ‘55.66905˚N, in honorem.’ The tracks ran between two long slipways that led down to the river’s edge.

  The Iron Duke sat on the downriver slip. So far it had a keel and a frame, and perhaps half of its double hull. There were teams of men, high on the scaffolds, preparing for their day—gathering tools, stretching, testing the ropes and block and tackle they used to raise the iron plates and rivets.

  George looked up at the ship with admiration and disgust. He’d never been able to work out how so much iron could float. Someone had once explained: because the air it contained was lighter than water. But he couldn’t reconcile this with the fact that iron was heavier than air, water, concrete, in fact almost anything. Iron, it seemed, was a marvellous material. Bridges that crossed wide valleys, supporting tons of human and horse flesh, carts and coal.

  But iron was not a happy material. Not like wood, or stone. Eight men and three boys had already died on the construction of this monster (as he saw its eyes opening, winking at him). He’d even been there, four feet away, when Ian Truscott’s son, another George, had fallen from a scaffold and impaled himself on an iron bar. George had watched George quiver and groan for a full minute before becoming still, relaxing and draping himself across the bar. George could still see the boy’s eyes, open the whole time, seemingly fixed upon a puddle on the ground.

  He went into the foreman’s office and hung his satchel on a hook. Initialled a chart that had his name, and the date, and a thousand grease and oil smears from the hands of riveters and boilermakers. He was early, so he took out his book and started reading by the light of a flickering lamp. Other men came in, signed on, ruffled his hair or twisted his nose, and went out into the shed. But he still had four minutes.

  Until one of the young foremen came in and said, ‘Resting, before you’ve even started?’

  He went out to the big ship and stood looking up. There was nothing new. More iron, more rivets, noise, heat, burns. The rest of his life mapped out in metal, although when he thought about this, he thought about the fact, the certainty, that he’d one day be a writer. Instead of iron there would be a wooden desk; instead of rivets, a pen; grease, ink.

  He climbed a ladder that led to a long platform, that in turn fed into smaller scaffolds that terminated on the sections of hull that were being plated. As he climbed he looked up at the hundreds of steps above him, and then at the parts of the hull they’d finished. He never looked down. He’d always been told: never look down. He could still see George Truscott’s eyes, studying the puddle full of muck, his wrists, his ankles, all bone.

  He reached his platform and his riveter, Ted (an old man, he guessed, judging from the hairs in his ears and nose), was waiting. George thought it strange how Ted seemed to live his life (eating, shaving, washing) on the scaffold (after all, he was always there before he arrived, and after he knocked off). Ted said, ‘Good day for it, George.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For working. You’re changing lives, son.’

  He couldn’t see it. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘All the people that’ll benefit from the old girl.’

  He thought, So what? I won’t. Mum won’t. Dad certainly won’t. What’s to be happy about?

  ‘How’s the French Revolution coming along?’

  George seemed to light up. ‘“To the eyes of Mr Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and variety of objects” … ah, I’ve forgotten the rest.’

  ‘Keep at it.’

  ‘I know the speech from the end … “It’s a far, far better place …” do yer wanna hear it?’

  ‘Later, George. We got work to do.’ Ruffling his hair, wondering, again, if one day he might say something to the boy’s mother.

  It was perhaps half past one, George thought. His corned-beef sandwich had settled and he was hungry again. As he moved inside the two-foot gap of the double hull he could feel his knees and ankles starting to ache.

  He supported himself by standing on a portion of the bulkhead. The interior skin of the ship had already been fixed, so he stood facing out. He could see the sun, the sky and seagulls. An iron plate would cover him and it would be dark. The hot rivets would slip into the holes in the plate and he would hold a second heavy plate behind them as Ted hammered them home. When all eight rivets were in Ted would say, ‘Next,’ and he’d move back into the sun. Another plate. Another eight rivets.

  ‘Next.’

  But then Ted said, ‘I missed one.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Four plates back, three down.’

  ‘Four back, three down?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  So he crawled across, and then down, counting the plates. The light seeped o
ut of the hull and it was completely dark. He felt his way by counting the rivets. He held up his hand but couldn’t see, smell or even sense fingers or flesh.

  He stopped. Called to Ted. No reply. Looked for the hole, for any light it might provide, but couldn’t find any un-riveted holes. He calculated: four across, three down. That’s twelve rivets across, nine down. Nothing. ‘Are you there, I can’t find it?’

  His heart was racing. He made himself stop, and breathe deeply.

  Of course, he figured, I haven’t gone far enough. He moved awkwardly, squeezing his body between the plates and the bulkhead, struggling to straighten, turn and twist his ankles as he moved. He counted down another three rivets, then another three; just in case, he counted across another three. No hole. No light.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he shouted.

  Silence. Just his own voice echoing in the double hull. Blackness.

  Then he panicked. He thought, I have to get out. Moved up, three plates, four, five—nine, twelve, fifteen rivets. Down two plates, three plates—six rivets, nine rivets. Stopped. Shouted, ‘I’m here, here, can anyone help me?’

  He hammered as best he could in the small gap. Then he was tired, and stopped, and rested.

  Two more down, three more across—six rivets, nine rivets.

  He hammered.

  He screamed.

  He couldn’t tell if he was high in the hull, or low. He needed a piss and he thought, If I can just wait a few more minutes …

  Three down, four across—nine rivets, twelve rivets.

  ‘Someone, please!’

  Then he pissed himself, and it was warm on his cold, chicken-bone leg.

  ‘Ma!’

  And all he could think of was how angry she’d be about her flour.

  A Descriptive List of the Birds Native to Shearwater, Australia

  3.30: The Shearwater Choir

  MARK AND SUSAN CROSBIE-MORRISON watched the choir file out of the old bank building, line up (tallest in the middle) in two rows, wait for the conductor, and begin. Peter Allen’s ‘Tenterfield Saddler’. Since it was a dwarf choir, there were no sopranos, or altos, or basses, just thirteen flattish, mostly out-of-tune tenors. They reminded Mark of sheep: the protests they made as they were moved by angry dogs. Nuts and broken pretzels in a stale mix. He grinned and whispered to his new wife, ‘Fuck.’

  She refused to acknowledge him.

  ‘Check out the fat one in the front.’

  He was an old dwarf, dressed for the forge. They’d just watched him (standing on a fruit box) hammering away at a horseshoe.

  Susan said, ‘So?’

  But he didn’t reply.

  The singers were lusty, determined, but Mark was only getting what he came for. ‘This is possibly the worst choir I’ve ever heard.’

  Which wasn’t saying much. Mr Loussier had made him sing in the Year Five Mixed, but since then, nothing. Still, this was entertaining enough. A selection of the little people, from the little town, giving their all. A Sovereign Hill Carnival, minus the history, scholarship, humbugs, mines, café. Everything, really. Although Shearwater ‘Aussie’ Dwarf Village had other joys. The History of Aussie Dwarfism interactive display, in which conventionally statured visitors (adult entry $15.50, including tea and coffee) could reach for groceries on nine-foot-high supermarket shelves, use more fruit boxes to reach public phones, ride on oversized bikes, run for simulated buses, risk getting hit by cardboard cars whose drivers refused to look down, and on it went.

  Susan wasn’t enjoying the day at all. It seemed like a silly idea. Finding an old town (Shearwater’s mining days were well and truly over) and converting it into a tacky themed village for … she wasn’t even sure what they were called. In fact, she wasn’t comfortable at all. Paying five dollars (extra) for a boy dwarf to tap dance in the foyer of the former town hall. An expensive two minute clunk for them, a family with a few bored teenagers, an old couple with mints and socks up past their knees. ‘Can we go?’ she asked.

  ‘We just got here.’

  ‘It’s so … tasteless.’

  ‘Rubbish. We’re supporting them. This is how they make a living.’

  She couldn’t see that this was so, and if it was, was right. Who’d heard of a dwarf village in the Australian wheatbelt? Was it even legal? Hadn’t Today Tonight done a piece? Hadn’t there been protests? What if there was one now, and they were filmed, and family and friends saw them on the telly coming out of Shearwater? This was the sort of thing she normally protested about, but here she was, and why? Because of Mark saying: ‘This Shearwater place, let’s have a look.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. And we’d be supporting them.’

  But she’d known better. Mark, with his search for the under-breath, nasally-dispelled laugh. ‘I know why you want to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You arse.’

  The choir finished, and wandered off, and each man, woman and child returned to their job.

  4.00: Weaving display

  There was a loom, set up in the old school, and three women worked it. They were dressed in old-fashioned bonnets, aprons, long dresses, leather shoes. Mark whispered, ‘Look how small their feet are.’

  Susan shook her head.

  He smiled. ‘Little dwarf feet. So cutesy-cute dwarf feet.’

  His new wife was staring at him, wondering.

  ‘What?’

  One of the women approached them. ‘Weaving has always been a way for us to make a living.’

  Mark didn’t understand. Why weaving? Was it because they’d always been locked away, denied proper employment, shunned by their respective communities? But he didn’t think there was any point asking.

  The woman said, ‘Here at Shearwater we make cardigans, jumpers, and sell them.’

  Susan tried her best. ‘In Myer?’

  ‘Selected outlets.’

  She didn’t know what this meant. ‘And this loom, has it been modified?’

  ‘Yes. See, the raised pedals. It all began in Manchester, a hundred years ago.’

  Mark didn’t think this sounded right. The mills had all closed by then.

  ‘This machine is original. My great-great-grandmother wove on it.’

  And he thought, How? Manchester? Disassembled? Sent to Shear­water? It didn’t add up.

  Susan asked, ‘How many jumpers can you make in a day?’

  ‘Three, four. Sometimes rugs, and sheets. Pillowcases. Whatever people want.’

  Mark did the maths. Three. How could that keep them going? ‘Must be hard competing with cheaper, imported stuff.’

  ‘Not really. People support us.’

  And he thought, Feel sorry for you. But that was false economy. And couldn’t last. Like everything at Shearwater, it was founded on an incorrect assumption. Still, it was a bizzaro Sunday afternoon out, and only two hours from town. Close enough to work in a few wineries on the way.

  They continued their tour. Down the main street, its old fish shop a new fish shop, the teenagers sitting at an empty table. They went in, ordered Chiko Rolls, sat down and waited. Watched as the girls loaded the fryer, dropped it into the oil, talked about Uncle Murray. ‘After this, can we go?’ Susan asked.

  ‘No.’

  She wasn’t even sure what she’d married. What was this streak? She’d been noticing it more since their wedding. As they drove past Aborigines drinking in Conrad Square. He’d slow, and study them, and say, ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They just sleep all day, like sloths.’

  ‘They don’t sleep all day.’

  ‘Well, what are they doing?’

  ‘Sobering up.’

  ‘They’re not. Look, flagons, casks. I don’t get it. And look, their kids are there, playing. Why aren’t they in school? Look at that woman, she can’t even stand up.’

  ‘Why don’t you go help?’

  ‘What am I g
onna do?’

  She’d look in his eyes and see what it really was. He hated them. Letting his disgust bake, before he removed it from the oven, and continued with his six-figure town-planner existence.

  The Chiko Rolls were served, and bitten into, but weren’t cooked, and he complained, and the girls said they could put them back in the fryer, but he said, ‘Don’t bother, I’m not hungry anymore.’

  4.30: Feeding the animals

  They watched as two men fed pigs and chooks from buckets of scraps. They scattered the food, and the animals came running. One man said, ‘Shearwater is entirely self-sufficient. We butcher our own sheep, and cattle, and pigs. The meat is processed, packaged and frozen, and sold in town.’

  Mark wondered why they’d come so far to see animals being fed. It wasn’t like it was a distinctly dwarf activity. You didn’t have to be short to look after animals. One of the pigs was as big as one of the men. This, he guessed, was worth the price of admission. He wanted to take a picture but when he took out his camera Susan poked him in the side. ‘What?’

  ‘I know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I wanna get a snap.’

  ‘Of the pig?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Because?’

  She was giving him the shits. Why couldn’t she play along, have a laugh? Like the inhabitants of Shearwater, life was short, and had to be enjoyed. It wasn’t like he was laughing at them. They’d started the place. Dressed as ballerinas (even the men). Organised weddings. Invited the controversy. He was just supporting them. They were the ones who looked like something out of Dickens. What did that have to do with being a dwarf? Really, they hadn’t thought it through. They were, he guessed, their own worst enemies. But, he deferred. Switched off his camera and waited while the pigs ate.

  Susan was getting an uneasy feeling. Not about the little people—they were just trying to get by. She was having flashes. As they walked down Hyland Street. The old man with his trolley full of sacks of cans and bottles. The way her husband looked at him, moved, turned and stared as he passed. Saying, ‘I wonder where he sleeps.’

  ‘Probably in an alleyway somewhere.’

  ‘His clothes are black. He’s probably never washed them, or himself. Do you think?’ Looking at her. ‘He’s probably covered in sores. I can’t believe, in this day and age, people still live like this.’