The Chantic Bird

by David Ireland

  After I gave up working, I lived around in any place I could get shelter, as long as no one knew where I was or who I was. I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t suited to live with people, not too close to them, anyway. The truth is, I don’t actually like people. Only Bee and the kids. I didn’t pick on the Zoo for any reason—I just happened to think of it.

  I found this good place to hide, you can find it if you look in the part south of the dingoes, north of the snakes and tigers, east of the deer. I won’t tell you what it’s west of, or you’ll have me pinpointed.

  It’s lucky I can sleep anywhere. That place wasn’t made for comfort.

  I’ve started having these coloured dreams. Last night a whole dream flashed in front of my eyes and stayed there. There was no one in it, no action; that was the funny part. I was looking from out on the water onto a golden shore that bent round in half a circle. Everything else, water below and sky above, was deep brown, warm brown. The shore was one long flash of bright gold from end to end. That was all. I think I had a buzzing in the ears, but I’m not sure. It stayed a while; it didn’t fade, it just turned off like a light and that was it. Only the two colours. I’d never had them in colour before.

  Actually there’s someone after me. I don’t know who it is, or where he comes from, only that wherever I go I see him. He might be dressed differently each time but I know when I’m being followed. What saves me is I’m always on the move.

  I stopped taking orders at six, when I found I could outrun Ma. I fixed the old man, too. I pepped up his tobacco with some sort of ash you get when you burn honeysuckle wood. He hated this wood on the fire, it smelled strong, but when he was yelling at me I was laughing inside: he was smoking it in his lungs. When there was no work—he used to sell insurance but the brethren didn’t like that so he gave it up just when a little depression hit us; beg pardon—recession—when he couldn’t get pick and shovel or process work we both used to caddy at the golf links. I had to call him Bob so no one would know he was my father.

  That’s just by the way, but how about that for a religion? The Plymouth Rocks, I mean. I wonder if they use insurance for their lolly factories, or if it’s still sinful. Because if you watch these religions, you find that sins change. But that’s not important.

  What I’d like to know is, who got Ma’s photos when they took her away? She was paralysed, so she couldn’t have taken them. They were in a flat, wooden box, covered with flowered paper. Reddy brown. I’ll tell you this, I was so mad about everything, the house and all and being the oldest and getting shunted off to work at fifteen, I went and put a handful of white ants under the house, just to give it a kick along. It was falling to pieces, but not fast enough. You know how old houses take years to die. I’m ashamed of it now, because I have to look after the house. And the kids. The others, the next oldest kids, they left when Ma left and I’ve got Stevo, Chris and little Allie.

  I haven’t actually got them. This girl, her name is Bee as far as anyone is concerned, she came to the house one day and started to do the cooking for the littlies. She wouldn’t do any for me, all I had to do was get the food or the money for it and she cooked it. I don’t live there, either, I only visit. Except when I hide in the ceiling. The kids started to pick up as soon as she came.

  There’s something the matter with me. I don’t know what it is, I just have the feeling that something inside me isn’t working properly. And if you notice a sort of lumpy feeling about this book, that’s the way I told it. In lumps. I’m not much good at continuous work, I’m a bit stop and go.

  Just the same, I’d like it to be skilful, brilliant and colourous. But what will it be at the end? A tale told by nobody.

  I often think that. When the thought first struck me I went out and put the axe through the wood-bucket. In one hit. I had to bend the edges straight again later. I didn’t want Bee or the kids to get cut.

  Great dung-heaps are the earliest things I can remember. Heaps of horse-dung as big as mountains. That was at Rosehill. Pinching my finger in a gate, getting lost at Manly, falling down a lot of steps, chasing a duck round the house for Christmas, looking over a fence at schoolkids, hitting a ball at Castle Hill, and Ma running about with a breadknife in her jumper screaming for the old man to put an end to her. There’s nothing to do in a Zoo but lay down and remember things, once you’ve seen all the animals. You can go out and get tuckered up any time; there’s kiosks around with stocks of food and there’s the big shed where they cut up the meat for the animals.

  I remember the milk tap I turned on in old Bay Road, the milko chased me all the way home and I wet my pants when he caught me. I must have been young then. I was so ashamed of it—getting caught—that I went out next day and lit the vacant block. This time there was no one to chase me, I watched the fire from the mangroves in Abbotsford Bay. The old man moved us around a lot then, one step ahead of the rent and the doctors’ bills.

  I can just hear the sound of a woman’s dress brushing the cement. Now it’s brushing the creeper growing on the walls. She’s moving away. I usually stop what I’m doing when I hear someone close. And keep my mouth open. You can hear better with your mouth open. And breathe quieter. That’s the way you get, like an animal, but it keeps your hidey-hole secret. Not like when old Ware dragged me out of his grapevines, the first time I was ever caught. It took me years to get even with him as he was coming home from the old Hampden Hotel, but I didn’t forget. I didn’t take his pay, just slammed his thick old head into a light pole. He slept on the footpath the rest of the night; they had no police patrols there.

  I remember the first movie I ever saw when I was a kid, and how the horses jumped over me and how I ducked my head, down between the seats of the old Victory at Five Dock. You could smell the women’s feet, with their shoes off—not exactly rotten, just sharp. The smell of some of these Zoo cages is like the smell the possums make in our roof, and the smell I caught under the big rock where I followed a porcupine with my little tommyhawk. The right name is echidna, but I like to use the name I like.

  There are some ants running on the skin of old Sir Edward’s cement, it’s thin and you can hear anything that touches it. The rusty reinforcing wire pokes out through it in places, I like the colour of rust. There’s some skin on skin, someone passing, rubbing his face maybe. It sounds like a man’s face…

  Lying back here thinking. These animals are no use. It’s cruelty, that and the dollar sign. The first sheep I ever killed had milk in its chest, so I suppose that was cruelty too. But a man has to eat, or at least he does from a man’s point of view. Dogs don’t ask whether they deserve to eat. My old man had two cattle dogs, they were too big to be given names and they scared everyone for miles. I know how to kill a big dog, so they don’t bother me now, but they did when I was young.

  Who got the hardest hits of the horsewhip? I’ll tell you who. Who had to get rid of Gyppo’s pups? I did. I didn’t have to shoot them, but I wanted it to be messy so the others would realise what they were getting out of, not having to do it themselves. Who had to take Gyppo along to the vet? And who had to pay the bill, with the vet writing complaining letters about having to light the furnace at midnight? It was always me. Who had to stuff up the cracks in the old man’s room and burn sulphur in there to kill the germs after they took him? Me. I can remember when my only friend was our old scarred white cat, the greatest dog-scarer north of the Parramatta.

  These thoughts made me miserable, so I got up and went over the wall. On the way I stopped to wave the wand about and to heave some rocks down into the bush at the south-west corner of the Zoo park. I suppose they’ll have a drive against me soon.

  When I turned seven I legally became a delinquent. Before that, all they can do is tell your mother.

  I went back to the house to see Bee and the kids.

  Stevo was standing in the kitchen when I got there. I waited outside to listen, like I always did. I don’t believe in barging in; often you find you’re not wanted.
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  Stevo was standing still looking at Bee. You couldn’t get past that look. You’d think he was made of stone. Like a park statue. Still, it’s no use making a mystery out of it, he was just a little kid and I’ll be satisfied if he looks at me and takes me for what I am, too. In the kitchen I heard a cup chime. Bee always did that with her spoon on the lip of the cup. There was the sound of a greaseproof foodwrap; she must have been cutting some lunch for them for tomorrow.

  When I looked back at Stevo he had a banana in his fist, peeled and sticky. He’d been washing it.

  ‘I can’t get the sticky off, Mum,’ he said. ‘I can’t even get it off wid soap and water.’ Bee grabbed the banana and washed Stevo’s hands.

  ‘I’ve got a headache in my tummy,’ he complained, just to hog all the attention.

  ‘Never mind your tummy. I’ll get you some meddi for that.’ She manipulated a brown bottle and a spoon, while he clamped his lips together.

  ‘Say cat,’ said Bee.

  ‘I’m busy,’ said Stevo, but she got the medicine down him.

  ‘My better now,’ he said after one teaspoon. ‘Lollies make me better, too,’ he added hopefully.

  ‘No lollies. Bad for your teeth,’ she said, like a mother. Only she wasn’t his mother. After I got them out of the home at Ashfield all thin and beaten up, I told them Bee was their mother. That was good enough. I haven’t finished with the keepers at that home yet. I’ve been picking them off one by one. Not killing, just little things like running them under, waiting for them round corners. It keeps you very busy, getting even.

  The other littlies were pretty quiet. She had them eating. Stevo was still in the toilet. Bee got mad, and when she hurried him he was addressing his little old feller.

  ‘Nice little wee-wees. Come on, little wee-wees, have some dinner.’

  ‘Will you please get in and sit down!’ she yelled. Stevo looked up at her with sympathy.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, very understanding. ‘You do poohies. You feel better when you do poohies.’ She couldn’t help laughing then. Neither could I, so I went in to say hullo.

  I always felt a bit sorry for Stevo. There was a lot I could have told him and taught him, but the time never seemed to be right, or he had to go to bed, or have his tea. I always liked going back to the house, except that Bee seemed a bit nervous while I was there. I could never stay long. I sat on the big bed on the verandah, the one I used to sleep in with one of my brothers that died. I sat there, talking to the kids, listening to the birds’ feet scrape on the iron roof. But I have to admit it, there was never really much to talk to them about, even Stevo, so I asked him about the Chantic Bird just for something to say.

  He was full of the Chantic Bird. I asked Bee what was the strength of it, but all she’d say was that it was a story Stevo liked and he wanted to tell it to me. But I never seemed to have time to listen.

  Most of the time I could do as I liked to people, as if they were stones to be thrown or bottles to be broken. Objects, that’s it! Just things. But anytime I wanted I could feel what was happening to the people I damaged; anytime. I just had to let myself go and there it was, grade A sympathy just pouring out.

  But hating isn’t loving; you can’t turn them off and on so fast, so the damage I did and the sympathy I turned on couldn’t be either hating or loving.

  When Bee passed close to you, there was a cool smell from her hair. It made me think of spring nights and the freesias in the grass banks by the side of the roads and the dark leaves and the scent of the pittosporum that you get when you walk round a lot at night like I do. With the smell of her in my nose I sloped out of there. I hardly recognised the sound of the underfoot stones as the sound I made; I was still on about the smell of her. It was pretty good just going in the room with her and breathing her air.

  I walked away remembering the warning we’d had from one of the new people that moved in the street; they only had the story we’d given the kids, they thought we were their parents. They warned Bee, not me, about breeding like rabbits. They didn’t have any kids themselves, so I don’t think they worried Bee. She came from a big family, like I did. I didn’t do anything to those people, it was too near home. I wasn’t always there to fix any trouble.

  It was dark. I passed over a spot in the yard where something moved. I just had to sneak back into the house and get my rifle and blast it, but it was only an old mother bandicoot. When I turned it over with my foot the babies were struggling to get out of it; all the skin along its stomach was torn open. For Bee’s sake I trod on them and shoved them under a rock; I didn’t want her to have to look at sights like that. It might put her off later when she had her own babies. She was used to me blasting away, so she didn’t ask what I shot. Come to think of it, she probably thought I missed, but she didn’t like to say so. Girls often think you’re no good at things, when you really are.

  And even if you prove it they never believe you.

  Up the street I thought of my old grandmother and how she used to walk miles, when she was alive, just to get apples a bit cheaper. That took me back to my great-grandfather who was supposed to have got his eye torn out in a fight in Pitt Street and clapped it back in his head and chased the man that did it. That was before this century. My old man told me that one. We still had the eye in the family, because when he had to get a glass eye—the other one was never any good even though he clapped it back in—he put his real eye in a bottle with some metho before it went bad. It’s still in the family. You have to change the metho now and again. At least they told us kids it was the same eye. The others may have got Ma’s photos but I got the eye.

  I’d been dawdling along, until I suddenly found myself running. That was me, running or dawdling. I could keep running for a long time. I felt pretty strong. There was rain, grizzling in the gutters and getting guzzled down the drains.

  I get ideas when I’m running. The idea I got this time was to do what I’d seen two men in Hyde Park doing. One sort of kept looking around while the other one knelt down by this sailor who was drunk, and turned him over gently and took all the money out of his pockets and the watch off his wrist and a ring off his finger that had a square black stone in it. I was only a small child when I saw that, but it made a big impression on me. It looked such an easy way to get something for nothing. So what I did, I waited outside the old Railway Hotel at Hornsby—it was a bit of a bloodhouse then before they knocked it down and built it up again—until closing time. I saw a prospect picking his way carefully and at great length down the top steps to the footpath. He wasn’t out of the pub fifty yards before he wanted to use the gutter as a toilet. I was behind him, but just as I hit him his head rolled to one side as if the wires were a bit slack.

  Do you know that funny moment when you’re mad in a rage and you bash out at someone and it all goes funny before your eyes and you think you’re going blind? The old brain seems to shift and twist and you can’t see what you’re looking at? Well, I suppose everyone knows what I mean; everyone gets mad.

  I hit him then. Properly. Several times, it was. Maybe a few dozen good hits. I didn’t forget to get his money, but he had no watch. I had to wipe my hands on his coat and at the finish there was so much blood and slobber everywhere I had to take out my thing to wash it off my hands and down the gutter. I hosed him down a bit, too, part out of spite, I reckon, and part to tidy his face up a bit so anyone who passed by would only think he was a drunk gone to sleep and leave him alone. I suppose it was anti-social, but your family has to come before the filthy public.

  Bee got a bit extra that week to buy fruit for the kids. I told her to get herself a haircut out of the rest, she was always pushing this goldy colour hair out of her eyes. But that wasn’t right away; after I’d rolled my first drunk I got back to the Zoo.

  All round Sydney lights were on, all the people were sitting up in millions of houses filling in insurance policies on their fowls, their wrought-iron railings, concrete paths, light globes, their health, f
uneral expenses, borers, carpets, insuring against loss of work, loss of clothes, loss of conjugal rights, loss of money, loss of friends. I wonder if they had policies that could protect them from me.

  I kept on like that for a few days, getting a bit here and there, quite a bit in fact, but something happened in the Zoo that got me kicked out. They didn’t actually kick me out, but if they caught me they would have.

  These people were looking round the Zoo, at the animals, making happy noises and plenty of litter with milk cartons, soft drink cans, lolly papers, sandwich crusts, and there was a kid there younger than me, about fourteen I’d say, a girl, with darker hair than Bee’s and boy, was she pretty. She was that dark sort that has to shave their legs a lot later and right then the hairs on her legs were starting to grow, she was about that age, but I didn’t worry too much about that, she had these beautiful red cheeks on her face. Apple-cheeks.

  I couldn’t help following them just to get a bit of a look at her now and then. You don’t have to worry, they didn’t notice me. But it got too much for me, and ever since I’d taught myself to roll a drunk I’d got more impulsive, if you understand me, and what did I do but buy a little bag of fruit and go up to her when she was a bit away from the others and give them to her. Or tried to, rather. I think I was even pleased that she said no thank you, that showed she wasn’t too cheap and likely to say yes to anyone. But I felt a fool having to eat the whole bag myself—a bag of apples—so I asked her again then sort of put them in her hands. She had brown eyes that the sun got into, the sun sort of got under the brown and shone them up very shiny.

  Well, they got too wide to be pretty. She started making loud screams and a lot of people took out after me. In twenty minutes everything was quiet again, I’d lost the chasers and the girl was looking in at the snake cages where the poor old snakes were having a snooze since their cages faced the sun. She even forgot the apples enough to start tapping the glass cages to wake up the snakes. I watched her, a bit disgusted; she tapped every cage. But I couldn’t forget those apple-cheeks. And until I left there I had the feeling I was being followed. Any minute I thought someone would come up behind me and say, ‘This is the one that raped that girl in the Zoo.’ I didn’t rape her, you know I didn’t, but everyone knows how these things get blown up when the public gets hold of them. They don’t care what happens to the original facts, they don’t even know if the original facts were facts.