The Chantic Bird

by David Ireland

  Old McCarthy spun round in my head, too. I laughed out loud when I remembered my old man telling me that mister Mac would kill himself carrying home those huge big logs on his shoulder. Because the old man died shortly after and old Mac went for years, and didn’t die before he was fifty, like my old man; he lived to be eighty. And he died running for a train.

  I was a bit sad that the old bunch of kids had broken up. We used to have these wars down the bush, you weren’t supposed to shoot to kill, just to aim near the enemy. Matter of fact, we made a rule to get a few hundred yards away so the bullets would have lost most of their punch if they hit. Just the same, there were always the smart ones that wanted to creep up. It made me pretty mad, because I never crept up on the others. I hate anything like that. I mean if I’d done it too, they probably wouldn’t have lasted beyond the first battle. They knew I could creep so no one could hear, I reckon they just relied on my good nature. Anyway, I was mad. I always regretted it later, but I shot one of the kids. The docs couldn’t take the lead out because it was too near his heart. He still carries it round in his chest.

  What with feeling sad for the old days, after I finished the altar wine and the fruit and the rabbit, I got a bit lonely, something I don’t often do. I went back to the house and asked Bee to fix my leg. She got me to sit on the table and put my foot, shoe and all, on her clean lap. But what got me, when she saw the gash, she gave a sort of gasp and looked worried. I was surprised, of course, but I was pleased too, in a way. It was like congratulations, to have her worried about me. The skin of her fingers was soft, and only about as warm as flowers growing in the sun.

  Sitting there like that reminded me of Ma and the times she fixed up my cuts when I was a kid, and along with her I thought of her Marie Stopes book that I used to read when I felt a bit down. Boy, what an artificial life my parents must have had. I used to laugh about that book, but I don’t think they did. Maybe they knew what they were doing when they had all of us, but I don’t think so.

  Stevo had his old Christmas cards out again. He used to keep whole piles of them from one year to the next. I leaned over his shoulder and read some for him and when he was slow turning them over I flicked over a few myself. But he knew what he wanted. He picked out a bundle and handed them to me. ‘You hab a read,’ he said. I was too fast for him. He went back to turning them over at his own pace. I liked that. He didn’t hesitate to rubbish me when I was wrong.

  He soon had an attack from another front. Allie was making for his cards.

  ‘Why are you blocking Bubby’s way?’ asked Bee.

  ‘Bubby going to make a ’stake,’ he said. Allie was not easy to turn back.

  ‘I’ll ring up the police…Indians will come…’ Stevo didn’t know what to say to impress her. ‘There’ll be tigers in the bush.’ But he had to give up. Nothing stopped Allie.

  Bee said to me, so Stevo could hear, ‘Elaine tells me the twins came home from Sunday school and said that God makes rain.’ That got to Stevo.

  ‘We don’t want any talk like that here.’ He had strong ideas on rain, ever since Bee tried to tell him about the sun and the clouds.

  ‘Turn the light off!’ he ordered me. ‘It’s wastefou!’ He was on the ball all right, I’d forgotten I flipped the switch. I wasn’t used to being ordered about, though. It reminded me of the kids’ games we used to play with the girl next door before her parents got her to play with some nicer friends.

  Bee told me Stevo had added some fantastic bits to his story of the Chantic Bird, ready to tell me. But just then, he wanted to go out and play with Chris in the pile of sand I got for them from the council job up the street. She fed me a cup of tea and some dry biscuits with tomato and salt, but I went before Stevo got back.

  I don’t know if you like being in the bush at night, but I do. There’s something pretty good in coming out of a place that’s dark and secret and leaving your mark on the people that hate the dark, then going back where they can’t follow you. I used to come out at night to fill in the trenches that the council dug in the daytime. Whenever I needed a few hours’ good slogging I’d take a spade from someone’s backyard and raise a sweat pushing dirt back in holes. There were always plenty of council holes. I bet they scratched their heads in the mornings. I think Bee had a good idea it was me; I bet she thought I was crazy. You couldn’t have got me to dig a hole in anyone’s garden, unless it was to bury something, or to look for treasure with Stevo.

  A worker came by while I was filling in. Practically everyone you see is a worker. Maybe he had been laying for me. Up to then the only company I had was an owl going by, giving the air soft thumps with his wings.

  ‘Say, son,’ he opened his speech. Son always impresses me.

  ‘Son, we’re trying to get the ruddy council finished here. They’ve been digging in our street for weeks. What you’re doing will only prolong their mess.’ I made my usual signs that I was deaf and pretty soon he went away. They always do. I liked to think it was my face helped me, and my sincere manner, but it was probably only the spade, which was pretty sharp and flashed cheerfully in the light from the nearest light-pole.

  I got another interested visitor. A kid from one of the local gangs fancied himself as a spotter and tried to creep up on me while I was digging. I slipped into the trench and got round behind him. I felt vicious enough to backhand him from here to Stockinbingal and back. My chest had that relaxed feeling.

  You can’t be hurt when you’re bashing at something. When you shot a kero tin in the air and punch it coming down, you call an extra toughness out of the air. I only hit him a few times, then I gave it away for the night. I tossed the spade over the nearest fence and off. They can keep their gangs, I won’t be regimented. There’s no freedom doing what someone else decides.

  I used to have a little trick that impressed the neighbours when I got wood for the old man. I’d take the old Kelly axe and trim up one of the coachwood trees, at least that’s what I called them. A thirty-foot log about a foot through was light as a feather when it was nice and dry. The inside of it smelled like a perfume and the grain wavy and shiny.

  As I went back into the bush to sleep, all sorts of things came up to the surface of my mind, things I thought I’d forgotten. The dead cat in the bush pool, all white and skinned. The first time I ever thought how lonely it was to die away somewhere where no one could bury you… And my mother dying, with my sister crying and yelling; she thought I was a ghoul for wanting to hold Ma’s hand while she went.

  ‘Do you want to hear the very last breath?’ she yelled at me. Yes, I did. But you couldn’t answer someone in that state. Ma was in a coma, but you never know, she might have had a little flash before that last breath, and she might have been glad there was someone to hold her hand steady.

  I was an early bird once. There was a Jubilee or something when I was a kid and all our class got dressed up in pink galah outfits. Pink and grey. All except me and another kid, we were too poor to afford the costumes, so we minded the bags and lunches. We were the only ones to eat our lunches, we ate them straight away, while the others were in the showground. When they got back, everything had melted and all their sandwich fillings run. It was a very hot day.

  You sure you want all these things I remember? OK, but don’t blame me for the way they look.

  Bee told me that one of her friends reckoned I was the one that used to take Missus Major to the vacant block and fill her with brown muscat, but it wasn’t me. I never went near her, it was big Mac.

  I still can’t forget chasing that turkey round the house at Rosehill. Or was it a duck? I think it was a turkey. When you’ve chased something and you’re just about to clobber it, you get a moister feeling in your mouth. Did you ever notice it? It must have been a turkey. I hit old Roy’s kid with a stone once, he was a cheeky kid, and old Roy came down the bush after me with the rest of them. I ended up chasing them home with rocks. I wish I could throw a rock now like I could then, when I was young.

 
I got back to my little spot of shelter and pulled my blanket of branches over me and while I dropped off to sleep there was this sentence I heard going round in my head, from the woman next door. ‘Why doesn’t he get drunk—like a man?’ I couldn’t make out if it was about me or not. She didn’t realise it was dangerous to get drunk, it depended where you did it. Some of the fellows I know, you don’t want to get drunk near them. They’d bottle you for two bob if they thought you were half shot.

  Next day I nearly killed a swaggie. Round near Name cave he was sleeping, and unluckily for him I was thinking of a pig I killed once and how when it was on its side, dead, it gave a kick and opened my leg to the bone, and I was feeling so mad with that pig that I almost picked up a rock and smashed the swaggie’s head in. For a moment I got him mixed up with that pig. I don’t know what stopped me, but I couldn’t help smiling to see him sleeping so near a track. His mouth was open, like an old man’s—he was an old man—and flies were round it and in it too.

  This memory of mine is a funny thing; I couldn’t tell you what I had for tea last night, but if someone looked at me sideways ten years ago, I’d remember that. I had nothing much to do then, so when I saw a brown snake I chased it. Brown snakes can certainly move, did you ever chase one? Well, after about forty yards it was hard to tell who was doing the chasing. All of a sudden it went to ground under a tuft of grass and I knew it must have been me that chased it.

  I got to thinking about all the things I remembered, sitting on a favourite rock of mine above Lorna Pass, and I must have gone to sleep. I had another coloured dream. I was being chased along this narrow track in the bush, it must have been at the bottom of a valley, ’cause there were fallen logs across the track and it was very cool and the air felt wet. The colours of the dream were green and brown and I fell down on the ground and the man chasing me had a rifle and I crouched on the damp earth for a spell while he took aim and put a bullet through my head. The funny thing was, I felt the bullet go in. I woke up, feeling very cold, yet I was wet with sweat. Green and brown, and I can’t remember who shot me.

  I got out of there but it wasn’t my day. When I got near the spot where I shot the pups, I just forgot to watch where I put my feet. The next thing, I trod right on where I’d buried them. There was movement under my foot and looking down I saw the maggots. And a patch of damp brown fur.

  I walked with more care after that, even though I’d passed the only spot where I’d buried anything, and I suppose the pups and the dream and the snake and the swaggie with the flies were all on my mind, ’cause next thing I found I was talking to myself.

  ‘I know I didn’t visit the old man until it was too late, but neither did you. Any of you.’ The people I was talking to weren’t exactly there, yet in a way they were.

  I stopped for a drink at Roach’s pool. The water comes down through the veins of the hill and bleeds into the little old space behind the patted cement retaining wall, just enough to give you a good drink. On all sides the ground sloped down to the pool, with a rock track down on one side through the sandstone walls of the gully. It was an ideal place to set a trap for someone. Maybe, a hundred years ago, some settler with the pioneering spirit baited some steak with arsenic so the blackfellows would get the idea they weren’t wanted. Come to that, you could have shot them, in safety, as they had a drink at the pool. As I bent down to drink like a lizard I felt strangely vulnerable. When I got up to the main track on the flat at the top of the hill I thought I saw the ranger. Not old Roach; he’s dead. Then I knew those other things, the dream, the snakes and all, were a warning; he’d been tracking me. I didn’t want him to see my face, so I ran. So did he, but I lost him easily. I hope he didn’t see my face. If he did, he’d better not pester Bee and the kids; I get very protective about those kids. When I think of them.

  4

  CEMETERY

  You won’t want to know me when you hear this chapter. I was living in the cemetery at the time, but all I’d had for a day or two was potatoes, so I sneaked back to Bee’s house. If you’re quiet enough, you can get in anywhere, people always have their doors open in the daytime; everyone seems to think there’s something about the daylight that’s more innocent than the dark. Don’t believe them.

  Anyway, I was in the ceiling having a bit of a listen to the littlies getting used to being alive, waiting for a few hours to pass so I could turn up in time for dinner. Nothing more than that, I wouldn’t hurt Bee. Those kids were characters.

  Don’t get me wrong; you can get a good feed any time you like, any place. But it was fun listening to Stevo, he and Chris were actually practising talking, and laughing to each other. Now and then there’d be a yell and Bee’s voice would appear on the sound track.

  ‘Who did that?’ she’d say.

  ‘Sum buddy,’ Stevo would answer and both would laugh. When Chris trod on his hand, he said gallantly, ‘My hand won’t hurt, Mum. I eat pickles.’ Food made strength straightaway for Stevo.

  I could see him transferring Bee’s brown sugar from the basin to the lid. From the lid it went you know where. If he was caught, he’d say he was cleaning the lid. After a bit, he said, ‘I’m a little bit upset, Mummy.’

  ‘Why are you a little bit upset?’

  ‘’Cause I want to be a little bit upset.’ He just wasn’t game to own up.

  The usual thing happened and he wet his pants. He got the stick for that.

  ‘Just a little stick,’ said Bee with a coaxing voice.

  ‘Lilly stick!’ he yelled as she hit his legs, and he hopped about, crying a bit.

  ‘Lift me up, Mummy. You’re a big girl now.’ I could have listened all day.

  When Bee took them out for the afternoon walk, she made sure the kids went to the toilet first. But Stevo had some idea of being equal.

  ‘Mummy wee-wees, too.’ She laughed. It was a nice sound.

  I got down through the manhole while they were out, and when Bee got back to do the ironing, there I was. She was never surprised to see me. She told me, soon as she clapped eyes on me, that Stevo was pretty upset that I walked out on him last time when he wanted to tell me his story. She said I should listen, because he looked up to me.

  After being so close to Bee that I could have talked in a whisper and had her hear me, I just had to have a woman. Bee looked so good you could eat her. I bet if there was no religious prejudice against eating people there’d be a lot of killings. I’ve seen people with the sort of meat on them that you’d never find on a bullock or a smelly old sheep, although I think someone you liked would taste better than someone whose guts you hated. But that’s no good, you’d only kill the ones you liked. I feel peculiar when I even think of hurting Bee, not that I don’t think of it, but I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t. What I meant was what about all the famous lovers? They practically eat one another, what with kissing and slobbering and biting. To hear about them, you’d think there wasn’t any part of your girl friend that you couldn’t put on a plate with potato and peas.

  Anyway, there I was back in the cemetery on the prowl. If you want to hear better and breathe quieter, the thing to do is open your mouth and breathe through it. You’d be surprised how many people have given themselves away with the sound of their breathing. And you’d be amazed if you knew how many times I’ve got away from someone simply by hearing them a few seconds before they heard me. I’m not exaggerating.

  I’ve heard a person’s eyelids click. And I thought I was caught once, but what I could have sworn was a man muttering as he was about to grab me, was only two trees rubbing.

  When I went prowling I often thickened up my eyebrows, wore a few extra clothes in case I had to shed some to get away, or else wore a leather jacket. You’d be surprised how frightened people are of a leather jacket. Kids dressed in leather get the blame for all sorts of things.

  Mind you, I only had a go at the sheilas that needed a bit of excitement. Except when the young ones looked too good to miss. The one I got that day in the cemetery wasn�
��t too good-looking, in fact some people might say she was a bag. She was short and a bit wide. You’d call her a thick girl. You felt her thighs were rubbing together under the dress material.

  She was one of those that can wreck a pair of shoes in one day; you know, they’re all over on one side with foot spilling everywhere and toes and heels roughed up. But she was a girl. Under her stringy hair, which was a sort of beige colour, she had this round face which was much the same colour. Come to think of it, her dress was beige, too.

  Her legs were prickly where she had shaved, and I’d say she had about four days’ growth of stubble. Still, she was a girl. She didn’t have to shave her face, and that was a relief. She reminded me of a girl called Jean I knew when I was in Russell Lea kindergarten. Every afternoon we used to chew up wheat grains and make a sort of chewy mixture. It was great fun. Every afternoon for a week or two, I mean. I must have been one then, or five; some age like that.

  She didn’t yell much. She was probably used to being attacked in the cemetery, lots of people hang around Rookwood. She even tried to kiss me. I didn’t like that because she had food around her teeth, where the teeth go into the gums, and as I sort of turned away, my elbow caught her on the side of the chops, and she got upset and lay face down, having a bit of a sob.

  So just to round off what I actually meant to be a sexual attack, I got out my runny old Biro and wrote on her backside, ‘Neglected, exposed to moral danger’. She asked me what the words were and I said, ‘I love you’. The words didn’t come out too clearly because I hate saying ‘love’ and I always say it pretty softly, but she didn’t seem to doubt me. If she had asked me why there were more letters than you need to write I love you, I was going to say I went over the letters a couple of times, but she didn’t ask me. Two beetles on the ground joined up end to end, looking in opposite directions. Doing it because something inside commanded them. I tried not to think of my own parents.