The Chantic Bird

by David Ireland

  I had to run a bit to catch up to the black dog, but it was worth it. Five or six overhead swings with the axe stopped the noise. I dragged the black dog by the feet down into the soft ground right down the back and buried him near where I tried to grow a potato patch. There was three feet of soil there before you hit the clay. He went in easy. When I got back near the house I put the rock back with the red side down on the ground. There was no sense upsetting Bee. There were no neighbours’ heads in sight, I guess they heard the shots, but they were used to that.

  ‘What did you do out there?’ Bee said.

  ‘I didn’t do anything. Higgins did it.’ I sat down as if nothing had happened, but all the time I had the bad feeling in my chest coming and going. It wasn’t so violent, but it was there most of the time, as if the blood couldn’t find the proper way round the circuit and was trying to bulldoze its way back in the wrong direction, and getting all tumbled and swirled about in the process.

  I didn’t let anyone see there was something going on. I told the kids the story about the white-foot cat with the black fur, he was a sort of hero among the cats we had, every day there’d be a big rat or a bandicoot brought up to the house with its insides missing. Every few sentences I had to stop a bit, there was something stopping the air getting into my chest. Maybe it wasn’t the air, I’m not a doctor, but if it wasn’t the air it was blood, and I was starving for it.

  While I was going on about the famous black and white cat there was a sound of whistling like an eagle in the roof. In the mood I was in I was ready to think it was all sorts of things, but really I knew it was a possum. When they were bad in the roof, before Bee came there, they used to wet down through the ceiling and the smell was just like a human’s when he’s getting sick with something; it was a nutty, strong smell. I never forget smells.

  Suddenly, sitting there with the kids and telling them stories and knowing I’d probably be there for a while if Bee didn’t kick me out, I felt I could live forever. If only it wasn’t for internal weaknesses. I hit my chest, though, and I could feel blood and things swirling around. I put the kids off, and helped Bee get them to bed. She was a colossal organiser and made allowance for my help, so I didn’t feel I was in the way. Anyone else would have told me to shoot through.

  A few distant shells out Ingleburn way whumped and thumped and made me think whether I would give everyone a break and join up, but when I thought how useless it was to be fighting for our government, with no one’s heart in it and just shooting because the leaders couldn’t think of anything more to say, I gave it away. It wasn’t like one man going in and getting something out of it, shooting when he felt like it and stopping when he wanted to. Suppose it’s not very modern to hate teams and leaders, but that’s the way of it. Maybe that’s why I’m getting out of the crowds.

  Bee was trying to take an interest in the world, at that stage. Always she had books around the place; I think she wasn’t too satisfied with just going on living from day to day, she must have wanted to get out of the place, even if only inside a book. She nearly killed me with the expression on her face when I didn’t know what Overkill meant.

  Then she revived me with the sound of a tiny spoon chiming on her cup lip. I tried picking up her books and reading them, but I couldn’t stand being glued in the one place for a long time; I could sit in the roof all night, but I couldn’t read a book. I suppose it was because the book was trying to do something to me. I wouldn’t have minded a book about some thin Australian hero dreaming of the bludging days gone by, standing in a pub, ordering ‘Schooner a fifty…’ That sort of thing.

  She never said so, but I think she believed in progress and human betterment and all that. I think it’s rubbish. We’re no worse than our ancestors that stood stupidly at the mouth of a cave grumbling about the weather, but I reckon we haven’t changed. We just do different things with our hands and say different words. I didn’t say that to her, there was no sense in arguing with her for fun. There’s a big enough wall between us now as it is.

  I kept thinking, while I was cooped up inside the house, that I could hear a gate. I couldn’t tell if it was opening or shutting. It was just making a noise. Maybe I should have taken its hint when I first heard it. When it came to clearing up the tea things I came across some pumpkin seeds; perhaps I should have gone outside and planted them and not come back. I planted them anyway; there seemed something so easy about putting living things in the dirt and going away knowing their life would take over and some time later there would be growing things to eat. All for just putting them in dirt, and giving them a drink of water.

  We spoke together. She said, ‘I want to finish that book.’

  I said, ‘Here, you better take your book.’

  For some reason, she seemed pleased we spoke at the same time. It was a bit like old folks talking. It gave me a good feeling but I knew it wouldn’t last.

  For a while all I could hear was the sound of a book page. You know that dry, clean sound. I switched the TV on and saw the third movie I ever saw in my life, the Phantom of the Opera. That was years ago, and it was from right inside the theatre, not just underneath. I enjoyed that picture, because it made me glad to see poor Claude, all ugly through no fault of his own, scaring people to death and taking a beautiful girl down under the ground in a sort of cave. Boy, was I sorry to see him get it. So was a whole theatre full of other kids.

  It wasn’t so good on the TV, it didn’t scare you a bit.

  In the morning I hung round Stevo a bit, trying to hear the rest of the Chantic Bird story, but he snapped at me. I reckon he’d grown out of the Chantic Bird. Just when I was ready to hear it. Still, I guess he was waking up that you get no magic in this life; getting the big, rich, beautiful song out of the little grey bird is fairy story stuff.

  They had the early TV on then and the last thing I remember Stevo saying was to the man in one of the ads; ‘How would you know? You’re only a puppet!’ It was the same tone of voice he used to snap at me.

  The next time I saw him he was riding half a mile away with Diana, his girl friend. They were on big chestnut horses, ambling around the district, going away.

  I picked up one of his school compositions from the little shelf where he had his books, it was called

  ‘A dead Lizid. In the holidays we went shooting rabbits.

  In the way was a lizid. I shot him in the eye. He did a funny little dance before he was Dead.’

  For some reason, I don’t know, I folded the page and stuck it in my pocket. Now that I’ve given the kids a life and got them money, I can see them getting fatter and turning away from me. Or rather looking over my shoulder, past me at the world they think I stand for. I’ll go before they start avoiding me.

  This is nearly the end of that part of the story I’m going to let you hear about. It will be up and away for me soon. I know that in a lot of places there will be things I have left, things only I could have left. The world is not exactly as it was before me. That’s something.

  This funny memory is always with me. I can still see my brother in hospital, the same hospital where I had my appendix and tonsils out, and where we took Stevo for his burned leg. There was even an old man up one end of the James ward there dying at the same time as my young brother. It didn’t seem right for an old cow like that to live so long, but at least he was cheerful and my brother was pretty miserable. It turned out to be a man we’d all given a lot of lip to when we were kids. He didn’t seem to remember, though. I would have.

  The next morning we had Allie in bed and the other kids at school when some of Bee’s relatives came to the house. They knocked on the front door and since the main bedroom was in front we had to tumble out of bed and scat. Bee put on a dressing-gown and went to the door and told them she was in bed and not feeling very well and there was no news and the baby was asleep. I could hear from the way they spoke they suspected, but Bee got rid of them. I was sitting naked on the floor behind the door, you make less noise when you si
t down, there’s no bones to creak and you don’t breathe so often.

  A little kid came to the back door later on after a couple of eggs for its mother. I went for that one, without any clothes. The kid was too young to know, I reckon it had seen its father often enough not to worry. Bee’s dog Puddin’ was fighting with Stumpy, Stevo’s lizard and Gubby, the she-cat from next door, but they made very little noise so I didn’t worry Bee with it.

  Now there’s no interfering from Petersen, and he’s out of the book, I can tell you what I was really hiding: one of the kids is our kid, Bee’s and mine. Why should I tell old Petersen? I’d sooner have the rotten public know it than him, washing his hands in our private things. When Allie came, that was the only time I visited hospitals regularly. She was closer than parents and brothers. I’d see her in the viewing window, each day she’d be moved a place or two left, as more got born.

  The worst thought I have now is that some day even my little Allie’s eyes will let the darkness in.

  If there is no other life, why is this one so lousy?

  I did what I should have done a long time ago, and went after whoever it was that had been following me. At times I had thought it was imagination, but now I was sure there really was someone following me, watching, ready to pounce. Bee was reading a book about old British history and Boadicea and that gave me an idea about chariot wheels, so I got hold of another car from Russo’s and welded a two inch pipe cross-ways near the back bumper, underneath the car to the chassis. I rigged up a steel bar that I could slide in the pipe by throwing a lever sideways in the car, a steel bar with an edge that could rip open a car, tyres and all. It didn’t take me long to find the man that was following me. He was in a uniform, too, with a white shirt, tie and dark trousers. After I followed him a way I got ahead of him and came back the opposite direction. Russo’s car was a Dodge this time and it stood its ground well when the steel ripped open my pursuer’s car. Where it ripped along the side, the wind caught it and took it sideways right off the road.

  That gave them something to think about when they found it. They could add that to their statistics. But people just don’t understand that when bad things happen, it’s someone like me paying them back.

  No one looked like coming so I went to have a look at what I’d done. The side of the car had ripped and the wind had opened it up like a condensed milk tin and pushed it back sideways over the driver’s head. Unfortunately for him the edge of it had half scalped him, the skin and hair was all lifted up loose and he was taking no notice when I got there. Have you ever noticed when you prang a car there’s always rust under the paint? Rust under everything.

  Somewhere it had gone wrong. This man didn’t really look like he was following me, in fact allowing for the claret everywhere he looked a lot like a man I used to see on the train when I first went to work. I never spoke to him, but he just went to work and came back like all the rest. When you lived where we did and worked in the city, you always got home too late to do any work outside, if you were the kind that did that. And he did. I saw him with a fork or secateurs trying to make his garden the same as the other people in the street. And he did. There was no kind of point in a man like that following me. Actually he looked as if he might be just trying out his car, maybe he’d found a new thing to do instead of digging dirt. Tinkering with a car.

  I got out of there feeling a bit bad. Ditched the car and wiped everything with a gasoline rag. No marks, no smells. Gasoline kills all smells.

  Perhaps there had never been anyone following me. I must have made it up or something inside me had made it up because it knew I wanted to think someone was after me.

  But there should have been someone following me, all the same. I had done enough for an army to be following me. In a way, I felt pretty cheated; it took from the excitement of the last few months.

  One of my last actions in the house was to put the eye in new spirit and seal the lid so that it would keep forever in the ceiling. Or as long as forever is.

  I decided about then to give the family bit away. Give them a rest. Like a sort of Adam that they taught us about in scripture at school, I had got kicked out of where I was put, I had to waste a bit of time mucking about with one thing and another, I had to get mixed up with a woman… Now, with the kids starting to grow away from me, I could move on.

  I was sick of being at a loose end, I needed something to be attached to. Being free to go and do as you like isn’t enough. I suppose going west isn’t what you’d normally choose to do. Maybe I was called from over the hills. No. I’ve been pushed. Thinking there’s been someone following me, not knowing who it is. I reckon it’s me. Something inside me has to get away from the crowds into a place with more room to move, where you can’t see so many people at any one time. I can manage a few at a time.

  I decided to call it quits and look for something bigger. A town of my own, perhaps. I knew I could survive anywhere, all I needed now was to get some practice working through other people. I had to forget my habit of going alone all the time. I’d need a stooge or two. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but Stevo snapping at me had rocked me. There was no point in staying on. Once when I thought it was like going away to die, I couldn’t stop laughing.

  A town of my own. Stolen cars, tow trucks, farm protection agent, local council, a town of my own. While the rest were looking upwards for bombs, I’d collapse them from inside.

  I left the house after burning anything down the backyard that might give a clue to who I was inside. All I left was a list of all the people I hate and I hid that. They would all get theirs some day.

  The freesias were nearly finished, so up the street I wrenched out some freesia bulbs from the fence edges where they grew wild, sneaked back home and planted them. Next year Bee would be reminded of me.

  On my way out past the pub, I followed a man with a good suit and rolled him when he got to his car. I got eighty-five dollars out of his pocket and left him on the back seat of his own car. A man with an open-neck shirt and a bit of grime on it came out before I left and went over to an old truck. I got him and only took half what he had. When I turned to go, something made me stop and go back and put some of the other man’s money in the poor one’s pocket. I walked out to the edge of the car park, but I couldn’t make it. Something stronger took my legs back to the truck. I took the lot.

  You won’t believe how much the same it seems to me and all the kids I know; getting a man’s job by competition—or knocking him over the head.

  This was my beginning. I felt so good I didn’t mess their faces up, either of them, but round the corner I changed and wished I had, or at least put the boot in. I felt so rotten.

  That night I slept in the mountains out past Kurrajong, where the switchback hills are, before Lithgow. Another coloured dream bored into my skull, this time I was in an old boat that was heavy in the water, I was so weak I couldn’t move, and the boat was on fire. Just like the Viking funeral I once acted out for the fenced workers. Only this time I was blinded by the western sun and couldn’t see if anyone was watching. Dying, I was, but weak, and no audience. There was no good feeling about it at all. I woke up almost in a sweat, except that I was cold. I always get cold in the mountains. The little dews on the grass had all the flashes of the ring I got for Bee, when you held it sideways to let the sun shine through.

  I had a sort of vision that kept on in my skull. I got this picture in my mind of lots of little patches of Australia with no marks of human building on them, no tearing down, no ploughing—vacant patches, unused. Capable of being changed, worked, moulded. And tiny country towns. There must be hundreds of places just waiting for someone with a strong hand to take over. I would get a town for myself. Then when I had something behind me, another town. It can be done these days, people are weaker and more isolated from each other. They never get together now, their stupid competition for money and goodies takes up all their time, and separates them further from each other.

 
I spent all day there, getting some sun into me. The wind on my face there had crossed thousands of miles from the western ocean without being breathed by any other dirty human. There was no smoke from chimneys in it either. I was ready to go down out of the hills and onto the western plains to find a town to put in my pocket. I made a list of all the things I wanted and studied it for a few hours. I set off in the afternoon.

  Looking at the hills in the late sunset, there was nothing as good as our world. Even if someone owns the hills—and that’s always a bad taste in your mouth—they’re still beautiful. Much the same way as Bee, the same quietness.

  The Chantic Bird story isn’t quite the same as Stevo left it. I went to a library and found that after the Bird had cured the King with her song and bargained for a sort of freedom, she volunteered, off her own bat, to become a spy for him if he kept her return a secret. She was going to tell him everything that went on in the country. I guess that cured me of Chantic Birds. By the way, it should be Enchanted Bird; Chantic was Stevo’s own word.

  I remembered a certain memorial on the road to Lithgow, that’s why I took this picture with me from home and enough glue to stick it on with. It was a memorial to war and it always stuck in my throat that it was war, or actually gas, that laid the foundation for my old man’s TB. Halfway down a hill into poor old Lithgow I stopped and glued my coloured picture of war. It was a man landing on Iwo Jima and one half of him was all right, but the other half had no uniform, no skin, no flesh, only shredded stuff. It was just before he fell on the sand. They don’t allow that sort of stuff to be printed now—they’re recruiting like mad—but just after the big war they let their heads go and showed all sorts of horrors.

  I felt good, and sort of easy in my stomach after I glued it over their rising sun badge.

  As I came down out of the mountains on to the plains, it was funny how many times I got this rushing feeling in my chest. I try sitting up very straight, but it does no good. I have to have the vent windows turned right in, now, I just can’t get enough air in my lungs.