Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane

by Gerald Murnane

  I could hardly doubt that I was looking at the place that was denoted in my map by the words STREAM SYSTEM. Yet I was looking at two bodies of yellow-brown water, each of which seemed roughly oval. When I had looked a few days before at the words STREAM SYSTEM, each of those words had been printed on one of two bodies of pale blue, each with a distinctive outline.

  The body of pale blue on which the word STREAM had been printed had the outline of a human heart that had been twisted slightly from its usual shape. When I had first noticed this outline on the map, I asked myself why I had thought of a human heart twisted slightly when I ought to have been thinking of a body of yellow-brown water of a roughly oval shape. I recalled that I had never seen a human heart either twisted slightly or occupying its usual shape. The thing that I had seen that was nearest in shape to the slightly twisted heart was a certain tapering outline that was part of a line drawing of an item of gold jewellery in a catalogue issued by the Direct Supply Jewellery Company Pty Ltd in about the year 1946.

  My father had five sisters. Of those five women, only one married. The other four women lived for most of their lives in the house where they had been children. In the years when I first knew my father’s unmarried sisters, who were, of course, my aunts, they kept mostly to their house. However, my aunts subscribed to many newspapers and periodicals and they wrote away, as they called it, for many mail-order catalogues. During one of the summer holidays that I spent during the 1940s in the house where my aunts lived, I used to sit for perhaps a half-hour every day in the bed-sitting room of one of my aunts, looking through the hundred and more pages of the catalogue of the Direct Supply Jewellery Company.

  The only gold object that I had seen when I first looked through the catalogue had been the thin wedding ring that my mother wore, but I did not consider my mother’s ring the equal of any of the items in the pages that I looked at. I questioned my aunt about the many jewels that I had never seen: the gentlemen’s cuff-links and signet rings. I asked especially about the ladies’ rings and bracelets and pendants.

  When I wanted to see in my mind the men and women who wore the jewels that I had never seen, I thought of the illustrations in the Saturday Evening Post, which my aunts subscribed to. The men and women in those illustrations were the men and women of America: the men and women that I saw going about their business whenever I looked away from the main characters in the foreground of an American film.

  When I asked myself whether I would one day handle or even wear on my own body the jewels that I had never seen, I seemed to be asking myself whether I would one day live among the men and women of America in places far back from the main characters in American films. When I asked myself this question I seemed to be trying to see America from where I sat. When I tried to see America from where I sat, I seemed to be looking across seemingly endless grasslands.

  When I sat in the cane chair in my aunt’s room, I faced north. By turning my body a little in the chair I was able to face north-east, which seemed to me the direction of America. If the stone walls of the house around me had been lifted away, I could have looked north-east for half a mile across yellow-brown grass towards a slight ridge known as Lawlers’ Hill. I could have seen beyond Lawlers’ Hill only pale-blue sky, but if, while I sat in my chair, I could have thought of myself as standing on Lawlers’ Hill and looking north-east, I would have seen in my mind yellow-brown grass reaching a mile and more north-east towards the next slight hill.

  If I had wanted to think of myself as standing at the highest point that I could have reached if I had walked in any direction from my aunts’ house, I would have thought of what lay behind me while I sat in my aunt’s chair.

  Behind the stone walls of the house was a paddock known as the Rye Paddock, which was about a quarter of a mile across. The fence at the far side of the Rye Paddock was a barbed-wire fence looking no different from the hundreds of barbed-wire fences in the district around. But that fence was a notable fence; that fence was part of the southern boundary of all the farms on the mainland of Australia.

  On the far side of that fence the land rose. The land rose more steeply as it reached further south. The more steeply the land rose and the further south it reached, the less the land was covered by yellow-brown grass, but whenever I had walked on the rising land I had noticed yellow-brown grass still growing in tussocks, and I understood that I was still standing on a grassland.

  About three hundred yards south of the southern boundary of the farm where I sat often with my face to the north or the north-east, the land rose to the highest point that I could have reached if I had walked in any direction from my aunts’ house. At that point the land ended. Whenever I looked at that point I saw that the land had a mind to go on rising and to go on reaching south. I saw too that the grass had a mind to grow on the land for as far as the land might rise and for as far as the land might reach to the south. But at that point the land ended. Beyond that point was only pale-blue sky, and beneath the pale-blue sky was only water – the dark-blue water of the Southern Ocean.

  If, while I was sitting in my aunt’s room, I had thought of myself as standing at the high point where the land ended and as looking towards America, even then I would have thought of myself as seeing to the north-east only seemingly endless yellow-brown grass. If, while I was sitting in my aunt’s room, I had wanted to think of myself as seeing more than seemingly endless grass, I would have had to think of myself as standing at some impossible vantage-point. If I could have thought of myself as standing at such a vantage-point, I would have thought of myself as seeing not only seemingly endless yellow-brown grass and seemingly pale-blue sky but dark-blue water on the other side of the yellow-brown grass and, on the far side of the dark-blue water, the yellow-brown and endless grasslands under the pale-blue and endless sky of America.

  When I asked my aunt where I might see some of the pieces of jewellery illustrated in the catalogue, she told me that her married sister was the owner of a pendant. The pendant had been a wedding present to my one married aunt from her husband.

  My married aunt and her husband lived at that time about four miles north-east across the yellow-brown grass. My aunt and her husband sometimes visited the four unmarried sisters. After I had heard about the pendant, I tried often to see in my mind what I expected to see one day below the throat of my father’s sister in the same house where I had sat turning pages of illustrations of jewellery. I saw in my mind a gold chain and hanging from the gold chain a gold heart.

  As a child I tried often to see myself as a man and to see the place where I would live after I had become a man. Often while I looked into the jewellery catalogue I would try to see myself as a man wearing cuff-links and signet rings. Often while I turned the pages of the Saturday Evening Post I would try to see myself as a man living in a place that was like a landscape in America.

  I was never able to see myself as a man, but I was sometimes able to hear in my mind some of the words that I would speak as a man. I was sometimes able to hear in my mind the words that I would speak as a man to the young woman who was about to become my wife. And sometimes I was able even to hear what the young woman would speak to me from close beside me.

  After I had been told about my aunt’s pendant, I sometimes heard the following words as though they were spoken by myself as a man. Here is your wedding present, darling. And I sometimes heard the following words as though they were spoken by the young woman who was about to become my wife. Oh! A pendant with a gold heart. Thank you, darling.

  When I had looked at the body of pale blue on which the word SYSTEM had been printed, I had seen in my mind the outline of a pair of female lips boldly marked with lipstick.

  When I first saw such an outline of lips I was sitting in a dark cinema with my mother and my only brother, who was younger than myself. The cinema may have been the Circle in Preston or it may have been the Lyric or the Plaza or the Princess in Bendigo. The lips were on the face of a young woman who was about to kiss the ma
n who was about to become her husband.

  When I first saw such an outline of lips I had been watching the young woman so that I could afterwards see her in my mind. I wanted to think of her as the young woman who would become my wife when I had become a man. But when I had seen from the shape of her lips that the young woman was about to be kissed, then I had turned my head and had looked away from the main characters in the foreground. I had looked away because I remembered that I was sitting beside my mother and my brother.

  In my aunt’s room, trying to see in my mind myself as a man giving a pendant as a wedding present, I sometimes saw in my mind the outline of the lips of the young woman who was about to become my wife. But as soon as I saw from the shape of the lips that the young woman was about to be kissed, I looked away from the foreground of my mind. I looked away because I remembered that I was sitting near my aunt and that the other three of my aunts were in their rooms nearby.

  When I had looked at the outline of the body of pale blue that consisted of the body labelled STREAM and the body labelled SYSTEM and the narrow body of pale blue connecting the two – that is to say, when I had looked at the two larger bodies and the one smaller body that together comprised the body of pale blue labelled STREAM SYSTEM, I had noticed that the outline of the whole body brought to my mind a drooping moustache.

  The first drooping moustache that I saw was the moustache of the man who was the father of my father and also of my father’s five sisters, four of whom remained unmarried. My father’s father was born in 1870 near the southern boundary of all the farms on the mainland of Australia. He was the son of an English mother and an Irish father. His Irish father had come to Australia from Ireland in about 1850. My father’s father died in 1949, about three years after I had looked at the jewellery catalogue in his house. He would have been in the house while I turned the pages of the catalogue and while I thought of myself as a man giving a wedding present to a young woman, but he would not have seen me where I sat. He might have walked past the door of the room, but even then he would not have seen me turning the pages of the catalogue, because my chair would have been to one side of the doorway. I preferred to sit in places where my father’s father was not likely to see me.

  Whenever I have wondered why four of my father’s five sisters remained unmarried, I have seen in my mind one or another of the four women sitting in her room and turning the pages of a jewellery catalogue or of a copy of the Saturday Evening Post. I have then seen in my mind my father’s father walking to the door of the woman’s room and the woman turning her head and looking away from what she had been about to look at.

  But the drooping moustache of my father’s father is not the only drooping moustache that I see in my mind when I look at the body of pale blue with STREAM printed on it and at the body of pale blue with SYSTEM printed on it and at the narrow body of pale blue connecting the two. I see in my mind also the drooping moustache of a man that I saw only once in my life, in about the year 1943. If the man had been still standing this morning where I saw him one afternoon in about the year 1943, I would have seen him this morning when I stood south-east of the yellow-brown water that was denoted by the body of pale blue and by the words STREAM SYSTEM in my map. I would have seen the man this morning because he would have been standing on the opposite side of the yellow-brown water from where I stood.

  When I last saw the man with the drooping moustache, which was about forty-five years ago and near the place where I stood this morning, neither the man nor I nor any of the male persons around us saw a body of water either yellow-brown or pale blue in the place denoted by the words STREAM SYSTEM in the map of 1988. What we saw in that place was swampy ground overgrown by blackberries and with muddy drains leading into it. The drains ran downhill into the swampy ground from a shabby building of timber.

  When I last saw the man with the drooping moustache in about the year 1943, he was standing near the shabby building of timber. The man was giving orders to a group of black-and-white fox terrier dogs and also to a group of men. Of the group of men receiving orders, three men were known to me by name. One was my father, one was a man known to me as Fat Collins, and the third was a young man known to me as Boy Webster.

  I was allowed to watch the man giving orders to the dogs and the men, but I had been warned by my father to stand at a distance. Some of the men held in their hands hoses spouting water and some men held sticks for killing rats. The men with the hoses sent the water into holes under the shabby building. The men with sticks and the fox terrier dogs stood waiting for the rats to stagger out of their holes under the shabby building. Then the men with sticks would beat the rats and the fox terrier dogs would fasten their teeth in the necks of the rats. The man with the drooping moustache, who was the owner of the fox terrier dogs, shouted often at the men with the sticks to warn them against beating the dogs instead of the rats. The man had to shout often at the men with sticks because Fat Collins and Boy Webster and others of the men were by legal definition not in full possession of their minds.

  The shabby building with rats living in holes beneath it was a pigsty where about fifty pigs lived in small muddy pens. The liquids that drained from the pigsty downhill into the swampy ground that lay in 1943 in the place denoted by the words STREAM SYSTEM were partly composed of leavings from the troughs where the pigs ate. The food that was put into the troughs for the pigs to eat was partly composed of leavings from the tables where the hundreds of men and women ate in the wards of Mont Park Hospital on the high ground north-east of the swamp and the pigsty. Of the men who stood around the pigsty on the day that I remember, all except my father and the man with the drooping moustache lived at Mont Park Hospital. My father spoke of the men as patients and warned me to speak of them only by that name. My mother sometimes called the men, out of my father’s hearing, loonies.

  The man with the drooping moustache gave orders to the patients only on that one day when he came to drive the rats from the pigsty. My father gave orders to the patients every day from mid-1941 to the end of 1943. During those years my father was the assistant manager of the farm that was part of the Mont Park Hospital for forty years until the cowyards and the haysheds and the pigsty and all the other shabby buildings were knocked down and a university was built in their place.

  When no more rats seemed likely to come out from under the pigsty, Fat Collins and Boy Webster and the other patients began to aim the jets of water from their hoses at the dead rats lying on the grass. The patients seemed to want to send the dead rats sliding over the wet grass and downhill into the swampy ground. My father ordered the patients to turn off their hoses. I thought that he did this because he did not want the bodies of the rats to reach the swampy ground, but in fact my father only wanted to keep the men from wasting time. When the hoses had been turned off, my father ordered the patients to collect the dead rats in kerosene tins. The patients picked up the dead rats in their hands and carried the rats in kerosene tins down the slope that leads today to the yellow-brown water denoted by the pale blue in my map.

  The outline of the bodies of pale blue resembles not only the moustache of my father’s father and the moustache of the owner of the fox terrier dogs. Sometimes when I look at the outline of the body of pale blue that comprises the bodies labelled STREAM and SYSTEM and the narrow body connecting them and also the two small bodies at either side, I see in my mind the item of women’s underclothing which is called by many people nowadays a bra but which I called during the 1940s and for some years afterwards a brassiere.

  On my way this morning from my front gate to the place where I am now, I went, as I said before, a little out of my way. I followed a roundabout route.

  After I had stood for a few moments south-east of the place that I am going to call from now on STREAM SYSTEM, I walked across the bridge between the two largest bodies of water. I walked, that is, between STREAM and SYSTEM. Or I walked, if you like, across the narrow connecting part between the two cup-shaped parts of a pal
e-blue (or yellow-brown) brassiere (or bra).

  I kept on walking roughly north-west up the sloping land that had been forty-five years ago the wet grass where Fat Collins and Boy Webster and the other men had aimed their jets of water at the dead rats. I walked across yards where rows of motor cars stood and past the place that you people know as NORTH ENTRY.

  Just short of Plenty Road I stopped. I turned and faced roughly south-west. I looked across what is now Kingsbury Drive at the house of red bricks on the south-eastern corner of the intersection of Kingsbury Drive and Plenty Road. I looked at the first window east of the north-eastern corner of the house, and I remembered a night in about 1943 when I had sat in the room behind that window. I remembered a night when I had sat with my arm around the shoulders of my brother while I tried to teach him what a brassiere was used for.

  The building that I was looking at is no longer used as a house, but that building is the first house that I remember having lived in. I lived in that building of red bricks with my parents and my brother from mid-1941 until the end of 1943, when I was aged between two and four years.

  On the night in about 1943 that I remembered this morning, I had found on a page of a newspaper a photograph of a young woman wearing what I thought was a brassiere. I had sat beside my young brother and put my arm around his shoulders. I had pointed to what I thought was the brassiere and then to the bare chest of the young woman.

  I believe today, and I may even have believed in 1943, that my brother understood very little of what I told him. But I believed I had seen for the first time an illustration of a brassiere, and my brother was the only person I could talk to at that time.

  I was talking to my brother about the brassiere when my father came into my room. My father had heard from outside the room what I had been saying to my brother and he had seen from the doorway of the room the illustration that I had been showing to my brother.