Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane

by Gerald Murnane

  The man had thought when he had left the boarding house early in 1960 that he would be free to live as he pleased in the widow’s house in Elsternwick. He had been free not to go to Mass on Sunday morning in the widow’s house, but on most evenings when he had gone to his room after the evening meal he had not been free to read and to write as he had wanted to do.

  The man’s room was next to the lounge room, and during the first two weeks after he had moved into the widow’s house the man had heard through the wall while he had been trying to read or to write sounds of music or of men and women shouting at one another or of guns being fired or of cars being driven fast. On every evening during the third and the fourth weeks after he had moved into the widow’s house the man had heard, after the sounds from the other side of his wall had been especially loud, the sound of the widow’s knocking on the door of his room. After the man had opened his door the widow had told him that something especially interesting was happening on television and that she had thought he might like to watch it.

  During the first two weeks after the widow had begun to knock on his door the man had told her whenever she had knocked that he was preparing lessons for his class of primary-school children for the next day and that he would not be able to watch her television set. But during the third week after the widow had begun to knock on his door he had gone into her lounge room for an hour or more during each evening and had watched parts of television programs.

  On many evenings when the man had said to the widow that he was preparing lessons for his class, he had been trying to write a script for a film. During 1960 the man had worked each day as a teacher in a primary school but on most evenings he had tried to write a script for a film. The man did not know during that year how scripts for films were written. He wrote with a ball-point pen on lined foolscap pages and he arranged the words on each page in the way that the words had been arranged on the pages of the texts of plays that he had read. The man knew no names or addresses of persons who might have been willing to read his script but he believed that some persons in the future would be willing to read his script and would then be eager to turn his script into a film, and he hoped to earn his living in the future by writing scripts for films. When the man saw in his mind images from the films that might have been made from his scripts in the future, he saw images of plains of grass, or of a few trees beside a shallow stream or a small lake, or of a man and a young woman.

  After the man who was writing a script for a film had gone a few times into the lounge room with the widow and had watched her television set he had begun to be absent from her house during many evenings. On some of those evenings the man had left the widow’s house soon after the evening meal and had sat alone in a corner of a coffee lounge in Elsternwick and had made notes for his film script until late in the evening. On other days the man had told the widow by telephone from the school where he taught that he would eat his evening meal with friends. At three-thirty, when his classes had ended, the man had gone to a hotel near his school and had drunk beer continually until six o’clock, when the hotel had closed. Just before the hotel had closed the man had bought a flask of vodka and had put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. After the hotel had closed the man had bought a parcel of fish and chips from a fish shop near the hotel. He had then travelled by train to the city of Melbourne and had eaten his fish and chips while he had travelled. In the city of Melbourne he had gone to the Savoy Theatre in Russell Street, where the films shown were always from European countries, or to some other picture theatre where a European film was being shown. Before the program of films had begun and during the interval in the program the man had drunk from his flask of vodka in the toilet of the picture theatre. After the program had ended he had gone by tram back to the widow’s house in Elsternwick.

  During one evening in the coffee lounge in Elsternwick the man who had not wanted to watch the widow’s television set had read part of an issue of Time that had on its cover a reproduction of a portrait of a Swedish man who turned scripts into films. After the man in the coffee lounge had read about the Swedish man and about the films that he had made from scripts, the man in the coffee lounge had decided that the Swedish man’s films were somewhat like the films that he himself had wanted someone to make in the future from his own scripts. During the days following that evening the man had looked into newspapers for advertisements for the films that he had read about in the issue of Time.

  During an evening in June 1960 the man who is the chief character of this story had gone to the Camden Theatre in Hawthorn Road, South Caulfield, in order to watch the film Wild Strawberries, which was the first Swedish film that he had watched.

  When the man had sat down in the Camden Theatre just before the lights had gone out he had looked around and had counted only seven other persons waiting to watch the film. The man had read in newspapers that picture theatres were being closed down or even knocked down in many suburbs of Melbourne because the persons in those suburbs preferred to watch their television sets during the evenings than to go to picture theatres. After the man had counted the seven other persons he had supposed that the Camden Theatre would soon be closed down or even knocked down. In fact, the Camden Theatre was closed down a few weeks after the man had sat in it.

  After the man in the Camden Theatre had counted the seven other persons and had thought of the picture theatres being closed down or knocked down in the suburbs of Melbourne, he had thought that his watching Wild Strawberries would be his last opportunity for doing in a picture theatre what his best friend had said he had done in the Renown Theatre in Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick, in 1952. Later, while the man in the Camden Theatre was watching Wild Strawberries, he had put his right hand inside his trousers and had tried to do what his best friend had said he had done among the crowd in the Renown Theatre by reaching with his right hand through a hole in the lining of the right-hand pocket of his trousers.

  The man walking beside Spring Creek at Hepburn Springs on an evening in the winter of 1987 had never confided to the man walking beside him what he, the chief character of this story, had tried but failed to do in the Camden Theatre in South Caulfield on an evening in the winter of 1960, although the man walking beside him had confided to him on a fine Sunday afternoon in 1952 what he, the boy who became the man who was celebrating his wedding anniversary at Hepburn Springs, had done on the previous Friday evening in the Renown Theatre in Elsternwick.

  During the twenty-seven years following the evening when he had sat with seven other persons in the Camden Theatre in South Caulfield, the chief character of this story had sometimes tried to see in his mind an image of the image of the young Swedish female person that he had supposed he must have watched while he had tried but had failed to do what his best friend had done in the Renown Theatre eight years before, but the only images that the chief character of this story had seen in his mind were an image of a man with white hair and a wrinkled face and an image of part of a lake appearing between trees. The man who had seen only these images in his mind had tried to see in his mind the image of the young Swedish female person in order to try to understand why he had failed to do in 1960 what his friend had said he had done in 1952. Whenever he had seen in his mind only the images of the man with white hair and a wrinkled face and of part of a lake appearing between trees, the chief character of this story had supposed that the evening when he had watched Wild Strawberries in the Camden Theatre only a few weeks before the theatre had been closed down had been an evening following an afternoon when he had drunk beer continually in the hotel near the school where he taught or in some other hotel in a suburb of Melbourne and had bought a flask of vodka before the hotel had closed.

  The man walking beside Spring Creek at Hepburn Springs twenty-seven years after the Camden Theatre had been closed down remembered a joke that he had made four hours before in order to amuse his oldest friend.

  At noon on the Saturday at Hepburn Springs the man who had been married for mo
re than twenty-five years had seen that the afternoon would be fine. He had then told the seven other persons that he would lead them beside the creek where he had walked during every day of his holidays in every year when he had been a schoolboy. The man had said that he would lead the seven other persons first upstream along a concrete path among lawns and European trees, then past the springs that he had drunk from in every summer from the end of the Second World War until 1955, then further upstream along a walking track to the furthest spring, which was in the bush, and then back along the walking track and the concrete path downstream to the hotel.

  The chief character of this story had drunk water from the springs at Hepburn Springs only four times. In January of each year from 1946 to 1949, which were the last four years of his father’s life and the years when he, the chief character, had been a boy aged from eight years to eleven years, he had travelled with his parents by railway train from Melbourne to Allansford in order to spend his holidays with the unmarried brother and the unmarried sisters of his father. In each of those years, while the boy and his parents had waited at Spencer Street station for the train to leave for the south-west of Victoria the father had taken his son to a milk bar and soda fountain on the concourse of the station. The father had told the boy that the milk bar and soda fountain was the only place in Melbourne where a person could buy what he called genuine Hepburn spa water. The father had then bought two glasses of bubbling water from one of the stern-faced and grey-haired women behind the counter and had given one glass to his son. The son had disliked the taste of the water and had been afraid for a few moments after he had swallowed the first of the water that he would vomit among the crowd of people at the milk bar and soda fountain. After the boy had swallowed a few mouthfuls the father had taken the boy’s glass and had drunk the water in the glass even though it was no longer bubbling. Then the father had rebuked the boy in the hearing of the stern-faced and grey-haired women.

  When the eight persons had walked upstream along the concrete path to the first spring, the man who had last drunk spring-water at Spencer Street station thirty-eight years and five months before had been surprised to see that the water came out of taps protruding from a stone wall with a drain at its base like the drain in a public urinal. The man had expected that the water would have trickled out of a hollow among rocks and ferns or out of a cave as the water had trickled in the pictures that he had seen as a child of Saint Bernadette, who had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in a cave in the Pyrenees mountains and had dug in the part of the cave where the Virgin had told her to dig and had uncovered a trickling stream that cured illnesses and healed injuries and deformities.

  While the seven other persons had crowded around the spring and while the man who had been married for more than twenty-five years had filled mugs of water for the persons, the chief character of this story had hung back. But the man beside the spring had seen his oldest friend hanging back. The man had passed a mug full of spring-water to his wife and had told her in a loud voice to make sure that the man hanging back did not lack for a drink. Then the woman who had been married for more than twenty-five years but whose skin was still clear and pale and whose hair was still blonde and almost white and whose arms and legs were still thin and whose thick woollen sweater still looked almost flat at the front had put the mug of spring-water into the hand of the man who had hung back.

  The man who had hung back had swallowed a mouthful of the water and had liked the taste. He had then drunk the rest of the water from the mug.

  While some of the eight persons had begun to walk along the concrete path towards the next spring, the chief character of this story had hung back again. He had stood beside his oldest friend, who had been pouring a drink for himself from the spring. Then the man hanging back had taken out of his pocket a leaflet with columns of black type and black line drawings on white paper. The man had stared at a certain paragraph of type in the leaflet and had then leaned forward and had looked down at the front of his trousers. The man had then shaken his head and had frowned. When the man frowning had seen that his oldest friend was watching him, he read aloud from the leaflet.

  The man reading aloud had taken the leaflet earlier that day from a stack of leaflets in a shop in Hepburn Springs. The man had supposed from the look of the printed words and the line drawings that the leaflet had first been printed about sixty years before and that the shopkeepers of Hepburn Springs had had the leaflet reprinted in order to amuse visitors to the town, although the shopkeeper had not smiled when the man had said that the leaflet looked amusing.

  Printed in the leaflet was a list of illnesses and disabilities that had been cured by the waters of Hepburn Springs. The chief character of this story had read aloud to his oldest friend the following items from the list: fits,scrofula,quinsy,impetigo. Then he had read aloud the item sexual impotence and had looked down again at his trousers and had shaken his head.

  When the man had looked down at the front of his trousers he had seen from the sides of his eyes that one of the seven other persons other than his oldest friend was watching him. The man had looked up and had seen that the person watching was the wife of his oldest friend and that she was watching him with an expression of aloofness.

  During the first half of the afternoon the four married couples had walked upstream along the concrete path. The couples had stopped at each spring, and the man who had spent his holidays at Hepburn Springs until 1955 had urged the seven other persons to drink the water from the spring. At each spring a few persons had drunk a few mouthfuls. The only persons who had drunk a mug full of water from every spring had been the two men who had been friends for thirty-six years and five months.

  During the first half of the afternoon the four married couples had sometimes turned aside from the concrete path and had paused and had talked on the lawns beside the creek. At about the middle of the afternoon the four couples had reached the end of the concrete path and the lawns and the European trees. In order to walk further towards the furthest spring the couples had had to follow a walking track through the bush.

  The man who had been married for more than twenty-five years had begun to walk ahead of the seven other persons towards the furthest spring. After the eight persons had walked for a few minutes along the track, the land had become hilly and the track had begun to climb. After the eight persons had followed the track up the first of the hills, two of the women had said that they would prefer to rest beside the track while the other persons went on walking towards the furthest spring. The two women had then sat and had rested on the trunk of a fallen tree. The husbands of the two women had then squatted in the grass beside the track and had waited while their wives had rested. The other four persons had gone on walking towards the furthest spring. The four persons who had gone on walking were the man and the woman who had been married for more than twenty-five years and another couple. The four persons who had waited and had rested were the chief character of this story and his wife and another couple.

  After the four persons beside the track had waited and had rested for about fifteen minutes, the other four persons had walked back to them. The other four persons had said that they had walked to the furthest spring and back and that the furthest spring was only a short distance further along the track.

  When the chief character of this story had heard what the four persons had said about the furthest spring he had said that he would walk alone to the furthest spring and back so that he could say afterwards that he had drunk from as many springs as his oldest friend had drunk from.

  The oldest friend of the chief character had then said that the water from the furthest spring had tasted no differently from the water of some of the other springs.

  The chief character of this story had then said that he would not bother to walk to the furthest spring. He had then turned and had walked ahead of the other persons downstream and towards the hotel.

  Beside the lake at Caulfield Racecourse, on fine Sunday mornings
between May 1956 and December 1958, the chief character of this story had often told the story of his having prepared for three months to ask a young woman that he had fallen in love with to go with him to a picture theatre and of her saying after he had asked her that she could not go. On fine Sunday mornings between January 1956 and December 1958 the other man who sat beside the lake had often told the story of his having been alone with a young woman among trees near Spring Creek at Hepburn Springs on an evening during the last week of 1955.

  During the last week before Christmas Day in 1955, when the young man who had spent part of his holidays each year at Hepburn Springs had been aged seventeen years and two months, the young man had arrived with his parents at the guest house where they had arrived each year at Hepburn Springs. On every day afterwards the young man had avoided being with his parents and had played snooker in the guest house or had walked beside Spring Creek or among the trees on the hillside above the creek.

  During the last week before New Year’s Day in 1956 a young woman had arrived with her parents at the guest house. The young man noticed that the young woman was of about the same age as his age, that she avoided being with her parents, and that she played tennis every day on the courts next to the guest house or walked beside Spring Creek.

  When the young man had first seen the young woman walking beside Spring Creek he had been walking among the trees on the hillside above Spring Creek. The young man had wanted at first to walk out from among the trees and to walk with the young woman but then he had become afraid that the young woman would tell him where she lived in one of the suburbs of Melbourne and would ask him to go with her to a picture theatre after she and he had returned to Melbourne and that he would agree to go with her and would be alone with her outside her house after she and he had been to the picture theatre and that the young woman would then learn that he had never previously been alone with a young woman.