On the evening after the young man had watched the young woman from among the trees on the hillside, the young woman had approached the young man at the guest house and had asked him why he had been afraid to come out from among the trees and to approach her while she had been walking beside Spring Creek.
While the young man had been preparing to answer the young woman she had asked him to walk with her beside Spring Creek on the following afternoon. The young man had agreed to walk with her because he had been afraid that she would suspect that he had never been alone with a young woman if he had not agreed.
While the two young persons had walked beside Spring Creek on the following afternoon the young man had drunk from each of the springs that they had passed but the young woman had not drunk from any of the springs. She had told the young man that she was afraid she would have vomited if she had drunk the water from any of the springs. She had told the young man that she came to Hepburn Springs with her parents during part of her holidays each year only because she was afraid of what her parents might have said if she told them that she no longer wanted to spend part of her holidays at Hepburn Springs.
While the two young persons had walked beside Spring Creek during the afternoon, the young woman had asked the young man to walk with her during the evening of that day among the trees on the hillside above the creek. The young man had agreed to walk with her for the same reason that had caused him to agree to walk with her during the afternoon.
While the young man and the young woman had walked together in the evening from the guest house towards Spring Creek and then from beside Spring Creek towards the trees on the hillside overlooking Spring Creek, so the young man had sometimes told his friend on fine Sunday mornings beside the lake at Caulfield Racecourse, the young man had been afraid that he would walk away from the young woman after they had walked in among the trees.
After the two young persons had walked in among the trees on the hillside overlooking Spring Creek the young woman had told the young man to sit on the grass among the trees. After the two young persons had sat on the grass the young woman had put her face close to his face. The young man had then understood, so he had often said afterwards by the lake, that the young woman had wanted him to kiss her in the way that male characters kissed female characters in American films. The young man had then prepared to kiss the young woman in that way.
While the young man had been preparing to kiss the young woman sitting beside him among the trees, the young woman had lain beside him on the grass. The young man had then supposed, so he had often said afterwards by the lake, that the young woman had wanted herself and himself to be naked together as the characters were sometimes naked together in European films.
While the young man had been still preparing to kiss the young woman as though he and she had been characters in an American film, the young woman had got to her feet and had walked quickly away from him. During the first moments while the young man had been sitting alone among the trees and while the young woman had been walking quickly away from him down the hillside towards Spring Creek, so the young man had often said afterwards beside the lake, he had heard the panting noises made by the young woman while she walked quickly away.
Late on the Saturday afternoon in the winter of 1987, when the four married couples had walked almost all the way downstream beside Spring Creek to the place where they had first begun to walk beside the creek and to drink from the springs, the four men had been walking about twenty paces ahead of the four women.
When the men had seen how far ahead of the women they had walked, they had begun to arrange a race in order to prove to one another that their bodies were still fit even though the men were all aged between forty-five and fifty years. The four men had agreed that the race should finish at the spring where they had first drunk earlier in the afternoon, but they had not been able to agree on where the race should start. One of the men had played ice-hockey as a young man and another had played football, and the other two men had claimed that these two men ought to be handicapped by starting behind in the race.
The sun had gone beside a hill and the sky was losing its colour. The four men and the four women were the only people in that part of the valley beside Spring Creek. When the men had stopped talking for a few moments, the chief character of this story had noticed that the only sound in that part of the valley was the sound of the water flowing in Spring Creek. Then the chief character had heard close behind him the sounds of women panting and running towards him.
The chief character of this story and the other men had looked behind them and had seen the four women running towards them. The four women had run past the men and had run towards the spring where the eight persons had first drunk earlier in the afternoon. The men had then supposed that the women had arranged a race among themselves after they had heard the men trying to arrange a race.
The four men had then stopped trying to arrange a race and had gone on walking in the direction that the women had run. After the men had walked about twenty paces they had drawn level with two women who had stopped running in the race. The other two women had continued in the race towards the spring where they had first drunk, but when the leading woman had arrived at the spring, the other woman, who was twenty paces behind, had then stopped running in the race.
The winner of the race towards the spring where the eight persons had first drunk earlier in the afternoon had been the woman who had been married for more than twenty-five years, who was still slim whereas the other women were on the way to being stout.
When the chief character of this story had first heard the panting noises behind him and had turned and had seen the four women running towards him, he had noticed the breasts of the women bobbing while the women ran. The women had been wearing thick sweaters while they had walked beside the creek but each woman had taken off her sweater and had tied it by its sleeves around her waist before the race. The chief character of this story had seen in the shirt of each woman the shapes of her breasts – even the breasts of the woman who was leading in the race and whose breasts were the smallest.
As soon as the women had run past him, and while he had still heard their panting noises but had no longer seen their breasts bobbing, the chief character of this story had heard in his mind part of a piece of music that he had first heard from a radio in 1952 and had heard occasionally from a radio during the years from 1952 to 1987.
The man hearing the music in his mind believed that the name of the piece of music was either ‘Swedish Rhapsody’ or ‘A Swedish Rhapsody’ or ‘The Swedish Rhapsody’ and that the music had been heard at times during the film One Summer of Happiness, which had been shown in picture theatres in the suburbs of Melbourne during 1952.
The man hearing the music in his mind beside Spring Creek had never seen the film One Summer of Happiness. During 1952, when he had been a boy aged fourteen years, his mother had not allowed him to go to picture theatres alone. However, the boy aged fourteen years had seen in a newspaper during 1952 a black-and-white sketch that had been copied from one of the photographs used in the film, and he had listened on many fine Sunday afternoons during the years from 1952 to 1955 beside the lake at Caulfield Racecourse while his best friend had described some of the images that he had seen on the three evenings when he had watched the film in the Renown Theatre in Elsternwick after having told his parents that he was going to watch another film in another picture theatre.
As a result of his having seen the black-and-white sketch in 1952 and having listened to his best friend during the years from 1952 to 1955, the man hearing the Swedish music in his mind beside Spring Creek in 1987 had believed during the years following 1952 that the film One Summer of Happiness was the story of two young persons who had met at a hotel or a guest house beside a lake in a forest in Sweden where their parents were spending their holidays. On the first fine afternoon of the holidays the young persons had walked together between the trees near the lake. After they had walked fo
r some distance the young persons had sat on the grass among the trees and within sight of the lake and had talked together. After they had talked for some time each young person had confided to the other that he or she had never previously been alone with a person of the opposite sex. After the two young persons had confided this to one another they had stood up and had thrown off their clothes and had run between the trees and towards the lake.
While the two young persons in Sweden had run between the trees the young woman had made panting noises and her breasts had bobbed, but the breasts had been small and their bobbing had not kept the young woman from running ahead of the young man towards the lake.
After the race between the four women had ended and while the four men were walking towards the spring where the race had ended, the chief character of this story had supposed that each of the four men had talked at some time on the previous night about his wedding day in the 1960s. The man supposing this had not remembered any man’s having talked about his wedding day in the 1960s in the bed-sitting room of the cabin behind the hotel, but he had remembered that each man had often talked about his wedding day in the 1960s whenever the four men had been drinking and talking together during the 1970s or the 1980s and he had supposed beside Spring Creek on the Saturday afternoon that each man had talked during the last hour of the Friday or the first two hours of the Saturday about his wedding day in the 1960s. The man supposing this had also supposed that he and his oldest friend had each talked about his wedding day in the 1960s more than either of the other two men had talked about his wedding day in the 1960s. Each of the other two men had been married twice, his first wedding having been a church ceremony in the 1960s and his second wedding having been a civil ceremony in the 1970s, and neither man talked for long about either of his weddings. The chief character of this story had supposed also that he and his oldest friend had each told, late on the Friday or early on the Saturday, the same story that he had often told about his wedding day.
Each of the two men who had been married only once had been married in a Catholic church, even though he had not believed the teachings of the Catholic Church since he had left secondary school, and each man had been the other’s best man at the wedding. The man who had married the woman that he had first seen skating on ice had been married in January 1962, when he had been aged twenty-three years and three months and his wife had been aged eighteen years. The other man had been married in January 1965, when he had been aged twenty-six years and eight months and his wife had been aged twenty-one years and five months.
The story that the two men had often told was that the first of the two men to be married had arrived with his best man forty-five minutes early at the Catholic church in a south-eastern suburb of Melbourne where the wedding was to take place. While the two men had sat together at the back of the empty church, the man about to be married had said that he was afraid that the priest would look into his eyes at some point during the service and would see into his mind and would then refuse to go on conducting the service.
The man who was about to be best man had then taken out of the inside pocket of his jacket a flask three quarters full of vodka. The man had shown the flask to his best friend and had said that he, the man about to be best man, had been afraid during the previous week that the priest would look into his eyes at some point during the service and would see into his mind and would then refuse to allow him to continue as best man. The man with the flask in his hand had then said that he had drunk some of the vodka during the past hour, that he intended to drink more of the vodka before the wedding service began, and that he expected not to be afraid during the wedding service.
The man who was about to be married had then said that he would take a sip of the vodka even though he had never previously drunk any alcoholic drink. The owner of the vodka had then offered the flask to his best friend while they had sat at the back of the church, but his best friend had been afraid to drink from the flask while they were sitting there. The two men had then got up from their seat at the back of the church, and the chief character of this story had led the other man to the back corner of the church and had stood with him in the baptistry.
When the man about to be married had seen in the baptistry that he was hidden from the view of anyone who might have entered the church, he had sipped from the flask of vodka, had closed his eyes and shuddered, had swallowed the vodka that he had sipped, and had handed the flask back to its owner. The owner of the flask had then swallowed a mouthful of the vodka, but instead of replacing the lid and putting the flask in his pocket he had put the flask and its lid into the empty font that stood at the centre of the baptistry.
During the next fifteen minutes the two men had stood in the baptistry, each man with one leg crossed in front of the other and one elbow resting on the rim of the white marble font, which reached to the height of the waists of the men, and had talked continually. From time to time while the men had talked, one or another man had lifted the flask out from the font and had drunk or had sipped from the flask. Whenever the man who was about to be married had sipped from the vodka he had closed his eyes and had shuddered, and the man who was about to be best man had begun to be afraid that his best friend would vomit during the wedding service.
The two men had gone on talking and sipping or drinking until they had heard sounds of people on the steps outside the church. Then the chief character of this story had screwed the lid on to the flask, which by then was no more than quarter-full, and had put the flask into the inside pocket of his jacket. The two men had then walked to the front of the church and had waited for the bride.
The mother of the bride had arranged for the wedding reception to take place in the Domain Hotel, at the corner of St Kilda Road and Park Street. The Domain Hotel no longer exists, but the building where the wedding reception took place has not yet been knocked down.
During the wedding reception the chief character of this story had noticed that the groom sipped beer continually and talked continually. When the bride and the groom had left the Domain Hotel the chief character had been afraid that the groom would vomit later in the evening.
After the bride and the groom had left the wedding reception and while the guests had gone on drinking and talking, the mother of the bride had left her seat and had sat beside the best man. When the best man had seen the woman approaching him he had been afraid that she had suspected him of having persuaded the groom to drink vodka and beer for the first time on his wedding day although he had never previously drunk any alcoholic drink, but the mother of the bride had only said that she was glad that the groom had begun to drink beer at last because she had not wanted to have a son-in-law who was a wowser.
The last part of the story that the two men had often told was that each man had carried a flask of vodka in the inside pocket of his jacket on the Saturday afternoon in January 1965 when they had arrived at the Catholic church in an eastern suburb of Melbourne where the chief character of this story was about to be married. The two men had arrived at the church forty-five minutes before the service was to begin and had walked to the doors of the church intending to rest their elbows on the baptistry font and to drink some of their vodka together but had turned away from the church when they had heard the sound of the organist’s rehearsing the program of music for the wedding and had then walked towards the grounds at the side of the church intending to find a place among shrubs or trees where they could drink some of their vodka together.
The men had looked around the grounds at the side of the church but had seen no place where they might have drunk vodka among shrubs or trees. The only place where they might have drunk vodka without their being seen from the doors of the church was the grotto at the rear of the grounds.
The two men had walked to the mouth of the grotto and had taken out their flasks and had unscrewed the caps. Then the man who was about to be married had looked behind him and had seen that he and the best man were still within view of some of the windows
of the presbytery. The two men had then stepped into the grotto, but at the place where they then stood the grotto was too narrow for both men to stand comfortably. The two men had then knelt on the floor of the grotto.
The two men had gone on kneeling in the grotto for ten minutes. During that time the men had talked and had swallowed mouthfuls of vodka. Anyone seeing the men from a distance during that time might have supposed whenever one of the men had tilted his head back that he was looking at the statue that stood at the rear of the grotto or praying to the person represented by the statue, who was Our Lady of Lourdes.
Whenever the chief character of this story had told the story that has been summarised in the previous paragraphs or had heard his oldest friend telling that story, the chief character of this story had remembered certain details that he considered part of that story, although he had never mentioned those details whenever he had told that story.
The chief character of this story remembered beside Spring Creek on the winter afternoon in 1987 his oldest friend’s having said in the church on the summer afternoon in 1962 that he was afraid that the priest would look into his eyes. The man remembered at Hepburn Springs that he had supposed in the church in the south-eastern suburb of Melbourne that the man who had said he was afraid not only because he no longer believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church but also because he had done or had tried to do with the young woman who was about to be married to him some at least of the things that he had said beside the lake at Caulfield Racecourse on fine Sunday afternoons that he would do in the future with one after another young woman.
At the time when the chief character of this story had supposed what is mentioned in the previous paragraph, he had not asked any young woman to go anywhere with him during the four years and nine months since he had asked the young woman to go with him to a picture theatre while he and she had walked on a concrete path at a teachers’ college. During most of his time at weekends during those four years and nine months the chief character of this story had been alone in his room. On fine Sunday afternoons from January 1960, when he and his best friend had returned to Melbourne from Lorne, until January 1962, when his best friend had been about to be married, the chief character of this story had supposed that his best friend had taken his girlfriend or his fiancée in his Volkswagen sedan to a body of water with trees beside it. On many fine Sunday afternoons the man supposing this had supposed that his best friend was alone with the young woman at Hepburn Springs.
Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane Page 21