Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane

by Gerald Murnane

  When the man drinking beer alone on the balcony at Lorne had first seen in the left-hand side of his mind the girlfriend of his best friend speaking into her telephone she had been wearing a set of summer pyjamas that left her legs and arms bare. When the man had first seen her in his mind she had had on her face an expression of aloofness, even after she had heard what her boyfriend had said to her from the public telephone box at Lorne. Later, after the man had drunk more beer, the expression on the face of the young woman had changed. Then the man on the balcony had heard in his mind the young woman speaking into the telephone and telling her boyfriend that her mother was going to borrow her best friend’s car, that her mother and she were going to set out in a few minutes for Lorne, that her mother was going to bring with her a dozen bottles of beer from the stock remaining after the party and a hamper of food from her kitchen, and that she, the young woman, and her mother would arrive at Lorne at midnight and would have supper with the two men on the balcony and would talk and drink continually with them afterwards.

  At some time after the man on the balcony had seen and had heard in his mind the things mentioned in the previous paragraph, he had seen in his mind himself and the mother of the girlfriend of his best friend sitting alone together on the balcony of the holiday flat and drinking beer continually and talking continually while his best friend was walking with his girlfriend among the trees on the hillside. At some time later again the man on the balcony had heard in his mind himself confiding to the woman aged about forty who had once been an American war bride something that he had never previously confided to any other person. The man had then heard in his mind the woman telling him that her daughter had a female cousin of the same age as himself in one of the states of the United States that was mostly plains of grass and that she, the woman, would write to the girl in America as soon as she had arrived back in her house at the corner of St Kilda Road and Albert Road and would invite the girl to travel to Australia.

  The man looking forward to drinking beer in the hotel during the last six hours of the last evening of his holidays at Hepburn Springs and then during the first two hours of the following morning had never remembered anything further that he had heard or had seen in his mind or had said or had done on the first night of his holiday at Lorne. The man remembered, however, that his oldest friend had often said that he had returned to the holiday flat later the evening and had found the man who is the chief character of this story asleep on his bed and still wearing his clothes but had not learned until he had walked on the concrete path beneath the balcony during the following morning that the chief character of this story had vomited during the previous evening while he had been leaning over the balcony in the direction of the trees on the hillside with a view of part of the Southern Ocean.

  During the last two hours of the last Saturday before Christmas Day in 1959, persons on the footpath below the Lower Esplanade in St Kilda or on the beach below the wall at the edge of the Lower Esplanade heard through a set of loudspeakers the program broadcast by one of the commercial radio stations of Melbourne.

  The man who walked up and down the footpath of the Lower Esplanade during those two hours and during the following four hours listened while he walked up and down to each of the pieces of recorded music in the program, but during the first four hours of the Sunday morning he heard in his mind only one of those pieces. During those hours he heard continually in his mind the music of what the disc jockey had called an instrumental piece by the name of ‘Velvet Waters’.

  When the chief character of this story first heard through the loudspeakers the music of ‘Velvet Waters’, he saw in his mind not musical instruments being played by musicians but water bubbling and flowing over grass on a summer night while the moon was shining. At some time while the chief character in this story heard continually in his mind during the first four hours of the Sunday morning the music of ‘Velvet Waters’, he saw in his mind not only water bubbling and flowing over grass but a few trees around the water, plains of grass around the trees, and a young woman standing beside the water among the trees. The man seeing these things in his mind saw that the young woman was wearing a thin dress and that her arms and legs and feet were bare, but he did not see the face of the young woman because her face was hidden by her blonde hair.

  At some time while the chief character of this story saw in his mind the things mentioned in the previous paragraph, the young woman in his mind stepped into the water in his mind and stood while the water bubbled and flowed around her.

  At some time during the first four hours of the Sunday, the man seeing the young woman standing in the water in his mind understood that he had previously seen an image of the young woman when he had looked at an illustration in a magazine for women in a year soon after the Second World War. The illustration had been meant to represent a scene from a story with the title ‘The Pond’, by Louis Bromfield.

  At another time during the first four hours of the Sunday, the man seeing the page of the magazine in his mind remembered that his mother had been reading ‘The Pond’ when he had first seen the illustration. The man remembered that his mother had told him after she had finished reading ‘The Pond’ that ‘The Pond’ was the most beautiful story that she had read. The man then remembered that he had not read ‘The Pond’ while his mother had been watching him because he had not wanted his mother to guess what was in his mind but that he had read ‘The Pond’ afterwards.

  The man who had read ‘The Pond’ at some time during a year soon after the end of the Second World War remembered at some time while he walked up and down the beach at St Kilda and while he looked south-west across Port Phillip Bay that the woman in the story had been born and had lived as a child in a district of forests and streams in America but had married a young man who had been born and had lived as a child in one of the Great Plains states, although his parents had been born and had lived as children in a district of forests and lakes in Sweden. After she had married the young man, the young woman had gone to live on her husband’s farm in one of the Great Plains states. Each day she had walked out into the paddocks of grass and had stood among a few trees that had been the only trees on all the plains of grass from her husband’s house to the horizon in any direction and had seen in her mind the forests and the streams in the district where she had been born.

  One day the husband of the young woman had left his wife in order to fight in the Second World War. After her husband had left, the young woman had continued to walk out into the paddocks of grass each day and to stand among the few trees.

  One night while her husband was away, the young woman had gone out into the paddocks of grass while the moon was shining and had stood among a few trees. The day had been a hot day and the night was a warm night, and the woman wore only a thin dress and was barefoot. While she stood among the few trees she had understood that her husband had died during that night. She had understood also that she would later give birth to a child whose father would be the man who had died during that night. While she had stood among the few trees and had understood these things, the young woman had heard the sound of water bubbling and flowing and had understood that a spring had begun to flow from among the few trees.

  The young woman who was the chief character of the story that the man who is the chief character of this story remembered while he walked up and down beside St Kilda Beach had then stepped into the water that was bubbling and flowing and had gone on standing in the water among the few trees on the plains of grass during the hours of the morning.

  The White Cattle of Uppington

  The following is a list of descriptions of some of the details of some of the images in some of the sequences of images that the chief character of this piece of fiction foresaw as appearing in his mind whenever during a certain year in the late 1970s he foresaw himself as preparing to write a certain piece of fiction. Each description is followed by a passage explaining some of the details of some of the images.

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p; The words ‘fucked’ and ‘spunk’ appear among a throng of other words on one of the last pages of a second-hand copy of the First Unlimited Edition, published by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, of Ulysses, by James Joyce. The book lies open on the thighs of a young man whose lower body is clothed in grey sports trousers with sharp creases at the front. The upper body of the young man is clothed in a grey-blue sports jacket over an olive-green shirt and a pale-blue tie. Most of the men in the crowded railway carriage where the young man sits reading are wearing grey suits with white shirts and ties of dark colours. A few of the men are wearing sports clothes, but all of these men have white or cream shirts and ties of dark colours.

  The men are all on their way to work in office buildings in the city of Melbourne on one or another morning in a certain year in the late 1950s. The young man, too, is going to work in an office building. He has gone to work in the same office building on nearly every weekday since he finished secondary school three years ago. But he does not want to go on working in an office building. He does not want to live for the rest of his life as he supposes the men around him in the railway carriage live. He does not want to own a house in a suburb of Melbourne or of any other city. He does not want to get married, although he wants to have sexual relations with a woman, and perhaps with more than one woman. He has read about men who lived lives undreamed of, so he supposes, by the men around him in the railway carriage; he has read about D.H. Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. He wants to be a writer of the kind that these men were. He wants to live with a woman in an upstairs flat in an inner suburb of one or another city in Europe or in a cottage deep in the countryside of Europe. His shirt and tie are the first sign that he has sent to his fellow workers and his fellow train travellers. He wears the unconventional green and blue as a sign that he repudiates the customs and the moral standards of office workers and that he intends never again to work in an office as from the day when his first work of fiction is accepted by a publisher. Now, he reads in front of the nearest office workers a book that was banned in Australia until only recently. He expects that his own books will be banned in Australia soon after they have been published. He found his copy of Ulysses in one of the second-hand bookshops where he spends his lunch-hours. When he takes his seat each morning in a railway carriage, he looks at the nearest passengers. If a young woman is nearby, he leaves Ulysses in his bag and takes out some other book; he has no wish to embarrass any young woman. But if the nearest passengers are men or married women, he spends a few minutes during each journey running his finger backwards and forwards beneath certain lines in Ulysses, hoping that someone from the suburbs of Melbourne will see on the page certain words that he or she has never previously seen in print and will be for long afterwards unsettled.

  The partly naked body of a young woman appears in a coloured illustration with two pronounced horizontal creases. The young woman is kneeling on green grass against a background of dense shrubbery. She rests her hands on her hips and holds her head askew and smiles. She is wearing lipstick and probably other kinds of make-up. The skin of her arms and chest and abdomen is a uniform golden-brown, like certain polished woods in coloured advertisements for furniture. Her breasts are thrust forward; the lower parts of each breast are white, and the nipples are prominent. The lower body and the legs of the young woman are clothed in a pair of jeans. The belt in the jeans is unfastened, and the zip fastener at the front of the jeans has been drawn downwards a little way. The picture of the young woman is fastened by tacks to the unpainted plasterboard wall of a bedroom. The bedroom is furnished with a double bed and two chairs. A cord has been strung from nails across each of two corners of the bedroom. Items of a woman’s clothing hang from one cord and items of a man’s clothing hang from the other cord. The picture of the partly naked young woman is above the centre of the head of the bed. In the wall to the right of the picture is a window without curtains or blinds. In the foreground of the view from the window is a thin forest of second-growth gum trees on a hillside that slopes down and away from the house. The window of the bedroom is closed, but loud clickings and buzzings of insects can be heard from the nearer trees. In the right-hand background of the view from the window is a small conical mountain covered in forest. From the conical mountain, a range of mountains extends to the left for as far as can be seen from the window. The range of mountains appears as a line of dark blue on the horizon. The season is summer; the time of day is early afternoon; the weather is fine and hot; the air in the bedroom is very hot. A man is kneeling on the bed and looking up at the picture of the young woman. His upper body is naked, and the zip fastener at the front of his grey sports trousers has been pulled downwards to its full extent. A double sheet of newspaper has been spread in front of him on the bed.

  The year is the first year of the 1960s. The hillside where the house stands is in a hilly district just beyond the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The line of mountains visible through the window is the Kinglake Ranges. The house is owned by a man ten years older than the man kneeling on the bed. The owner of the house works on weekdays in an office building in the city of Melbourne and spends four nights of each week in his mother’s house in a suburb of Melbourne, having become separated from his wife two years before, but lives from early on every Friday evening until early on every Monday morning in the house on the hillside, which he bought, together with part of the hillside, one year ago, when the house had been unoccupied for many years, and which he intends to repair so that he can live in it for the rest of his life, no longer working in an office building in the city of Melbourne but painting pictures in the hilly district around his house and in the Kinglake Ranges. The double bed is shared on every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night by the owner of the house and a woman who became separated from her husband one year ago. Sometimes the owner of the house tells his friends that he and the woman intend to marry as soon as each of them has been divorced, but the man kneeling on the bed hopes that the man and woman remain always unmarried. The man kneeling on the bed has never previously met a couple who are living together without having been married. The man kneeling on the bed first met the owner of the house on a Saturday afternoon in the last summer of the 1950s, in the bar of a hotel in the hilly district mentioned above. The man kneeling on the bed was formerly the young man who wears an olive-green shirt and a pale-blue tie in the first of the images described in this piece of fiction. During the last years of the 1950s, the man kneeling on the bed went on wearing ties and shirts of colours seldom chosen by office workers and went on wanting to be a writer of published fiction but wrote hardly any pages of fiction. If he had known anyone who might have been interested in hearing about the matter, the man might have explained to that person from time to time that he, the man, was having difficulty in choosing the subject matter and the style of his first work of fiction. Then, in almost the last month of the 1950s, the man read for the first time the book On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. From that time onwards, the man supposed he knew what would be the subject-matter and the style of his first published work of fiction. From that time onwards also, the man was anxious to find a group of people among whom he could behave as the narrator of On the Road behaved among his friends. The man supposed he would be most likely to find the people he was looking for in the hilly district mentioned above. He had read certain items in the Literary Supplement of the Age that caused him to suppose that a few artists and others were following a bohemian way of life in stone or mud-brick houses among the dry hills and straggling forests of a certain district beyond the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Soon after he had finished reading On the Road, he bought on hire-purchase a nine-years-old Holden sedan. He went on travelling by train to his work in the office building on weekdays, but every Saturday morning he dressed in his oldest clothes (frayed shirts and trousers that he had formerly worn to work on weekdays) without combing his hair or shaving or showering. Then he drove from the suburb where he lived with his parent
s to one or another of the few hotels in the district mentioned several times above and sipped beer alone during the afternoon with the Literary Supplement of the Age open in front of him, waiting for an opportunity to join one or another of the more interesting groups around him and later, so he hoped, to be invited to a party in the hills. Once during the last month of the 1950s, the man was invited by another solitary man to a party and took bottles of beer to a gathering mostly of solitary men in a partly built house of fibro-cement and afterwards slept in his car beside a back road in the hills before returning to the suburbs early on the Sunday morning. Then, in the first month of the 1960s, the owner of the house on the hillside and his girlfriend came up to the man in a hotel and invited him to a party at their house, but the only other persons who attended the party were two solitary men. On the day when such events took place as later gave rise in the mind of the man to the details reported above of the image of a man kneeling in front of an illustration of a partly naked young woman, the owner of the house on the hillside and his girlfriend were still the only persons in the hilly district that the man might have called friends. That day fell in the second month of the 1960s, in the month that is the hottest month of each year in the hilly district and surrounding districts. Early in the second month of the 1960s, the man who has been called ‘the man’ in previous passages of this story began his annual recreation leave of three weeks. On each weekday in the first week of his leave, the man sat for several hours and sipped beer alone or with another solitary man in one or another hotel in the hilly district before returning home to his parent’s house in the late afternoon. On the first weekday of the second week of his leave, the man told his mother that he would not be returning home that evening but would be staying with a married couple he was friendly with in the hilly district. Then the man drove his Holden sedan to the hilly district and bought six bottles of beer at a hotel and then drove to the house on the hillside. The owner of the house had told the man during the previous weekend that he was welcome to bring to the house on any weekday during his leave any young woman that he might wish to bring there and had shown the man where the key to the house was hidden from each Monday morning until each Friday evening. When the man arrived at the house with his six bottles of beer, he found the key and let himself into the house and put his beer into the refrigerator. Then he took one of the bottles out on to the veranda of the house and began to drink. For about an hour, the man sat on the veranda, drinking beer and listening to the sounds of insects and looking at the trees around the house or at the line of dark-blue mountains in the distance. Then he walked into the house and into the main bedroom. When he entered the main bedroom, he noticed at once the picture on the wall above the bed. The picture of the half-naked young woman had not been there when he had last looked into the bedroom. The man sat on the bed. He had intended to spend some time in the bedroom studying any item of women’s clothing or underclothing that he found there, but he sat on the bed and inspected the picture of the young woman. He learned from a few printed words in the corner of the picture that the picture comprised three pages from the centre of a recent number of Playboy magazine. He then remembered that the owner of the house had told him during the previous year that his (the owner’s) girlfriend had bought for him as a Christmas present a subscription to Playboy, which, so the owner had said, had been banned in Australia until recently. The man sitting on the bed had never seen any copy of Playboy. While he sat on the bed and inspected the picture on the wall, he believed he was somewhat nearer to living as the sort of man that he wanted to become and was therefore somewhat nearer to writing the first of the books that he would later write. The man then went to the box in the kitchen where old newspapers were kept. He selected some pages of the largest size in the box. After he had selected the pages, he saw that they were from one or another of the Literary Supplements of the Age that he had brought to the house on previous Saturdays. He unfolded the pages and spread them on the double-bed and then knelt on the bed so that he faced the picture of the young woman while the pages covered the bedclothes in front of him. He then performed a series of acts that is usually summarised as a single act in such expressions as he then masturbated.