The War Artist

by Simon Cleary

  She takes her body out into the paddocks, or it takes her. There is a deeper pleasure now in lifting a bale of hay out of the back of the ute, grabbing it two-handed by the string and swinging it out and onto the ground for the cattle to feed. She stays out longer in the garden. She wears singlets in the heat, beads of sweat gathering under arms. At the fridge she drinks cold water straight from the bottle, slugging it, her raised arm firm, muscular, glistening.

  Phelan finishes the semester, and the lecturer arranges for a sample of each of their work to be collected in the university’s online writing journal, and it’s his poem, ‘Waiting for Beckett’, that then gets picked up by the local paper.

  The journalist who tracks him down to the farm is determined to describe him as a ‘war poet’ but Phelan laughs dismissively.

  ‘This wasn’t nineteen-fifteen, Charlie,’ Phelan says offering him a cigarette on the verandah, ‘when all those English poets enlisted to fight out of Idealism. In this country we join the army because we want to become soldiers, and once we are soldiers we want to fight. Because that’s what soldiers do. Understand? None of us were poets or writers or painters first. We were professional soldiers. Infantrymen. Signallers. Commandos. Engineers. Professionals, not artists dabbling in war on the side.’

  ‘Well if that’s the case,’ the reporter presses, ‘would you say the war uncovered you as a poet?’

  ‘Seriously? All I’ve done is have one poem published. And in a student journal!’ Though, he’s beginning to enjoy this. Maybe it’s the attention. Maybe it’s the absurdity of being called a poet. Or the vanity of it, so little to be proud of for so many years. Maybe it’s just the chance to hold forth with someone new.

  ‘Do you have other poems?’

  Phelan waves the question away. ‘Would I say the war uncovered me? Fuck no. And you can quote me on that. There was no uncovering going on. If anything, what the war did was cover us over with an invisible shroud till we near suffocated. Though perhaps,’ Phelan continues, musing, ‘perhaps you could say the war turned me into a poet. If that’s what you call it, Charlie. Didn’t uncover a poet, but forced one into being.’ He turns to Penny. ‘What do you think, Love?’

  However, before she can answer – half-fearing what she might say – he adds, ‘Though you always knew I had a poet in me, didn’t you?’

  She rolls her eyes.

  But the journalist misses the wink and looks relieved, pleased the interview seems to be back on track.

  ‘Is there anything,’ he asks eagerly, reading a prepared question from his notepad, ‘apart from the subject matter, that makes war poems different from other poems? Is there something about the proximity of death that allows them to speak more honestly about life?’

  Phelan’s turn to roll his eyes. ‘Charlie, for most soldiers, it’s the proximity of months of boredom that’s more distressing than the possibility of death.’

  ‘But what about you? Was there one particular thing that happened to you? One event you can look back on now and say, “That’s what did it. That’s what made me into a poet.”?’

  Phelan goes suddenly cold, the fun killed off as quickly as a single well-directed question. Beckett having joined them now on the verandah, taking his rightful place. How foolish to think I might have been able to control an interview like this, how presumptuous.

  The journalist stares at Phelan as he rises and tosses his cigarette over the edge and drops his hands beside his body and shakes them urgently, repeatedly, as if trying to exorcise something, before walking quickly to the other end of the verandah, turning immediately and coming back, sitting again. The journalist looks at Penny in alarm.

  Phelan pulls the knuckles on one hand then the other, so hard the journalist winces. When he’s done he lights up another cigarette, and draws deep. Uncomfortable as it is, the journalist knows enough not to excuse himself now, knows that whatever he’s witnessing will be the most important part of his story.

  When eventually Phelan speaks, he is surprisingly calm. ‘The first thing to understand,’ he says, recalling his psychiatrist’s initial diagnosis well enough to misquote her, only the smallest of tremors in his voice, ‘is that poetry is a normal reaction to extreme trauma.’ He hopes he can keep the sarcasm out, that he sounds as coolly ironic as he intends. ‘While not everyone exposed to trauma will respond with poetry, it is normal to do so. Accordingly, no stigma ought to be attached to writing, or indeed even reading, poetry. For those who have been turned into poets by war, it commonly occurs after exposure to enemy fire, participation in armed combat, the sight of wounded comrades and civilians, witnessing the death of fellow soldiers and civilians, and indirect threats to one’s own physical security.’

  The reporter nods his head cautiously as he tries to follow Phelan. ‘Which of those happened to you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Penny says, quickly intervening. ‘No soldier is untouched by war.’

  ‘Of course,’ the journalist says to Penny. ‘I understand these things can be personal. I’m sorry.’ He turns back to Phelan, leans forward again and says evenly, ‘but if it’s war that makes a war poet, then for war poetry to survive we need to keep finding wars to join. Like we fight to test our equipment, and – as you said – to make sure our soldiers are ready for battle, right? No point having an army if we don’t use it, hey? What would you say about that?’

  Phelan glares at the smug little shit.

  ‘I’d say who the fuck wants war poetry to survive, that’s what I’d say.’ Then he reaches across to the digital recorder on the coffee table between them and turns it off. ‘And what I’d also say is – fuck you. Fuck Afghanistan. Fuck war. Fuck poetry. Fuck us all.’

  War Poet

  ‘Poetry Normal Reaction to War Trauma, Says Veteran’, ran the headline. Though only a local paper, he should have guessed someone would contact him after the article was published. Because the army knows everything.

  ‘Jim?’

  He recognises the Chief of Army’s voice immediately. Though Peter Willey wasn’t yet Chief when they’d worked together in Kabul.

  ‘Sir.’ It’s automatic, the acknowledgement of hierarchy. It also gives him a moment to try and control the anxiety biting at his stomach, enough time to remember – how had he forgotten, even momentarily? – that they’d once been friends.

  ‘Good to hear your voice, Jim.’

  It’s been four years, Phelan reckons, maybe five. Friends, but rivals too, competition spawned by ambition. Of course, by the time he helped get Phelan’s disability pension over the line, Phelan was no longer a threat to him.

  ‘Good to be heard, Sir.’

  ‘Cut that out, Jim. How are you doing old fellow?’

  ‘It’s taken a little while but I’ve retired to that hobby farm we used to talk about.’

  ‘Herefords, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Your memory is as good as it always was, Peter. They’re beautiful animals. Penny and I have started with a few, but if all goes well, we’ll build the herd to a couple of hundred.’

  ‘That will keep you busy.’

  ‘Not as busy as I bet you are,’ Phelan responds, the formulas for conversations like this coming back to him.

  ‘Ah … I must admit that many is the day I wish I had a small piece of countryside to retreat to myself.’

  There’s a brief pause. Phelan no longer ruminates about how, had things worked out differently, it could have been him sitting where Willey is now. But the Chief nevertheless senses danger, and moves on smoothly, taking control again.

  ‘And your health, Jim? You sound … better?’

  ‘It’s a day-by-day proposition, Sir,’ Phelan says, retreating.

  ‘I read the article, Jim. It was very brave of you.’

  Phelan laughs. ‘Brave? As in, brave and foolish?’

  ‘Brave is brave, Jim.’

  Th
ere’s another pause.

  ‘Did you read the poem too?’ Phelan asks.

  ‘I did. It’s very powerful. I can’t say how good it is – I’ll leave that judgement to people better qualified than I am – but it hit me in the gut.’ There is the pause in the conversation that the purpose of the call would always require. ‘But, I think you need to be careful.’

  Phelan doesn’t give the Chief any help.

  ‘The Toowoomba Chronicle won’t be the only media interested in your story. There are a lot of people listening right now. You’ve got Australia’s entire military listening in. The whole country wants to know about PTSD and what we’re doing about it.’

  ‘What exactly do I need to be careful about, Peter?’

  ‘Trauma is one thing. And it’s a hell of a thing, don’t get me wrong, a hell of a thing …’ the Chief pauses, not in hesitation, but for emphasis, ‘… but asking whether we should have ever gone to Afghanistan in the first place is a whole other ball game. That’s a political decision, and we—’

  ‘—are only soldiers.’ Phelan finishes the sentence for him, and, before the Chief can respond, adds, ‘But that’s the thing, of course. I no longer am.’

  ‘You were never only a soldier, Jim. You were a brigadier. Yes, I have a duty to the men and women who are over there, or are on their way. All of my officers have that duty. And my duty extends to their families, and to the families of each of our brothers who didn’t come home. You used to have the same duty, Jim. I don’t want our people and their families to think the army itself doesn’t believe in the mission. Because if they hear you don’t believe in it, they might wonder if I don’t.’

  But Phelan won’t be disarmed by soothing words. ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘Jim—’

  ‘Fifteen years we’ve been there, Peter! Fifteen years we’ve been waiting. For what? Victory? Would we even know what that looked like? We decide to leave, yet we stay. We withdraw our troops from combat operations so instead they can teach the Afghan soldiers to do the shooting. The American’s bombing campaign intensifies and the result? The Taliban expand their territory. We’ve got a rope around our neck, Peter. We’re loitering beside a leafless hangman’s tree waiting to be rescued. But when? By whom?’

  ‘Jim, we’re there, and there’s nothing I can do that is going to change that …’

  ‘But maybe I can,’ Phelan replies quietly, the first time he’s given it any thought.

  ‘You’d be fooling yourself.’

  ‘That’s one privilege of retirement.’

  ‘Then think of the families of those men who died, Jim. Think of them. They need to know their men died for something.’

  ‘They died for mateship.’

  ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘And they died serving their country.’

  ‘It’s still not enough, Jim. They need to know their boys died doing the right thing. Jim, all I’m saying is be careful. That’s what I’m saying. Because I’d hate to lose you entirely.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’ve already left.’

  ‘If you turn your back on the army, if you disrespect it, there’s no coming back.’

  He’s no war poet. He knows that. And he’s no activist. He’d sent no missals from the front line, so why would he start now? Nothing submitted to any of the journals or newspapers while he was away, so long ago, no poet’s pseudonyms. There weren’t even any letters home he’d describe as being either vaguely poetic or doubting of the war. No anthems for doomed youth, no Sassoon-like declarations of wilful defiance published in The Herald or The Australian, no emails to Penny about poppies, despite the fields of them all around him.

  Lose you entirely.

  Phelan can’t get the words out of his head. He can’t work out what they are – threat or curse or fact. But surely the army has no hold over him any longer. Surely. Since being run out of it by Gruen – a short, sharp campaign he was too weak to resist – he’s had as good as nothing to do with it. In five years there has been a line of text beside the fortnightly deposits in his bank statements, an annual record of benefits paid, the odd piece of bureaucratic correspondence.

  But, and but. Every night he still lies down to dream with Beckett. The guilt. Being chased out by Beckett’s platoon. The shame. No matter how hard he’s tried, the army still has him. The complex grip of family. What he’d give to be lost to it entirely, what he’d do to be freed.

  Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps I can do something. So, when other media outlets pick up the story, and when he is invited to do an interview on national breakfast television, Phelan figures there is, in fact, nothing at all to lose.

  Invitation

  Penny sits with him in the Toowoomba studio while a make-up artist does something to his face, preparing the talent for yet another piece commemorating the Great War. When she first made contact the news producer had warned them that the station’s audience was tiring of the interminable centenary anniversaries, but that war poetry is a fresh angle, one they were keen to try. Her husband is resolute, his dark chequered jacket a new one they bought together for the occasion. He’s learned his poem by heart in case they ask him to recite it. She touches his wrist in good luck and he looks at her, before turning away and following a station-hand into a new room where he sits at a curved table to be interviewed by the hosts down in Martin Place.

  She nervously watches him through a bank of screens as he places his folio of poems on the table. He’s been clutching them so tightly his knuckles have gone white. They’re so slight, she thinks, his cryptic grasps at freedom. Is it pride she feels? Yes of course. It may not be a Medal for Gallantry in front of him on the table, but there are many varieties of courage. What he’s been through, she thinks, what we both have. And maybe, maybe what he’s going to do will help others – she’s proud of him for that too. So why the doubt? Because it’s been years since he’s done anything public and maybe he’s not ready. Because who can predict what will come of this. And because maybe she’s not ready.

  He sits at the interview table and imagines Beckett beside him. They put an earpiece in and tell him where to look. There’s a crackle as the sound comes on. He can hear the hosts in Sydney laughing at each other’s jokes, bantering like a married couple. Then they cut to an ad break before his interview, and the cameraman leans out from behind his lens to give Phelan a thumbs-up.

  A gesture as innocuous as that. Phelan sees the thumb and flashes giddy, cuts away, is suddenly in the field, the roar of rushing meltwater in his ears, acknowledging Gruen as he sets out across a stone bridge. His heart pounds. He sees Gruen’s thumb, he sees his own upraised in reply. The mockery of it. No, Phelan thinks, the situation is not all right. He starts to sweat, feels the coldness of the studio, the starkness of the lights, everyone watching him from a distance.

  Then, unexpectedly, Beckett laughs. It’s like an explosion beside him and whether Beckett is laughing at him, or the situation as a whole, he can’t tell. It’s the first time he’s heard it, but it’s unmistakeably Beckett, full-throated and cacking himself at some lunacy.

  Can’t you see it? Beckett seems to be saying between bursts of glee. The absurdity of it all?

  Phelan shakes his head, but still Beckett roars his invitation.

  Fuck it, Phelan thinks. Fuck it.

  Part Four

  The Beauty in Sorrow

  Sydney, January 2017

  Kira feels Blake lifting the doona at the end of the bed and crawling in, nuzzling his face against her calves like he’s a puppy, the rest of his little body curled tight into itself, looking for its own warmth.

  ‘Come up here, Blakey,’ she murmurs sleepily.

  His body balls even more tightly at her feet. She searches him out with her toes – feels his curved back, his shoulders, the mop of thick hair at his neck. When she brushes his cheek with the sole of her foot he draws away, burrowing
his head into a hollow in the old mattress. She follows him, catching his earlobe between her toes and gently tugging it. He squeals.

  ‘Ssh!’ she hisses.

  Most mornings she wouldn’t care – she’s at least the equal of the neighbours through the wall, can scream just as loudly back – but it’s Flores outside on the lounge room sofa she doesn’t want to disturb. Her arms are still sore from where he grabbed her last night and shook her, a spray of spit in her face, his brother Prince due for parole and Kira desperate for something to change.

  ‘Give it back to him,’ she’d pleaded, the business Flores has been managing for him while he’s been inside. ‘Just hand it back. We don’t need it. It’ll kill us. It’ll finish us off.’

  And his response, half-crazed, ‘It’s too late for that. It’s mine now.’ Throwing her against the wall, yelling at her to shut up, to shut the fuck up.

  ‘Ssh,’ she whispers again urgently to Blake in the lightening bedroom, her finger against her lips.

  Her son recognises this voice of hers, fear, and lies still.

  Some rare mornings she hears the thin cries of birds in the lull between trains. Sometimes train song. Sometimes the morning currawongs even seem to sing in answer to Blake’s breathing. But not today. This morning is heavy, songless.

  ‘Time to get up Little Man,’ she whispers eventually, trying to make it playful. When there’s no response she says more firmly, ‘Come on, Blakey, we’ve got to get you ready for school.’ Some exhausted, silent, royal ‘we’. If she lets go of that creed there won’t be anything left to hang on to.

  Still nothing, so she climbs out of bed, his body remaining motionless beneath the covers, and unpegs the sarong she’d hitched across the northern window as a curtain when they moved in here a month ago. Weak sunlight fills the room. Where does Blake go? she wonders. What better world than she can offer is he tunnelling towards this morning?

  Kira goes to turn on the television, hoping to lure Blake out of bed. She takes the batteries out of the back of the remote and swaps them around to make it work, before flicking through the breakfast television fare, keeping the volume low, settling on a station for no better reason that a roulette wheel lands on one number rather than another.