The Drover's Wife & Other Stories

by Murray Bail

  Penis. The intromittent or copulatory organ of any male animal.

  This swings in the air between his legs and settles itself horizontally as he sits, legs crossed. It can be seen as he urinates: the wrinkled penis, grey from lack of sunlight, as if a wet forest rock had suddenly been lifted from it. It feels insensitive in his two or three fingers, and during this, the draining of his body, he plays the fluid up and down in circular patterns. Zoellner watches. Inserting himself into the body of a partner, and striving, he is suddenly filled with profound melancholy and pointlessness, or he thinks of other women, fragmented problems, words.

  Height. Measurement from the base upwards.

  Zoellner without shoes measures 5 feet 6¾ inches. Metrically this is 1.68 metres. He also weighs 114 lbs. (51.71 kilos). At that height he is considered to have less than the desirable weight. Zoellner is regarded as an underweight specimen. He thinks more of the space he fills (approx. 7 cu.ft., or 0.1981 cu. metres) and the volumes of air he breathes. Generally he believes that measurements of distance (and time) are nothing more than arbitrary notches. His interest in space is, of course, another question.

  Short. Having small longitudinal extent. Of persons: low in stature.

  Zoellner is regarded as a short person. Most other persons would agree.

  Clothes. Covering for the person; wearing apparel.

  Zoellner covers his body in the same style of clothes worn at this moment in Pakistan, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Quebec, Japan, Russia, Poland, England, Britain, etc., etc. This consists of shirt, necktie, trousers, jacket. Bodies of men are thus covered. There is little decoration in Zoellner’s selection. He does feel however the cloth resting on the shape of himself. Beneath the material his body moves. He is walking down the street.

  Age. A period of existence. The whole of ordinary duration of life.

  He is 52.7 years old. This is a measurement linked to movements of sun and moon; beyond that, when Zoellner tries to feel the bulk of those years, it seems to be a blank period without edges: an imprecise mass. Zoellner tries to pinpoint his position in his own curving cycle. Where is he at this moment? He is compelled to judge his age in other ways: is 47 average? At that age he is past the middle, into a minority diminishing group. In his country 68.7 years is the average for death. Both parents have died: he is the member of the Zoellner family left to head towards it.

  Reality. The quality of being real or having an actual existence.

  Language. The whole body of words and of methods of combining them used by a nation, people, or race. Words and the methods of combining them for the expression of thought.

  Words. Verbal expression; used in a language to denote a thing, attribute or relation.

  Healing

  The quality of miracles has declined over the years. In Adelaide, a flat city, ‘the city of churches’, we all went around on bikes. I am speaking here of the mid-nineteen-fifties. My father, for example, rode an Elliott. It was a heavy machine, bottle-green, with leather cleaning bands rolling around the hubs, silver-frosted handlebars, and a seat sprung with two thick coils like hair curlers. My father with his grey face and his pitted bike clips: arriving home after the Magill Road climb he’d lean the bike under the grapevine and rest in the darkened kitchen with a sarsaparilla. It was a three-mile ride from where he worked. Yet—and I still believe this—our bikes and the pedalling past dry hedges somehow signify the period, the white light and optimism of the fifties. They fit in very well. The man across the street subscribed to the Saturday Evening Post. Things just seem more complicated now.

  I said Adelaide is a flat city. Well, it is and it isn’t. It looks flat on the map or from the air, but the wide intersecting streets contain an inbuilt slope of private dimensions, barely perceptible, often invisible to the naked eye. The city centre is located halfway between the sea and the perpetual purple backdrop, the Adelaide Hills. Our days consisted of coasting into the hot empty air, then pushing slowly back toward the hills. Magill Road here was a classic. It ran from the foothills to town, about four or five miles, straight and smooth, wide and harmless-looking. But try cycling up one day.

  It was on Magill Road, about a third of the way down, that I saw the accident. I was one of the few.

  Denis Hedley was considered a smart-alec. His bike was an Elliott, like my father’s, but he had stripped it of the mudguards and painted the frame canary yellow and black. Around the wheel rims he’d painted a checked-flag pattern, which at low speed made old people dizzy. But its most conspicuous feature, and the thing that attracted ridicule, was a plastic aeroscreen he’d fitted, as on a racing motorbike, over the handlebars. The handlebars were black and horizontal, also like a motorbike’s. Hedley had made them from a piece of pipe. Closer inspection—though we tried not to give Hedley the satisfaction—revealed other significant modifications. Every possible strut and clamp, even the bell, the wing nuts, and parts of the pipe frame had been drilled with holes to save weight. Hedley was too smart to talk much, but he confided casually one day that it gave him extra speed. And it was a blurred yellow-and-black fact that he dominated the upper reaches of Magill Road. Crouched behind the aeroscreen, legs pumping like wheels, Hedley would streak past trams and the small British sedans at thirty-five or even forty-five miles an hour and, reaching the Burnside Road intersection, which is near our street, would suddenly sit up and coast no-hands, sometimes combing his hair or scratching the small of his back. Then he’d brake, turn around, and laboriously climb back for another run. That was how afternoons were spent in Adelaide. He was thick-necked and of course had pimples and oily hair. He wore tight khaki shorts. Hedley was also known for his fourteen-year-old sister, Glenys. She had damp hands and a cowlike smile. She was the first girl in our district to suddenly begin wearing a brassière.

  On this particular morning, my chain had come off and I was squatting down by the footpath. It was a quiet Sunday, hot; not many cars. As I say, I was one of the few to see everything. I happened to look up as Hedley went past. He had Glenys sitting sideways on the top bar—something I had not seen before. I could see they were going too fast. Hedley seemed to be struggling with the handlebars; Glenys was rigid, holding too hard. As they passed No. 1839 Magill Road—and oddly enough, I realise now, that was the year the bicycle was invented—Hedley’s specially lightened frame appeared to buckle slightly, or fold, and because of his indiscriminate drilling this placed sudden strain on the brake strut. It snapped. It had been drilled too much. The back wheel then slid forward, throwing the chain and all hope of braking. What followed could only be called a chain reaction. The atrophied pipes of Hedley’s bike, the drilled and countersunk sprockets and levers all began cracking and splitting, the little aeroscreen flew into the air, bits of broken metal and spokes fell off and jumped all over empty Magill Road like black sparks. The machine, no longer a bicycle, began weaving and contracting, approaching the intersection.

  And then from behind came Boardman (that rings a bell!) on his mauve Healing. It was the latest model, with alloy guards, three-speed gears; Boardman was the local Healing dealer. As usual, he was riding with a lighted cigarette. With superb balance and strength for a thin man in his forties, with tremendous cool, he rode in close and, pedalling in top, lifted Glenys off and onto his serene handlebars. By then Hedley’s tangle was almost at ground level, still sparking at high speed, and Hedley had one leg trailing. Again Boardman leaned over and down, this time more like a polo player, and grabbed Hedley by the collar, supporting the careering machine and halting further disintegration, while with the other hand he applied the chrome-plated brake callipers on the Healing, weaving to a halt across the intersection. At the last second Hedley lost his grip. His bike somersaulted in the clarity of that Sunday morning, snapped around the verandah post of Townsend’s corner shop, and lay there in two or three pieces. Glenys’s blouse was badly torn; I could see her ochre brassière. She immediately began swearing at her brother, and I realised sh
e had grown up. She was no longer a girl.

  Hedley stood there, one shoe missing, surveying the wreck. Boardman lit up another cigarette, waved, and rode off. I have not seen anything like it since. Boardman is dead now, and I don’t know if they make Elliotts any more. Hedley and his sister must still be alive, grown up. My father is dead. A Shell service station has replaced Townsend’s corner shop, and the intersection has been fitted with lights.

  Portrait of Electricity

  There were three guides. One did all the talking, the others nodded in agreement. They wore plain maroon jackets. The tall one with the short hair had extraordinary blue eyes, but that is probably irrelevant. We were given special shoes to wear, like cotton slippers, and the older women were giggling—it was like dressing up. Inside, it was a museum like any other. The rooms strangely impersonal, exhibits arranged in cabinets against the wall, special objects located towards the centre.

  We crowded around the guide. He spoke in a quiet voice.

  ‘Before we proceed, I must ask you to refrain from smoking. What you see here are his possessions, and you will not find a single, solitary ashtray. He was living proof, you might say, against the anthropological argument that tobacco is an instinct fundamental to man. Some people’—here, a note of disapproval altered his voice—‘out of malice, or to test him, would give him expensive ashtrays as gifts. We have a small room full of them.’

  ‘Goodness!’

  ‘The other thing, of course, is that smoke has a corrosive effect on permanent exhibits. This is well known.’

  ‘Like the cave-paintings in Lascaux, France.’

  ‘Exactly. Now—’

  ‘What about drink?’ a man asked, interrupting.

  ‘He took the occasional small glass, in private. Now’—turning to the first exhibit—‘here we have his chair. This he sat on during his last twenty-five years, received visitors in it, and so on. Notice the flattened contour of the seat. Caused by his body-weight.’

  The chair was immediately surrounded. Last year, the museum attracted 142,870 visitors from all corners—tourists, family people, and even businessmen. There were two New Zealanders down the front wearing nylon haversacks. They had the best positions.

  The chair, a soft brown one, had ordinary curved sides, and a blurred stain where his head must have been. Although it was encased completely in glass they’d put a piece of rope across the arms as double protection, like a man who wears a belt as well as suspenders. It was easy to imagine him sitting there, hunched slightly forward, his body-weight exerting pressure downwards.

  Someone asked, ‘Was he such a heavy man?’

  ‘I can tell you,’ the guide replied. ‘The pictures you’ve seen tend to suggest a large man. Last recorded his weight was actually 113 lbs. (51 kilos). He had an abhorrence of figures, by the way—as you probably know. Preferred pronouncements, slogans, instructions, counter-proposals, manifestos, modifications to previous judgements. That sort of thing.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any photographs,’ said a number of people, fairly loudly.

  The guide who had moved off waited patiently at the next exhibit. South Americans and others were quickly taking photos of the empty chair. They rejoined wearing that peculiar breathless expression of photographers, as our guide was reminiscing.

  ‘I remember the day we met. He was speaking and looking at me. I listened. It was as though guns were thundering…he had that effect. My experience of his magnetism, but purely personal. Then he died at seventy, almost seventy-one. I remember the day as if it were yesterday.’

  An austere Englishman murmured, ‘Three score and ten …’

  ‘To some of us,’ the guide went on, ‘it seemed impossible that he would die. His sheer presence was something…’

  His voice (or his memory) trailed off.

  Everyone waited, then followed his hand as it tapped the top of the cabinet.

  Horizontal, neatly labelled, was a piece of blue carpet, raised to waist level where it could be studied closely.

  ‘This was taken from under his desk,’ the guide explained. ‘He had the habit of clearing his throat, and at the same time shuffling his feet. Those worn patches you see were made by his shoes—size eights. In effect he has scratched evidence of his existence on earth, materially speaking, although to us onlookers now, we can conjure up all kinds of thoughts. What was he thinking as his feet shifted and scraped? Was he frowning?’

  Having asked these questions the guide himself peered at the carpet.

  ‘We were anxious to include one of his shoes, but could only obtain the sock you see on the left. Black. For all his boldness he was basically conservative.’

  Our surprise must have shown, for he smiled.

  ‘Conservative, yes, in dress.’

  The worn carpet was strangely compelling. Then the sock. It was dirty and needed mending.

  We moved on to another room, following the guides. With each step we seemed to draw closer to him, acquiring greater knowledge, like a fan spreading outwards.

  And there in the next room stood a tall empty rectangle, of wood, painted cream. It too was roped off so nobody could ‘use’ it.

  ‘Gallows?’ a man said, aloud.

  In every pack there’s a joker. This one was middle-aged with a rectangular face, holding a girlfriend in her twenties. She was the one who laughed.

  The guide cleared his throat.

  ‘This is important. If you could look at this. His body travelled through what you see before you, sometimes several times a day. If he paused in this doorway, as I’m sure he did, his shape would have been framed; and since no full-length portrait exists this is the nearest we have. All that is required,’ he said, staring at the joker, ‘is a little imagination.’

  He stepped back and the doorway was quickly surrounded. Women put on the expression they use when choosing wallpaper. One of them touched the guide’s sleeve. ‘The photographs. Where can we see his photograph?’

  ‘Ah, the postcard counter had some, but I think they’ve sold out.’

  ‘Oh, that’s too bad.’

  ‘They’ve all sold out?’

  Then the Englishman spoke up. Like several others, he was taking notes.

  ‘How tall was he?’

  The guide knew exactly.

  ‘Neatly palindromic! 1.81 metres. If you prefer it, 5 foot 10. He had—let’s see—a foot to spare in the doorway. Nevertheless, he instinctively stooped. This gave the impression, to some, that he was a man of humility.’

  Everyone laughed. How could anyone think such a thing?

  Smiling, the guide said, ‘Let me ask you a question. Is humour more important than history?’

  Now obviously this was directed at the joker. A murmur spread as the question was repeated. The Englishman tapped his nose with a silver propelling pencil. Humour more important than history? One of the young ones, a student wearing sandshoes, replied by asking a question:

  ‘Did he laugh? Was he that sort of type?’

  ‘Yes,’ a woman added; she had hairs above her lip. ‘Was he happy?’

  The student turned to her.

  ‘You’re confusing the issue. I said, Did he laugh—not whether he was happy or not.’

  ‘I’m sorry! I don’t see the difference.’

  She turned to the rest of us. I thought she was going to cry.

  The guide smiled at the floor.

  ‘Happiness,’ he said, ‘is notoriously difficult to describe.’

  People began nodding.

  ‘The most rudimentary textbook tells us it takes seventeen facial muscles to laugh, yet only three to frown. So! His most obvious quality was not so much happiness per se, but the ability to attract loyalty. People looked up to him. He became an inspiration…a comparison. Would that occur if he was patently happy? I think that is the question we should be asking.’

  Mmmmm.

  Lips were pursed. Most, I think, took the point. No one added to it; and the guide moved silently away to the side wall.


  A woman whispered to her husband, ‘Arnold, my legs are sore.’

  ‘Not yet. Listen to what the man is saying.’

  The guide was pointing at marks on the wall.

  ‘A similar exhibit to the doorway. He came here one morning and happened to sit down. We think he was trying to remember something. Anyway, it was right here. And this is the shape his shadow made.’

  The lines on the wall suddenly made sense, like a country on a map, unvisited, but quite familiar. Helpful arrows pointed to features which might otherwise have gone unnoticed: NOSE FROM SIDE, CHIN (WHILE NOT SPEAKING), ELBOW, SITE OF HANDS, PELVIS, etc.

  ‘Apart from knowing that he sat right here,’ said the guide quietly, ‘it does provide some idea of his body mass, although what you see is one-dimensional. He grew from something small into this shape. All the graduations, his history of growth, are contained therein, but invisible. It doesn’t quite show his thinness, but the stoop of his shoulders is evident.’

  So we were standing a yard or two from where he had sat! It produced powerful sensations: curiosity, silence. Then people could be heard trying to work out the position of the limbs, filling in the outline.

  A woman complained, ‘Well, I like to know the colour of a man’s eyes.’

  ‘Grey,’ someone told her.

  ‘Weren’t they blue? I thought I saw a picture once.’

  While they argued others went on with the guide, trailing as you do in museums, searching ahead for things not yet seen.

  We entered a small room which had a simple coffee table, glass-topped, placed in the centre. The guides exchanged smiles as we crowded around, trying to work this one out. A coffee table. Was that all? The student noticed a little arrow on the glass. It encouraged discussion, speculation. The young man was quite eager now: ‘I think I see something else too.’

  Then the guide stepped in.

  ‘Very good. We almost missed this one ourselves. I am referring, of course, to the fingernail trapped under the glass. He must have been trimming, and it snicked out, to lodge down between the sides.’