by Stephen Orr
Wakefield Press
Stephen Orr was born in Adelaide in 1967 and grew up in Hillcrest. He studied teaching and spent his early career in a range of country and metropolitan schools. One of his early plays, Attempts to Draw Jesus, became his first Australian/Vogel shortlisted novel, published in 2002. Since then he has published seven novels, a volume of short stories (Datsunland) and two books of non-fiction (The Cruel City and The Fierce Country). He has been nominated for awards such as the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and the International Dublin Literary Award. This Excellent Machine is the first volume in an anticipated trilogy of childhood novels.
Stephen Orr is married and lives in Adelaide.
Wakefield Press
16 Rose Street
Mile End
South Australia 5031
www.wakefieldpress.com.au
First published 2019
This edition published 2020
Copyright © Stephen Orr, 2019
All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart fromany fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
Cover designed by Liz Nicholson, designBITE
Edited by Margot Lloyd, Wakefield Press
ISBN 978 1 74305 652 3
One by one as you swung monkey-wise from branch to branch in the wood of make-believe you reached the tree of knowledge. Sometimes you swung back into the wood, as the unthinking may take a familiar road that no longer leads to home; or you perched ostentatiously on its boughs to please me, pretending that you still belonged; soon you knew it only as the vanished wood, for it vanishes if one needs to look for it.
J.M. Barrie
After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.
James Agee
LOOKING BACK, I can’t say what made 1984 so special. A succession of failed driving tests? The man in the picture in Mrs Donnellan’s house? Mr Champness telling me the difference between regent and king parrots? Datsuns (always Datsuns)? Or maybe it was our journey north, and the search for Lasseter’s Reef. Looking out my bedroom window to see a couple of dogs going their hardest under a rosemary bush. Dave Donnellan (put out for sun) singing his mum’s songs. Or Curtis, forever telling me I was a dickhead.
No. A place, person—time—can only be known by knowing the things that went with them. Mixed with them. Coloured and flavoured them. That’s how I see it, now. We all lived and breathed and shared fruit because of those small moments of grace.
‘I know you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Clem … Clem Whelan.’
‘No, he’s in Grade Seven.’
The old girl looked over the gal fence. ‘That went straight through my flyscreen.’
I didn’t reply. It didn’t look good. We’d been throwing lemons on the oval and I’d chucked one over her fence. It’d hit something and the others had run away, but I’d done the right thing and climbed the Moreton Bay to see what had happened. And then she’d peered over, hair rollers and all. ‘Clem Whelan. Your pop fixed my car one time.’
‘My pop’s a train driver.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
About then the bell sounded and everyone ran into class. I was left with the old woman, who cleaned the senior and junior open units. Every day at three pm, sliding the gal back, climbing through with her vacuum and buckets, walking across the oval, starting her hoover while Mr Gottl was busy with long division.
‘Truth’s better than just about anything,’ she said.
‘I was throwing at Kenny but …’
She didn’t reply.
‘Sorry.’
‘Now you feel better, I bet.’
And then, Mr Gottl himself, calling me in. ‘Carn, Clem. What you doing?’
As I clung to the tree I said, ‘How much you reckon it’d cost to fix?’
She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘Why?’
She reached up, and I could see the old turkey giblets dangling under her arms, and she threw the lemon back.
‘Clem!’
I caught it. ‘We got English now.’
‘Go on then. Watch yerself next time.’ And she was gone, but not gone, really. She was always there, vacuuming the carpet they stuck down with gaffer tape, cleaning the tables that Stephen Prawer drew dongers on.
Grace, 1976 style. Moments that allowed us to be wrong, impatient, stupid, but still carry on. Forgiveness, although it was more than that. Repeating endlessly. Two am rock bands pounding the piers of the Polish hall as everyone lay awake cursing Bill Hailey. But it would stop, eventually, and we’d fall asleep, and the next morning it’d all be forgotten, mostly. Man worked hard laying pipes, man needed to blow off a bit of steam on Saturday night.
Grace. 1977. Mr Gottl again. I mustn’t have been as innocent as I remember. Or maybe someone had put me up to it. Either way, there I was in the open unit they usually kept locked at lunch. I went straight for Mr Gottl’s desk. Bingo! The old biscuit tin. You’d often see him searching for change. But this was more than I could’ve hoped for: a five and ten dollar note, straight in the pocket. I can’t remember why; I didn’t really need the money. It wasn’t like we were poor, mostly. And it wasn’t like I didn’t know better. But everything had to be learned the hard way.
‘Clem?’
I looked up. What could you say? Mr Gottl seemed surprised, shocked, but (initially at least) more because he didn’t understand. Me, Clem Whelan, the kid in the hand-knitted cardy, top of the class for speed and accuracy. He just repeated my name, stepped forward, took the money and threw the biscuit tin (I’ll always remember the flick of the wrist) across the room. Took my earlobe and pulled me out the door towards the office. What was I thinking? He dragged me, bodily, across the asphalt, past monkey bars, Barbie girls, towards the office. A few stopped to stare, surprised that it was me, Clem Whelan, not Barry or Stephen.
Mr Gottl let go of my ear, but took my arm. He was slowing. I could see his face, lined with anger, or frustration, or confusion. Clem Whelan: Friday afternoon certificates (Quietest, Fastest, Most Considerate), stealing from his biscuit tin.
He stopped, released my arm and said, ‘Why?’
My head might’ve dropped. I might’ve bit my lip. But then he stepped back and said, ‘Go on.’
We were standing under the pine trees, alone, halfway across the car park, halfway to the office. Grace. Surrounded by Datsuns. I stood, waiting, confused.
‘Go!’ he said, choking on the word.
So I walked away. Glanced back to see him standing, thinking.
‘Plenty of options,’ I said to Pop.
‘Such as?’
‘Helping you.’
Holding the old fuel filter in his hands, Pop took a few moments to decide. It might last another thousand kilometres, but to be safe, it should be replaced. ‘What’s the point? Get an apprenticeship. Do it properly.’
‘But you can teach me.’
He wasn’t sure where everything fitted. He’d stripped most of the Fairlady’s engine (Datsun 1500 Sports) and laid the bits and pieces on an old bedsheet he’d spread on the crumbling concrete. He was thinking, perhaps, of putting it back together. If it could be put back together. There was a manual on the bench, sitting open, its torn pages some indication. But enough? He had to think hard about every spanner turn. ‘You shouldn’t rely on me,’ he said.
‘I know most things.’<
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‘Not enough.’ He placed the filter on the ground and continued. Leaning over the engine, he started unscrewing the oil filter. ‘What else?’
‘A copper?’
‘Can’t see that happening.’
‘Plenty of other apprenticeships. Printing, fitting and turning.’
He didn’t want to stop me. Maybe I’d say something intelligent. Maybe not. But it was worth the wait.
‘Just gotta accept it,’ he said. ‘Back to school. You got the head for it.’
‘So?’
Then he looked up, half-shitty. ‘So? Use your brains. That’s where the money is.’
We’d had the talk a hundred times. The doctor-engineer-lawyer persuasion. ‘So?’ He placed the filter on the ground, studied the pieces then shook his head.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Returning to work. He undid the clamps and removed the battery. ‘Early Datsuns weren’t much.’
‘What about the Laurel?’
He glared at me. It wasn’t about the Laurel, but what I should do with myself. It was only a week until I started matric. I wasn’t interested, and if I didn’t resolve it now it’d just be nine months of Bruce Dawe and Gross Domestic Product.
‘Your mother wouldn’t have a bar of it,’ he said, fighting with the battery, working it free, attempting to remove it. ‘Gis a hand, will yer?’
So I took it, lifted it, placed it in the little square he’d drawn on the sheet, with the word BATRY, so he’d know.
‘Now, let’s think,’ he said. He put his hand to his head and massaged his temple, as though this might wake the sleepy cells in his brain. Although, even then, standing in the shed that hot day, month, year, I knew, we all knew, the bits and pieces were starting to drift and settle in other places. But the sheet was comprehensive enough. He’d sat there, the previous evening, copying the names from the manual, labelling them, saying to me, ‘You’ll help us with that Fairlady tomorrow?’
‘Sure, Pop.’
‘Should have it done in a few hours.’
Mum had said, ‘Don’t be stupid, Dad. Forty-odd tomorrow. You don’t wanna be out in the shed working.’
And he’d turned to her. ‘Wait for it to cool down and we’ll be there in April.’
She’d given him her look. Not the hot-shed look, but the you’re-too-old look, the save-yourself look. She’d turned to me for support but I’d just said, ‘I can help.’ So she’d fallen silent. Kingswood Country silent. Ted and Bruno and other cars, other neighbourhoods.
Back in the shed, Pop wiped his hands and said, ‘Your mother’s relying on you.’
‘I hate school.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
I studied his face—chicken skin with six or seven liver spots, a bulbous nose with fuse-box capillaries, smokers’ teeth, big ears with hairs. ‘What about a teller?’
‘You can do that after November.’
‘Or the public service test?’
‘Why’d you wanna be a public servant? Sit on their arse all day …’ Which made him think of work, and all the bits that still had to come out. He started removing spark plugs and leads, placing each on the sheet in its numbered spot. ‘I’ve always regretted not finishing school. Then you gotta spend yer life doing this.’
‘But you like it.’
‘You do anything long enough you get used to it.’
I didn’t believe it. He liked cars, and wouldn’t be anywhere else doing anything different. Forty, fifty degrees, it didn’t matter; he wasn’t happy unless he was in the shed. It was his version, minus the titty calendars, of the garage he’d worked in for fifty years, before he’d retired, or been made to. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘what about your Nan?’
I knew he’d mention her. Nan, sitting with her Dickens, her New World Encyclopedias, saying, Clem, you done yer homework?
Yes, Nan.
I found this bit here, about the planets.
I finished, Nan.
And all the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Isn’t that what they were asking about?
I finished, Nan.
But Nan would never accept that. You were never finished; you could always do a bit more, make it better. Twenty years of scrubbing pub floors, that’s why you had to know the moons of Jupiter, and how the rings weren’t really rings.
‘She’d turn in her grave,’ Pop said, removing the last of the leads.
That made it difficult to argue. I knew that’s one thing she’d want: me as a matriculant, university, perhaps, probably, definitely. ‘What about some sort of management—’
‘Jesus, Clem!’ He knocked his head on the bonnet. ‘You just go on and on. It’s decided!’
No, it’s not, I thought, but dared not say.
‘What’s the big bloody deal? A few months outa yer life then you can go do whatever you want. But … for your mother’s sake.’
I wasn’t all that worried, but thought it worth a try. He or Mum might’ve said, Of course, get the paper, apply to a few places. Manager at Tom the Cheap grocery, that’d be okay. Earn a bit of money, help with a car on the weekend. It was worth a try, but it wasn’t worth getting him pissed off.
He waved a spanner in my face. ‘Nan’s every second thought was you and Jen. None of us got a decent education. Now you can get your degree for free. Why wouldn’t you?’
I smelled the rooms, the labs, the fingernail-yellow paper in the books; heard Mrs Dent praising Shakespeare; saw the lads with their too-tight shorts on the oval kicking balls that would last until lunch, beyond, into a future of shallow trenches and full-forwards and seven kids with mixing-bowl haircuts. Which was reason enough, perhaps, to do as Pop asked. ‘Didn’t say I wouldn’t go back.’
‘Well, stop going on about it.’ He sat, picked up his Port Royal and started rolling a smoke. After he got it tight he licked it, lit it, sat back and inhaled.
What you thinking about? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. What was the point? Life was just something you got on with, apparently.
I guessed it was Nan, dead ten years, in her little spot in the wall at Centennial Park. ‘I suppose she did buy all those encyclopedias,’ I said.
‘She did.’ He drew back, and took in most of the too-thin fag.
‘Every week, eh?’
No reply. But I saw her, hobbling back from the newsagent with that week’s volume. L—M. Lithuania. Limes. Presenting it to me and Jen and saying, Look after it. Only another five weeks. N—O. New Guinea was a revelation. No one bothered with bras. As well as which, they were good for projects. P—R. Perth. Princeton. Poland. A whole world beyond Lanark Avenue, described in the most superficial detail.
‘Do you want me to finish?’ I asked.
‘Wait.’
He was savouring the last few centimetres, but other things as well. Him and Nan, somewhere, fixing something, cooking it, polishing it.
I stood, pulled the darts from the board and started playing. They hit the iron, and clanged, but Pop didn’t say anything. The smoke was drifting, settling. I got a few in and said, ‘Wanna go?’
He glared at me like I was stupid, like I’d just ruined something important. So I tried again: three, five, double score. ‘Must be fifty degrees in here.’
No reply.
He was wearing heavy, torn overalls. But they were part of the performance. Hot, but you had to be hot. There was a car to be fixed, and this James woman wanted it back by next Monday. ‘We should go in, Pop.’
‘Not finished.’
His eyes returned to the roof, the tube trusses, the wires gaffer-taped on, finishing in power points that hung loose. The shelves with old carburettors and fuel lines and seatbelts. A workbench piled high with tools no one used.
‘What you thinkin’ about?’ I asked.
He studied the sheet. ‘What goes where.’
The expanding iron groaned, but he didn’t notice.
‘How many volumes were there?’ he said.
‘
Eighteen.’
‘Right.’ And he was examining them too, Frankenstein and Henry Ford, holding a magneto, but mostly, Nan taking them out of the bag, handing them to us kids. ‘Eighteen … home needs a set of encylopedias. It’s civilising.’
Now I’d re-mastered the art of the dart throw: jerk, release, let the weight do the work. They were all sticking. Civilising. That was important, I guessed. Otherwise you just had four fibro walls and creaking floorboards.
He stepped on his smoke, glowing beside the dozens, hundreds, he’d ground in over the decades. Since he and Dad had built the shed. Which had come before the house, of course. Looking at the hundred nuts and bolts and sheets of iron. Thinking: Right, let’s go.
Now, he took a moment to think, consulted the manual (not that he needed to) and disappeared below the bonnet. I threw a few more darts. Noticed the chalk scribble, the addings-up on the blackboard beside it. All the numbers formal, structured, the same. ‘Who wrote this?’ I asked.
He checked. ‘Yer dad.’
I studied the numerals, as if they might tell me something. The chalk was still sitting on the wooden frame. I picked it up and traced the numbers. Perhaps this would provide some clue about my missing father. Who’d left no clothes, toiletries, papers. Nothing. But the father, I guessed, who was standing beside Mum, and toddler Jen, and baby me, in a photo in Mrs Donnellan’s house. A photo they’d all missed in their conspiracy of denying me a dad. A solid, real, smelling, speaking, remembered old man. Mine was a ghost dad. A bit of chalk, a pair of shoes, but not much else. A whispered comment from Aunty Maureen before she realised me and Jen were listening. But Mum hadn’t realised Mrs Donnellan hadn’t realised. And there he was, this grinning man standing with the family that time had forgot. ‘Was he any good at darts?’ I asked.
‘He was okay, I suppose.’
‘Could he beat you?’
‘What’s the point of throwin’ those things?’
Always how it was. Dig, but the ground was hard. Dad, apparently, had caused it all. Then Jen was in the doorway. ‘Mum says youse should come in.’
