This Excellent Machine

by Stephen Orr

‘Who dobbed us in? It was him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t reckon. Whatever else, he’s not that sly. He’d tell you.’

  ‘Ron?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Or maybe the Ford people?’ She came into view, studying her back fence, the lane, the windows of the big factory. ‘They weren’t hurtin’ no one,’ she called.

  ‘Mum, it wasn’t them.’

  ‘Mighta been. Quarter of a century, not so much as a wave.’ She leaned over, gathered the last of the weeds and returned to the fire. This time, Peter followed her, and they stood watching the flames.

  ‘Doug?’ he said.

  She took a moment. ‘No.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘Les, perhaps. He’s complained before, remember, about cats hangin’ round his birds.’

  ‘No, not Les.’

  ‘Well, it had to be someone.’

  ‘So I stood havering in that moorland dim …’

  ‘Out of place,’ I said.

  Curtis didn’t care. ‘Just break, Whelan.’

  So I broke. Pocketed the seven and smiled. ‘Should we put some money on it?’

  He was confident, but not particularly able, and he knew it. Still he couldn’t resist. ‘One dollar.’

  ‘One?’ I almost laughed. ‘So you’re sure you’re gonna lose?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I would if I could, but I don’t have it.’

  ‘Fine.’ I took another shot. Got the one in. Then, again, but missed. We shook hands.

  ‘Two dollars,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The Gleneagles pool hall sat at the top of North East Road, surrounded by car dealerships, a tile display centre, a lawyer (specialising in divorces and custody) and a few old houses left to rot in a cloud of monoxide. There were thirty or so tables, crammed in, and the place was dark all day.

  ‘The first quick zest that filled me to the brim.’

  Why? Because Curtis had told me this place was the reason Dante picked up a quill. The Circles of Hell. The Damned lying in torment. We’d never been able to work it out. Dozens of men playing pool in the middle of sunny, productive weekdays. Apparently, not everyone had to work.

  ‘A friend of mine, who is not Fortune’s Friend, is hard beset upon the shadowy coast; terrors and snares his fearful steps attend.’

  ‘How much have you memorised?’

  ‘Nearly finished Cantos II. But eventually, the whole thing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Can’t you see, Clemmy? That’s the world described. You wanna understand it, remember it. Don’t forget it. Cos they’ll try make you.’

  ‘Who?’

  He took a shot. ‘They. They’ll have you working, and you’ll have a nice house and car and you’ll think, I’ve got it all, but really, you’ve got nothing.’

  I guessed he was right. Why else would the Mail be trying to convince us that happiness was Berber with free underlay?

  ‘And in the end,’ he said, ‘the profits go to the mortgage-makers.’

  ‘So you’re a communist now?’

  ‘They’re even worse. You’ve just gotta recognise this place,’ as he looked around the hall, ‘for what it is. The savage brute that makes me cry for dread.’

  He pocketed the eleven and fourteen and smiled. ‘Now it begins.’

  The pair on the adjacent table were part-truckie, part-bogan. Each had a paunch emerging from a holey T-shirt—white, purple-veined and hairy, covering the front of too-low pants with arse crack. Thongs and ankle freezers; turkey giblet arms (although they couldn’t have been more than forty) and double and triple chins.

  I loved the place. Musty carpet, and forty years of tobacco in the curtains someone had hung to try and give the place a bit of class. The besser block walls, covered in graffiti, a songline of stubby cocks and canyon vaginas for all the kids to see. Yes, kids. Cos we’d been brought here earlier in the year for PE. Taught the rules, then marched to the top of North East Road, led in—to the amusement of the Damned—and given a table. They’d watched us, these dark men, and laughed, and made comments loud enough for us to hear. Come on, boys, watch where you put them cues. Our pool hall sport lessons had been our favourite. Coke and more hot chips, as the teachers sat in the corner with a ciggie.

  We’d popped our hot dogs, and settled in with milkshakes. Shared a stolen smoke, before beginning.

  ‘I saw him coming, swift and savage …’

  But this time the fatter of the two beside us looked over.

  Curtis noticed, but you had to ignore it. We’d seen the broken pool cues. We’d heard how it happened. He whispered, ‘Dante … he was a poet.’

  The same man kept watching.

  ‘Would you like to join us?’ Curtis whispered.

  ‘Ssh,’ I said.

  Low ceilings, of course, so you wouldn’t think about the day you’d abandoned. Maybe it was best you didn’t know. Eternity was a long time.

  ‘To be honest, it’s all a bit depressing,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sport lessons were one thing, but choosing to wait at the gate? And if you didn’t start hating the place at one point, you’d become part of it. The pale faces, like plants left to grow in a cupboard.

  ‘John’d fit in,’ Curtis said. ‘Place’s full of people he could look up to.’ He studied the lesser fat man’s technique.

  ‘You should bring him.’

  ‘I keep my distance.’

  ‘What’s he been up to?’

  ‘Gettin’ ready to start work. Two weeks, tops. He’ll either punch someone or steal something. He can’t help himself. He’s a born criminal. Trash.’

  The fatter man looked over.

  ‘I see what you mean, Whelan. We gotta move on, don’t we?’

  Then, from the other end of the hall, raised voices. One man pushed another, and he recovered, said, ‘Wanna try?’ And his mate: ‘Finish the fuckin’ game.’

  Mum’d be proud. I hadn’t told her this was how I was spending the last day of my holidays. ‘If John settles, it could make life easier for you.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘Struts around like he owns the place. Stands over Mum. Good if he did come here, give someone lip, get one of these over his head.’ He gripped his cue.

  The three and two, in succession, but then I missed. Curtis countered with three more, and I realised he was winning, although he didn’t seem to care. Who needed two dollars? There were plenty of smokes under the cubby house floorboards.

  ‘I could kill him,’ Curtis said.

  ‘Why?’

  He said it to tease me. ‘Plenty of reasons. It could get to the point that I didn’t care anymore.’

  ‘You wouldn’t handle prison.’

  ‘Of hurtful things we ought to be afraid.’

  I waited. ‘You’d kill him?’

  ‘Why not?’ He looked around. ‘This place is fuckin’ horrible.’

  The fatter turned to us.

  ‘Horrible!’

  ‘Well, piss off!’

  We walked down the hill, past Hungry Jack’s, the Gleneagles sing-along shops, auto care, and an empty shopfront where Ron Glasson had once opened an outlet, but failed because of a lack of off-road parking (Pop had said any idiot could’ve seen that coming). Curtis kept his head down. I asked, ‘What’s he been up to?’

  ‘I’m not goin’ back to that shithole again. I remember it being fun.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Things change, don’t they, Clementine?’

  ‘Yeah.’ As I smelled the child-happy smell of thick and endless exhaust.

  ‘And it’s like, you can’t go back. It doesn’t work, eh?’

  Mrs Masharin was an excellent teacher. That is, she liked me. She had an accent part-Moscow part-Gleneagles, always wore her hair in a bun, sat very upright and dressed in Target frocks, but somehow made them seem special, posh, classy. She wasn’t so old tha
t you couldn’t lust after her. Thirty, perhaps, with what might have been enormous breasts. Curtis had been the first to point this out, one recess after a hot lesson, and one or two loose buttons. ‘She’s got ’em packed in, but if you look …’

  So I did, and decided he was right. Of course, Curtis took it further. ‘There goes the final button.’ As she tackled Steinbeck. ‘All it’d take is a quick fiddle with the latch and bam.’

  ‘Curtis, quiet, please!’

  Now she was reading the results of our short story assessment. Colin Davies had made up a story about a Vietnam vet who goes nuts and blows up a small town.

  ‘I said I’d come back, and I did, but what was here? Who was waiting for me.’

  Fuck me. Why was she even reading it? I watched her lips, big, Russian, deep purple. The colour of lust. I could see her tongue moving, banging against her big, white, too-perfect teeth. No doubt she was trying to seduce me with her love of words, and literature.

  ‘I forgot to tell you,’ Curtis said. ‘Last night I’s out the front and I saw this woman and this girl go into the Rosies’ place.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I reckon …’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Looked like them.’

  ‘Did you say hello?’

  He shook his head. Masharin was waiting for him. ‘Curtis, if you keep talking I’ll have to separate you two.’

  ‘Go on,’ the Cohen girl said. ‘They never shut up.’

  Masharin glared at her.

  Curtis said, ‘If it was Vicky she was lookin’ pretty good.’ Whispering: ‘Tall, blonde … last time I saw her she was like a grasshopper.’

  I tried to remember. A good-looking grasshopper, even then. I could still remember watching her through my polished lens, dreaming how nice it’d be to kiss her. ‘What were they doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Looking around. Threw some rubbish in the yard. Got in a car and drove off.’

  ‘If they come back, I get first go.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Curtis?’ Masharin was looking at him. ‘It’s important to be original.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She held up his short story. We could see the C- from the back of the room. ‘You have to come up with your own ideas. This man, wandering the underworld … Dante?’

  ‘But I did my version.’

  ‘You even used Virgil to lead him along—’ she checked ‘—Lanark Avenue.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. My version. Hell in the suburbs.’

  She didn’t look impressed. ‘It was nearly night, and everyone was coming home …’ She picked up her version of Inferno. ‘Day was departing and the dusk drew on …’

  The Cohen girl said, ‘Don’t yer get an E for plagiarism?’

  Masharin said: ‘It’s not plagiarism, as such, but, Curtis, I asked for a short story, not a translation.’

  He pointed to Colin Davies. ‘But he did First Blood.’

  Davies almost stood. ‘Did not.’

  Masharin asked, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A Sylvester Stallone film.’

  ‘Is not, Mrs Masharin. I made it all up.’

  ‘Like I did,’ Curtis demanded.

  ‘At least I wrote a story.’

  ‘A lame piece of …’ He stopped, smiling at Masharin.

  She said, ‘In contrast, this wonderful piece by Clem Whelan,’ displaying it like it had been shot, and hung on a wall, ‘is an extract from a novel: This Excellent Machine.’

  Curtis nudged me. The A was even bigger; you could see it from the moon.

  ‘You’re writing a novel, Clem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And she smiled. Not just a like-your-work smile, but something bigger, closer, more intimate. ‘Mr Lawrence watched his birds. Counted their songs. To him, each was an affirmation of the sanctity of life.’

  ‘Please,’ Curtis grumbled.

  ‘As long as they sang, things were good. But when they stopped, at dusk, it made him think there was more to night than darkness.’

  ‘What the hell’s that mean?’ Curtis asked.

  Colin Davies said, ‘Is that what you wanted? I could’ve written that.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ she said. ‘This is writing of the highest calibre. The cats were gathered around the wire, trying to get in, and he shooed them. But they returned, hungry. Dozens, desperate for something to eat, and Mr Lawrence saw this, and was determined to stop them.’

  ‘You’re in,’ Curtis said.

  But I wasn’t even thinking about that. More, how Peter might have been right.

  I watched how the light settled on Pop’s hands, in the fine wire grid set in the glass of the shed louvres. The tremor was getting worse, but nothing more, perhaps, than any old person’s shaking. I’d read about it. It was to be expected. Parkinson’s perhaps. He lifted a spanner from the bench and said, ‘This’ll do,’ and cleaned it with a rag.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘E-Type?’

  ‘Yeah.

  ‘Lotta work, boyo. You’re quite welcome to the shed. Maybe John could help you?’

  ‘I thought you could.’

  His hands hovered above the tools. An archaeology of life, a mechanic’s, sitting collecting dust. He lifted a paint scraper and said, ‘This might help him.’ He cleaned it and placed it beside a wrench. ‘And you always need a couple of …’ He studied it. ‘A couple of …’

  ‘Wrenches?’ I asked.

  He glared at me, like this object had never had a name, but I’d devised one, and somehow it fit. ‘It’ll be a lot of work.’

  ‘But it’s a Jag.’

  ‘Clapped out piece of shit. It used to be in here. He asked me to rebuild the motor, and I gave him a quote. He asked me to wait, but months later I had to tell him I needed the room.’

  ‘But it’ll be okay? With a bita work?’

  He messed my hair. An old thing. A reminder of other Clems.

  ‘Perhaps, but you’ll need parts. He’s offered to buy them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think so.’

  ‘But he’s giving me the Jag.’

  He smiled. ‘No one never gives you nothin’, Clem. He’s gettin’ rid of some old junk.’

  I didn’t agree. Jags were worth money, and this was a classic.

  ‘So it’s a present?’

  ‘When I finish my novel.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘He’s trying to motivate me.’

  He didn’t get this. ‘Tell him you don’t want it. Hurry up and get yer licence and we’ll buy you a 180B.’

  I thought about it. A 180B? Clean, easy, simple. I could imagine taking Curtis to town, bars, girls, and steamed-up windows. You had far better prospects with a Datsun.

  Spark plug pliers. Pop studied them, wiped them, put them with the other tools.

  ‘You gonna give him those?’ I asked.

  ‘He’ll need them.’

  ‘But it’s your only pair.’

  He searched the cast-iron boneyard. ‘I got another set somewhere.’ As he lifted and dropped, mixed, picked out old shards of plastic and sandpaper and said, ‘Haven’t I?’

  ‘I’ve only seen you use those.’

  ‘Well, he can have them. I can buy another pair.’

  The pile was growing. Pop reckoned this is what John needed to get him started. You couldn’t expect a new apprentice to buy his own gear. He said, ‘Later, he can replace them. But for now … if you started.’ He squeezed my arm.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’

  ‘I’m too old.’

  ‘It’ll be like a hobby.’

  Then, John was at the door.

  ‘Ask John.’

  He came in, and Pop lit up and motioned for him to approach the altar.

  ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘Clem wants to do up Peter Donnellan’s old Jag.’

  John almost laughed. ‘God, Clem, get a Valiant. Something worth the effort.’


  Pop held his shoulder. ‘Good advice.’

  He’s not what he seems, I wanted to tell Pop. He hits people. His own mother, probably. But Pop wouldn’t have listened. He led John over to the stash and said, ‘This lot, to get you started.’

  John didn’t get it. ‘What?’

  ‘This lot. You can have them. You’ll need them.’

  ‘Right.’ He picked them up, admired them. ‘Thanks.’

  No attempt to say no, or make it difficult. Just a pair of beady eyes.

  Pop had been generous: wire strippers, piston-ring pliers. ‘Somethin’ to put ’em in.’ He opened his cupboard, found his toolbox, brought it over to the bench and emptied the contents. Then he loaded it with John’s new tools. ‘That’s yours.’

  John wasn’t concerned, but made a show of it. ‘I can’t take yer toolbox.’

  ‘I got another.’

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I can get another.’ He picked up his map, lost in the mess of tools. Sat down, flattened it on his knee and studied it.

  ‘He’s a bit confused,’ I said to John, and he emptied his tools from the box. Then he put them in a plastic bag. ‘Good of you to do this,’ he said to Pop.

  Pop was following directions, driving through the desert.

  ‘This is what he does when he’s confused,’ I said.

  John said, ‘So I shouldn’t take them?’

  ‘Course you should,’ Pop called. ‘Don’t listen to him.’ He glared at me, before returning to his map. ‘Somewhere round here.’ Finding the cross with his finger.

  No, don’t do it, I thought. But it was too late. John was over, sitting beside him. ‘What’s that, Doug?’

  ‘A reef.’

  ‘What reef?’

  ‘Gold. Seven miles long. In the outback.’

  ‘And this is where?’ He moved his head to get a better look.

  ‘You’ve never heard of Lasseter’s Reef?’

  There followed the story: the map’s origins, his attempts to look for it, Nan’s reluctance, and a philosophical treatise on how a man never stopped searching. I just stood at the bench, listening. ‘Pop, he doesn’t want to hear all that.’

  But John said, ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Harold Lasseter was seventeen,’ Pop said. ‘He was riding from Queensland to the Western Australian goldfields and somewhere near the WA—Territory border he stumbled on it.’

  ‘Just sittin’ there?’ John asked.