by Stephen Orr
‘That’s really intelligent,’ someone said.
‘Coulda killed yerself,’ Tracey added.
‘Not if you know what yer doin’.’ He whispered in her ear, ‘To do thy bidding pleases me so well.’
It was becoming obvious. He loved his tight pants, but they probably weren’t the best choice, considering. He moved about awkwardly. Tracey’s head was still an oval, with a sort of pig nose and elephant ears. She said, ‘That doesn’t look like me.’
‘I can’t draw.’
‘Why’d you do art?’
‘Either that or Home Economics.’
Curtis crossed his legs, but that made it more obvious, so he adjusted his jumper to cover it. The Devil called: big, flaky horns with sharp tips. And red wings, spread to display their venation, and some sort of sword for lopping heads. ‘Yep, me and Clem, we were the neighbourhood terrors, weren’t we, mate?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Even got picked up by the coppers, once.’
‘Did you?’ She seemed to like this idea. She held his arm, he crossed his legs again.
‘We got locked up for the night but they didn’t have any evidence. Reckoned we’d stolen some grog but, you know …’
She added lines to his portrait, and now it looked like a donkey. Then she studied my devil and said, ‘You read them cards?’
There didn’t seem any reason not to. Thomo was caught up, and the girls were talking about Target and two-for-one dresses. So I opened the pack, shuffled it and selected three cards. Then I studied them, lifted my hand and chanted a few times. ‘This is bizarre,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The Lovers.’
She smiled. ‘Yeah?’
‘Someone’s entered your life, and he needs something from you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘No?’
‘Not long-term, you know? Something, quick.’
She clung to Curtis’s arm. ‘You sure?’
‘And this card. Strength. This indicates self-control. It’s like they’re saying, Don’t give in to your weaknesses.’
‘Lift up thy voice of gold!’ Curtis said.
I drew a few more cards until I reached the Fool. ‘Of course, the Fool. A spirit in search of experience.’
‘What experience?’ she said.
‘I’m trying … they don’t want to tell me.’
The Blessed strained to escape. Curtis kept checking. I guessed his heart rate was up, and he was red in the face, and sweating. He’d given up on the portrait, adding a body and legs and splayed feet. Then, a glowing knob. She said, ‘That’s disgusting.’
Thomo overheard. ‘What is?’
‘Nothing,’ Curtis said.
I thought we were in for a repeat of the AV room encounter: Wendy and Lars in the dark as the projector flickered and Mr McGarry explained how they made aluminium. Lars reclining, as it was offered, and accepted, as the whole mystery of human life was summarised in dot point. As a small head bobbed in counterpoint to the marvels of mineral discovery and refinement.
Thomo stood, strolled over, and Curtis screwed up his picture. Thomo took it, flattened it and smiled. ‘A portrait?’
‘Should I start again?’
‘If you think it’ll do any good.’
‘It can’t do any harm.’
Then he noticed my cards. ‘How things looking?’
‘Pretty good.’ I showed him my devil. ‘Is that what you wanted?’
‘You taking this serious?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Nick, Mr Andrews, he reckoned I was a good drawer. Mr Bulljaw, we had him all over the art building.’
‘Who’s Mr Bulljaw?’
‘That’s open to interpretation.’
Then he noticed Tracey’s picture, but didn’t say a word. Apparently, being piss-weak was better than being a smart-arse.
Later, as we walked across the compound, Tracey said, ‘Where’d you learn to do cards, Clem?’
‘I borrowed them from my sister. I reckon I could make a bita money. Two dollars a go.’
‘Any takers?’
I described home room, most of the girls lined up, shiny dollars in their palms, as I spouted shit about the Empress (Mother, creator, nurturer—I can see children, lots of them … How many? … Lots, and wait, there’s someone you’ve met … Go on … He’s tall, with brown hair, or is it blonde?)
‘That’s such a load of shit,’ Curtis said, walking normally, after a difficult start.
‘It is not,’ Tracey said.
‘Think about it. This fool’s known those girls for five years. He’s had conversations about boyfriends, hobbies, careers.’ He stopped, guessing, perhaps, it wasn’t going to get him any closer to his goal. ‘Come on.’ Across the yard, into the main building, to the basement stairs.
‘Where’s it go?’ Tracey asked.
‘To Hell!’
She laughed. ‘This is out of bounds. It’s always been out of bounds.’
Curtis checked it was safe, took her hand and led her down. I followed, unsure. There was a door at the bottom with a padlock, but he showed us how the shackle could be removed.
We went in. He switched on a light. A dark cavern with a twelve-foot ceiling and a giant boiler in the middle. Insulated pipes studded with rusted bolts. Knobs and pressure gauges and a little table in the corner where you could sit and read. ‘I’m the only one who knows,’ he said.
‘What if someone comes in?’ I asked.
‘What if someone comes in? You coward.’
He indicated. ‘Down there, see, a passageway leads under the main building, and there, the first, second and third wings.’
They were all lit up, yellow, diminishing into the distance.
‘This is neat,’ Tracey said.
‘Old Coward’s off mowing the lawns. Come on.’
He led us down one of the passages. ‘Through me the road to the city of desolation … Through me the road to sorrows eternal.’
‘Shut up,’ Tracey said. ‘You’re scaring me.’
The passages weren’t high enough to stand; or wide enough to move comfortably.
‘I’m scared,’ Tracey said.
Eventually the tunnel emerged into a second, smaller chamber. Again, someone had dragged a few tables down, and there was a Playboy, and empty spirit bottles.
‘This is where Coward hangs out,’ Curtis said. ‘Wonder why the garden’s full of weeds? He gets the opportunity class working then says, I’ll be back in a minute, then comes down here, has a quick look through the literature—’ and he showed the centerfold ‘—and relaxes.’
I noticed the glossy pages, and guessed what was expected. ‘I gotta learn for the Geography test.’
‘Yeah, it’s creepy, let’s go,’ Tracey said, pulling Curtis’s arm.
He resisted. ‘It’s even better under the second wing. Coward’s got it nice. A couch, so he can have a sleep.’
She stopped to think about this.
I turned and walked away. As I went I heard him saying, ‘So to go on, and see this venture through, I find my former stout resolve returning.’
Pop said he was too old to drive halfway across Australia, so I’d have to get my licence. The September holidays were approaching and I, apparently, still had a lot to learn. I selected reverse, checked the mirror and backed down the drive, almost collecting Ernie. Pop put his head out the window. ‘Sorry, Ernie, he’ still learning.’
Ernie picked up Fi-Fi. ‘Don’t worry, she’s got nine lives.’
‘Where you goin’?’
‘Windsor.’
‘Wanna lift?’
‘Wouldn’t say no.’ Ernie climbed in the back. ‘The gout’s been playing up.’
I drove along Lanark II. Ernie said, ‘Not out of yer way, is it?’
‘Just practising,’ Pop said. ‘Headin’ down for a drink?’
‘Quick one.’
Like it was so strange, although I knew they’d drunk tog
ether. Walked down Lanark, and North East Road, past Economy butchers and Apex glass. Tying Fi-Fi to the post and heading in. I knew they’d sat together, for hours, discussing the economy and Whitlam and the 620 Bulletside pickup. And I also knew something had happened. ‘I can drop you, Pop.’
‘No time for that.’
‘Got all day.’
‘No.’
I turned onto the main road, merged and drove with my hands on cold plastic. I tried to think what might have happened. Pop saying, Unions’ll be the death of this country. Ernie replying, What would you know? Were you ever in one? Pop replying, They’ve killed the economy. Then Ernie standing, saying, You’re full of it, Doug, and Pop telling him he could shove his manifesto.
‘You two used to drink together?’ I said.
‘Coupla times,’ Pop replied. ‘Careful, you’re straying into the other lane.’
‘You should have a beer, Pop. Get you out of the house.’
‘Eyes on the road. Stop nattering.’
‘You’re always complaining how bored you are, now you stopped fixing cars.’
‘When did I say that?’
‘Why’d you stop?’ Ernie asked.
Pop didn’t want to be drawn. ‘Once you get to my age …’
‘You got all that knowledge, you should keep at it. Man’s only done when he stops tinkerin’.’
Pop studied the road.
‘You can come in for a drink,’ Ernie said. ‘My shout. That was all a long time ago and we’ve moved on, eh?’
‘From what?’ I asked.
‘None of your business,’ Pop said.
Ernie popped his head between the bucket seats. ‘It was a big—’
‘It’s all done, Ernie!’
And he retreated, stroking Fi-Fi.
We drove in silence.
‘You got a good eye,’ Ernie said to me. ‘Hasn’t he, Doug?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll be ready in no time.’
‘I gotta hurry,’ I said. ‘I wanna get my licence before September.’
‘Why’s that?’
Pop turned back to him. ‘He just means soon.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, taking my cue. I could hear the cogs in Ernie’s head clunking. He knew how to read Pop as well as anyone. He said, ‘You goin’ somewhere, Doug?’
Pop turned back. ‘No, I am bloody not.’
‘Calm down.’
Silence, again, as the traffic settled.
‘Bit of a drive, eh, Doug?’
‘No bloody drive. We can pull over and let you out?’
‘Sorry.’
Another bus, but Pop was preoccupied.
Then Ernie said, ‘What’s this?’ And produced a groundsheet from our shopping expedition.
Pop said, ‘It’s nothing.’ He poked my side. ‘Hurry up. He needs his shandy.’
Ernie examined it. ‘You only need a groundsheet for one thing.’
‘Lots of things,’ Pop said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like lots of bloody things.’
‘Like driving west?’
Pop turned to him again. ‘No.’
‘I’m surprised it’s taken so long, Doug.’
‘Mind yer own business.’
‘Last time you said we’d go. What, you goin’ with Clem?’
No reply.
‘September, before it gets too hot. All that gold … before it’s too late. We’re no spring chickens, Doug.’
‘I’m not goin’ nowhere.’
I glanced at Pop. ‘You might as well tell him.’
‘I could come with you,’ Ernie said. ‘That’s what we agreed on.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
I turned into the hotel car park, switched off the engine and waited. Pop said, ‘We’re here.’
‘When would it have been … sixty-five?’ Ernie asked. ‘Me and your pop had been sitting at the front bar for hours, then he says: I got this map.’
He spent the next five minutes explaining how Pop had taken the map out of his pocket, flattened it on the bar, showed him Lasseter’s Reef and asked if he was interested in coming, for a ten per cent cut.
‘And that was it, Clem. We shook on it and agreed on a date. But then he changed his mind.’
‘I did not,’ Pop said. ‘Tell him the whole story.’
‘That’s it.’
Pop turned to me. ‘Yes, we agreed on it, but a few days later I get this phone call. That Doug Currie? Yes, who’s this? I’m so and so and Ernie Sharpe mentioned you might be looking for someone to come on a trip. Then another call, and another. He’d told the front bar of the Windsor, everyone knew.’
‘Okay, I got a bit tipsy, told one of the fellas, but I vowed them to secrecy—’
‘And you believed them?’
‘Jesus, Doug, I said I’s sorry, but that needn’ta stopped us drinkin’.’
There was a short pause; hot asphalt, Fi-Fi panting. Pop said, ‘We’re here now. You can go have a chat with your mates.’
‘I can do some driving, and I’m not a bad cook.’
In the absence of a dog, Pop smoothed his pants. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Ernie got out, let Fi-Fi down, and she pissed against the wheel. Then he led her towards her post on North East Road, the dangerous few feet between pub and traffic where she’d sat, alone, all these years, waiting for him to stagger out pissed. But, I guessed, she was happy, because she had a routine, and knew that was her spot, and people would give her water and a pat and a crust of their pie. Like her master, aware that everything happened, if you were patient.
Curtis and I crossed the oval and headed for the Gleneagles shops. They’d let us leave early after our midyear exams. School had been a long, agonising wait for the dentist; the pain that came and went. Thirteen years, nearly, since we’d sat together, cross-legged, listening to our Prep teacher telling us what to do if we needed the toilet.
‘Too much wasted time,’ Curtis explained (school had been the first entry in his list of hates). ‘I could read when I was six, maths, nine or ten, and all the rest was bullshit.’
I’d just spent two hours writing about the Russian Revolution. A good dose of Ernie—peasants eating sawdust, watching their children slowly starve, as their landlords dressed for balls. ‘How do you reckon you went?’ I asked.
‘Beautifully.’ Curtis took a folded slip of paper from his pocket, opened it and showed me. Dozens of tightly scribbled facts and dates and a palimpsest of causes, outcomes and long-term effects. ‘Those teachers are so lazy. I had it on my desk, and no one walked past. White sat on her arse reading a magazine the whole time.’ Then he ripped up the evidence and offered it to the wind. ‘Beats sittin’ with Peter. He really stinks. Do you reckon he uses deodorant?’
‘He told me he doesn’t.’
‘I never quite got him. How can you live that long and never have a girlfriend, or wife? There’s only so much wanking you can do.’
‘He’s different.’
‘Lives with his mum. Classic closet homo.’
‘He is not.’
‘They hide it, Clemmy. Coupla magazines under the wardrobe.’
‘You’re full of shit.’
‘You wanna watch out, he’ll be after you next.’
‘He’s sort of … asexual.’
Curtis almost laughed. ‘No such thing. God put it there for a reason.’
‘You’re the expert.’
He smiled again.
‘Go on.’
‘No, if she knew I was telling …’
He was busting to say it. Seventeen years of waiting, listening, overhearing, imagining and practising. It wasn’t something you could keep to yourself.
‘I offered Coward ten bucks a week if he mowed during my free on Thursday afternoon.’
We jumped the fence and headed towards a new, multistorey police station under construction.
‘Ten bucks a week?’
‘I’ve been selling John’s smokes. Fi
gure it should keep me going for a few months.’
‘What about when he comes back?’
‘Not any time soon. So last Thursday I told Mum I was studying in the library and me and Tracey …’
‘Go on.’
‘We wandered down, had a chat, bit of a kiss. Then the bra …’
He’d always said he’d beat me, and he had. He’d said he didn’t see why people had to wait so long. Who made the laws? The Catholics, no doubt. But if your stuff started working at twelve, why all the hanging about?
‘I can’t tell you any more.’
‘Go on.’
He just smiled.
We crossed the road and walked in the shadow of the scaffold.
‘And?’
‘She had a bit of a sook and said, Why did I do that? I told her it’d all be good, and she said, I don’t believe I did it.’
‘And?’
‘I told her it’s natural. Then I mentioned next Thursday, and she got all shitty and ran off.’
‘Did you make sure?’
‘You don’t worry about that. Remember old Sparrow? There are only two days every month when a woman can fall pregnant.’
Poor old Mr Sparrow, who really taught physics, but had been made to suffer Year Eight science. And reproduction. There were only so many overheads he could put up, so much biology he could discuss, before he got to the meaty bits. Wendy, in the corner, grinning. Lars, salivating, and we children hiding blushes, but feeling sorry for him. When the semen is deposited in the ree-productive tract, the sperms swim at a fast rate (smiling, to convince us he wasn’t at all uncomfortable) towards the freshly ovulated egg. Upon arrival, he and she have a few words, then unite, and, the rest, is … well …
‘What if it was one of the two days?’ I asked.
‘Listen, Clem, you don’t wanna overthink these things.’
I wondered what I would’ve done. Sought advice from Peter? Looked up my options in volume six of Nan’s encyclopedias? But it didn’t matter, because it wouldn’t happen. Girls like Tracey weren’t attracted to boys like me.
A paddy wagon pulled up in front of the temporary police station. Two officers got out, opened the back and rough-handled a young man towards the station. ‘You been to see your brother?’ I asked.
‘Why would I?’
Number two on his list: John.
We crossed the road and went into the shops, past the butcher, cuts laid out on plastic grass—thigh and rump on their own trickling mattress. ‘You actually … finished the job?’ I asked.
