This Excellent Machine

by Stephen Orr

  ‘I don’t keep them. No one does. You see my lorikeets, you tell me.’

  And he continued.

  Curtis turned to me, smiled and said, ‘Will do, Les. They can’ta just flown away, eh?’

  ‘No.’

  I hit play. Comrades and friendship. And bed-danced.

  Pop had got dressed up, polished his shoes (although Mum told him you wouldn’t see them) and oiled his hair. Now, he stood, waiting: red. Next to him, a maths teacher from Melbourne (with a handlebar moustache): yellow. And next to him, a homemaker from Hervey Bay: blue. The three of them, waiting, as Burgo and Adriana had a laugh with the floor manager.

  I said to Mum, ‘D’you reckon he’ll be okay?’

  ‘Just what he needs.’

  I wasn’t so sure. Television amplified the smallest imperfection. Then again, Burgo was nice, and wouldn’t make fun of him. There was a warm-up man, and he told jokes he probably told every Friday. (What’s the worst time to have a heart attack? When yer playin’ charades!) Friday, because all five episodes were taped on one afternoon. We’d sat through Monday and Tuesday night, Burgo and Adriana changing their clothes between each episode. Everything, changed. Contestants, banter, prizes. Even references to Ted, from Gladstone, who’d been saving for a year to visit.

  It was exciting to see what was normally on telly, there, in front of you. The inch-high people made real, the wheel that actually clicked as it turned, the music, the APPLAUSE sign, cameras, the lot. The opal pendant and antique desk, a designer dress and Atari home entertainment package.

  The stage manager quietened us and we sat waiting. It seemed strange: a million mums and dads and kids sitting with their tea on their lap. Old folks in nursing homes, fireys waiting for a call, the nation united in its love of OCCUPATION, seven letters. I’d told the Burrells, the Donnellans, and everyone was planning to watch when it was eventually screened. So every time the camera panned the audience I’d wave so everyone at Gleneagles High, Primary, scouts, Don’s, the lot, would see me and think, Wow, Clem really made it. Wheel of Fortune!

  We applauded and Burgo said to Pop, ‘I hear you’re a Datsun man?’

  ‘Yes … indeed.’

  ‘And, Doug, what’s your favourite model?’

  He stopped to think. Stopping didn’t make good television so Adriana said, ‘I used to have a Datsun.’

  Burgo agreed. ‘I think we all did … before we grew up.’

  Laughter.

  ‘The 610,’ Pop said, ‘Nineteen seventy-one.’

  ‘And what are you gonna do with the money if you win?’

  ‘Eh?’ He stared at the lights, and swayed. Again, dead air.

  ‘Maybe take the wife on a trip?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Bummer. Bad, bad telly. So Adriana said, ‘You can take me if you like, Doug.’

  I was sure he didn’t look right. I’d said this to Mum, earlier that morning. ‘Do you think we should go?’

  ‘He’s looking forward to it.’

  ‘He’s a bit vague.’

  ‘It’s a long wait for tickets.’

  We were going, regardless. Pop would come good, spin the wheel and win some money. Or at least that was the plan.

  AUSSIE STAR, two words, five and eight letters. Pop spun first. Sixty dollars. ‘I’d like a U please.’

  Ernt! Not a good start. It passed to the teacher who spun $240, asked for C and scored the first letter. Then the homemaker, who scored three hundred before she was stopped.

  On it went, as Chips Rafferty was revealed. It wasn’t hard: obvious stuff a three-year-old could guess. I suppose this had the effect of making the average viewer feel at least partly intelligent. But that wasn’t saying much, as they’d all been tested (they’d sent Pop a questionnaire in the mail) and selected because they were between 70—90 on Terman’s Classification (Borderline deficiency and Dullness).

  Round one drew to a close. Burgo threw to an ad then told the stage manager he needed a piss. Ten minutes later we started again. SLANG. Three words. Seven, two and four letters. Burgo asked the teacher, ‘Is it true that people are getting smarter?’

  ‘Not from what I see.’

  Laughter, and the stage manager encouraged us.

  Blue. The teacher drew second blood. $370. P, please. I could see he knew, but was determined to wait. Then, the homemaker, as Pop waited, his head following the wheel. ‘Give it a spin, Doug.’

  He did, and as he leaned forward he nearly overbalanced. The teacher went to grab him, but didn’t need to, and Burgo said, ‘I like a man who knows how to spin the wheel.’

  But it didn’t help. Sixty dollars, leaving him with the lowest score. ‘He’s not havin’ much luck,’ I whispered to Mum.

  ‘That’s not what we come for.’

  Although it would’ve been nice. The previous evening Pop had said to me, ‘If I get anything, half for Lasseter, half for you and Jen.’ I’d had visions of a new Toyota, driving to school in luxury, or at least a trip to Surfers, or enough for the brick cladding Mum had always wanted for the house.

  Blue: $270. L.

  Red: $90. A. ‘I’ll solve that one, please, Burgo. Plates of meat?’

  APPLAUSE.

  Off again. Burgo didn’t seem interested in the contestants. A girl checked his hair, he loosened his jacket, and Adriana sipped juice.

  Pop waved to us. Mum called, ‘You’re doin’ well.’

  ‘He looks lost,’ I said to her.

  ‘He’ll be talking about this for months.’

  I didn’t think he’d even remember it. We risked going home with a more despondent Pop. What would happen then? A descent into the lounge room chair, the recliner, the bed? Would Burgo smooth his way to senility?

  Burgo asked the homemaker about Hervey Bay and she told him Pialba, with its grassy streets and salty-smelling breeze, was just about the best place on earth. Burgo told her his sister had bought a unit on the beach. Pop said, ‘They got that in the Post.’

  Burgo said, ‘Indeed they do, Doug.’

  ‘And them bloody meter maids, eh? They’re half decent.’

  ‘Down on the Gold Coast,’ Burgo suggested, as all eyes settled, uncomfortably, on Pop.

  ‘See,’ I said to Mum.

  ‘Ssh!’

  FAMOUS BUILDING. Two words, three and five letters.

  The Taj Mahal. Below 70. Definite feeble-mindedness.

  The homemaker said: R.

  It passed to Pop. He spun, and this time scored $1200. Mum squeezed my arm and, for a moment, he seemed to come good. ‘P please, John.’

  Ernt!

  Red, yellow, blue. Until the Hervey Bay homemaker got lucky. $360 T. $470 M. $390 L.

  Burgo risked it. Just as Pop was about to spin he said, ‘Get this one, Doug, you might be in for a nice new Sunny.’

  But, of course: LOSE A TURN.

  Mum leaned on my shoulder. ‘Shit.’

  I watched as Pop waited, alone under the lights, wiping sweat from his face: a man stripped of clothes, and magic, left for people to poke sticks at. He swayed, and when the teacher told Burgo what he’d like to do with his money, Pop said, ‘Doesn’t always turn out like it should.’

  Burgo didn’t seem happy. ‘Too right, Doug.’ But it was the worst sort of matey too right.

  ‘Just cos something looks bad,’ he continued.

  ‘That’s how the wheel spins,’ Burgo said.

  ‘But he didn’t, you know, Burgo. He didn’t take no grog. His mate did, but he didn’t. So they should stop looking for him.’

  Burgo listened to his earpiece.

  ‘It’s not fair. If people’d just give him a go.’

  Mum was sitting forward, biting a thumb nail. ‘They should stop it.’

  ‘I think I’ve had enough,’ Pop said, and he turned and walked from the set.

  Mum ran down to the studio floor, tripped on a cable, but took Pop by the arm and led him backstage. I was left watching.

  The funny thing is, they spun again, like
nothing had happened. And it was then I realised how the machine really worked.

  Driving home, I said to Pop, ‘Purely random. That old cow got lucky.’

  ‘I told you I didn’t want to go.’

  ‘It was fun,’ Mum said. ‘Didn’t you have fun?’

  ‘Did it look like I was having fun?’ He just watched the road. ‘It stopped being fun when I got up there.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Mum asked.

  ‘When I saw how it was all put together, and realised it was fake. A loada shit made for idiots.’ He turned to Mum. ‘We should stop them screening it.’

  ‘You signed a form.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Although she’d faked his signature.

  ‘Anyway, they won’t screen it like that, will they?’

  None of us knew, or cared, I guessed. I said, ‘At least they got Happy Days at five-thirty.’

  He agreed. ‘Yes, that’s a good show.’

  Mum never seemed happy. Clothes, quick, for the wash. Didn’t eat yer lunch again, Clem. At your age, I’d expect you could make your bed. Dad, turn it down! A noise-generating device placed in our lounge room. Stress, like a Van de Graaff on full, whirring away as we slept, recharging, until the morning: If yer not gettin’ up don’t expect me to drive you to school or write a note.

  Mums lived with this image of perfection: ordered, paid for, full marks, bin out, windows cleaned, telly turned down. They didn’t understand that the machine spat out C-grade maths tests, stale bread under the bed, dog shit on the drive.

  Even now, standing beside her esky, looking out the front window. ‘I wish she’d just go home … or piss off.’

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ Jen said.

  ‘I’m not feeding her forever.’

  She’d been counting Wendy’s days, too. Six. Breakfasts, lunches, teas. Six days of sheets and water, dunny wrap, and Les-watch. ‘I got too much else to worry about,’ she said.

  ‘Where else can she go?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s got a sister at Hawthorn. She could go there, but no, she’d rather have me feed her.’

  ‘Tell her,’ I said, taking K—L from the abridged and condensed bookcase.

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can. She can’t stay in there forever.’

  Mum studied the street. ‘I think she likes the attention.’

  ‘She’s confused,’ Jen said, laying out cards to tell her what might be done.

  Mum sat on the esky. ‘She hasn’t even paid me.’

  ‘She will,’ Jen said.

  ‘She eats like a horse. You’d think, if she was so upset … She’s costing me a fortune.’

  Mum was ready to take the esky over, but wasn’t sure where Les had gone. She hadn’t seen his car for two days. ‘Clem, go knock on his door.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘And if he answers tell him we were worried.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jen said.

  ‘He’s out.’

  ‘Na,’ Mum said. ‘No lights, no movement. If he’s not there, give me the thumbs up, I’ll deliver the mornay to Her Majesty.’

  K—L was best. Lithuania, with pictures of hot women working in a car factory, overalls unbuttoned, cleavage, like some sort of Eastern European porn.

  ‘Right.’ I walked from the house, across the street, down the Champnesses’ drive, up the few steps, and knocked. There was a pot plant but it had shrivelled and turned brown. Beside this, a small table with smokes and matches and a glass with dried beer froth. I knocked harder. ‘Mr Champness?’

  I saw Mum standing on our porch, waving for me to go round the back. ‘He’s not here,’ I called.

  ‘Ssh!’

  Mothers were shame generators, gauging the weather of neighbourhood opinion and posting warnings, making sure the blinds were up, bikes put away, windows closed. In case someone saw something, and told someone else, and the sky fell in. There is nothing to be done. You just put your life in a brown paper bag and present it for washing at the end of every disappointment-filled day.

  And there he was, in his Falcon, driving towards me. He pulled up, got out and said, ‘How are yer, Clem?’

  ‘Good. You?’

  ‘Lookin’ for something?’

  I thought on my feet. ‘Mum hadn’t seen you for a while and was a bit worried.’

  He lit up. ‘That’s nice of her. But I’ve been up the Port.’

  ‘Right.’ Up the Port. Whatever that meant.

  ‘You wanna help me?’ He indicated a large cage on the back seat of the Falcon. It was full of birds, a dozen perhaps: cockatoos, lorikeets, a budgie, a few others I didn’t know. They’d been shitting all the way from the Port, but he’d put a rug over the vinyl. ‘Time to restock,’ he said, opening the door, pulling out the cage.

  Wherever the Port was, it seemed good for birds. They squawked, clung to the metal, went for Les’s fingers. But he didn’t care. He opened his aviary, took the cage in, closed the main door and released his new birds.

  As he waited for them to come out he said, ‘How the telly show go?’

  ‘Not so good.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Pop got a bit confused.’

  They peeked out, tested the air, and flew around. Les didn’t flinch. Birds didn’t bother him. ‘He’s gettin’ worse, eh?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘We’ll have to keep an eye out for him. See him out wandering sometimes.’

  The birds had all come out. Les closed the smaller cage, opened the bigger one, and stopped to admire his menagerie. ‘That one there,’ he said. ‘Took us hours.’

  A sulphur-crested cockatoo. But the trip to the Port might’ve been wasted. There were plenty around Gleneagles.

  ‘And the flame robin. Don’t see ’em in the scrub anymore. Was a time, there’d be thousands.’

  It was a nice-looking bird: red throat, white stripe above the beak. From the outback to Lanark II. It seemed a shame.

  ‘Of course, she’s the queen,’ he said, indicating a superb parrot. ‘Look at the yellow on that head.’ He filled a seed tray from a bag of grain, inserted it between the wire and watched them eating. The superb parrot just sat there; like she felt the dislocation most keenly.

  ‘She’s not hungry,’ I said, indicating.

  ‘She will be,’ he half-sang. ‘Wait here.’

  He went in, and banged around inside. I watched the birds as they explored their new patch; wire, shitty ground, cloudy water. He came out with two cold beers, pulled up a bench and motioned for me to sit. Then he gave me a beer and I said, ‘I dunno.’

  I looked down the drive. The angle obscured number 31, so in theory … I took a swig, and liked it (I’d got the taste from a few strays in the cubby). Les just said, ‘You’re old enough?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Close enough. I’s drinkin’ at eleven, and it never hurt me.’ There was a crimson rosella, but he didn’t seem that interested. ‘Nice selection. I had plenty more, but I only want one of each, so I let the rest go.’

  Then he explained: a family shack in the mallee, and a trapping expedition with his brother. ‘He’s clever, see. Sets out a net, connects it to these long branches then waits. One strays in, whoosh, got it.’

  He drank half a bottle in one go. ‘So then you got a couple of mallee parrots. Don’t want ’em, let ’em go. Wait a bit longer. We were there most of the night, but we got a nice selection, eh?’

  ‘I reckon.’ Once you got the taste, it slipped down the throat. I kept checking, but there was no way Mum could see.

  ‘That how you get all your birds?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep.’ He finished, went in and returned with another two bottles. He cracked his and said, ‘My brother loves his birds. He’s got an aviary the size of our house. Hundreds of ’em. Sells ’em to the shops.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

  ‘He never moved to the city. See, smart. I shoulda stayed there.’

  The scratching of small fe
et.

  ‘That’s what we did when we were kids,’ he said.

  ‘Trapped birds?’

  ‘Go out for days at a time.’ He was remembering. Two boys, bare feet, thorny acacia and frogmouth. ‘We had to, Clem.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  He held up his beer. ‘The old man was permanently pissed, so Mum relied on us. No school past ten. That’s why I’m always on at you to keep going.’

  ‘I will.’ I drank. I could feel the happy numbing, as slow as test cricket.

  ‘He’d clobber her, so we preferred it out camping and trapping.’ He seemed to lose interest in the birds, and studied the ground beneath his feet. ‘Anyway, it was a bita money, so it helped.’

  I finished the first and cracked the second. I could feel my head loosening on my shoulders, and felt sentimental, but had little to feel sentimental about.

  ‘Family’s what matters,’ he said.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But I buggered that up, eh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t blame her. She’s living next door.’

  ‘She is?’

  ‘Seen her in the yard a few times. Don’t think she knows I know. But when she’s ready …’

  ‘Why don’t you go in and talk to her?’

  ‘Na, that wouldn’t work.’

  It seemed like a different Les talking. Some old, fat-bellied Buddha. With infinite patience, and wisdom. But this wasn’t the man Mum or Wendy had described.

  ‘Do you want me to say something?’ I asked.

  But he was still in the mallee, with his brother, and their scratched legs. ‘Waiting’s good too. Just lying there, lookin’ up at the stars. That’s the best part. Gets to the stage you don’t care if no birds come. Eventually, Harry, my brother, would fall asleep and I’d cover him with a rug, and the birds’d come and eat all our grain, but I wouldn’t pull the pin, cos that’d spoil it … you know, being out there together.’

  As their mum stood on the porch, calling, Harry! Les! Where are yers?

  ‘Long as she’s got enough to eat,’ Les said. ‘Your mum’s been cookin’ her decent stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll fix her up for it, after. Don’t expect her to pay.’

  ‘She doesn’t care.’

  ‘I know, but it must be takin’ time. That’s what makes this street special. Which is why we gotta look out for Doug now, eh?’