Stream System

by Gerald Murnane

  * * *

  As a child I could never be contented in a place unless I knew the names of the places surrounding that place. As a child living in the house of red bricks, I knew that the place to one side of me was Preston, where I sometimes sat with my mother and my brother in the Circle cinema. I had been told by my father that another of the places surrounding me was Coburg, which was the place where I had been born and where I had first lived although I had never remembered it afterwards.

  Whenever I stood at the front gate of the house of red bricks and looked around me, I seemed to be surrounded by grasslands. I understood that I was surrounded finally by places, but grasslands, so I saw, lay between me and the places. No matter what place I heard of as being in this or that direction away from me, that place was on the far side of a grassland.

  If I looked in the direction of Coburg I looked across the grassland that lay, during the 1940s, on the western side of Plenty Road. Where the suburb of Kingsbury is today, an empty grassland once reached for as far as I could see to the west from Plenty Road.

  If I looked in the direction of Preston I saw the grassland sloping past the cemetery and towards the Darebin Creek.

  If I looked in the opposite direction from the direction of Preston, I saw only the farm buildings where my father worked each day with the patients, but I had travelled once with my father past the farm buildings and the hospital buildings to a place where the land rose, and from there I had seen more grasslands and on the far side of the grasslands dark-blue mountains. I had asked my father what places were among those mountains and he had said the one word Kinglake.

  After I had heard the word Kinglake I was able to stand at my front gate and to see in my mind the places on the far sides of three of the grasslands around me. I was able to see in my mind the main street of Preston and the darkness inside the Circle cinema. When I looked in the direction of Coburg I saw the dark-blue wall of the gaol and the yellow-brown water of Coburg Lake in the park beside the gaol. My father had once walked with me between the dark-blue wall and the yellow-brown lake and had told me that he had worked as a warder for ten years on the far side of the dark-blue wall.

  When I looked in the direction of Kinglake I saw a lake among the mountains. The mountains around the lake were dark blue and the water in the lake was bright blue like the glass in a church window. At the bottom of the lake, surrounded by the bright-blue water, a man sat on a gold throne. The man wore a gold crown and pieces of gold jewellery on his chest and his wrists and gold signet rings on his fingers.

  I have mentioned just now three directions that I looked in while I stood at the front gate of the first house that I remember having lived in. I have mentioned the direction in front of me, which was the direction of the place where I had been born, and I have mentioned the directions to either side of me. I have not mentioned the direction behind me.

  Behind me while I stood at the front gate of the first house that I remember having lived in was the place where I described myself as standing on the first of these pages. Behind me was the place where I stood this morning looking at a body of yellow-brown water that had been denoted by a body of pale blue in my map, according to what I have written on these pages. Behind me was the place that was the slope of grass where the dead rats once lay; the place that was also the bare chest of a young woman who might have worn an evening dress so that she could display some precious jewel; the place that was also part of the face of a man with a drooping moustache; the place that was also a place just in front of the lips of a young woman who was about to be kissed. Behind me was still another place apart from those places. Behind me was the place that I came from this morning when I set out for the place where I am now. Behind me was the place where I have lived for the past twenty years—where I have lived since the year when I wrote my first book of fiction.

  One day while I lived in the house of red bricks, I asked my father what place was in the direction that I have been calling just now the direction behind me. When I asked my father that question he and I were standing near the slope of grass that seemed to us then only a slope of grass that drained the water and other things from the pigsty into the swampy ground. Neither my father nor I would have seen in either of our minds bodies of yellow-brown or of pale blue.

  My father told me that the place in the direction that I had asked about was a place called Macleod.

  When my father had told me this, I looked in the direction that I had asked about, which was the direction ahead of me at that moment but which was the direction behind me when I looked in the direction of the place where I had been born, and which was also the direction behind me when I stood as I described myself standing on the first of these pages. When I looked in that direction I saw first grasslands and then pale-blue sky and white clouds. On the far side of the swampy ground the grasslands rose gently until they seemed to stop just short of the sky and the clouds.

  When I heard my father say the word Macleod, I believed he was naming a place that had taken its name from what I saw in the direction of the place. I saw in my mind no place such as Preston or Coburg or Kinglake on the far side of the grasslands in the direction that was in front of me on that day. I saw in my mind only a man standing on a grassland that had risen towards the sky. The man stood on a yellow-brown grassland that had risen towards the pale-blue sky and had come to an end just short of the sky. The grassland had come to an end but the man wanted to go where the grassland would have gone if it had not come to an end. The man stood on the farthest point of the grassland just beneath the white clouds that were passing in the pale-blue sky. The man uttered a short sound and then a word.

  The man uttered first a short sound like a grunt. He made this sound while he sprang upwards from the edge of the grassland. He sprang upwards and gripped the edge of a white cloud and then he dragged himself onto the cloud. His gripping and his dragging himself onto the cloud took only a moment. Then, when the man knew that he was safely on the white cloud that was travelling past the edge of the grassland and away out of sight of the man and the boy on the slope of grass below, the man uttered a word. This word together with the short sound made, so I thought, the name of the place that my father had named. The man uttered the word cloud.

  * * *

  During the years when I lived with my parents and my brother in the house of red bricks between Coburg and Macleod and between Preston and Kinglake, I often watched the men that my father called patients. The only patient that I spoke to was the young man known as Boy Webster. My mother told me not to speak to the other men that I saw around the place because they were loonies. But she told me I was free to talk to Boy Webster because he was not a loony; he was only backward.

  I spoke sometimes to Boy Webster and he spoke often to me. Boy Webster spoke to my brother also, but my brother did not speak to Boy Webster. My brother spoke to nobody.

  My brother spoke to nobody but he often looked into the face of a person and made strange sounds. My mother said that the strange sounds were my brother’s way of learning to speak and that she understood the meaning of the sounds. But no one else understood that my brother’s strange sounds had a meaning. Two years after my parents and my brother and I had left the house of red bricks my brother began to speak, but his speech sounded strange.

  When my brother first went to school I used to hide from him in the schoolground. I did not want my brother to speak to me in his strange speech. I did not want my friends to hear my brother and then to ask me why he spoke strangely. During the rest of my childhood and until I left my parents’ house, I tried never to be seen with my brother. If I could not avoid travelling on the same train with my brother I would order him to sit in a different compartment from mine. If I could not avoid walking in the street with my brother I would order him not to look in my direction and not to speak to me.

  When my brother first went to school my mother said that he was no different from any other boy, but in later years my mother would admit t
hat my brother was a little backward.

  My brother died when he was forty-three years old and I was forty-six. My brother never married. Many people came to my brother’s funeral, but none of those people had ever been a friend to my brother. I was certainly never a friend to my brother. On the day before my brother died I understood for the first time that no one had ever been a friend to my brother.

  * * *

  During the years when Boy Webster spoke often to me he spoke mostly about firecarts and firemen. Whenever he heard a motor vehicle approaching our house along Plenty Road from the direction of either Preston or Kinglake, Boy Webster would tell me that the motor vehicle would be a firecart. When the vehicle proved to be not a firecart, Boy Webster would tell me that the next vehicle would be a firecart. He would say that a firecart would soon arrive and that the firecart would stop and he would climb into it.

  * * *

  In the year when my brother died, which was forty-one years after my family had left the house of red bricks, a man was painting the inside of my house in Macleod. The man had been born in Diamond Creek and was living in Lower Plenty, which means that he had been moving roughly west from his birthplace towards my birthplace while I had been moving roughly east from my birthplace towards his. The man told me that he had painted during the previous year the insides of buildings in Mont Park Hospital.

  I told the man that I had lived forty-one years before near Mont Park Hospital. I told him about the farm that was now a university and about the patients who had worked with my father. I told the man about Boy Webster and his talking mostly about firecarts and firemen.

  While I was talking about Boy Webster the man put down his brush and looked at me. He asked me how old Boy Webster had been when I had known him.

  I tried to see Boy Webster in my mind. I could not see him but I could hear in my mind his strange voice telling me that a firecart was coming and that he was going to get into the firecart.

  I told the painter that Boy Webster might have been between twenty and thirty years old when I had known him.

  Then the painter told me that when he had been painting one of the wards of Mont Park Hospital an old man had followed him around, talking to him. The painter had talked to the old man, who said his name was Webster. He told the painter no other name. He seemed to know himself only as Webster.

  Webster had talked about firecarts and firemen. He told the painter that a firecart would soon arrive on the road outside the hospital building. He told the painter about the firecart every few minutes and he told the painter that he, Boy Webster, was going to climb into the firecart when it arrived.

  The painter’s father had been a tramways inspector until he had retired. The painter’s father had since died, but the long green overcoat and the black hat with the glossy peak that the painter’s father had worn as a tramways inspector still hung in a shed behind the house where the painter’s mother lived.

  The painter took the long green coat and the hat with the glossy peak to Mont Park Hospital and presented them to the old man known as Webster. He did not tell Webster that the coat and the hat were any sort of uniform. The painter simply presented the coat and the hat to Webster and Webster put them on at once over the clothes he was wearing. The old man known as Webster then told the painter that he was a fireman.

  * * *

  On the day before my brother died, I visited him in his hospital ward. I was his only visitor during that day.

  A doctor in the hospital had told me that he was not prepared to say what particular illness had affected my brother, but the doctor believed that my brother was in danger of dying. After I had seen my brother I too believed this.

  My brother was able to sit in the chair beside his bed and to walk a few steps and to sip from a glass, but he would not speak to anyone. His eyes were open, but he would not turn his eyes in the direction of anyone who looked at him or spoke to him.

  I sat beside my brother for most of the day. I spoke to him and I looked at his face, but he would not speak to me and he would not look in my direction.

  For much of the day I sat with my arm around my brother’s shoulders. I believe today that before that day in the hospital I had not put my arm around my brother’s shoulders since the evening in the house of red bricks when I had tried to teach my brother what a brassiere was used for.

  From time to time while I sat with my brother, a woman in one or another uniform would come into the room. The uniform would be white or yellow-brown or one or another shade of blue. Whenever one of these women would come into the room I would wait for her to notice that I had my arm around the shoulders of the patient. I wanted to tell the woman in a loud voice that the patient was my brother. But none of the women seemed to notice where my arm was resting while I sat beside the patient.

  Late on that day I left my brother and returned to my house in Macleod, which is nearly two hundred kilometres north-east from the hospital where my brother was a patient. My brother was alone when I left him.

  On the following night I was told by telephone that my brother had died. My brother had been alone when he died.

  At the funeral service for my brother, the priest said that my brother was now content because he had now become what he had been waiting for more than forty years to become.

  * * *

  On the Sunday after I had first thought of giving a pendant as a present to the young woman who was about to become my wife, the married sister of my father arrived at the house where I had sat looking at the jewellery catalogue.

  One of my unmarried aunts asked my married aunt to show me her pendant. At that moment I looked at the part of my married aunt’s body that lay between her throat and the place where the top of her evening dress would have been if she had been wearing an evening dress.

  My married aunt was wearing not an evening dress but what I would have called an ordinary dress with buttons at the front. Only the top button of the dress was undone, so that I saw when I looked at my married aunt only a small triangle of yellow-brown skin. I saw no part of a pendant anywhere in the yellow-brown triangle.

  When my unmarried aunt had told my married aunt that I had been admiring the pictures of pendants in the jewellery catalogue and that I had never seen a pendant, my married aunt moved one of her hands to the lowest part of the triangle of yellow-brown skin below her throat. She rested her hand in that place, and with the ends of her fingers she unfastened the second-top button at the front of her dress.

  From the time when I had first heard that my married aunt was the owner of a pendant, I had supposed that the main part of the pendant was of the shape of a heart. When my aunt undid the second-top button of her dress I expected to see, somewhere on the skin between her throat and the place where the top of her evening dress would have been if she had been wearing an evening dress, a tapering golden heart.

  When my married aunt had unfastened the second-top button at the front of her dress, she pushed apart with her fingers the two parts of the front of her dress and she found with her fingers two sections of fine golden chain that had been lying out of sight behind the front of her dress. With her fingers my aunt lifted the sections of chain upwards a little and then she scooped into the hollow of her hand the object that had been dangling at the end of the sections of chain. My aunt then lifted her hand out from between the two parts of the front of her dress and turned the hand towards me so that the object at the end of the sections of chain lay in the hollow of her hand where I could see it.

  I understand today that the object in the hand of my married aunt was a piece of polished opal whose shape was roughly oval and that the object would have been of several shades of blue and other colours as well. But my aunt showed me for only a few moments what lay in her hand, and while she showed me the object she turned her hand a little so that I saw first what I thought was an object all of pale blue, then what I thought was an object all of dark blue, and then, after my aunt had slipped the object down again behind her dress,
only the yellow-brown of part of the skin between my aunt’s throat and the place where the top of her evening dress would have been if she had been wearing an evening dress.

  * * *

  Just before I began to walk this morning from Macleod towards the first house that I remember having lived in and the first view of grasslands that I remember having seen, I read something that brought to my mind the first body of blue water that I remember having seen in my mind.

  I read in the pages of a newspaper that a famous stallion will soon arrive in this district. The stallion will arrive, according to what I read, from a famous breeding stud in the Vale of Tipperary, which is the part of Ireland where the father of my father’s father arrived from when he arrived in this country.

  The famous stallion will be used for serving more than fifty mares at the Mornmoot Stud, which is at Whittlesea, on the road between Preston and Kinglake. The name of the famous stallion is Kings Lake.

  * * *

  The only married woman from among my father’s five sisters was the wife of a primary teacher. As a married woman she lived in many districts of Victoria. At the time when my aunt showed me her piece of polished opal of roughly oval shape, she and her husband were living about four miles inland from the place where I often sat with my back to the Southern Ocean and looked at the pages of a jewellery catalogue or of the Saturday Evening Post. The name of the place where my aunt and her husband lived is Mepunga East. In the same district is a place named Mepunga West. In maps of that district the word Mepunga appears only in the names of those two places.

  Much of the text of The Plains was formerly part of the text of a much larger book. The larger book was the story of a man who had lived as a child in a place named Sedgewick North. If any map had been drawn of the district around that place, the map would have shown a place named Sedgewick East a few miles south-east of Sedgewick North. The word Sedgewick would have appeared only in the names of those two places.