Tourmaline

by Randolph Stow

  ‘You say that once a week,’ Tom remarked, ‘but nothing ever has.’ He spoke absently, with no intent to offend me.

  ‘I can’t help,’ I said, ‘my fears. My intuitions. Something’s ending. And I keep thinking of—out there.’

  Deborah came to us, from the dim flamelit depths of the store. She asked: ‘What’s he doing, Pa?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘But he says he’s going to close down the pub.’

  ‘That’ll hurt some people,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t go out,’ Tom said to her.

  ‘I’m not going to. Mary and I are locking ourselves in.’

  The firelight made a hemisphere, with the tip of the obelisk its zenith. I looked up at the other hemisphere that enclosed it. Deep, deep blue, like the darkest sea, strewn with white conflagrations. Below, there was silence for a time. Then Byrne began singing again.

  ‘Come inside,’ Tom said, moving away. So Deborah and I followed him, into the green sitting-room where Mary was, and we settled there, to wait for whatever might happen. Not that we were in any great anxiety. But Tourmaline has a young heart, and a whole town can’t get drunk without involving itself in a few scuffles. While we were sitting there we heard two heavy-footed men race around the house, and the one who was being pursued was laughing like a lunatic, or like a very small boy. ‘I think it’s Horse,’ Mary said. ‘He’s been pushing someone over.’ She pulled back the curtains, but they had gone by then. The fire seemed to grow brighter every minute, and in the Springs’ yard the lavatory, of once-white corrugated iron, was striped rose and grey-blue with light and shadow. It was rather beautiful.

  ‘Has Michael come?’ Mary asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he’s likely to, either.’

  ‘He’s a puritan,’ Tom said, amused. And Deborah looked unhappy suddenly.

  Two hours went by. The noise level outside rose steadily, punctuated with bursts of singing and wild laughter; and then the guitar, very loud and twanging, began to play a dance, and hands began to clap, and someone (I think Charlie Yandana) broke in every now and again with a most accomplished yodel. It made me feel old and bored and superfluous, like a matronly chaperon at a Bacchanalia, if such a thing can be imagined; and it came to me all at once that I have never, in all my life, been anything else. What could be more wretched than to discover, in one’s extreme age, that one has had no youth to remember? I see myself again as a boy; a long solemn face, obsessed with responsibilities never more than an illusion, wearing unreasoned habit like a straitjacket. I was a good lad, alas. A tool, a dupe. What price have others paid for my arrogant simplicity?

  ‘This will never end,’ said Mary. ‘I must go to bed.’

  ‘So must I,’ said Deborah, rising.

  ‘It could go on for hours,’ Tom said to me. ‘Let’s have another look.’

  ‘Or days,’ I said, following him. ‘Like the old race meetings.’ And saying that I thought of horses, with great sadness.

  As we came into the firelit store an uproar rose in the road outside, and then abruptly died into two voices only, shouting at one another. Dicko’s was one of them, I recognized, and the other, we found when we reached the door, was Harry Bogada’s. They were preparing to fight. The cause, I gathered from the insults that were flying, was Dicko’s wild-looking wife Analya, who had retreated to the hotel veranda and was watching from there, in a spirit of dark contempt, while the two men took up their postures of defiance. In the red light there was something ancient, pathetic, ludicrous, about those black shapes, those traditional words.

  ‘We must stop this,’ I said. Because I knew sides would be taken.

  ‘I don’t think you’d better try,’ said Tom.

  But I thought it my duty, and went forward. As I came into the light there were shouts. ‘The Law! The Law!’ they called. And there was laughter, too. I stopped, astonished.

  Then Dicko hit Harry. And the fight was on.

  I stepped towards them, quickly, to separate them. But I was seized from behind, my arms pinioned, so that I couldn’t move. And Horse Carson said in my ear, quite gently: ‘Why don’t you go to bed, you silly old bugger?’

  Then I knew that I was old, and I could have wept.

  Meanwhile, the fight ramified and became a riot. The Yandanas and the Bogadas made up one faction, and anyone else who could still stand joined the other. Horse released me, and leapt upon Gentle Jesus. Bill the Dill staggered into the fire, and staggered out again. The flames danced and danced, and from the other side of the obelisk came constant aimless chords of the guitar, twanged out by Byrne in a semi-stupor. A thrown bottle shattered above his head, and he cursed.

  Across the fire, by the hotel, I saw Kestrel. I called to him: ‘Can’t you stop this?’

  He laughed. I saw that, though I heard nothing. But he had a habit of laughing soundlessly.

  I looked up, and saw the endless white conflagrations, that age cannot humiliate.

  I looked down, and saw ageless Gloria, humped in the dust like an anthill.

  And walking down the road, into the firelight, the diviner.

  He came and stood beside me, with eyes like blue glass.

  ‘Can you do anything?’ I said. ‘Can you?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked, all taut and still.

  ‘Stop this. Send them home. Because our unity—our esprit de corps——’

  His bubbling laugh welled up, mystifying me. He was elated. He was watching Kestrel, who was watching him, across the fire, with the flame dancing in his pale eyes.

  ‘Can you?’ I pleaded again, in my helplessness and my humiliation.

  And he said, quietly: ‘I think so.’ And suddenly he was among the flames, kicking away the burning wood, and leaping back, and then again attacking the fire, embers and brands scattering from his heavy boots. The fighting ceased. Kestrel jumped aside as a flaming stick struck him. The light rose and fell, like breathing.

  Then he stopped. And he stood there, ringed with the dying fire, all blue and golden, but cold as ice, and silent.

  ‘Michael!’ That was Deborah calling, from behind Tom.

  While he burned, in the fading light, all blue and golden.

  I saw Kestrel turn and go into the hotel. And one by one the lamps went out, behind the painted windows.

  The diviner stepped over his fence of fire. He stooped to help old Gloria to her feet. And we watched him go away, while the small flames died in the embers, and the old cold starlight took hold of everything.

  In the middle of the street the blackened sticks still lay. Men sat in the dust, under the verandas of the store and the closed hotel. The afternoon light was severe, and many hid their eyes from it, with arms clasped round sharp knees.

  I turned, coming down the road, and saw the diviner following. I waited for him. In the normal light he looked, once again, ordinary and prepossessing, except for those eyes, which were of a colour no one has seen before, and a little disturbing on that account.

  I said: ‘Good day,’ and no more, not knowing how to mention the previous night. And nor did he, and nor did any of those about us.

  Byrne was sprawled on the step of the war memorial, asleep, with a greasy hat over his eyes. We went and sat beside him, in the draining sunlight. He did not stir.

  Ahead, the red road ran straight as a fence, through the boundless and stone-littered wilderness, towards the blue hills piled on the horizon like storm-clouds.

  At last, another cloud showed. And the truck, in a puff of red dust, with a glint of metal, came crawling towards us.

  We got up, all but Byrne. A murmur rose. ‘The truck. The truck.’ And Mary appeared at her doorway. But Kestrel’s door was closed.

  And the truck came on, with its yellow hand dangling beside the driver’s door, and swept around the obelisk, and drew up before the hotel. The cab-door opened, and the small insect-driver descended, looking for Kestrel.

  Then the front door of the hotel creaked back, a
nd Kestrel called out: ‘Come in a minute.’ And the small man, wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, speaking to no one, stepped through and vanished.

  The diviner was staring, expressionless.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ I said.

  Byrne slowly sat up, the hat falling from his head, and rubbed his eyes with black-nailed fists, sighing.

  Four men were on the back of the truck, unloading. Rock shouted through the open doorway: ‘What about the grog, Kes?’

  ‘Leave it,’ came Kestrel’s voice. ‘It’s going back.’

  ‘What are you doing in there? Want a hand?’

  ‘We’re right,’ Kestrel called, coming nearer. Then the driver appeared, and behind him Kestrel, and between them a wooden chest with rope handles, whose weight made them stagger.

  ‘You can help us get this aboard,’ Kestrel said. And four men, straining, lifted the box on to the truck, while he stood back.

  I was not watching the chest. I was watching Kestrel. He was dressed in neat khaki, and wore a most respectable hat.

  The diviner was staring.

  The men jumped down from the truck. The driver looked at the load and approved of it. He climbed up into the high cab behind the wheel. Then he opened the passenger door. And Kestrel, passing in front of the truck, over which the air shimmered like running water, climbed up beside him.

  Byrne had been next to me, tense with suspicion. Suddenly he shouted: ‘Kes!’ and ran forward. He looked berserk. Kestrel had not yet slammed the door, and Byrne, with a single leap, had piled in on top of him.

  The diviner called out something.

  There was a struggle going on in the truck. Kestrel’s hat was knocked off, and he was singing out for someone to remove Byrne. But he won, in the end, without help, and Byrne came tumbling down, grabbing at the door as he fell, and staggered over and lay flat, among the dust and the ashes.

  The door slammed. And as the engine started, Kestrel leaned out, grinning, and shouted to the diviner: ‘Look after Tourmaline for me.’

  And the truck crept away; through the galah-feather dust, towards the far blue ranges, like storm-clouds on the horizon. The worn tyres left tracks sharp as new carving. The diviner was staring. We all were.

  While Byrne, in the dust, cried: ‘Bring back my ma, Kes. Kes, bring back my ma.’

  —On that night I began to write my testament.

  ELEVEN

  The call of a bugle in the early morning. In the cool, in the blue dawn, ringing as if in great forests.

  I got up from my bed, in the blue-lit room. I went out to the veranda, to the table beside the kitchen door, where an enamel basin stood; and pouring into this a little reddish water I washed myself, the small dawn breeze cool on my wet skin. It is for this I live nowadays, for the pleasures of my senses; a scent of leaves, a voice, a breeze on my dripping body.

  The senses decay, alas; the world withdraws. The earth too, that with shortened breath and clenching scrotum I have so loved, the earth will fade and be drawn away, like pools to the sun. Dear God, let me fall still quick, let me fall responsive.

  The bugle rang, on the wide cool heights of the air. The day of the dead began.

  *

  I dressed, in the blue light, and went out into the road. The town was all in shadow, but behind the two hills to the east the sky was fire-golden, and the church rose, burning. The lonely bugle call came again, from the end of the road, where Charlie Yandana stood with his head thrown back and the bright instrument glimmering.

  Others were making their way towards him. I saw Jack Speed coming down from the mine, in company with Dave and the faithful Jimmy Bogada, who must have come in on the previous night. Rock came from his shack and fell in beside me as I passed, and looking back I saw Byrne and the diviner turning into the road from the track behind my gaol.

  We stopped by the war memorial. Slowly the others gathered, from the shanties and from the camp, called by that ancient and haunting bugle-cry, whose sound to me is like the memory of a grief so old that all pain is gone from it and nothing remains but a kind of pleasure, a bitter-sweet reminder of vitality in which grief was possible. We have no ceremony, no celebration, but this.

  Slowly they gathered. And Mary came to me, carrying a wreath of leaves she had made, as on every year. And as on every other year I went forward and laid it at the foot of the obelisk, the tip of which was receiving the first rays of the sun from over the small hills.

  I turned to address them all, watching the light slide down their still bodies. I said what was true, that I had nothing new to say. ‘We come every year to remember the dead, and there’s not much more to add. Once it was said they died for us. But we’ve never truly known what they died for. Some for us, some for God, some for themselves. Most for no one, for nothing, not understanding, not even asking. Once it was taught that their death was somehow to our credit. We would come, in the name of the dead, to admire ourselves. That was a long time ago. Now all we understand is that we don’t understand. But we come in humility, and in guilt, knowing that in some way we are all murderers, we are all cannibals, and the dead have been our victims. We come to acknowledge our guilt to the dead, because we have eaten their flesh and drunk their blood, and because their curse is on us, and the seed is dead in the ground and in the bodies of men and women, because of them. And in remembering them we remember also God, who lives and reigns in the galaxies outside us, and in the galaxies within us, and was and is our judge and accomplice, before and now and forever; and we ask him, in his good time, to revise our sentence.’

  The old words came easily. But I felt them as new. All eyes were on me, but I did not think of myself, I did not imagine myself standing, pontifical, before the obelisk. I spoke as a voice from the stone; I felt myself to be the stone, the law and memory of Tourmaline. They were not my eyes that met Dave Speed’s; and what his eyes saw was not me.

  Again the bugle sounded, on the empty fire-flooded heights. And when it had trailed away we began to sing, raggedly and uncertainly, a hymn of which no one remembers the words, but which is nevertheless the only formal expression of our unity. And when that ended the bugle broke out again, wild with triumph this time, but dwindling to grief, and then again reviving, and sending its brave cry to wander through the immensity like a lone traveller in the desert, until struck down by weakness and sinking, without pause or tremor, to earth; and there, at last and utterly, dying away.

  The diviner’s hair burned in the sun. He was watching me, and the colour of his eyes seemed to me, suddenly, ugly; a deformity. He was studying me, and the others, like a scientist, cold as ice.

  Afterwards I had breakfast with Tom and Mary. Deborah and Dave Speed were also there.

  Deborah was like a ghost. She had never been more invisible. As for Dave, he seemed a little quieter every time he came into town. But signs of the old opinionated brawler would keep showing through.

  ‘You did it pretty well,’ he said to me, scarcely bothering to look at me as he made this restrained compliment.

  ‘I’m practised,’ I said, ‘as you know.’

  ‘Well, no one preaches a prettier sermon,’ he said. ‘And what would we want with a different one every year?’

  It was not a talkative gathering in the kitchen. The dead were too much on our minds, and would be for some days. For we do not soon forget any event, and there is no occasion more solemn in our lives.

  But Deborah asked, almost inaudibly: ‘What’s it all for? What’s the use of it?’

  ‘I hear Kestrel’s voice,’ I said; and may have sounded a little malicious, as I realized in a moment.

  She looked angry, and demanded to know what the dead had to teach us.

  ‘To stay alive,’ said Tom.

  I could not tell in what spirit this remark was made, and glanced at him, suspecting him of cynicism.

  ‘To die,’ Dave said, ‘later on.’

  ‘To treasure the living,’ said Mary.

  ‘But above all,’ I
said, ‘to repent—isn’t it? To atone.’

  ‘Atone for what?’ Dave wanted to know. ‘To who?’

  ‘To God, surely. For the crimes, the cruelty——’

  ‘And save the dead from the consequences of their actions,’ Tom said, softly. ‘There’s a plan for you.’

  And Dave laughed.

  ‘Is nothing sacred?’ I burst out; in despair, because without bearings.

  ‘Everything,’ Tom said. ‘Because nothing exists that isn’t part of his body.’

  ‘That we’ve wounded,’ I said, ‘that we’ve killed, perhaps. Tom, Tom, I think God will die.’

  I remember the pain and guilt with which I said that, and the teapot in front of me: white enamel, chipped, showing steel-blue underneath.

  ‘Dying’s not serious,’ Tom said. ‘Everything’s indestructible. If God can die, he’ll die in glory. Watch out for the flowers on his grave.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘the way you talk——’

  ‘It’s you that keeps throwing words around,’ Dave said. ‘Stone me, you pick up words like a bower-bird, and what a balls of a nest you make with them. Words are no good. Words are crap. Throw ’em away, and think.’

  ‘Think of what?’ I asked, or begged to know.

  ‘There’s no word for it,’ Tom said. ‘You can call it the nameless, if you need a name.’

  When he spoke of it there was great strength and quietness in his face and body. And Dave was the same.

  ‘So,’ said Tom, ‘we needn’t talk about it again.’ And he reached for the teapot, and as he moved whatever it was that had been holding the three of us together snapped, leaving me stranded. Only between Tom and Dave that impersonal understanding, wordlessly, endured.

  ‘Then——’ I began.

  Deborah was looking at me, at all of us, with great eyes.

  ‘If we talk about it,’ Dave said, ‘we’ll talk crap. This is one of the laws of the universe.’

  ‘But there are feelings,’ I said, ‘there are feelings. As if things might end. That’s the frightening kind. But on the other hand——’

  ‘Have some more tea,’ said Tom.