Time's Long Ruin

by Stephen Orr

  We left the boy with his bucket half-full of redfin and walked back to our vans, scratching fresh mosquito and fly bites. ‘Like to give him a slap,’ Bill whispered to Dad. ‘Bet his father’s a bloody doctor or something.’

  When we got back to the vans our mums had made up our beds. I would be sleeping with the Rileys: four of us, crammed into a double bed. Each of us smelling of zinc cream and stale sweat. Me and Janice on the outside, singing along with Bill and his ukulele.

  ‘Quiet, sleep,’ our parents said later, as they sat outside smoking borrowed cigarettes. ‘You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Janice asked.

  ‘Never you mind. It’s a surprise.’

  As Bill continued serenading us: ‘How’s your sister, Hannah? How’s your darling pa? How is your brother Charlie? Hannah! How’s your ma?’

  People returning from the shower blocks stopped to share a few verses. One man dropped his shampoo, bent over to pick it up and revealed his arse to half the park.

  After midnight the mums went to bed and it was quiet. A few ducks had come up from the river and settled down beside the dads, waiting for a feed. All I could hear was the hum of a compressor and a few birds singing; a group laughing, outside another van somewhere; Liz sleeping, breathing deeply, turning and cursing the mattress; Bill strumming a chord and picking a few notes, saying, ‘Your mystery man . . . what was on that piece of paper?’

  ‘Christ, Bill, I don’t want to talk about him. I couldn’t give a shit.’

  ‘Where’d they find it? Rolled up in his watch pocket?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Taman Shud.’

  Bill sat forward. ‘The End?’

  ‘Yeah, The End.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Who knows? Who cares?’

  I turned and looked out of the small window and could see them talking. Bill leaned forward and stopped strumming his ukulele. ‘It must have meant something.’

  Dad sat back and continued drinking. ‘It was from a nine hundred year old poem, The Rubaiyat. The last verse goes, “And when yourself with silver footfall shall pass, Among the Guest’s Star – scattered on the grass, And in your joyous errand reach the spot, Where I made One – turn down an empty glass.”’

  Bill smiled. ‘See, you do care.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘You remembered it.’

  ‘Heard it so many times.’

  ‘“Turn down an empty glass” – that’s beautiful. Sounds like he was trying to tell us something.’

  Dad shrugged. ‘What?’

  ‘He’d had enough. It was suicide.’

  ‘Or made to look that way.’

  Bill stopped to think. He stroked his chin. ‘You know, I’m learning to like this fella, whoever he is.’

  ‘Good, you can find out for me.’

  ‘Sounds like he got himself into trouble.’

  ‘We’ve guessed that,’ Dad said. ‘But what sort of trouble?’

  ‘A woman, of course.’ Then Bill leaned forward, and whispered. ‘I knew this bloke . . . he was on with this girl. And you know what happened?’

  ‘He got her pregnant?’

  ‘Exactly. But the girl was married. The husband was a wog, filthy temper. Rich. And he had mates, plenty of mates, Bob.’

  Dad seemed interested. He leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from Bill’s. ‘And?’

  ‘Well, nothin’ . . . ’cept this guy lives in fear of his life.’

  ‘What happened to the girl?’

  ‘Had an abortion, I think.’ Bill paused, his eyes drifting over to distant gums. ‘Stupid fella, eh, Bob?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I told him, You should migrate. Where? he says. Yugo-bloody-slavia. Anywhere. I got family, he says, kids. Where am I gonna go? . . . and what can he do, Bob?’

  Dad stopped to think. ‘Depends on what this other fella’s likely to do.’

  ‘That’s what I told him. He says he just doesn’t know. Doesn’t even know if she’s told her husband. Just doesn’t know.’

  Bill was staring at the ground. Dad looked at him, assuming his best detective’s face. ‘This poem,’ he said, ‘it’s about living life to the full, and having no regrets.’

  Bill looked up. ‘This fella, he’s got regrets.’

  ‘Sounds that way.’

  Silence, as ducks retreated, realising there was no hope of any food. ‘Why would he disguise his identity?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The mystery man. Trying to hide the fact that he’s a spy. And then someone does him in and goes to all this trouble to confuse us. Which only makes everyone more interested.’

  Bill shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ He picked up his ukulele, strumming and singing quietly as Dad looked on. ‘Oh Sally’s got a little boy, It looks just like its pa, And then the words I stammered out, Hannah, how’s your ma?’

  The next day was Victor Harbor, and a trip across the jetty to Granite Island on the horse-drawn tram. We sat on the upper level, staring out across a shallow sea covered with dinghies and boats and an old paddle-steamer. Janice watched as our Clydesdale shat on the jetty without even stopping. ‘Disgusting,’ she said. ‘People are going to step in that.’

  ‘People need to watch where they’re going,’ Bill replied.

  Janice didn’t like horses. She believed they’d been superseded by cars and trucks, and that they should all be taken to the knackery. This dated back to one winter’s day when we were walking to school, when she stepped in a fresh, caramel-coloured horse pat. ‘Shit!’

  We laughed as she tried to wipe it off on some wet grass. When we got to school she took off her shoe and rinsed it under a tap, but it didn’t help. Ten minutes into morning story, when everyone was gathered on the floor with their legs crossed, Mrs Chittleborough sniffed a few times and looked at us. Then she thought better of it, continuing the story. But a few minutes later the smell was even stronger. She stopped reading. ‘Okay, children, line up please.’ So there we were, standing in a line, as Mrs Chittleborough went along behind us checking our underwear.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  We sat down. Then a boy called Michael Barker turned to Janice and pointed. ‘It’s her, she’s got poo on her shoe.’

  Janice’s face turned to stone. ‘Have not.’

  ‘Have.’

  Mrs Chittleborough took Janice outside and she returned without shoes, her socks unwashed and full of holes. And again, Michael Barker: ‘Look at her socks.’

  Janice grimaced and gave him a dirty look. She sat at the back, biding her time, waiting until recess and then finding Michael, dragging him behind the lunch shed (as a small crowd cheered and clapped), managing to throw him into an industrial rubbish bin. ‘There, let’s see who smells bad now,’ she said, as Michael tried to climb out of the bin and she pushed him back in. Then a teacher arrived, grabbed Janice by the ear and dragged her off to the office.

  So, as far as Janice was concerned, allowing animals to shit on the road just wasn’t on.

  We bought ice-creams from the kiosk and walked around Granite Island, searching for penguins under the giant, moss-covered boulders littering the hillside, looking like they might tumble into the sea at any moment. We ran through forests of native pines and stood on the edges of cliffs like Robinson Crusoe in search of a white sail. Our parents warned us to come away from the edge. They’d heard stories of cliffs collapsing and waves dragging children onto the jagged, granite rocks. But we knew better. Accidents happened to other people.

  Then we returned to the caravan park.

  Four o’clock, kids everywhere – riding, running, rolling on dead grass and bruising their ribs on sprinkler heads. Dads fishing, again, but tangling the line, again, as the corn boy looked on. Beer, barbecue and then bed – this time in my own bunk.

  The next morning I was woken from a dream. It was Dad’s voice, loud, sharp, insistent, and then Mum. ‘I want
to go home.’

  ‘What about Henry?’

  ‘You should’ve thought of that before.’

  Dad whispered, but then got louder. ‘Christ, he’s your son too. You don’t care if – ’

  ‘No.’

  Silence. I lay still, trying not to move, to give myself away.

  ‘You awake, Henry?’ Dad called.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘Want some breakfast?’

  I didn’t want to get up. I could feel sand and crushed chips in my bed from where Janice and the little ones had camped out with me the previous night. We’d made a flannelette cubby, shining torches in each other’s eyes as we told ghost stories to feed each other’s dreams.

  My sheets were ripped and starchy. I could pull them up over my head and hide from the horrors that followed me to the Goolwa Caravan Park, entering my van and filling it with the smell of horse shit. My mother’s horrors. As one Ellen doll emerged from another, smaller and meaner, determined to make our lives difficult.

  I sat at the table and Dad made me breakfast. Mum sat with her arms crossed, staring out of the window at a view made opaque by the splattered fat of a thousand chops and sausages. She tried to make out the shapes of trees and hills as Dad dutifully filled my bowl with cornflakes and warm milk.

  What is it, I wanted to ask her, but couldn’t, knowing it would only make Dad’s job harder.

  ‘Horseshoe Bay,’ he said, searching for the sugar. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Great.’

  We drove to Horseshoe Bay in silence, Mum still with her arms crossed, replying to Dad’s questions with a whispered No or maybe So? Bill sped up and roared past us, Janice and Gavin hung out of the window waving and screaming with the breeze through their hair as Liz tried to drag them back in. I wound down my window to call to them.

  ‘Henry,’ Mum shouted, and I wound it back up.

  Dad looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘What?’ she asked, loud, angry. ‘He’ll get his head knocked off.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Bullshit nothing.’

  We arrived at Horseshoe Bay and claimed our five foot square piece of beach. We set out our towels and bags and the dads went back to the cars for the drinks and umbrellas. Our spot was nearly up in the dunes, but the best spots had been taken early. Horseshoe Bay was a sea of polyester-clad white bodies. Getting into the water was like waiting for a bus, dodging bodies, towels and lunch baskets that had formed a maze. Trailing sand over people’s towels was forbidden. Kids were exempt. We could run in a straight line from wherever we were to the sea. People would shout at us, of course, but that’s only because they were old and miserable.

  Janice, Anna and Gavin stripped down to their togs and ran for the water. I followed slowly behind, surveying the situation. When I got to the water’s edge I stood on the hard sand, moving my feet until they started sinking. Soon I was down to my ankles. Water rushed in on top of my feet and it was warm and relaxing. I could stand here forever, I thought, wondering, watching. Until my legs gave out. And then I could sit down and wait for the rising tide, as it rose past my chest and chin, and I waited for Mum to notice.

  Horseshoe Bay was a copper-pot, a broken isthmus. It was almost blocked at the top by a cork in the form of an island of granite rocks. An agitated tide entered the bay and its waves hit the side of the horseshoe, reflecting into the middle, forming lines of calm, persistent geometry that ended in an undertow on the beach. I watched as Janice bodysurfed a wave in and then rode the tow back out. But it wasn’t dangerous. If you didn’t fight it, it would take you a few yards and then dump you back where you’d started.

  Janice ran up the beach to fetch me. ‘Come in,’ she said, ‘it’s fun.’

  ‘I didn’t bring my bathers.’

  She pointed to others along the beach. ‘Wear your jocks.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who’s looking at you?’

  ‘Everyone.’

  She gave up. She knew I wouldn’t go in, never had, never would. It was just one of those things: Henry on the foreshore, searching for cowries for Con, picking up crabs with cracked shells, Coke lids and the broken leg of a card table as the voices of kids filled the air

  I looked back and, through the forest of bodies, saw my parents standing, talking, on top of a dune. Mum was waving her hands in the air. She pushed Dad and he fell back, steadying himself. She was screaming at him. I could just hear her above the spreading hush of the waves. Dad was fighting back, stepping towards her and waving his finger in her face. She slapped his hand away and he took another step towards her. I noticed that Bill and Liz were watching too, staring up with amazement.

  Then my mother tried to walk down the dune. She stumbled as she went and Dad followed a few steps behind. When she got back to the rug she fumbled in our beach bag. She threw a bottle of Coke and sunscreen across the beach and found the car keys. As Liz tried to reason with her she put on her shoes, saying a few words and shaking her head. Then she started up the path that led through the dunes to the carpark. Dad followed her. Bill and Liz stood up, watching, unsure what to do.

  Janice came up behind me. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘Mum,’ I replied, and she watched as my mother trudged along the path, disappearing over a crest into the carpark.

  I started across the beach and a few minutes later I was standing on the edge of the carpark, my feet burning on the bitumen. I watched as Mum got into our car and slammed and locked the door; I watched as Dad knocked on the window, trying to reason with her; I watched as she started the car and reversed out of the park, hitting the rear bumper of a car parked behind us; I watched as she fumbled with the gear selector, screaming something half to herself, half to my father, unaware that Dad couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

  And then she drove off. Up the hill and out of the carpark. Dad just stood looking after her, shocked, shaking his head. My dad, the hero, dressed in his work shorts and a singlet, wondering what he’d ever done to deserve this.

  I hopped across the bitumen towards him. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he shot back, then stopped to think. ‘It’s your mother . . . you know.’

  I stood on a square of dead grass. Dad went over to the dented fender and examined it. ‘Ah, stuff it,’ he said.

  We returned to Bill and Liz, spread out on the rug, trying their best to appear unconcerned. ‘Ellen alright?’ Bill asked, off-handedly.

  ‘You tell me,’ Dad replied, sitting on the rug and crossing his legs.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  I returned to the beach. I looked back and I could see Dad watching me. There was only one thing I could do. I took off my shirt and pants, folded them and placed them on the hot sand. Then I walked into the water, a step at a time. When I was up to my waist I looked back at Dad and waved. He waved back, smiling, and turned to say something to Bill and Liz. They looked at me and waved and I waved again. Janice came up to me and put her arm around my shoulder. ‘Where’s your mum?’ she asked.

  I shrugged. Janice positioned me for the next big wave. ‘Jump when I do,’ she said. ‘Just before the wave breaks.’ We held hands and a moment later we were bodysurfing, moving on and in the water as it carried us towards the beach. And then, before I knew it, before I could surface or open my eyes or get a foothold, I was being sucked back out to sea. I panicked. I kicked my feet. And then I stopped, floating, realising I’d forgotten everything for a few moments.

  It came in cold and the beach emptied. We drove back to the caravan park, crammed into the back of Bill’s Austin. Everyone was thinking it, but no one was saying it. Ellen. We’d all seen her moods. We’d all heard her screaming and slamming doors, storming off down the street. But this was different, something someone’s spastic cousin would do. Someone who needed help. Like the woman who sat on the banks of the Torrens in her nightie singing nursery rhymes and talking and laughing to h
erself. Someone a few pence short of a pound.

  We arrived at the park but she wasn’t there.

  ‘Reckon she’s driven home?’ I heard Bill ask Dad.

  ‘Suppose.’

  ‘Didn’t know she drove.’

  ‘She doesn’t.’

  Bill looked amazed. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What can you do?’ Dad asked. ‘I’m not gonna let it spoil things for Henry.’

  ‘Fair enough. How’s about we cook tea?’

  ‘That’d be good.’

  Then we went fishing, again. After having cut the tangles out of the line there wasn’t much left to cast out. This time Janice tried. The corn boy was still there and she asked for some of his corn. She cast off and reached the middle of the river. As we waited and talked and shared the rod, the dads sat further up the bank.

  ‘What’s the point of staying?’ Bill asked Dad. ‘You’re just gonna worry.’

  ‘I’ll stay. Look at Henry, this is good for him.’

  Bill wasn’t so sure. He fell silent. Dad patted his knee. ‘Times like this, all you can do is turn to alcohol.’

  ‘What was she on about?’

  ‘Shut up about it will yer.’

  I held onto the rod. I felt a small tug and started reeling in the line. ‘I got one.’

  Everyone gathered around. Even the corn boy put down his rod and came over to watch. I kept reeling and then it appeared from the murky water: a redfin, glistening, gasping for air, thrashing its body about as it fought the hook and line and the power of my hand. It was a fight to the death. Henry Hemingway versus the redfin. Dad stood behind me, chanting in my ear. ‘Jag him onto the hook, reel it faster, faster . . .’

  And then they laughed. It was a redfin alright, but small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. Who’d think that such a small fish could put up such a big fight?

  ‘You gotta let him go,’ the corn boy said.

  ‘No,’ I replied, taking the fish in my hand. ‘We can eat him.’

  ‘No meat on that. Gotta put ’em back. Gotta breed.’

  Dad could’ve slapped him, but he knew he was right. A dented fender was enough for one day. And this is what I felt too, a few moments later, looking at Dad, smiling and removing the hook. ‘A present,’ I said, handing it to him, as he dropped it on the grass and Janice used her foot to push it back in the water.