by Stephen Orr
‘He says it’s happened two times. He wants your kids to apologise.’
‘Are you kidding? I should go down and break his fucking arm.’
Andrew stepped past his dad and appeared on the porch. ‘G’day, Mister Page.’
‘Hello, Andrew. How’s your head?’
‘It’s okay. Did Henry get in trouble?’
‘Believe me. He didn’t leave the house for a week.’
Janice looked at me and smiled. I frowned. ‘Could you kill him for me?’ I whispered.
‘Gladly,’ she replied.
Chris Arthurson ruffled his son’s hair and said, ‘Go help your mother.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just go help your mother.’
Andrew went inside. By now Dad was leaning against a wall. ‘Listen,’ he continued, slowly, ‘the only reason I offered to come here was . . . Eckert said he’d ring the police.’
‘This isn’t right, Bob. I know my kids.’
‘I’m trying my best. Humour me. Just have a talk to them, and tell them to stay away from his shop. I’ll fix up the rest. Can you do that for me?’
The two dads stood silent and still under a yellow globe buzzing with moths. Chris Arthurson shook his head. ‘I just don’t see – ’ ‘Humour me,’ Dad repeated.
‘Alright, I’ll tell them to stay away. Not because I think they took anything, just because I agree with you, y’ gotta try keep the peace.’
‘Good. Thanks, Chris. No hard feelings over the . . . lemon?’
They both laughed, and then Chris Arthurson squeezed Dad’s shoulder and shook his hand. ‘He’s got a bloody good aim,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I whispered.
‘What?’ Janice asked.
‘Why doesn’t he tell him what Andrew – ’
‘Ssh!’
Dad looked in our direction. I was sure he’d heard us. He said goodbye and walked off down Henry Street. We followed him at a distance and when we turned into Thomas Street he was standing there, waiting for us, arms crossed, his face looking yellow, black and evil under the streetlight.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said.
We were speechless.
‘How would that have looked, eh?’
I shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry, Mister Page.’
He turned and walked off. We followed, dragging our feet, as he started mumbling something to himself. ‘Solve everybody’s bloody problems . . . did I ask for this?’
Janice looked at me and smiled.
‘Shut up,’ I whispered.
‘At last, Henry realised he would never have Kate. She was a lady, gentle, refined, and he was a poor, lonely cripple.’
‘Piss off.’
‘Henry!’ Dad growled.
Janice stood on the end of her drive. ‘Now I’m in for it,’ she said. ‘“Why didn’t you let your brother and sister bat, Janice?” You’re lucky you’re an only child, Page.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Perhaps nothin’.’
She disappeared into the darkness, to face her own music, and I caught up with Dad on our front porch. ‘It was her idea,’ I said.
‘Just the same.’
As we took off our shoes we could smell Mum’s stew floating down the hallway and out the front door. More of the same: cheap beef, carrots and a hundred peas swimming in a sea of lumpy gravy . . . and Dad shaking his head as we settled down to eat.
The next morning, Janice wasn’t happy. Yes, we (me, Anna and Gavin) agreed to play cricket again, but only if . . .
So, there was Janice, standing on the outer edge of our bitumen oval, shouting orders as I prepared to bat. ‘If it touches your leg you’re out.’
‘No LBW,’ I replied.
‘It’s the rules.’
‘No LBW,’ Anna agreed, pulling burrs off the tennis ball. Gavin was ready behind the fruit-crate wicket that Mr Bilston had unknowingly donated. ‘No LBW.’
Janice wasn’t happy. If we kept changing the rules we could keep her out forever. It was a conspiracy, but she had no choice. ‘Henry can run the game,’ Liz had told Janice, when she’d gone in the previous night.
‘Henry doesn’t understand cricket,’ she’d replied.
‘He used to play.’
‘Not properly.’
Anna started off with a slow, straight delivery. Here was my chance. I smashed the ball with every ounce of energy I could muster. It flew through the air, past the Greek church, past Cedar and Harriet streets, eventually settling in someone’s front yard. Janice looked at me. ‘I know what you’re doing,’ she said.
‘What?’
She ran as slowly as she could, looking back to pull a face and stick out her tongue. ‘One, two . . .’ I called out.
‘That’s not the whole way,’ she said.
‘It’s shorter for me and the little ones.’
‘Bullshit.’
I heard applause from the footpath and turned to look. Doctor Gunn smiled at me and said, ‘Keep going.’ He was wearing canvas pants and a tweed jacket covered in lint balls. I stood staring at him, unsure.
‘Run,’ Gavin said.
‘Run,’ Doctor Gunn repeated.
So I walked, quickly, to get my runs. He applauded again. ‘When you coming back to finish our library?’ he asked.
I didn’t reply.
‘Henry?’
In front of my own home. I could go in and get Mum. I could tell her everything. Or was that just the point? Was he testing me? I should, I thought. I will. I’ll stick to the facts. She’ll ring Dad and he’ll be home in ten minutes. Then they’ll take him away and lock him up and I’ll never have to worry about him again.
‘Henry, when are you coming back?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve told Dad.’
He paused, but then smiled again. ‘Told him what?’
‘You’ll find out.’
The ball came flying back. It bounced a few times and Anna caught it. She bowled and I hit it hard again. Before I could run Doctor Gunn came up beside me and whispered so Gavin couldn’t hear. ‘We’ll still be friends, eh?’
I closed my eyes.
‘Henry? It’s best that way. Let things settle down. Otherwise . . . is that Janice?’ He pointed.
‘No.’
‘Hello, Janice,’ he called, loudly.
She turned, looked back and waved.
He looked at Anna. ‘And you are?’
‘Anna.’
‘And?’
‘Gavin.’
‘Is Henry behaving himself?’
‘He’s the captain,’ Gavin beamed. ‘He made Janice field.’
‘Good. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Run, Henry, run.’
He moved away and I started to walk.
‘Where do you live, Gavin?’ he asked.
Gavin pointed to his house. ‘Next to Henry.’
‘That’s a nice house.’ He looked back at me. ‘You come and see me, Henry.’
‘No.’
‘Well, you look after yourself. You too, Gavin.’
And then he was off, walking towards Elizabeth Street. I stopped.
‘Run,’ Gavin said.
I dropped the racquet and ran off as fast as I could. I could hear their voices behind me. ‘Henry, where are you going?’
I turned the corner, jumped the Housemans’ fence and collapsed into shoulder-high grass. At last I was alone, and the shame was all mine. Before I knew it I was crying, fighting for breath, fitting. Fearing that someone might hear me, I buried my face in my sleeve. Yesterday there was nothing. Now there was a face, lodged in my brain, filling me with a weakness that was part spirit, part bone, blood and muscle. I tried to stop crying but couldn’t. Dad, where are you, I whispered, with a tear on my lip. Make this thing go way. Use your words. Use your calm, your logic, your gun.
‘Henry,’ I heard Janice crying. ‘It’s your bat.’
After tea I ended up bac
k at Janice’s house.
‘Go next door,’ Dad had said, seeing Mum was in one of her moods.
So I sat with my three best friends, my only friends really, on a rug that Bill had found after it’d fallen off the back of someone’s truck. A rug that covered floorboards as raw as the day they were laid: grease-stained, paint-flecked and splintered, with gaps large enough to let up a breeze, to vent the smell of dead rats and mustiness.
As we sat watching 77 Sunset Strip, Janice said, ‘This is rubbish.’
Bill, half-asleep, laying back in his recliner with a bottle of beer in his hand, replied, ‘You could do better?’
‘I could. I have.’
Bill smiled. ‘Yeah? Well you oughta send it to them.’
‘Not this sort of trash. Literature.’ She stood up and ran into her room. We listened and smiled as she opened cupboards and slammed drawers, swearing, eventually returning, grinning, and holding up a few crumpled sheets. ‘Here it is.’
‘Let’s hear it,’ Bill said.
Janice turned down the Astor. She sat on the rug, crossed her legs and started to read. ‘The Semaphore Express,’ she began, ‘by Janice Kathleen Riley.’
Anna almost laughed. ‘Kathleen?’
Janice waved a finger at her sister. ‘It’s more dignified, if I’m gonna be a writer.’
‘Sort of like Louisa May Alcott,’ I offered.
She stared at me. ‘No, nothing like that.’ And then she continued. ‘Once there was a boy called Gary, and this one day (and it was a warm spring day) he decided he felt like a packet of Allen’s Butter Menthols.’
‘How long is this?’ Bill asked. ‘I want to see if he gets his Stradivarius back.’
‘It’s only a short story,’ Janice replied.
‘Short?’
‘Six pages.’
‘Can you get to the good bits?’
‘It’s all good.’ She waited for silence. ‘So, he took his dad’s keys, opened the family car and got in. He found the ignition and inserted the key. A few minutes later he was driving down the street. He slid beneath the wheel to push the accelerator, came up, looked where he was going, steered and then slid back down to brake. After a few minutes of this he stopped the car in the middle of a road and got out. Then he went into Mister Edwards’ grocery store.
‘Mister Edwards had seen everything through his front window. He watched as Gary came in, took a packet of butter menthols and put them on the counter. Gary reached into his pocket, produced a hand full of change and dropped it beside the lollies.
‘“Thank you,” he said, turning and making for the door.
‘“Come back,” Mister Edwards replied, chasing after him. ‘And although Gary got into the car, Mister Edwards pulled him out before he could lock the door.’
Bill was fully reclined, his eyes closed, listening and almost smiling. ‘Not bad,’ he mumbled, putting down an empty beer, opening a fresh one and taking a swig without even looking. Liz came to the lounge-room door and looked at him. ‘I can’t light this oven,’ she said. ‘I want to put on a cake.’
Bill didn’t reply.
‘Bill?’
‘What?’
‘It won’t work for me.’
‘Christ, y’ gotta hold the button down.’
‘I did.’
‘Wait. I’ll do it in a minute.’
She crossed her arms and looked at him.
‘Is she still there?’ he asked his kids.
They didn’t reply. Liz shook her head and returned to the kitchen. Then she started searching for a cake dish in her pot and pan drawer.
‘Quiet,’ Bill yelled, without opening his eyes.
Another night at the Rileys’. At this point things would generally go downhill in a rush. I felt sorry for the kids, having to live with him. And poor old Liz, always walking on eggshells.
I watched the images of black and white detectives as Janice continued. ‘Meanwhile, a line of about fifteen cars was waiting. Mister Edwards didn’t know what to do. He looked at the drivers and threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know,” he said.
‘One of the drivers got out. “What is it?”
‘“You hold the kid and I’ll shift the car.”
‘Mister Edwards got in the car and started off. He got as far as the train crossing and stalled. And then the bells started up and people were screaming.’
Janice looked up at us.
‘Go on,’ I said.
Liz stood in the doorway again. ‘Bill, the mixture’s drying out.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ He stood up and stormed into the kitchen. ‘Can’t you even learn to light your own stove? Now look, watch, I’m not gonna show you again.’
We heard the gas and the sparker and I looked at Janice. Her face was blank. She was still standing at the crossing, waiting, watching. Bill returned and collapsed into his seat, sighing, his face falling flat and featureless. ‘You finished?’ he asked Janice, looking at the television.
‘Yes,’ she managed.
He stood up and walked over to the television. Without explaining, he turned it up. Then he returned to his chair, sat down and picked up his beer.
‘That was good,’ I said to Janice.
She shrugged. ‘It’s only a bit of it . . . Mr Edwards ends up . . .’ And then she stopped, looking at Bill. He didn’t notice her. The credits were rolling and he’d missed the ending. ‘Fuck.’
‘I gotta go,’ I said, to no one in particular.
Anna and Gavin ran off without saying a word. Bill looked at me. ‘Tell your dad to come over for a beer.’
‘Okay.’
I stood up and slowly walked out of their house into a dark, still night that smelt of stewed apricots. When I got home I told Dad he’d been summoned. With Mum locked in her room he didn’t need much persuasion. ‘You can watch what you want,’ he said.
‘He’s a bit moody,’ I whispered.
‘Yeah?’
‘Janice read him a whole story and he didn’t even say he liked it.’
‘Maybe he didn’t.’
‘What’s that matter?’
Dad pulled on his shoes and was quickly gone. I switched the television channel and settled into Dad’s chair. In Adelaide Tonight wasn’t meant for kids, I don’t think, which is why we always tried to watch it. But kids were scratchproof. We wouldn’t hear anything Dad or Bill hadn’t let slip a hundred times before. Ernie Sigley opened the show with a reference to someone’s cleavage. Soon Reg Lindsay was crooning and playing his guitar and the mood changed from boobs and bums to Houstons never visited, Texas longhorns never mustered, and cowboy shirts never seen (or worn) in Croydon.
Meanwhile, Dad settled in next to Bill. ‘What y’ doin’, Boss?’
Bill picked up a beer from beside his chair and passed it to him. ‘Sit your arse down, Detective.’
‘Behavin’ yourself?’
‘Oh yeah, I’m behaving.’
They finished watching Reg Lindsay and an ad for fully imported Chryslers before Bill spoke. ‘What’s this Janice tells me about Chris Arthurson?’
‘Don reckons his kids are stealing from him.’
‘So?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Did you give ’em a slap?’
‘Who?’
‘The kids.’
‘I don’t know if they did it.’
‘They did it.’
Dad drank half a bottle in one go; then he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. ‘Why you so sure?’ he asked.
Bill looked at him. ‘You should know by now. Think the worst of people and you’re generally right.’
Ernie’s first guest was a Russian poet nobody had ever heard of. He kept stroking his beard and shaking his head as he explained how he’d spent twelve years in a gulag. Twelve years of daily beatings and onion soup. Twelve years without a word from his wife or family. A broken leg had healed with a fracture and his testicles had been electrocuted.
‘So what did you do for a laugh?’
Ernie asked.
And then the poet started reading with all the rhythm and rhyme of a telex machine. There was gentle applause as Ernie thought, Fuck, who the hell booked him?
‘How’s your mystery man going?’ Bill asked.
Dad shrugged. ‘Like I said, the case is still open, but that’s about it. There are too many other things.’
The poet was thanked and an audience of gas fitters and pastry cooks did their best to appear grateful that he’d escaped the gulag. From slave labour to Sterident – soon a chorus of animated false teeth was dancing a can-can across the screen.
Funny, I thought, in a dumb sort of way. In an Ernie Sigley-Jerry Lewis sort of way. Still, it was no dumber than The Magic Pudding, which I’d just finished reading. Food growing legs and arms to keep us entertained.
I heard a car outside. I turned around, sat up in Dad’s chair and saw a van pulling into our driveway. It reversed out and parked on the other side of the road opposite the Rileys’. I looked carefully. It was the carpet cleaning van again. I got up and switched off the television and lounge-room light and returned to the window. I could see the driver, a thin, fair-haired man who must have been quite tall, judging from the way his head touched the top of the van. He was reading something laid out across his steering wheel. Every so often he looked at the Rileys’ house and then back at the papers. After a while he lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, wound down his window and blew the smoke into the warm, rosemary-scented night. He kept doing this until he’d finished the cigarette. Then he flicked it out of the window and started the van, crunching the gears as he drove off.
I switched the television and light back on. Then I ran to my room and found a pencil and paper and started recording every detail I remembered about the van and its driver. When I was finished I returned to Ernie Sigley, clutching the piece of paper, determined to tell Dad everything when he returned from next door.
Meanwhile, Bill was slurring his words, letting them rise, fall and settle in the gaps between ads. ‘This fella I told you about,’ he said to Dad, ‘this friend of mine . . .’
Dad pretended to forget. ‘Who was that?’
‘Remember, I told you about him, he’s married, but he’s got this girl pregnant.’
‘Oh, yeah. Silly man.’
‘Yeah. He tells me he’s scared, Bob.’
‘Why’s that?’
