Time's Long Ruin

by Stephen Orr

  Bill turned towards Dad, wondering if he was just making it worse. ‘Her husband, he’s a bloody crook.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Something to do with the wharves. Bringin’ things in without paying customs.’

  ‘Lotta that goin’ on.’

  ‘The thing is, my friend hears that this . . . husband is after him.’

  Dad shrugged. ‘Not surprising.’

  ‘No. So this fella’s thinkin’, what the hell do I do? I mean, he didn’t know who she was. She wasn’t even wearing a ring. Not like it’s . . . entirely his fault.’

  ‘Well,’ Dad continued, sitting back and thinking, ‘what’s this friend gonna do about it?’

  Bill looked confused. He shrugged. ‘He could sit around and wait, or try talking to him . . .’

  Dad shook his head. ‘Silly man.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘I wouldn’t get into that position.’

  ‘Well, what do you . . . what should I tell him?’

  ‘Wait. These types are generally all bluff. I’d be surprised if . . . after all, it’s Adelaide, not Chicago.’

  Bill smiled. ‘Lots of girls get knocked up, eh?’

  ‘Exactly. She’s taken care of it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There you go, problem solved.’ Dad stared at him and smiled. ‘Silly man.’

  ‘Idiot. I’ll tell him not to worry, eh?’

  ‘You do that.’ Dad finished his beer and stood up. ‘Gotta get goin’. Ellen’s in a shit.’

  ‘Fuckin’ women.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I sat watching the end of In Adelaide Tonight. Once again, Ernie had saved the show from ruin. After the Russian poet he’d come on dressed in a bikini and a nun’s habit singing ‘Ave Maria’ and juggling prop coconuts. As the credits rolled Dad came in the front door. ‘Dad,’ I said, jumping up, ‘I saw that van again.’

  ‘What van?’

  I showed him the piece of paper. ‘I saw it the other night. He just sits there, and then drives off.’

  Dad knelt down and looked at me seriously. ‘What do you think, a house-breaker?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Good work. I’ll put this on the fridge. Next time you see him, you tell me, right?’

  ‘But can’t you check the number plate?’

  ‘Good idea.’ He folded the piece of paper and put it in his shirt pocket. ‘Right, into your jarmies, bed time.’

  ‘Can I say goodnight to Mum?’

  ‘No. I think she’s asleep.’

  The next morning I was woken by Janice. It was definitely her whistling. As I lay in bed I tried to make out the tune. After a few bars I recognised it as the theme to The Lucy Show. I crawled to the end of my bed, to my window, and called out through the flywire, ‘Why you whistlin’ that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Lucy music?’

  She smiled. ‘Ah, it is too, I’ve been hearing it in my head.’ She started again, this time walking around a mulberry tree, finding caterpillars on leaves and snipping them in half with a pair of scissors.

  ‘Why you doin’ that?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not? Do you go to hell for killing caterpillars?’

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe we can ask tonight.’

  She stopped and looked at me. ‘What’s tonight?’

  ‘Mum said we gotta go to church.’

  ‘Ha.’ She started singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’, but this soon transformed back into the Lucy music.

  ‘Maybe it’s your fillings,’ I offered.

  She looked at me as if I was a bit simple. ‘I can’t even see you, Henry Page.’

  ‘I heard about it. The metal in fillings becomes an antenna. Picks up waves in the air. When did you first hear it?’

  ‘This morning.’

  I sighed. ‘Ah.’

  She kept staring at my window, my silhouette, my voice. ‘Lucy hasn’t been on for weeks.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just stuck in your head.’

  ‘Or maybe they’re playing it somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘America.’

  ‘Wouldn’t carry that far.’

  ‘Yes it would.’

  ‘They can’t even get our telly in Port Pirie.’

  She kept searching for caterpillars, using both hands to snip them as hard as she could, as she bit her bottom lip and smiled.

  ‘Why you wearing that?’ I asked, looking at a pale-blue, knee-length frock I’d never seen before. ‘I’m goin’ the flicks.’

  ‘With who?’

  ‘Mariel.’

  Just then Liz’s voice boomed out from the Rileys’ kitchen window. ‘Janice, don’t you get that dress dirty.’

  Janice turned up her nose. ‘“Don’t you get that dress dirty.” I didn’t even want it. It was a birthday present from my aunty. I hate people who buy you things you don’t want for your birthday. They should go to hell. Isn’t the whole point of a birthday – ’

  ‘Janice,’ Liz called again, louder, ‘have you got my fabric scissors?’

  ‘No,’ Janice screamed, wiping the goo from the scissors on her dress and putting them in her pocket.

  ‘Holidays are nearly over,’ I said.

  ‘Nearly? Another week and a half.’

  ‘If you’re going out, I’ll end up with Anna and Gavin.’

  She smiled with a false sincerity. ‘Oh.’

  A car pulled up at the end of her drive and Kevin Johns sounded his horn in a sort of Morse code. Janice ran to her kitchen window and yelled, ‘They’re here!’

  ‘Make sure you use your own money,’ Liz replied, but Janice was already halfway up the drive, waving to me and saying, ‘Bye, Henry,’ as she climbed into the car.

  After breakfast I pulled on Dad’s old police shirt and tucked it into my polyester pants. I could pass as a policeman, no worries. A pint-sized constable with terry-towelling hat, long white socks and leather school shoes, matt and scuffed after a few weeks of holidays. Mum was still in her room and Dad was out back mowing the lawn. I popped my head out the door and said, ‘I’m going to help Con.’ Dad smiled and waved. Then I took a couple of Weet-Bix, buttered them and coated them in Vegemite as thick as the oil on the water at Port Adelaide.

  I walked to Croydon Station, down streets with names from a family photo album: Elizabeth and Robert, Ellen and Henry, Thomas and Harriet. These were the children of Mr Day, the man who’d originally owned and subdivided this land. I can see him now, surveying his vacant acres as his children climb fences, pelt each other with gumnuts and chase sheep. Pasture versus progress. He watches as rubble is carted for roads and his farm changes forever – as his children claim the area bounded by Port and Government roads in the name of bungalows and cold stores, woodsheds and railways lines.

  As I sat beside Con in his gatehouse I could hear Mr Houseman’s bagpipes. He still wasn’t very good. He attempted scales but misfingered and played a sort of twelve-tone note row. ‘Scotland the Brave’? The Lucy Show? Who knows? ‘He’s so loud,’ Con said.

  ‘Dad made him agree to stop by eight,’ I explained.

  Eric Hessian walked past, done up in a vest and tie, on his way to his shop. He looked at us sitting in our cabin and then turned his head, pretending to notice something else.

  ‘It gets worse,’ Con said, suddenly.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Have you seen our healing tree?’

  And then he told me what had happened when we were on holiday at Goolwa. Early on Sunday morning, Eric had got out with his pruning saw and secateurs and started cutting back the healing tree where it extended over his fence. ‘Then,’ Con explained, ‘he threw all the branches over to our side. Every little twig. He even raked his lawn and threw over the grass and dirt.’

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked.

  Con shrugged. ‘What could I do? I carted the branches out back and cut them up for compost. I kept the thick ones for the fire. He doesn’t understand, Henry.’ He stopped.<
br />
  ‘What?’

  But he couldn’t say. How his ash, his healing tree, was more than just leaves and fruit and pollen. How each branch was a limb, each scent a reminder of Alex, each rustling leaf in the breeze his voice and each shape in the foliage his face or body. How God lived in their tree, blowing memories of Alex down their hallway as they sat sipping coffee in their kitchen, reminding them that the gap in their lives could be filled, with faith: a front yard devotion affirmed by the worshippers kneeling on their pathways and in their garden beds. As Eric Hessian peered through his venetians, smelling fresh shoe leather on his fingers, seeing his cold, black reflection in a pair of work boots, looking at the cars dripping oil on the road in front of his house and hearing a lot of gibberish drowning out the telly. As he turned up the volume and sat on his lounge, listening as his heartbeat raced through his ear.

  Later that night, when Rosa was out raking up leaves in the last few minutes of light, Eric pulled into his drive and got out of his car. ‘It’s a terribly messy tree,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a special tree,’ Rosa explained.

  ‘It’s a tree.’

  Rosa pointed her broom at him. ‘Why did you wait until Mister Page went away?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it? The law says – ’

  ‘He explains things. I can’t. He says, be good neighbours. We’d be good neighbours, give you tomato sauce, oil, olives, anything.’

  Eric shook his head. ‘This is a residential area. Churches are for main roads.’

  ‘It’s not a church.’

  ‘You attract a crowd.’

  ‘A few people? What about the Greek church?’

  He slammed his door and headed towards the porch. ‘That should never have been built. We have a council that doesn’t understand zoning.’

  ‘Zoning? This is my son’s tree.’

  Eric smiled. ‘Really?’

  ‘People come here to pray and they have been healed. Missus Marusic, from Cedar Street, she couldn’t straighten her back.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ Mr Hessian said, opening his door and going inside.

  ‘Please come out,’ Rosa called, loudly.

  But the door just slammed.

  ‘Pig,’ she muttered. She sat on a bench beneath her healing tree to rest. Then she slowly whispered a few Hail Marys, lapsing into prayer and then a dialogue with her son. It’s just like a haircut, she said, realising that the bit of tree over Mr Hessian’s fence would grow back in time.

  Rosa arrived with pasta for Con’s lunch. She was wearing a black dress and a white apron smeared red, a pair of slippers and stockings rolled down below her knees. She ruffled my hair, pinched my cheek and checked my teeth as if I was a goat she wanted to buy. Then she left us, the policeman and the gatekeeper, sharing steaming hot ravioli from a ceramic bowl with a single fork. I ended up with it all over my uniform but Con was an expert, sucking, swallowing and licking his lips in a single movement.

  ‘I want Mum to make this,’ I said, savouring the flavour of garlic and rosemary. ‘Everything she cooks has carrots.’

  Carrots, with any trace of flavour boiled out of them. Everything boiled, as if every vegetable in the world was covered with life-threatening bacteria. Which meant that mealtime was like a feast of old bathroom sponges.

  ‘Could Rosa write the recipe down?’ I pleaded.

  ‘It’s simple,’ Con explained. ‘A few sheets of pasta.’

  He looked up. He’d almost missed a train. ‘Hold on.’ When he came back he said, ‘We can’t be too careful. How about you go on duty?’

  I ran across the playground, between the two tall palms. I settled in my tree, gathering my legs and allowing my body to sink and wedge itself between the branches. Then I watched. A railcar appeared in the distance. I waited until it tripped the signal and then blew my whistle as loud as I could. Con appeared from his cabin and waved. As he closed the gates a Rover rushed through at the last moment and he took out his notebook to record the registration. What he really wanted was for Eric Hessian to drive through.

  I heard Ron Houseman’s bagpipes growing louder and there he was, marching along Day Terrace in nothing but boots, shorts and a singlet. Con turned to look. As Ron marched he tried to keep in step with an imaginary beat. His stride would quicken and then slow, and then he’d skip so his left foot came down on the first beat of each bar.

  ‘What you doing?’ Con called.

  Ron took his lips from the drone. ‘Gonna join a band,’ he said, without stopping, replacing his lips and blowing until his face was as red as Rosa’s tomato sauce. Then he turned into Elizabeth Street, and was gone, his noise replaced by the railcar slowing into the station. Con waved at the driver and the train stopped. No one on, no one off, just a low diesel drone. No steam, no smoke, no whistles and no green flag.

  Con shook his head, thinking, perhaps, how this was a sign of things to come, perhaps wondering how so much train could be pulled by so little engine. As the railcar moved off he waved, and smiled, and then started unclipping the gates.

  A few moments later Gavin and Anna appeared from Thomas Street. They ran across the road without looking. ‘Careful,’ I called.

  ‘What?’ Anna asked, climbing the slippery-dip and looking at me.

  ‘Who’s with you?’

  Dad strolled across the road with his hands in his pockets. ‘Morning, Master Page.’

  ‘You finished the lawns?’

  He came over to my tree. ‘I can’t mow with that piece of shit. Two of the wheels keep coming off. I had to chase one down the road. Until she allows me money for a new one . . .’

  She being Mum. Mrs Thrift. She’d always done the bills, divided up Dad’s pay and spent it for him. Dad always claimed he was too busy to do it himself. But lately there’d been problems. Money, he said, had been disappearing down sinks and between cracks and crevices. He wanted to know why. He’d only just got a pay rise. But Mum wasn’t about to be questioned. One day she threw a pile of bills in his lap and said, ‘You do them then. Do you see me buying new dresses?’

  ‘I didn’t mean – ’

  ‘Well think about what you’re saying. You don’t know the cost of things. House insurance is half again as dear this year.’

  ‘OK, point taken.’

  That’s how relationships flourished: attack and counter attack, guilt thrown around like beer bottles on the mound at Adelaide Oval. But then someone would back off, or compromise, and things would continue in relative harmony, like a warm summer day at the Pompeii markets. Bills would get paid and there’d be enough money to go around, just.

  I took a break from train spotting and went and sat next to Dad on the bench. We watched as Anna and Gavin pulled branches off shrubs and small trees and started camouflaging a cubby-house.

  ‘What is it?’ Dad asked.

  ‘In case of Stukas,’ Anna replied.

  Dad stretched back, crossed his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes. ‘Yes, a honeyeater,’ he smiled, listening carefully.

  ‘It’s a crow,’ I corrected, pointing it out.

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘It is.’

  He half opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘What have they been teaching you at that school?’

  ‘Why have you got the Rileys?’ I asked.

  He closed his eyes again. ‘Bill’s at work. Liz has taken Mum to the shops.’

  Silence. To get her out of the house, of her room – not that he’d ever say that in front of me. Not that he’d explain how Liz had taken her to the Balfours Café for a quiet cup of tea. To whisper things across the table. ‘Ellen, if only we knew then what we know now.’

  But Dad was happy. She was out of her room. That was the hard part.

  Anna and Gavin started arguing, fighting over a dead bird they’d found. Gavin pushed Anna, she fell, and Dad said, ‘Come on you two.’

  Dad sat up. He lifted my shirt and looked at a red hand mark just above my hip. ‘It’s fading,’ he said, relieved.r />
  I didn’t reply. Apart from my orthopaedic shoe, it was the worst pain I’d ever known. He said I’d been building him up to it: moping around the house, complaining and arguing every little thing. But I think it had more to do with him: Mum in her room, the house a pigsty, days and days of heat making all of us miserable. And then me answering back, one or two words, and Dad holding me by the arm as he gave me one God almighty smack with his open hand, not stopping to think I didn’t have a shirt on. I dropped to the floor, holding my side, screaming how I hated him, hated him, and how I never wanted to see him again, ever. My skin turned red and started to rise in a welt. Dad saw this and he was suddenly overcome with shame and fear and self-loathing. He dropped to the floor beside me, held me, and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to’, checking my skin to see how bad it looked. His voice was starting to quiver and crack and he almost cried.

  I came to my senses, and allowed him to hold me, whispering, ‘It’s alright, Dad.’

  And for days he kept checking my side, avoiding my eyes and mumbling apologetically, hoping no one would see it, or perhaps dob him in to the police.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, taking my hand and squeezing it, as we sat on the bench.

  ‘It’s over,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s not,’ he insisted, his eyes closed, refusing to forgive himself a lapse in the one thing he really did have to get right. Who cared about the Somerton mystery man if your own child couldn’t trust you? What else mattered – a car, a house? You might as well be dead, like a rat with broken back legs, dragging itself through life. You may as well swim into a rip, or swallow a handful of untraceable barbiturates.

  Meanwhile, my eyes drifted over to Elizabeth Street and I saw Doctor Gunn standing outside his clinic, smoking a cigarette, staring at me. Here was my chance. Dad, look, you know Doctor Gunn, you know what he did to me? I wanted to say it – I could, I should, but Dad had enough on his plate already. And so what, it could’ve ended worse. The last thing I needed now was Dad locked away somewhere, brooding, crying, blaming himself for someone else’s stupidity.

  Doctor Gunn stamped out his cigarette, blew the smoke in the air and gave me a little wave. I pretended not to see. He smiled and went inside his shop.

  We headed home for lunch: ham, cheese and chutney on stale bread. Then I entertained Gavin and Anna in our front yard while Dad ‘made some calls’. He always said it like that, like they were important calls: the police commissioner, Playford, Elizabeth Taylor. But the conversations seemed to be so-and-so’s wife seen with big John Liebelt from Traffic, or someone getting out of the force to set up a bakery, as Dad started his lecture on getting your fingers burnt and the need to stick to what you know.