Holden's Performance

by Murray Bail

  If Holden and Karen were never quite sure how to approach the soldier, they expected their mother to treat him casually, as an equal.

  But she had scarcely any time to compose herself. He was always there, such a mass of pleated khaki, expanding and contracting, a nest of possible suffocating power. One minute he lay stretched out on his bed, and next he was following in her footsteps, alert to her smallest reactions, and telling lies to no one but her. That's a soldier for you. She didn't know how to look at him, how to behave, an awkwardness entered her movements and dress, she spoke too hurriedly, knitting her brows; and since part of him seemed to be everywhere at once it became hard to keep him out of her mind. Whenever he left the house she felt his eyes following her. It became empty without him.

  Mrs Shadbolt felt more at ease when, stopping in his tracks, he expounded his plans for the near future. It was more like thinking aloud, and she listened and contributed sagely, for she had a practical mind, though the plans themselves were unspecific, only abstract commitments to future energy.

  ‘There'll be plenty of work after this war. There's going to be a ton of opportunity. The public works, the manufacturing industries. People will have to eat and wear clothes and listen to a wireless. It's starting from scratch all over again. It's from the ground floor up. It's reconstruction of a complete society. Just a matter of choosing the right area of concern. Most of the troops, poor buggers, are going to be landing back shell-shocked and with their brains in a sling. They won't know which way to turn. There's still going to be time for fun and games. Plenty of that. As a matter of fact, women will want to begin conceiving again. That's only natural, the force of nature. Baby carriages might be something to get into. I don't know, I'm still thinking about it.’

  Casual allusions that she might be included in his plans— ‘What you've got to do, sweetheart, and right away, is find a man with nous—know what I mean?—not just any pain in the bum—and get your hands on him. That's my advice’—such allusions were passed over lightly, to her consternation. It was often like that. Frank McBee had the gift of the gab; he could talk the leg off a chair; he should have been a preacher or in ‘retailing’ (Hartnett's opinion). He laid down an intricate carpet of sweet-talk and off-the-cuff promises, none of which she quite believed, but which made her laugh. By laughing she exposed her throat.

  He was by turn accessible and elusive. His nature was restless. You never knew what he'd do or say next, especially after a few glasses. Coming in late and thinking she'd be annoyed he crawled in under the table. He demeaned himself in front of her, a sign of true power. Other perfectly normal occasions he crawled in under the table just for fun, grabbing one of her half-unsuspecting ankles. Holden had never seen their mother shrieking before.

  And never before so distracted. She seemed at once happy and unhappy. Even with the soldier there beside her she became increasingly pensive, as if she had problems. A few words from him were enough to lift her head and open her face.

  She took little notice of them; her children might as well not have been there. And the ginger-haired soldier spoke to her openly, urgently, in front of them; even whispered for minutes on end, his eyes fixed on hers. After drinking he shouted about his lack of luck. ‘I can't budge her,’ he confided to Holden. ‘She's like the Ayers Rock.’ He invited them to share his misery. Even their mother laughed when he rested his cheek on the table. ‘Where did I go wrong? I might as well be out with the boys.’ Tobruk and Leningrad happened to be the contemporary symbols of resistance, in that order; but to McBee they represented a wasteland. ‘My timid Mrs Tobruk’ he began calling her, dropping Ayers Rock, and ‘poor little defenceless Madame Leningrad, look what's happening to you’. When her face went vacant with despair he didn't let up. ‘I'm more dangerous than what's-his-name—you know who I mean, Adolf Hitler. Watch out! He's a lamb compared to me.’

  It was then March, 1945. While Allied foot-soldiers received French kisses and drank from outstretched bottles without breaking step—the irrevocable march of history—and open-necked American generals in democratic jeeps gave the royal nod and wave, and were garlanded with peonies, and old men and boys emerged south of the Rhine with their hands raised, Mrs Shadbolt in the house in Adelaide continued to withstand the siege. If McBee disappeared for days on end he returned with grinning, dogged design. ‘I haven't forgotten you.’ He kept advancing, retreating. Operating mostly at night he reverted to normal during the day. She didn't know when he'd turn up next. His were classic guerilla tactics, amongst the world's first.

  American nylons were offered under the kitchen's naked bulb. He touched a possible weakness here. ‘I've had no luck with my hands,’ he said with apparent disinterest. ‘Try these instead. Imagine them as my hands. Listen, what's got into you?’

  From their room Holden and Karen could follow every word of McBee's advance. It became so constant, rising and falling nightly like rain on the roof that soon they took no notice of it. Lying awake at night they produced a rival murmuring, Karen doing most of the talking. In the dark she spoke about her school friends, describing in rapid details their beliefs, annoying faults, good points, where they lived; and Holden easily pictured his sister, lips pursing at the invisible ceiling, thinking of something else to add.

  Holden's thoughts turned to the far-distant war. It was really odd—strange—having a live soldier in the house. Where was the war? (Where was the soldier?) An autumn sunset, where the horizon glowed in the bright fading orange of a great city on fire, and a single illuminated cloud above it had the quilted form of a stricken airship, made him wonder, almost ask, if that was ‘the war’. He climbed to the top of the trellis. It could have been Japan or Germany burning it was so far out to sea. Uncertainties made him inconsistent at home and at school. By then uncertainty had accelerated in the features of just about everybody, a general mood of incompletion, possible euphoria, relaxation, even in his teachers and others at school. It seemed only Karen and their Uncle Vern were oblivious to the closing days of the war.

  At the split second when Mrs Shadbolt succumbed with the shriek of a mandrake the lights in the surrounding houses came on, car horns and crow-eating klaxons sounded, tram bells travelled along Magill Road ringing, somebody celebrated with a dented bugle. Crackers and sky-rockets, which had been banned because of their similarity to distress signals, were ignited at flash-points all over the city. The city's searchlights intersected at dizzy altitudes, and bitch kelpies, crowing roosters and the European animals in the zoo were deceived into thinking it was dawn. Neighbours came out and banged on the Shadbolts' front door. They shouted, they sang. And the Czech bachelor at the end of the street began shaving off his five-year-old beard.

  Holden and Karen had been woken by their mother's unconditional surrender. As her muscular laughter continued from the bedroom, and still no lights, they went outside in their matching dressing gowns where the Roach sisters were doing cartwheels and a stranger was climbing a telegraph pole balancing a glass on his forehead. It was official. It was true. On his cement-rendered verandah opposite, George Merino had rigged up his plywood wireless with the pale green dial shaped like a fan, and at every sombre re-announcement of the long-awaited news people began hiphip-hurraying.

  In the morning people still clasped each other and sank to their knees in prayer, and complete strangers rested their chins on the shoulders of others to read the best news they'd ever had, headlined in 120-point sans, OK'd by the city's leading proofreader, Vern Hartnett, and at nine on the dot the squadron of Avro Ansons reappeared, this time trailing an extra six ailing Wirraways and approaching from the opposite direction, as if they were returning from a victorious mission.

  Never had Adelaide experienced such brotherhood. For a whole night and day it resembled a jungli Spanish or French colony, except the British and British-American flags flapped from every available pole, bonnet and masthead.

  All through the morning and that afternoon Karen kept tip-toeing to their mother's ro
om where a khaki triangle of McBee's army trousers showed under the door. She whispered to Holden, ‘They still haven't got up.’

  When McBee finally emerged they rushed in. She was sitting up filing her nails.

  ‘Have you children eaten?’

  By the time McBee in flannel pyjamas returned to his place beside her the bedroom had filled with neighbours, mostly women and their children. Everybody felt so happy on 14 May they stood around the bed not really looking at the couple.

  Holden heard his mother ask, ‘Did you hear the news, Frank?’

  ‘You don't say? What did I tell you?’ Catching the boy's eye he winked. ‘A moral victory. And not before time.’ Raising two fingers he parted them, a pair of pale thighs. ‘A victory over adversity. It's a night I'll personally never forget. We ought to be out celebrating.’

  ‘Don't be rude,’ she murmured, but smiled, glancing up at the other women.

  Holden had never before heard ‘Frank’ in his mother's voice, and standing alongside Karen he waited to be called or at least recognised.

  But everybody was talking at once. Their mother and her soldier did not appear to be listening to anybody. The room was crowded with mouths and movement, so much insistent flesh, and words happily repeated and wasted. Holden felt quite calm in the crush. Watching their mother he realised he had never seen her as soft and controlled. Conscious of her newly acquired position she turned to Frank, ‘See if there's any tea.’

  In the old days he would have answered back, ‘Yes-suh!’ Now he paused in his declamatory rendition of Winnie and lowered his victory symbol, those little parted legs, and beckoned Holden. ‘You know where the old teapot is.’ He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. ‘Good man. See what you can do.’

  Holden obeyed.

  Out of uniform Frank McBee looked less energetic. No doubt about it. His pyjamas were slack, his toes askew. But close up his face was rock-solid and spacious, and he had slightly tired, distant eyes. From the jawbone up it transmitted the tremendous mental superiority, hard-edged and what-not, of someone powerful, so Holden sensed, even when, catching the boy's gaze, McBee smiled casually out of the corner of his mouth.

  So many things slid off Holden's large body; people commented.

  He was generous, would always lend a hand, was dependable. Yes, but at whatever he saw or said or listened to his face remained as expressionless as his elbow. Even by the standards of the landscape and a laconic people the drollness of this boy was something else again.

  At his shadeless school of asphalt where silence and the squinting poker-face developed as the norm, Holden's apparent indifference grew, with his size and smoothness of skin, monumental. Always to one side and at the back of a group (class photograph, 1945, to be repeated in many future photographs) Holden Shadbolt is head and shoulders above the rest, gazing at some point away at mid-distance. By the time he was fourteen he was already surmounted by the Easter Island head (just a few pimples). People naturally homed in on his nose which hung there; initially there was little else to grasp. But it was found to be dead ordinary, a nose only a shade oversize. The few signs and symbols which he'd allowed to run unrestrained hardly added to people's understanding. There was his occasional habit of tossing his head like a milkman's horse; the slow opening of his mouth and holding it open while concentrating on something; and under special circumstances, blinking. As clues they suggested patience, self-reliance—qualities which had already impressed themselves on everybody. And he wore neat, conspicuously neat, clothes. Even then, in those days—only a boy—he gave the impression of reliability, a preserver of secrets.

  Impassiveness has its drawbacks; it can activate a flaw in an opposite personality.

  When an irrational metalwork teacher hauled Holden out of his seat for sneezing at the wrong time, a study in local Protestant attitudes unfolded in slow motion. The teacher had untidy crinkled hair as if he'd snatched a handful of steel filings from one of the lathes and flung it on his skull. Without removing his coat, but making room around the desks, he brought the Queensland cane down in a fast-bowler's arcing action. Holden met the full force with a single, barely perceptible blink. It was enough to send the teacher into a frenzy. Glancing up at Holden and breathing through his teeth he grabbed the boy's other nondescript hand and in a shower of dandruff, spittle and chalk particles swung the cane down on it again and again.

  Sensing some hesitancy in the strokes Holden met the man's eyes. He saw exhaustion and embarrassment. Offering an escape he lowered his hand.

  The class remained respectfully silent as he bumped back to his desk and the teacher was left to contemplate what he had unnecessarily revealed of himself.

  Pain for a time interested young Holden. Nothing kinky or dangerous, just ordinary old occasional pain. He looked upon it with curiosity. For a start he pondered its strange existence; he tried to inspect ‘pain’. He measured its range, its instantaneous connections, local and artery-wide, and his reactions to it. Even brief pain, implied, like electricity, a kind of endlessness. It hardly made sense. While being caned it had been all he could do to stop suddenly laughing; lucky he didn't. And when any victim was dragged out before the class Holden could not help noticing how the class fell unnaturally quiet and pencils remained poised, observers to a ritual. The spectacle of pain being administered, or the public humiliation, compelled the attention of them all. That's right: minor sadism—endurance for the future—catered for right there in the classrooms.

  ‘What do you expect in an agricultural economy?’ his uncle surprised him by saying. And he added, ‘Unfortunate man.’

  ‘He's got his job to do,’ Holden conceded. ‘No one likes him much though.’

  After the caning the metalwork teacher fabricated the easiest questions for Holden, and paid close attention to his work. Where was the logic in that? If it had not been for his size the class would have called him teacher's pet.

  Holden though realised an affinity with fulcrum tools, the shaping of metals, and it dawned on the teacher that in Holden he had a natural. Handling tinsnips and the oxy-torch he displayed a fluency which, because of the nature of the work, gave him added strength in the eyes of the others. And donning welding goggles he became even more impervious.

  The school had a fleet of British lathes in battleship grey, and their electric belt-driven hum and ponderous revolutions, the dense smoke released from spinning metals, saturated in spurting milk, engrossed him. He was allowed to stay back and turn out a few knick-knacks—brass ashtrays for the corporal, and paperweights in the shape of pawns for his uncle. The misunderstood teacher stood beside him, and fitting callipers over a slowly revolving bar he too became engrossed. Shoulder-to-shoulder Holden felt the warmth of the man. Turning slightly he could see the blackheads on the man's sympathetic nose. The close proximity of such undivided interest produced in Holden a sensation similar to pain. It feathered out from his stomach and reached up into his throat. Out of embarrassment it was all he could do to stop himself laughing.

  At home Holden and the ex-corporal mucked around together. Anticipating his jokes the boy began foolishly grinning. Frank McBee could really be funny! He waited for Holden to arrive, and soon had everyone splitting their sides. His uniform had been a sign of his transitory status. Now that he was clear of the army and wore their father's tram conductor's trousers he looked like a bandstand player without an instrument.

  Frank McBee watched Holden and went after him. Anything to penetrate the boy's surface! Such impassiveness wasn't natural. Not at that age. His mother who behaved in the opposite way, all expression and abandon, could only roll her eyes, ‘That boy's always been a mystery to me.’ And in an unfortunate allusion to his father, ‘He's like a telegraph pole.’

  During a lull in activities Holden would find McBee staring at him and seeing him notice, McBee would give an exaggerated start (‘Who, me?’). Then he'd wave in front of the boy's nose, which made no impression, and pull a series of demented faces, which didn't wor
k either; frowning, and still monitoring Holden's expressionlessness, he reached across on a Friday night and began twisting his arm.

  ‘Stop it,’ their mother began laughing, ‘he's only a boy.’

  McBee shook his head.

  ‘He's all right. Aren't you, boy?’

  He leaned towards Holden's stiffening face.

  ‘Say something to the audience. Anything that comes into your head. Express yourself. Tell us what's going on in that thick skull of yours. What are your views of today's youth? Has the returned soldier been given a fair go?’

  ‘Please don't hurt him,’ Karen cried.

  McBee tickled her with his free hand, ‘I know your weak spots. I'll get you in a minute—when I've finished with this difficult bugger.’

  Bent up behind his ear Holden's arm made the sound of snapping twigs and branches. An atomic flurry in the ground plan of Adelaide: it only lasted a minute. Faintly, Holden perceived it to be evidence of loyalty not to crack. It lessened the pain.

  ‘Good man,’ McBee let go. ‘You beat the clock. You've got a good threshold. That's right.’ He tried the word again: ‘“Threshold”. You've got a good threshold.’

  ‘I didn't mind,’ Holden rubbed his elbow, ‘it didn't hurt.’

  Karen didn't believe him. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Stupid,’ their mother moved over to the sink. ‘That goes for the both of you.’

  And when McBee nudged him and winked he felt included in an alliance, almost as an equal. Unlike his awkwardness with the metalwork teacher he experienced a kind of hectic gratitude for being allowed to remain close to the older man.

  Moving up a grade to Indian arm-wrestling Holden felt he could beat McBee (hands down), though he never pushed his advantage, and throwing and lifting each other on the front lawn in the hot twilight Holden managed, despite an indifferent audience, to hold the former soldier horizontally above his head while remaining completely expressionless.