After January

by Nick Earls

  Just when I wonder what I’m going to do, how I’m going to handle this, I start to sing, line after line about someone being ready, ready for the time of their life.

  And Cliff tells me, Let it swing, just a bit, let it go, and for the next hour or two we do ‘Caravan of Love’ until we all know it’s absolutely perfect. We record and Cliff plays it back and says, That is just magic. Bloody beautiful. And he grins and slaps me on the shoulder. Let’s go and make some dinner.

  And I haven’t noticed the afternoon go, but outside it’s cooling down and the sun is settling into the trees. We make lentil soup, and I’ve only heard of lentil soup before. We eat it with some of Cliff’s bread, which he offers to teach me to make, and he gives me a glass of his lychee wine.

  It’s very cold, he says, because it’s best if it’s very cold.

  Don’t do it, Alex, Fortuna says. Better people than you have tried the lychee wine and died an awful death.

  I sip it. It’s sweet and strange and certainly not good.

  Unfortunately it’s the ’93, Cliff says, So you’re not seeing it at its best. Not the best year, ’93.

  After dinner Fortuna drives me home. We sit in the car outside my house.

  It’s dark in there, she says.

  Yeah.

  She is humming, and tapping the steering wheel slowly. She sings quietly the line from ‘Caravan of Love’ about being ready.

  She leans over and we kiss and we know she should go. We know I should go inside and she should go.

  Can’t have Cliffie thinking I’m killing myself on Sugarbag Road, she says, still close and quiet.

  So I get out and stand by the kerb and I watch her drive away, listen to her drive to the end of the street and turn and then keep driving, off into the night.

  I stumble through the dark rooms of the house, the lychee wine still kicking away in my head, along with the songs. And I’m ready, I’m ready, maybe.

  twenty-seven

  It’s not until the morning that I notice the toilet is filling strangely. I notice in the morning because that’s when it overflows. Only a little, certainly, but I suspect in my mother’s mind there would be no such thing as an insignificant toilet overflow.

  I’m not sure what I should do. I stare at it for a while, but the puddle grows neither smaller nor larger. The level in the bowl lowers slowly. I clean the floor and the situation seems at least stable.

  So I go for a swim.

  I catch a few waves, but my mind is on the plumbing the whole time. I walk up the beach to the house wondering if I will be met by a tide of effluent running through our garden and down to the sea. The last several days of flushings swirling around me as people walk past, getting to know a side of me I’d rather keep to myself.

  This doesn’t happen. The toilet looks fine. I flush again in case it is fine and the water surges up and spills over onto the floor. The new puddle is quite large. It’s clear I have a problem. I can imagine water creeping between lino floor tiles and rotting weight-bearing beams, rotting away important parts of the house while my mother isn’t here. While it’s entrusted to me. I find a couple of old towels and do my best to mop up.

  I go next door and explain it to Len who comes to have a look. He is smart enough not to flush and tells me we’ll call Fred Brahms and he’ll sort it out. Better off leaving this sort of thing to the experts. He fixed up our ensuite and that was no picnic. He was in the services you know, navy. Fiery I think they called him. Interesting bloke. Bloody good plumber though.

  Fred Brahms is out on a job, but as a favour to Len his wife says she’ll send him over straight after lunch.

  I call my mother, knowing she will be out at work, and I leave a message on our answering machine telling her about the problem, and that Len is now involved and it’ll be sorted out today.

  S’pose we might as well play some pool, Len says.

  The standard of my play is sufficiently different from a few nights ago that he comments. We play two close frames, and I take the second when Len fouls at a critical moment.

  I go home to check that the crisis hasn’t worsened. The toilet looks deceptively fine. I call Fortuna.

  Where have you been? she says.

  Over next door.

  She’s been calling while I’ve been playing pool with Len. I tell her about the toilet and she says she’ll come down and wait with me after lunch.

  The phone rings when I put it down. Where have you been? my mother begins, as though she has been listening. Where were you last night?

  At Fortuna’s. I had dinner there. She dropped me home after. Did you get the message on the machine?

  No. I haven’t been home.

  There’s a bit of a problem with the toilet. A minor sort of overflow. Len had a look at it and he’s got a plumber coming round this afternoon.

  There is a pause, the kind of pause offered to a liar before the accusation is made.

  You’re out all night and now you’re breaking the toilet? What are you trying to flush down there?

  Just the usual. And I wasn’t out all night. Look, everything’s fine. I’m having a good time. Everything’s fine except the toilet, which would have happened anyway. I’ve been swimming, playing pool, all the usual things. I’m learning to make bread.

  Why I said that I don’t know. I think it was all I could salvage from the day before that wouldn’t seem crazy. I thought it would make me sound really normal, stable, safe. I thought she would like it.

  That’s really nice. You’ll have to make me some sometime.

  I think I’ll need some more practice first.

  So now I am actually lying she’s believing every word of it. I think I’m going to have to learn to make the bread.

  What’s it like? What sort of bread is it?

  It’s like restaurant bread, you know, bread in a flower pot for $4.50. That sort of thing. Very cool bread, but I’m still only learning, from Fortuna’s father.

  The lie gets bigger, my nose gets longer. Still only learning I said though. I emphasised that. I think I’m covered.

  Let me know what happens with the plumber, she says. And you’ll have to make me some of your bread soon.

  Yeah. Sure.

  She lets me go, happier with me now, the bread somehow a symbol that I’m not being too corrupted when I’m beyond her reach. The bread also another expectation that I’ll have to live up to. Why does she make me say these things?

  twenty-eight

  Fred Brahms wears overalls and an old white T-shirt and calls me Mr Delaney. Whatever I say, he doesn’t stop calling me Mr Delaney, so I call him Mr Brahms. He stands staring at the apparently normal toilet asking probing questions about its malfunction.

  Roots it’ll be, tree roots, he says. Where are your pipes?

  Out the back maybe, I tell him, and it’s clear to both of us I have no idea.

  But they’d run off straight to the sea that way, Mr Delaney. My guess is they’re heading in the opposite direction.

  So we proceed to the side of the house where the pipe from the toilet drops to the ground. We are inspecting the site when Fortuna arrives.

  Hi, she says, looking at the two of us watching the grass intently.

  Afternoon, Mrs Delaney. Fred Brahms is the name. He shakes her hand.

  Hi, she says again, trying to conceal a smirk. I’m not actually Mrs Delaney. I’m just a friend. Of Mr Delaney’s.

  Ah, just friends. He glares at us as though we are the devil’s henchpeople. I reckon it’ll be just here, Mr Delaney. I’ll just get some gear from the truck.

  So when did we get married? Fortuna says when he’s gone.

  It must have been last night, the lychee wine. There are several hours that are just a blur. I can remember singing, and food. Could have been a wedding.<
br />
  Who is this guy?

  Look, I know he’s bizarre, but he’s going to allow me to flush the toilet again.

  He comes back down the driveway carrying a spade and several pieces of equipment I can’t identify. He drops them to the ground and stops to wipe sweat from his forehead with his beefy left forearm.

  Can I get you a drink, Mr Brahms? I suggest.

  That’d be great. Just water, mind. You can never have too much water on a day like today.

  I go upstairs with Fortuna and she says she’ll have to stay up here or she’ll laugh. I take Mr Brahms his drink. He is already at work.

  Ta. Much appreciated. He drinks half the glass at a gulp. So what do you do for a crust, Mr Delaney? Work in Caloundra do you?

  No, I’m a student still.

  At the university eh? That’s a good start that is. It’s a good idea these days. Get yourself a ticket. Mind you, a lot of these youngsters aren’t really up to it today, are they? You hear about ’em all the time. Drugs and violence and fornication. You wouldn’t hear of it in my day, not with decent people. Sex is for procreation, not for entertainment, that’s what I say. And if we could all just live by that the world’d be a far far better place.

  And he fixes me with a stare, drives a stare right through me and almost pins me to the wall with it.

  There certainly are a lot of problems, I manage to say eventually.

  And fornication’s at the root of most of ’em, you mark my words.

  And still the reinforced steel stare as though I’m fornicating now, right in front of him, putting one away with this girl who isn’t Mrs Delaney.

  I’ll bear that in mind, I tell him, and start retreating for the stairs.

  You do that.

  When I’m upstairs again I feel like I’m hiding for the rest of the time he’s there, hiding in my own house, hoping the floors don’t creak under my feet and remind him of fornication.

  I tell Fortuna everything he’s said and she says, But what if I can’t hold myself back, and she pulls me over onto a bean bag and starts an orgasm performance like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Squirming and moaning with Fred Brahms just metres away and probably listening to every unholy panting syllable.

  Please, please, I say in a way that comes out in an awful puritanical hiss, not now. And I clamp my hand over her mouth. I can feel her smiling, hear her laughing through her nose. She prises my fingers away.

  Funny boy, she says, still laughing at me.

  At ground level, Fred Brahms whistles on tunelessly. I hear him flush the downstairs toilet and he comes up to tell me, It’s all fine now, Mr Delaney. And he hands me an account, which includes a deduction of ten percent as a student discount.

  You might like to read this, he says, giving me a photocopied pamphlet. It’s from the scriptures.

  I thank him and he goes. Fortuna takes it from me.

  It’s all about sin, she says. I wonder why he gave it to you. You don’t sin, do you Alex?

  Hardly at all. I think I don’t sin enough.

  She says, Let’s go for a walk, and we go down to the beach and she takes my hand.

  I’ll be away most of tomorrow.

  What are you doing?

  Taking my mother to Brisbane. She’s got to see a doctor. I don’t think I’ve told you about this yet. She’s had a kidney transplant, that’s why we came down here, when she got sick. She’s fine now, but she just needs to go for follow up. She had her blood tests last week, so tomorrow she has to go to the clinic at the hospital. I think it’ll be fine. She feels fine.

  Are you fine?

  Yeah. I’ll be better when it’s over tomorrow.

  It’s good that you take her to Brisbane. She must appreciate not just going by herself.

  Yeah, she does. But she couldn’t go by herself anyway. She doesn’t drive.

  Really?

  Yeah. She says she’s philosophically opposed to the idea of licencing. She’s always said that. She made me get one of course, and Dad’s got one. I think she’s just a very, very bad driver. Anyway, Dad’s not good at dealing with these things, so it’s better if I take her. And that’s where you come in, if that’s okay.

  Sure. What do I do?

  You just have to be with him. Storm and Skye won’t hang around, ’cause it just makes them more worried. They’ll probably come to the beach, so it’d be good if you could stay with him, keep him occupied. Could you do that?

  Sure. I hope it all goes okay.

  Yeah.

  And the concern shows in her face all of a sudden and she stops walking, looks at the sand and then back at me, and moves in against my arm, presses her face into my chest and holds me.

  You’re very important to them, I say.

  And maybe there are lots of things I could have said, but that’s the one that came out. Straight out of the conversation with her mother yesterday. My daughter is very important to me. That line. And my version sounds stupid to me even as I say it, but she’s not really listening anyway. She’s just holding on.

  She wipes her eyes on my sleeve and smiles and says, Let’s go for a swim.

  twenty-nine

  G’day mate, Cliff says when he comes to the door, his face a mixture of concern and disguise.

  We will pretend this is normal, fine, that it’s Cliff who drops over just about every day and not his daughter. He’s fiddling with the car keys, not quite certain what happens next. He’s waiting for my lead. I don’t have a lead.

  It’s a good looking day, I say.

  Yeah.

  How are you going with those plates?

  Got a few more to do.

  Do you want a hand?

  Yeah. Good.

  Now we have a purpose. We can work and pretend that’s what we’re doing together. We get into the car like workers, talking plates and boxes and things.

  This is the first time I’ve driven with Cliff, and he handles a car the way he handles a conversation, like a man who has little respect for the enforced discipline of roads. And he chats as he goes, his arms doing more talking than driving, pointing out the features of what he sees as a blighted landscape.

  Look at it, mate, it’s beautiful, and look what they’re doing to it. Beau Vista, Heritage bloody Chase, Street of bloody Dreams. Sounds like a bloody theme park, not a place where you’d live. Bloody brick houses all crammed in with a few bits of painted wood arranged on them in some pathetic attempt at a federation metaphor. Heritage, federation, colonial, what a bunch of crap, he says, punching the wheel. Do you see Henry Parkes lining up to buy one of those brick boxes? Urban sprawl is what it is, mate.

  We turn down Sunset Drive and the road becomes graded dirt with bush on either side.

  And this’ll go too, all this. Future Urban we’re zoned along here. Don’t know where we’ll go then. We’ll sell to some bastard for some incredible amount of money and he’ll put in two hundred town houses with synthetic grass tennis courts and a pool with a dolphin motif in dark tiles on the bottom and a gazebo and a sauna. And there’ll be working bees and rules about how long you can hang your laundry out for and monthly get-togethers poolside where they’ll all settle down for a few beers and a sausage sizzle and talk about computer software. It’s bloody offensive, the lot of it.

  He takes out a small tree with the bullbar as we career along the track to the house and he doesn’t even seem to notice, even though his head snaps back with the impact. At least it doesn’t stop him talking. He slams the car door as though it has a developer’s head in it, and I follow him into the house.

  Beer? he says, drawing two unlabelled bottles from the fridge by their necks. Home brew. And he flicks the tops off with a bottle opener and gives me one. It’s different, more like Guinness really. I don’t know why though; it just worked o
ut that way. Hope you like it.

  It’s not even nine in the morning and of course the beer has a kick like a soccer hooligan. Soon even the spill-over effect of Cliff’s tension means nothing to me. He’s still tense, but I’m quite calm and warm in the patchy sun under the trees, sitting on a log and trying to drink slowly. He’s talking on, talking out to the clearing about the land and what it means to him.

  He stops and turns to me, a serious, worried look all across his face.

  Sometimes I get scared I’ll lose her, mate, he says. And then what would I do? What would I do? I can’t say anything to this. I feel completely powerless. This is my life, Gail, the kids. That’s it. Most of the time people don’t know how lucky they are, mate. But I do. I couldn’t be luckier. I went off all those years ago on that ridiculous journey to find myself and I found her. You couldn’t get luckier than that. Gail and three glorious daughters. What a bloody life. What did I ever do to deserve it? There’s no one in the world luckier than me, mate. That’s why I get scared.

  She’ll be all right though, won’t she? Things are going fine, aren’t they? It’s amazing what they can do now.

  Good on you, mate. I just love her so much. And he takes another large mouthful of beer and looks into the distance. Mate, when we met there was all that free love thing going on, and I reckon we both had lots of very free love, you know. But when I saw her I thought, that’s all I want. I just looked at her and I thought I’ve got to talk to that girl. And I just said the stupidest things. I got myself so tense I could hardly breathe when I went up to talk to her, and I think I said something like, Hey, want some bananas? Like I was just about to die of asthma, and she laughed. It’s a hell of a laugh mate, it only made things much worse.

  Yeah. I know the feeling.

  Yeah. Another beer? I show him my bottle and he seems surprised that there could still be nearly half of it left. It’s not in limited supply you know.