Old Growth

by John Kinsella

  None of his friends were there so he walked around the back of the shopping centre to see if any of them were having a smoke. They weren’t, but his mum was, her car parked to the side of the loading bay. And he saw her swigging from a sherry bottle. Then putting it down somewhere propped on the seat, and straightening her hair and doing her make-up in the rearview mirror. She hadn’t seen him. He ran home.

  *

  It didn’t take his mum long to cotton on to his old man’s hiding spot beneath the barbecue. The dog! she yelled, and the boy knew straight away what she was referring to. The boy watched from behind the kitchen curtain as she tapped the supply – a swig from each of the three bottles of sherry that were stashed in a secret compartment at the back of the barbecue. A large besser brick was prised out and there in the pit below the heat of the barbecue was a work of art, an insulated bottle holder. A swig from each to avoid detection. And as she knew her husband would be at whichever bottle came out when he stuck his hand in, she knew how to avoid detection. He was a threebottle-a-day man, plus a few longneck beers when he could get hold of them. It would all mess and fuse together. She wouldn’t go buying her own, why should she? She didn’t have a problem. Not like that old drunken bastard. Just a few swigs to get through, she muttered to herself. The boy wondered why drunks muttered to themselves, loud but thinking they weren’t loud? And the bottle she probably had hidden at work. Just one bottle a day she’d buy – that was nothing, she rambled to the picket fence, to the cicadas, to the barbecue. Maybe a few more sips in the car – her car – neatly filed under the driver’s seat, neat as a school desk had to be. She certainly wouldn’t go as low as drinking the stuff in the house, or stashing a pile somewhere. A few swigs less and the old bastard would be better for it. It was logical. Jeez, he doesn’t even have a licence. Lost it for bloody life. How is he supposed to work without a licence? Blah blah blah.

  *

  And then, suddenly, his mum was back off the booze. Really off the booze – not just off it in her head. The boy could tell, of course. It’s easy to tell. Life is much worse, then much, much better. And that was the condition she was in or wasn’t in, the day the boy saw his mother pour what he guessed was Epsom salts from the bathroom cabinet (he had taken to spying on her for his own amusement since discovering her secret behind the shops), and plenty of it, into one of the bottles of sherry in the barbecue stash. His father was sick, very sick. And his mother kept a straight face during the whole shebang and ranted at the ol’ man about the bottle doing him in. She never let on that she knew about the hidden compartment. Silly ol’ fool.

  *

  She was back on the booze. She stank of sherry. She was at the ol’ man’s stash. The boy waited till she was out and his dad was over at an old mate’s place after a row, and he went to the barbecue, took out all the bottles, opened his fly, and pissed into each one. Then, after his mum got home, he watched from behind the curtain as she went to the barbecue stash and took a swig. In the moment, in the delay between swallowing and semi-realisation, then day dawning, then the Apocalypse arriving, the boy felt an anguish and fear that he would carry all his life. He was learning the tricks of the trade. He had already taken the odd swig himself from the stash, and indeed, that’s likely where his father had thought the sherry was going – the boy was sure his dad knew some was missing. When the boy had once gone to Al-Anon, for children of AA members (which his father had very briefly been), he was told that alcoholics notice the smallest loss when they go to a stash hanging out. But the ol’ man wasn’t that bad – maybe as long as it didn’t eat into his load too much, he didn’t mind the boy getting a taste for the booze. After all, that’s how his own illustrious career as a drinker had begun, he so often bragged: Got the taste taking nips from my old man’s bar.

  But as his mother let out a gut-wrenching scream and ran to the shed and emerged with an axe which she began swinging and hurling against the barbecue, he knew that his path would not be that of his father, or his mother. He slunk back deep into the house and knew that life as he’d known it was coming to an end, and the new beginning would not necessarily be any better. He broke into a cold sweat. A cold sweat. He became a cicada shell with eyes but nothing else left inside.

  THE COMPANY CHRISTMAS TREE

  Dom Rigó’s children were nervous. Meeting his new girlfriend gave them butterflies. The eldest assured the two youngest, nine-year-old twins, that their father couldn’t have a girlfriend because he was still legally married to their mother. Mum says, He’s legally married to me. No decree nisi yet! What does that mean? asked Kati. It doesn’t matter, replied her twin brother, Lukás, who preferred to be called Luke.

  Mary, Mary Roland, what kind of name is that? their mother spat. Mum spat when she said her name, László told their father, when they were a block away from their home, the home they’d once shared with both mother and father. Dom laughed to hear it. László wasn’t sure why he reported to his father. He loved his mother more. But he felt compelled – as if, if he didn’t, he’d betray maleness.

  Dom had gone away, gone ‘up north’ to the mines, and hadn’t come back, not back home, not to live. Not to drink beer watching the footy, not to tell László to chop the wood. Not to tell their mother to stop putting on airs, for Chrissakes. Think the neighbours care? Think those Pommy bastards give two hoots what you think? And stop dragging the kids to hear that hypocrite priest rambling on about sin. I could tell you a thing or two about him. Then they’d row, and end up in the bedroom, and then there’d be silence, and then muffled noises, and more yelling. The priest was always a trigger. Just the word.

  Their mum never cried, not once, but she was angry, and gave the children more chores than usual, and took a lot of aspirin for headaches. Get me an aspirin and be a doll, she’d say to one of the children. She watched a lot of soap operas and sounded like an American actress, even though her accent was still thick from migrating when she was twelve.

  Their father had been born in Australia, and his parents ‘escaped the Russians’. László had asked if it was because they were Nazis during the war, and Dom beat him with two belts twisted together. Their mother had yelled so loud that neighbours on either side looked over the cicada-shelled grey picket fences and said, Come off it, mate, you can’t do that, it’s blue bloody murder. (Though he loved his dad, forty years later László would remember this first when he stood beside his father’s coffin, taking a deep breath before delivering the eulogy.)

  Dom was a fitter and turner. He’d left school at fourteen and done his apprenticeship with the largest steel fabricators in the city of Perth. Later, he worked at the nickel refinery in Kwinana. Each of the children had a store of dull-shiny nickel briquettes which they handled as if they were magic, soothing, full of possibilities. Dom had married the girl lined up by his family, though it was nothing like an arranged marriage. Both families were Catholic, but Dom’s parents had done their best to forget the past. Australia was a new start for them; they never spoke of other family members, or of what life had been like, other than ‘we escaped the Russians’. With heavy Hungarian accents and broken English, they forced their way into acceptance by taking every put-down and every slight as if it were deserved.

  It made Dom sick. Why do you take that bullshit? he would demand of his father when he yelled out Gwo Vroyals at the footy and a West Perth supporter would yell back, Go back home and barrack for ya own game, ya mug! Hit him, Dad, hit him, Dom would say, then he’d sneak away to get into a spat with the West Perth supporter’s son behind the stands.

  But their mum was a proud Hungarian Australian from the great city of Budapest. She talked of the different sides of that city, of the great river, and fed them goulash. In truth, she remembered less than she claimed, and spoke in stereotypes of her own heritage. Life with Dom had ironed the subtleties of memory out of her. I wish we could go back for a holiday, she used to say to Dom. Waste of bloody money, he’d reply, And they wouldn’t let us in anyway, commie ba
stards – rather go to Melbourne and see the grand final.

  But Dom wasn’t thinking about Melbourne anymore. His new girlfriend worked in the office up at Newman. That’s where he’d met her. They’d both come down for the Perth version of the company Christmas Tree. The company was thriving, paying almost no tax and sucking iron ore out of the ancient land as fast as trains could carry it to Port Hedland and the waiting Japanese ships. It comes back as cars, Dom told his children proudly. László knew every model of every car manufactured in Australia and Japan, because he thought it likely it would be made from steel made from iron ore his father had helped dig out.

  Well, I don’t actually dig it out, son, but I weld and repair the equipment that does. Cool, said his son. So did the twins, because László bullied them into submission. And just as the children had those nickel briquettes from when their father had worked at Kwinana, where they still lived with the familiar odours blown in by the sea breeze, so too they had chunks of iron ore from way up north on their chests of drawers. Access-visit tokens, their mother said, adding that it was out of the goodness of her heart that they saw him at all, because there was no divorce and no agreement, even though they were legally separated. And on one occasion when their dad drove all the way down from Newman and tried to kiss their mum in the kitchen, she threatened to call the police.

  What, the Kwinana police? laughed Dom. Give me a break.

  Dom’s new girlfriend had agreed to meet them at the Christmas Tree so the children could ease into it. And so Dom and the kids were sitting at a picnic table in Kings Park, Dom handing out the tickets the company provided for each child to use for entertainments (five each) and treats (five each). Miss Mary Roland snuck up behind Dom, gave a familiar finger against lips to the children she’d never met before, and put her hands around Dom’s woolly white-black hair, covering his eyes, and said, Guess who?

  The children twitched because they knew how much their father hated surprises and hated to be touched. Kati had once been slapped across the back of her bare legs because she yelled Boo! at her father when he came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around him. And for days he’d berated her, You’ll learn, girl, it’s rude – you’ll learn, and I’ll teach you manners if it’s the last thing I ever do! But all three were astonished to see Dom smile and say, You! And then turn and kiss the bright red lips of very white Mary Roland.

  Mary nudged Dom along the bench with her ample hips, then flattened her dress with great sweeping motions of her hands. Well, isn’t this nice? You must be László, she said. You’re the eldest. I know all about you, young man. László shrivelled and shrank and swore undying hatred from that point, though knowing his father was watching with his deadly cold blue eyes (cold as the centre of Hell itself, his mother would say, confusing the boy, who believed the centre of Hell must be hotter than the hottest part of the sun). And you two are the twins, Kati and Lukás. Luke, I only like Luke. Don shot László a look, and under the table László kicked Luke, who knew better than to yell, Yow!

  Dom sent the children away to their entertainments. Don’t miss out on any, youse kids, he insisted. Dom was a value-formoney man more than a company man. All the bigwigs were walking around, watching out of the corner of their eyes as their own children played around the workers’ children under sufferance. Once a year. László heard one posh kid with a bow tie – a blue bow tie, can you believe it! – say that a dark-skinned kid smelt funny. László didn’t know why but he wanted to belt the poncy kid with two belts twisted together.

  László always wondered at the colour of his own skin, which seemed so much darker than his mother’s, even his father’s. And darker than the twins, who were blond and wispy. László was thickset with curly black hair. He looked at himself a lot in the mirror, and studied his groin for new hairs, even examining his chest through a magnifying glass so that he strained his eyes and complained to his mum without telling her how he’d done it. She indulged him and pampered him and said that he was worth ten of his father; that he would make a fine catch when he was a man. László wanted to say that he was a man, but thought it rude to say to his mother. He was always feeling uneasy, and this made him want to kick and hit and torment everyone around him. The twins were scared of him, and he liked it that way.

  Amid the beauty of Kings Park with its great trees and pond – where little yachts were being guided around with sticks, and logs of different lengths made a climbing obstacle course, and birds of many colours foraged just out of reach of the rowdiest children, and the air smelt so empty and different from Kwinana – was a gigantic Christmas tree. It was a conifer that had been grown for the purpose, cut down, erected in semi-death in the middle of the lawn, covered in decorations, and surrounded by a hundred wrapped presents, all the same size but coded blue for boys and pink for girls. The presents were handed out as twilight took hold and the party was winding down, so many fathers laughing too much and spilling drinks, then having Yeah yeah, but listen! discussions that were arguments by the beer keg. The presents were handed out by a drunken Father Christmas who made lewd jokes to the older girls and said Piss off! to an older boy who said he didn’t believe in him but still wanted the present. The company directors grimaced and laughed at once, and the sweat of sufferance on their brows was the class marker that pointed like prison-clobber arrows out of the Terrace all the way to the dusty red mines of the north.

  The children had avoided their father and his girlfriend, other than the odd compulsory check-in every half-hour. Having met and greeted them, Mary didn’t have much else to say; she drank shandies and laughed like a hyena as Dom told flat and boring jokes they’d all heard a million times. When it came to the present-giving time, Dom sent László to collect the twins and said to them all, Now don’t miss out, we’ve got to get what we can out of these scrooges. Hardly got a Christmas bonus, and Mary didn’t get one at all. Things are going to be tight for you lot. Yes, said Mary, Your mother won’t be getting fancy holidays this year!

  And so they all went uneasily and feeling slightly sick to collect their wrapped boxes and bring them back to the table to open. They knew they had to do it this way: unwrap under the watchful eyes of their father, who wanted to see what the gifts were worth. Come a long bloody way down from Newman for this, he said. None of my mates here, and Mary only knows a couple of the women from the city office. A long bloody way to come for youse kids and I hope to hell you get something out of it. It was getting dark now and suddenly floodlights came on, powered by a portable generator by the fridge tent.

  Phew, that’s bloody bright, the wankers, said Dom, half-cut. László squirmed – he’d never heard his father use the word ‘wanker’ before. The twins were too busy trying to get the ribbons off their parcels. Give ’em ’ere, said Dom, ripping both parcels away, handing one to Mary to unwrap while he assaulted the other. One was a toy car, the other was a doll, and with a grunt from Dom and a Cute! from Mary, they were passed to the relevant twins.

  So what’s in yours, László?

  László had been neatly undoing his, but a floodlight was shining in his eyes and bothering him. I’ve got a headache, he said, without thinking.

  Listen, Mary, he’s got a headache.

  Like his mum, said Mary, who was tiddly.

  László kept his head down and muttered, You shouldn’t be driving, Dad.

  What? What the fuck did you say?

  Kati and Lukás. They could get hurt if you have an accident. Mum said to make sure you didn’t drink too much.

  László didn’t know what hit him, but it did. The floodlight burst in his head and he saw all the future. He fell backwards and his parcel spilled open. It was a snow dome, and the snow had gone crazy as it was shaken around and fell with him. It look like a great old European city, and when it hit the ground László rolled onto it, and all the glitter and water leaked out through a wound in its hard skin, and the dark, shadowy lawn that was green and brown, dead and alive, milling with beetles and smelling of p
oison, accepted the offering.

  Then Mary was tugging him to his feet and smoothing his hair, and saying to Dom and anyone else who would listen, Doesn’t he have springy hair? Look, if you pat it down it bounces straight back up.

  GRIP

  When I was seven, in the stalls of a circus tent on the Swan River foreshore just in front of the tallish buildings of Perth city, I saw a sexy woman fall when the man who meant to catch her failed to grip her wrists. I watched her hands slip through his; she plunged to the safety net below. She bounced high, spilled over the side of the net and thumped to the ground. They took her away on a stretcher, which was unexpected, since the safety net had been used for fun by trapeze clowns in an earlier act. I was so disturbed by what I’d seen that I went and learnt as much as I could about aerialists and the art of the high trapeze. And with my first boyfriend, who was ten when I was nine, I performed the trapeze with a fishing net spread between trees as we swung from the branches.

  Horrie is not a name you hear these days, unless among old men, but it was kind of in vogue where we lived when I was a child. Horrie was the name of my boyfriend. He didn’t want to be my boyfriend, but I made him be so. I had something over him, an ironclad grip on his imagination and spirit that made him do anything I wanted. When I told him he’d be the anchor in my trapeze act, he laughed and then, as he slowly understood what was required, began to look ill and started to shake. I detest such men. Always have. Strong in body, Horrie was lacking in courage. I pointed out how many other boys in the class he’d knocked over playing football. He actually had a reputation as a bully and instilled fear in boys with a frown or a smirk. Away from me, he was a boy with attitude. I was on his case.

  What did I have over him? A sin committed whereof I had irrefutable evidence? Blackmail? Not true. Or not quite. I will say that he hadn’t actually done anything beyond his normal crimes of arrogance and power, his petty cruelties and sadisms, but rather had the desire to do something truly awful. I mean, so bad it would change lives. He wouldn’t be likely ever to do it, but I knew he’d thought about it in detail, and he was fully aware I was au fait with the nitty-gritty. I guess it put me at risk, but the same cowardice that stopped him putting his plan into action stopped him trying to … deal with me. Okay, we were nine and ten, but don’t underestimate the knowledge and awareness we had. That’s nothing to do with adults and their judgements on culpability; rather, in our own terms, in what we knew we should or shouldn’t do, what we could or couldn’t get away with without what I’d now call karma sorting us out. We were aware of consequences. Horrie’s bullying fitted the broader pattern of teachers and students and society, so he had a template for that. No harsh judgement or payback would come of his riding roughshod over his peers. He’d learnt he could do it with impunity, and in fact prosper.