“That used to be my name, but people generally call me Alex.”
The beard braced himself. “I’m George Bird.” And when Alex did not react explained that he was the driver of the log-truck that had ended his parents’ life and sent them into the next one.
Alex sucked in. Hearing his father in red braces talking about boats; smelling his mother’s sherry-scented breath. He came up for air. The only sound his heart, and the grass being torn.
“Do you want to come in?”
“No, I just want to let you know that not a day has passed when I didn’t wish it was me in that car.”
He swallowed the rest of the gin.
“Go on, Whizz, get your arse moving!”
Over by the pool table, two players in their shirts of wife-beater’s tartan cheered the television set. A mouth missing several teeth yelled: “Get on with it, Whizz!”
“One more,” thumping his empty glass on the counter. In the trapped warmth of the lounge room. Its brutal cordiality.
He drank. He looked around. The television, with its horse race going on. A counter, scattered with slips and the paraphernalia of betting. And flashing up on screen, the Keno numbers.
At the end of the bar, the man in the green tweed jacket removed something from his eye. He stood up and looked at Alex and went outside.
The cheers had become jeers. Two disappointed faces turned away. A cue was chalked and the thump resumed of ivory against ivory.
“I’m going,” Alex said after a while to no one in particular.
The beards at the bar simmered approval.
At the pool table, they were making bets on roadkill. How many dead animals could they notch up on their way home?
“Winner in Swansea! Winner in Swansea!”
Alex walked outside into the car park and pissed between two utes. Out of the ground-floor window another peal of undenticulated laughter.
He was zipping up when he became conscious of someone observing him through the windscreen of a stationary Pajero. The red lights picked out a South Australian number plate.
Alex left the car park and set off along the road, the jeers reverberating through his head, and the shrill announcement of a lucky lottery winner.
Behind, an engine started up. The vehicle turned onto the road and followed Alex at a slow pace until it was alongside. The driver leaned across and the window whirred down.
“How ya doing?”
“Going well, mate.”
“Need a lift?”
Alex stopped and looked at the face framed in the open window. He took in a man more or less his own age, fleshy lips and chin, sparse hair, drooping, slightly bulging eyes.
“Why would you do a thing like that?”
“We might be heading in the same direction.”
“Where you heading?”
“Orford.”
“Which way?”
He considered this. “Lake Leake,” after a pause.
Alex stared at the ground. “Could you drop me off near Wellington Point?”
“No trouble.”
The man opened the door and Alex climbed in and they drove out of Green Ponds and onto the Midlands Highway.
“I’ve never been in that pub before,” the man said after an interval.
Alex eyed the cloth on the arms that held the steering wheel and was conscious of his torn blue jersey, stiff with dried earth. His eyes moved up the arm to the driver’s face. His own face by contrast was covered by an unchecked stubble and he smelled of ditches. “Me neither,” he said.
The man picked his teeth. “I don’t reckon I’ll stop there again. But the ferry into Devonport was two hours late and I was famished. I could have eaten the crotch out of a low-flying duck.”
“Do you live in Orford?” Alex said.
“I live in Adelaide, but my family have a house on Spring Beach.”
He was down here visiting his parents; normally they came to him because they liked to get into better weather.
“What about yours?” he asked Alex.
“I’d like to get into better weather.”
“I mean, what about your folks? Are they still around?”
“No, no, they died a long time ago now.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Alex looked out at the side of the highway. As if half-expecting to see himself shuffling into the headlights. He had walked beside this road for the best part of the afternoon. “A log-truck.”
The man frowned at the road ahead. “Forgive me for asking, but you’re not Piers Dove, are you?”
Alex looked around. “I might have been.”
“I thought so,” nodding to himself.
“How did you work that out?”
“We were at school together.”
Alex took stock of the driver’s silhouette in the darkness. His double chin, his kind protruding eyes, his sparse hair rumpled like a judge who has removed his wig.
“I remember that accident,” the man went on in a deferential tone. “We were pretty cut up for you. But you’d left town before we had a chance to pay our respects to you and your family.” He paused and cleared his throat awkwardly. “You–that is.”
Still, Alex could not decipher the boy in the double chin. In the adult voice with the mainlander’s vowels.
“Were we in the same class?”
“I sat behind you,” and turned and smiled in a sad way.
Headlights from an oncoming vehicle fell on the man’s cheek and nose.
“Jack Cheele…?”
“That’s right.”
They regarded each other. Thirty-two years disappeared and the lines on the face, and all at once Alex discerned the features of the new boy whom Miss Pritchard was introducing to the class.
“Jack Cheele,” he repeated in a voice just as strained.
“You remember my name,” chuckling.
A car flashed by.
Alex shook his head. That they should meet in a pub in the middle of nowhere.
“Miss Pritchard told us you’d gone to England. It wasn’t till I heard you speak that I knew I was right.”
Alex twisted to face him. “Jack, I’ve thought about you so often.”
“Well, here I am.”
“No, no, you don’t realise,” in an urgent voice. “I really have thought about you an awful lot.”
“You have?”
“That day in the school yard—”
“When you kicked me in the balls?”
“I’d made up my mind to come and see you, to apologise, and then…then it was too late.” Everything erased by the accident.
“Well, that’s decent of you to tell me.”
“I tried to find you.”
“We moved to South Australia.”
“I bet you haven’t forgotten.”
Cheele gave another chuckle. “Jesus, no. I haven’t. But it didn’t do too much damage. Four children later. Anyway, it wasn’t your fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ray Grogan set you up, didn’t he?”
“You heard that?”
“He told me so himself. I think what surprised him was that you’d gone along with it.” He squinted out at the road. “Hey, don’t say this is Campbell Town already.”
The headlights picked out Federation houses on either side, an antique shop, and an orange telephone kiosk with a light on. Cheele slowed down. “Sorry, but I’ve got to just drive. The coppers are brutal here. Last time, I got a ticket for doing seventy.”
He put on his indicator and moved into the middle of the road and turned right and did not accelerate again until they had left Campbell Town behind them.
“We should make Wellington Point in an hour,” he said. “All right with you?”
“That’s fine.”
Cheele did not speak for a while. They had passed Lake Leake when he cleared his throat again: “I wouldn’t want you to take this in the wrong spirit, but when I saw you tonight in the pub I thought: I recognise that fella.
That’s Piers Dove. But then I said to myself: You’ve been driving all day, Jack, you’re seeing things. Piers Dove wouldn’t be in a place like this any more than you would be–not in the normal course of events. Although, as my wife would say: What is normal these days?” He laughed and when Alex said nothing he looked over at him: “I hope, Piers, you’re not offended by what I just said.”
Alex wondered if he should let it go. It was a comfort that he had not expected, to be called Piers again.
“No, no, far from it, I’m not offended.”
“That’s good.”
So he sat in silence, content to be Piers for just a small while longer, until he saw the streaks of burned rubber and sat up. “You can drop me here.”
“Hey, let me take you to your door,” Cheele said. He peered out at the road: the blind corner, the tyre marks still black after four months. “Looks like you’ve had visitors,” he murmured, looking for a turning. “Or else someone’s been dodging a kangaroo.”
“I mean it,” Alex said. “Please drop me here. I’d prefer it.”
Cheele parked on the grass. He glanced over again at Alex. “You OK, Piers? You don’t look so good. I hope you’re not still worrying about that incident. It’s history. Forget it.”
“Yeah, OK, I will,” and opened the door and climbed out.
CHAPTER FOUR
MERRIDY WAS NOT AT home.
Alex drank three glasses of water, one after the other, then opened the fridge and made himself an omelette. Out of habit, he looked around for the dog’s bowl. Not seeing it, he called out: “Rusty!”–and when nothing moved realised that she must have taken him with her. Afterwards, he ran a bath and lay in it until the water was cold. It unsettled him to stretch out alone in their bed, but sleep quickly overtook him.
He got up earlier than usual and shaved. He pulled out a clean blue shirt and pair of brown corduroy trousers from the chest of drawers, and dressed. Then he went into the kitchen and made a pot of tea and three pieces of toast, and spread Vegemite and marmalade and butter on them. It was not yet seven when he finished his breakfast and grabbed his hat off the dresser and went out to milk the cows, their udders fit to bursting, and to feed the animals that he had neglected.
For the rest of the morning, he rode over the farm. He was keen to make up the four lost days. The barley was showing signs of sooty mould from a big rain. Along the edge of Moulting Lagoon, the black swans had come in for grain and fouled it up a bit. In the afternoon, he sprayed the barley and moved sheep between paddocks. And as it grew dark fired a gas-gun to scare off the swans.
When the telephone rang in the kitchen that night, he dug out a half-bottle of gin that he kept for guests and poured a tumbler.
Half an hour later the telephone rang again. This time he picked it up.
“Alex?”
He sat back. “Merridy.”
“Thank God. I was so worried.”
“I’m OK.”
“Where were you?” She had driven up and down the Avoca Road, hoping to find him. At one point she had urged Rusty out of the car. “Go look for Alex,” in a fraught and rather hysterical tone so that the dog had barked at her.
“I had to clear my head,” he said.
“I tried ringing, you’ve no idea how many times…I couldn’t think where you might be.”
Her husband did not have many close friends. She had telephoned his agent, Agnes, Jack Fysshe, the Macdonalds. She had even–in her despair–contacted Harry Ford. “What’s that? No, no, he’s not here.”
So when Jason enquired–they were drifting in the Zemmery Fidd above the oyster lines–“Has Alex run away?” she had no clear answer.
“I’m not sure,” replied Merridy, for whom the tangle of ropes, of small knots that fastened the lanterns was suddenly too much. “I haven’t seen him since Monday.”
Alex took another swallow of gin. “I’m sorry for leaving like that,” he said. “I didn’t know where I was going myself.”
“I’m the one who is sorry. I’m so sorry, Alex. I should have told you before.”
“Like I said, I wanted to clear my head.”
“I was milking the cows when suddenly I got this idea that you might have been waiting for me to leave. I thought you’d be happier if I wasn’t there.”
“Probably.”
“Alex,” she said.
“You’ve got Rusty?”
“I’ll bring him back if you like.”
“No, keep him. I bought him for you.”
“Alex?”
“Where are you ringing from, anyway?”
“Aunt Doss.”
He nodded. “I suppose you’ll be there a while?”
“Alex…”
“What about Kish? Any news?”
“It’s you I love.”
“Don’t!” and slammed the tumbler on the table, though it was the receiver that he meant to crash down. “I’m sorry, Merridy—” and stood up.
She asked him to hear her out. “Even if you never want to see me again, please listen.”
He had spilled gin on the table and it was dripping to the floor. He squeezed the receiver between cheek and shoulder, looking around for a cloth.
“You told me this would happen,” her voice was saying, quite hoarse, “and, Alex, it has. Alex, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.” But he could not see straight. He was thinking: Could it be the gin that’s given me this quick fuse? Beefeater had been his father’s drink, and he was a novice.
“I’ve had time to think everything over. I love you, Alex.”
“Where do you keep dishcloths?”
“When you first understand something you’ve not been able to understand for ages–how it all fits together–suddenly everything is obvious…What?”
“A dishcloth, where would I get a dishcloth?”
“Third drawer on the left. Alex, did you hear what I just said? You were right. It’s happened–as you promised.” She sounded elated.
“I’ve found them. Listen, I’m going to have to go.”
When the telephone rang again he did not answer. He mopped up the pool of gin and poured himself another glass and sipped, but did not answer.
He expected her to call again the following night. Before turning in, he picked up the receiver in the kitchen, and then checked the receiver in the living room. Nor did she ring the next night, nor the night after that. He walked up and down. He had forgotten how to live on his own. The house without Merridy, without a dog, without the bottled ships and the wardrobe, with nothing on the walls–no paintings, drawings, samplers–was a place far emptier than the house to which he had returned from England as a young man.
He had his hair cut. He started to read again. He took his rod to the river mouth and fished for flat-head, cooking it with a tin of tomatoes that he found in the larder. But he was lonely for Merridy. He dried his face with her towel and, assaulted by a trace of her perfume, tried in vain to summon her laughter.
FOR SALE: TALBOT’S NEWSLETTER
As a complete operation–including computer, printer, Mita photocopier, Risograph high-speed printer. An ideal occupation for retired or community-concerned persons. Please contact me to discuss what is involved–not much really.
Albert Talbot.
One cold evening, he was cleaning his father’s shotgun in the laundry room when he heard a car pull up and then yapping.
“Alex?”
They came into the kitchen at the same time.
“Tildy.”
He had been back an hour, after an exhausting day’s tractoring, plus a quick walk over the pastures for a hare for his supper, and was pleased to see her. He switched off the radio that had become his only company.
“I won’t stay long,” she said, and he supposed that she needed his vote for something or was going to put pressure on him to stand for the council.
He turned on the tap. “Merridy’s not here,” soaping the oil from his hands.
“I know. S
he called me.”
“Tildy,” she had said, “I have a favour to ask. Could you scout out the ground and go and see Alex? I do worry about him.”
“He’s the father of your child. Why don’t you go?”
“I have to be here. Please. Just go and hug him for me.”
So on this wintry night Tildy had driven out to the farm and now stood in her grey coat beside the blackwood table.
She sent her eyes down the corridor. “Hey, is something different?” She had not been for several months. “I know what it is, you’ve had a clean-out. That’s good. They were a bit too old-fashioned for me, those tapestries.”
She picked up a glass on the table, sniffed, put it down.
“Did Merridy tell you? I’m starting a book club. I want you both to be members.” She started bandying the titles of books.
“Tildy…”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. You aren’t going to have the time anyway.”
His face had closed a little. He felt quite lonely. Was she trying to smoke something out of him? She sounded unnaturally concerned. How you must miss your wife, her face implied. At this special time. But not to worry, Merridy will be back soon from Ulverstone. In the meantime, don’t forget to water the garden.
She looked away, at the Welsh dresser. “Did you hear Mr Talbot is selling the store?” for something to say.
“So I saw in the Newsletter.”
“Everyone’s quite upset. My mother-in-law is talking about the end of an era.”
“I don’t mind who owns the place so long as they look after it.”
“Ray’s been given the sale.”
Alex nodded.
She said: “Knowing Ray, he’ll probably want to subdivide it into mansions or convert it into a Melbourne pensioners’ parade.”
“Has he got a buyer in mind?” filling the kettle.
“He won’t say, but it wouldn’t be Ray not to have a developer already lined up.”
“She’s not Japanese, by any chance?”
Tildy stiffened. “Now why do you think that?”
“I saw him escorting a Japanese woman around Jack Fysshe’s property. I thought: Hello, he’s trying to sell her farms. That was some months ago.”
Secrets of the Sea Page 37
