by Barry Heard
So instead of Peg or Knackers, I rang John, my brother.
‘Listen, mate. How about coming to Melbourne, going to the theatre, and then spending the weekend?’
‘Great. Send us the details.’
I devised a plan of eating and entertainment over the time that would have exhausted a marathon runner. The important thing was that I would have no empty time, no space in which to think. I rang a girl from home who was living in Melbourne and asked her out. Ted said he would cover for me, and everything was organised.
The first of August came and went; then the second of August. I studied obsessively and avoided the calendar, but it was no use — when I slept I would return to the jungle.
Poor X … if only I had … I was useless … the crowds shouted at me … why? I often woke with my brain thumping and asking myself the same questions repeatedly. The guilt was strong, depressing.
The third of August. The wind pains and diarrhoea started, and I felt myself becoming very alert and vigilant. As a distraction, I tried to change my routine. I offered to help my uncle in his shop the next morning. Dressed and ready for a day of deliveries, I had a setback.
‘Your breath is really bad,’ my sweet uncle Gordon told me finally, with embarrassment. ‘Like your teeth are rotten or something.’
The fourth of August: I took another day off studies, and sat up in bed all morning doing nothing. I had no energy. I had to be OK for the following days; John would be down. I cancelled my date with the girl from home. My gut was burning. On the sixth, I jogged and walked for ages. I finally returned to the flat, showered, and changed. I decide to walk into the city to meet John. I’d booked Fiddler on the Roof for us to see. He was late. He was often late; it never seemed to worry him, but it worried me. He turned up at intermission with his lovely girlfriend, his cheeky grin firmly in place. We all enjoyed the rest of the show immensely but, sadly, he had to go straight back to Kilmore. I walked slowly back to Middle Park, got changed, and went for another run. I didn’t go to bed that night.
My final exams were only weeks away, and I was in overdrive. Knackers turned up, shook my hand warmly, and handed me $2000. We yakked, both of us avoiding any mention of Vietnam. He was busy; very busy. It seemed he worked all day, every day. It was so easy to talk to him — just chattering away, joking, and insulting each other. I missed that sort of company. Then he stood to leave. ‘Hey, Turd, baby,’ he said. ‘Can I borrow your VW for a week or so?’
‘No problem, but I’m not sure it’ll be that reliable. It’s a heap. And the windscreen’s cracked.’
He took it anyway.
The exams were three weeks away now, and I was hardly sleeping. I was enjoying using the slide rule, and feeling slightly confident. I knew I was going to pass the sciences. I had no idea how I would go with the two English subjects.
Then I got a phone call from Knackers: he’d be down in an hour. He told me I was to put a couple of cold cans in the fridge. When he turned up with his infectious, cheerful smile, we had time to really talk. He told me he was flat out and doing OK; that was nothing new. But he still hadn’t seen any of the other blokes. That really surprised me, as he had been a very popular bloke and seemed to be living a normal life. I assumed all the blokes were. Then he said something that left me thinking.
‘I can’t watch the bloody TV, mate. Shit, that stirs me up, eh?’
I didn’t buy into the subject. We reminisced about Vung Tau, Tom’s letters, and some of the characters we’d known. We finished our beers and then he threw me the car keys.
‘She’s down the front, mate. I’ll see myself out.’
I followed him down anyhow and met his brother Rob, who had followed Knackers to Melbourne and was now taking him back.
‘Not bad, eh?’ said Knackers with a little grin as he left.
They drove off. What was that bastard on about? What was not bad?
I thought I’d go up to Fitzroy Street and shout myself a gelati. But I couldn’t find my car. What was Knackers up to? I went around the corner; still no car. Then I noticed my number plate attached to a new-looking VW. Mine was green; this one was black and white. Cautiously, I opened the door of the car and smelt new upholstery. It was my car, only with a new motor, new exhaust, new wheels, new paint job, new everything. Knackers had almost completely rebuilt it. I started her up. Bloody beautiful. Then I went and got my gelati. Back home, I rang Knackers.
‘You bastard!’ I said, and he laughed.
‘Get back to ya colouring-in and counting beads, Turd, you ugly bastard,’ he said.
Three days to go to the exams. Then two days to go.
The phone rang. It was 2.00am. It was Mum.
‘John has been killed in a car accident. He was getting a lift to Melbourne … can you please identify the body?’
It was like the ‘thumbs down’, then ‘contact, wait out’. It was like reading the name of a mate killed in action over the radio. I went straight into coping mode: cold, emotionless, hard, clear. I had boundless energy. Nothing could hurt me.
Next day, I worked out the shortest route to the morgue. Luckily, I had some ID. The morgue was sombre. I was shown to a room with a window and a curtain across the glass. In walked a bloke, whistling as if it was the best day of his life. He went on whistling as he opened the curtain. I nodded. That briefest of brief glances blasted into my mind my sweet brother’s contorted face. It etched itself into the delicate part that held memories of my mates, and joined all the other sad pictures of my life.
The English exam, always the first, passed in a blur: I wrote one page of something. Physics, the next day: a quick look at the paper, no worries, piece a cake … I got up and walked out after ten minutes, my head feeling like a lump of concrete, too heavy for my body. My shoulder and neck muscles knotted with plaited pain, like I was carrying the radio.
Mum rang. She would organise a service to be held at Swifts Creek, but the funeral was to be held in Melbourne. Could I organise it? Sure. No time for exams. Robot-like, I made hasty funeral arrangements. Mum wanted a cremation. It sounded terrible. The funeral director hesitated as I gave instructions and handed him the necessary details. He must have seen the doubt in my eyes.
‘Are you sure this is what you wanted?’
I couldn’t even answer his polite enquiry. He had my instructions; I had written them down. I couldn’t discuss it or change plans now.
Cremation: so sudden, sterile, and impersonal. In an instant, my brother had gone. I remained behind after the funeral. I wanted to be near my brother for a while. But where was he? It didn’t bear thinking about.
I got a lift to Kilmore to collect my brother’s things. People at his work were very distressed and wanted to talk, offer condolences. I told them why I was there and that I had no spare time … I packed all his belongings in his new car, a 1952 Riley Pathfinder, and drove to Middle Park. My Aunty Merri was waiting, very angry and very upset. Poor aunty. I hadn’t told her what had happened. She had read the notice in the paper; it had been put in by John’s work.
She couldn’t comprehend that I just wanted to be on my own. I didn’t want to talk about details or things; I had had a death, a body to identify, and a funeral to organise. Even now, I had to get packed, go to the bank, and get home in time for the service at Swifts Creek. I was leaving at daybreak the next day: no traffic.
Anyhow, I was no expert on matters of death. My past experiences were blunt memories of someone killed, then just getting on with it. We’d never said a word about it in Vietnam. Why start now? For tea that night, I walked across the road to Georgie’s. He spotted me before I got to the door, sprinted across the path, grabbed me, and burst into tears. He choked out something in Greek as he kissed me twice and held my hand. We walked back to the fish-and-chip shop.
‘I lov’a your brother. Professor I pray for you.’
Georgie was sobbing, deeply upset. Other customers in the shop were looking at me for some explanation. I said nothing, showing little
or no emotion. Those few wonderful friends I had in Melbourne had missed the funeral.
Vaguely, I recall heading for home, a five-hour drive in John’s precious old car. He had rung me about it weeks before. It had been a straight swap — the Holden for the Riley.
It was good to turn off at Bruthen some four hours from Melbourne and enter the bush, with its winding road and familiar scents. Then the Riley spluttered, shuddered, and stopped. Desperately, I lifted the side bonnet, trying to work out what was wrong. Sitting on the running board, I felt uncontrollable anger start to rise in me. I had almost flattened the battery in panic, and I knew that no cars travelled much on that remote road. I was at the end of my tether. Suddenly a car appeared. Its driver was an old bloke from Benambra, and I realised I knew him. He looked at me sadly, offered condolences, and then gave me some advice about the car.
‘Those Pommy buses have an electric fuel-pump. Bastard of a thing sticks. Just tap it, mate. See what happens.’
‘Brrrr.’ The bloody car started.
The Riley stopped with the same problem twice more. By the time I arrived home, everything was over. I was too late; I had missed my special brother’s service. There had been hundreds in attendance. Now it was dark, and the house was quiet. The dogs barked briefly, then wagged their tails when they smelt me. There was no TV blaring; the kids were all in bed. My stepfather, Bob, was also in bed; he had taken John’s death very badly. There was just Mum, sitting numbly in the lounge chair. She looked at me when I walked in and nodded. Neither of us said anything. I stayed at home for three days, sitting by the river most of the time. A lot of people called in, but I didn’t want to see them.
Back in Melbourne, I had to attend the coroner’s inquest into John’s death. I was stunned to hear a suggestion that he’d been the driver of the car that he was killed in, rather than a passenger. I couldn’t take any more in. My poor head felt like it was going to explode. Nothing was making sense. A kind police officer and another bloke spoke to the magistrate. There had been a mix-up.
The magistrate ruled ‘Death by misadventure’.
That night I walked around the Albert Park Lake several times. No way was I going to lie down and close my eyes. No way.
Come Christmas, I collected all my building plans and instructions, and headed for Lake Tyers. Although quite a few people popped in and helped at times, Bob and I did the bulk of the building. Sixteen days later, we locked the front door on my new house. Timbers had been numbered, and every thing pre-ordered and delivered ready for construction, so it went together like a giant meccano set. Bob had needed a new project to occupy him after John’s death, and the house became his pride and joy, right down to the spiral staircase connecting the two floors. Once it was finished, my parents used it regularly. They had always worked hard, and it was good for them to have a break.
Late January, I headed back to Melbourne. Since my brother’s death my life had been in fast-forward, sleep being my lowest priority. I had to be alone, to find a direction.
The examination board told me I could repeat year twelve with a 10 per cent penalty on any repeated subjects. So in 1970 I started again, doing the same subjects. There were new faces in all my classes. The teachers knew my reason for returning, and were sympathetic. In my English class, I bumped into a bloke about my age. There was something about him I warmed to. I made it a point to sit beside this fellow, and noticed that his left hand was missing; there was a hook attached. His slight limp suggested a bung knee.
When we introduced ourselves, he told me his name was Sap and that he lived just up the road from me. Like me, he’d left school too early and never read much, so we decided to study on Tuesday nights at his place. Once there, I was surprised at how much we talked and how comfortable I felt doing it. It was unusual for me to feel relaxed with new people. A week later, we got together again; this time, when I knocked on the door, Saps appeared, hopping on one leg. The other had been amputated. We talked for the first time about our pasts. I had known him before, if only briefly. Sap was the engineer who’d been on the minefield near Phuoc Hai, the fishing village where the engineers had laid mines. It was the place that boasted the fastest dog on earth, the bloody teargas, the B52 strike … and, of course, I remembered the bloody sickening thud of that mine accident and the dust-off helicopter I had called in to take him and the other injured sappers out. He had lost a leg, his left hand, and three fingers on his right hand. It was weird meeting him. He was good company for the rest of the year.
I finished the school year and passed everything except English, which I failed because of the 10 per cent penalty. That meant I had failed year twelve again.
I packed it in then. Without a plan or a reason, Sap and I drove to Perth. I was in limbo, with no qualifications that were any use, no idea of what to do with the following year, and no enthusiasm.
I got lucky, though. Sap introduced me to a nurse he knew called Lyn.
THE LONG WAY HOME
IT TOOK UNDER TWO DAYS to drive to Perth. Like most of our endeavours, we drove like maniacs, only stopping for brief snacks. Exhausted, we grabbed four hours’ sleep the first night. The gravel section of the road across the Nullabor Plains was terrible. It was rutted and dusty, but this didn’t slow us down.
The city of Perth was a surprise; it was like a large rural Victorian town. After a brief tour through the city that included a scenic drive the wrong way down Hay Street, we collapsed from exhaustion and slept for a day. Our first visit was to some nurses whom Sap knew. They were a happy bunch, having recently graduated as nursing sisters from the Townsville General Hospital, Queensland. They had travelled to Perth to work. One in particular caught my eye: her name was Lyn. I took a shine to her blue eyes and long blond hair. Part of her family background was Norwegian. It showed; she was beautiful. She also had an Aboriginal heritage that she herself more strongly identified with. However, her beauty was only the initial attraction. It was her personality that attracted me. She was intelligent, intuitive, honest — brutally at times — and showed a maturity I had not found in other girls her age. This was the catalyst that helped us to relate and become friends.
It was refreshing to be around people who treated Sap as a normal person, and not as a one-legged, hopeless, deserving digger. We all got along. On our third day, Sap and I went with the girls to Rottnest Island, a resort off the coast of Perth. We hired pushbikes, and pedalled around the island. Saps, ever determined to be independent, struggled with the pushbike, and in no time came a cropper. We all laughed. Sap was pissed off: he was used to being treated as fragile by most girls. These nurses treated him as they would anyone else. They knew that just because he was missing a limb or two he wasn’t pathetic or hopeless, and they had all seen plenty of people with bigger problems in their work.
It was relaxing being around Lyn and her friends; they were fun, without any fluttering eyelashes. There was a bond, a connection between us, more like mates — the soldier and the nurse.
Every day for three weeks, whenever she wasn’t working, I saw Lyn. Mind you, I wasn’t a smooth operator on the dating front. On our first official date I went to pick her up after she had finished work, stood outside the hospital for ages … and there was no Lyn. I decided, with Ned Kelly-like resignation, ‘Well, such is life’, and nearly left. But a second thought found me inquiring at the front desk just in case she was busy, held up attending emergency or something. It turned out I was at the wrong bloody hospital! I resurrected my running skills, and sprinted to the other end of the city in record time. Lyn was there, not fazed.
Several days later, I tried again with a night out at a posh restaurant that had been recommended by my uncle. It would be my first dining-out evening in years, but hopefully a good night out with a woman that I felt comfortable with and was beginning to like quite a bit. We arrived to find a ‘closed’ sign on the door. It had shut down that day. We had takeaway, and I walked Lyn about three miles to her flat: I walked everywhere. Later that week
, guessing that she might be sick of walking, I borrowed Sap’s car and we went to a drive-in movie; but it turned out to be the wrong movie, wrong time, and it rained. By now I was beginning to worry about what sort of impression I was making.
Our three weeks in Perth seemed to be suddenly over, and it was time to head back to Victoria. I told Lyn I would write — nothing else, no mutterings of love or devotion, just that I’d keep in touch. Within three days of arriving home, I had a good job offer, managing a large cattle property. This had been my plan from the day I had arrived back from Vietnam: being my own boss, living in isolation, returning to a job I once had enjoyed, being around dogs, horses, and cattle, and doing hard work. Now, with my ambition almost realised, I hesitated. I kept thinking of a girl in Perth. The feeling of being able to relate to another person, particularly of the opposite sex, was strong. This was something that I really needed and hadn’t felt for a long time. The time I had spent with Lyn and her friends had been a brief period of feeling normal.
Suddenly I had a new plan, one that was more important than being a farm manager. I wrote to Lyn, hinting at my affection and maybe my returning to Perth. No answer. I penned another letter. No answer again. I assumed that something was wrong: she’d moved, gone home, or the letters hadn’t arrived. My ego wouldn’t allow me to consider that she wasn’t interested.
Still with no answer, but not deterred, I declined the job offer and made plans to return to Perth. Mum was disappointed. To her I was in an endless cycle of running off and not settling down. She was amazed and not impressed that I had found a woman who appealed to me, but one that she had not approved of. ‘Perth, of all places, and she’s from Queensland, and a Catholic!’ You couldn’t get much worse than that. Mum and several other mothers with marriageable daughters in Swifts Creek had me matched, married, and settled in the district. To mum, being settled meant a lot, even my salvation. Her preferred destiny for me was that I ended up in an almost prearranged marriage to a local girl, preferable a farmer’s daughter, so that I could keep working on the family farm as well. But my mind was made up. I was going back to Perth. My younger brother pleaded with me to take him with me, which I did. My mother was very disappointed.
