The Art of the Engine Driver

by Steven Carroll

  There I was standing out front of that poky little place in South Melbourne. I was standing on the footpath, the rain was pouring down, but I hadn’t even bothered to open my umbrella. He was lying in the gutter in front of me. Face down. I knew he drank a bit. But there he was, passed out. It occurred to me that he might drown, that I should shift him, but I couldn’t move myself, let alone him. Pound notes were floating along the gutter and his mother was hurrying after them, picking them up before they washed down the drain. And when she’d slipped the sopping wet notes into her dress pocket she turned back to Vic trying to get him onto his feet. She spoke to him slowly, a parent addressing an overgrown child. All her movements were the movements of someone who’d done it all before.

  I’d been sitting in that little lounge room, waiting for him all night with his mother and his aunt. Vic and I were getting engaged and I’d come to have tea and talk about it all. But after an hour he still hadn’t come. After two his mother looked down at the cakes and tea and asked me over and over again if I wanted another cup. Vic’s aunt was just looking on and saying nothing. But she had the look of someone who knew what was happening.

  Eventually, she said it was pay day. Pay day? What does that mean I asked her, and his mother said it didn’t mean anything. But she added that Vic could be late, so why didn’t I go home and everybody could have tea another time. But I wanted to stay. I was worried.

  That was when we heard this sound at the door. A sort of clawing, like a dog or an animal of some kind asking to be let in. The next thing I was standing on the footpath in the rain and he was lying in the gutter with his pay floating all around him.

  Dressed in black, in a dark hat and long coat, his aunt waved an umbrella at me. Don’t marry him, she called out through the rain. Mark my words, she called as she disappeared up the street, you’ll rue the day. And then she was gone around the curve at the top of the road and somehow I’d moved and I was helping his mother walk Vic into the house. We dumped him on his bed and she turned to me, very patient and quiet. Thank you, she said. Quietly. You’ve been most helpful, but you can leave me now. I’ll look after him, and she started to unlace his shoes. I still hear her voice. I walked back to the lounge-room table, to the tea, and the uneaten cakes. I heard her voice yesterday in the summer rain outside the station as I stood watching the lolly wrappers being washed along the gutter in front of me, and I hear it now, in this street, under a wide, warm sky. I still hear her voice, soft and sad, as clear today as it was then, when I left them together in that little room.

  I’d seen drunks before, but never anybody I knew. Except for papa, of course. But he left so long ago it hardly counts. When mama took me on the rounds of the houses she cleaned, before I was old enough to stay home and look after myself, I saw drunks. I saw people too helpless to get out of their chairs or pick themselves up from the hallways where they’d fallen. But I didn’t know them. They belonged in other people’s lives. They didn’t touch me.

  So, there I was that night, walking back in the rain to the tramstop saying never again. I was nineteen. I was about to be engaged, and I shouldn’t have felt like I’d been sheltered all my life, but I did. I’d lived in a house full of women. With my sisters, with mama always looking after things because papa had walked out one Saturday morning and never come back. There I was, nineteen, and still feeling like a girl.

  But I was determined as I walked back through the rain that I was never having any of that again. I’d rather stay at home, at mama’s. I’d rather stay a mama’s girl than grow up and drag him drunk from the gutter every pay day.

  I told mama I wasn’t going back and she said good riddance because she hated all drink. I told her I was gonna stay home, and she laughed and nodded her head. But as soon as I told her all this, I knew it wasn’t true. I knew I’d already outgrown the house. And if I’d left anyone, if I’d left anywhere, I’d left home.

  The phone calls came the next day, early in the morning, one after the other. But I expected them and I told mama I wasn’t home to him. It rang again and again. Then it rang one time and I forgot that I wasn’t in and picked the receiver up. Of course, it was him.

  He was promising a whole new start. A clean sweep, he called it. I said no. He called back again. Then again. No more grog, he said. We’ll move to the country when we’re married, he said. Away from all the grog, the pubs and the boozers. And mama was standing in front of me, listening to me while I said no again. She was shaking her head, over and again, agreeing with every final ‘no’ that I uttered. We’ll find a country town, he went on. Away from everybody. A clean start. A nice town, he said. Away from the city, he said again. With lots of country around it. And, somehow, I could imagine it. I knew it was mad, but I could see it. And it looked good. I was quiet as he talked. He knew he was onto something, so he went on and on about the country, and the more he went on and on about it the more I could see it. Then I nodded. I nodded my head, just the once. And I could hear the word ‘yes’ somewhere in the house, in the hall, dropping into place like a felt hat onto a stand. And mama was walking away wringing her hands.

  It all happened in half a day, between a rainy night and a bright morning. That evening, a still one, with a cool winter tang in the air, I walked down Tivoli Street to meet him. The leaves were crunching under my feet and my eyes were wide open. I know they were. My strides were longer as I turned into Toorak Road, my steps were surer. I wasn’t ready for any of it the previous night, but I was now. And what I couldn’t tell mama, what I knew from the moment I woke up, with an ache in a part of my heart that had never been there before, was that something had begun and I was going to follow it through. I was going to follow it all through, whatever it came to.

  The songs in all the movies had always told me it had to be love when it felt so right. That love was like dancing with the right partner. One step flowing naturally into the next. Forever. It wasn’t quite like that, I knew as much by that night. But I also knew something was happening to me. For the movies also told me that love had a look, an unmistakable look, and I knew I had it, in my eyes and all over my face. There for everyone to see. And love had a sound too. And that sound was all around me that night. The tram bells played little jingles all along Toorak Road. I can still hear them. Even now, whenever a tram passes I hear the traces of those jingles. Poor me. Poor, silly bloody me. I had the look. I heard music in the traffic. And even though all my better voices told me that the song was lying, that it wasn’t so right after all, that it was all wrong, and that the trams were just going clang-clang like they always did, I didn’t listen. And if I had it all back I still wouldn’t listen. I know I wouldn’t. What else could I do?

  It’s then that she glances round at Vic as they walk along, notices the greying sides of his head, the grey temples of his trimmed curly hair, but for that moment she only remembers those dark curls as they once were. And Vic catches that look in her eyes, like he knows she’s remembering the old days, and he gives her a snort of a laugh and looks out towards the pine trees of the school.

  There she was, sitting up on the handlebars, legs either side of the wheel, not saying a word. And she was light. Like she wasn’t sitting on the handlebars at all, but just above them. I felt no weight, no strain, no effort. I was pushing the bike up a hill into South Yarra. The street was clear and we rode down the middle of it in between the tram tracks. And she wasn’t saying a word, I remember that. At one point she turned around and smiled, almost laughed, but most of the time she was just sitting there. Quiet. Looking down at the tracks between her legs.

  I was gliding up the hill, past all the closed shops, like there was no hill at all. The road should have been slippery and difficult from the rain. It should have been an effort to peddle the bike, but I didn’t feel a thing. She was sitting, staring down at the rails and I just knew she was smiling. I didn’t even have to ask her. We’d just met at the Palais and I’d only known her a few hours, but I was sure. And even though it had only bee
n a couple hours, I already felt like there was a before and an after. What I was when I rode down to the dance hall earlier that night was before. The ride home was after. In between I met Rita. And I was scared. Somewhere in me I was trembling. But where was it coming from? I did a mental search as we were riding along. It wasn’t in my hands, not in my fingers, or my throat. Not in any place you could see. But where? And as I was peddling along, as the peddles went round and round, as we rolled over the railway bridge, past the station towards Chapel Street, I knew it was way down inside my best shoes. In a place so deep it wouldn’t show.

  The lights at Chapel Street didn’t stop us. There was no one else on the road. We passed through the intersection and she went ‘ooh’ at the red light, then ‘ooh’ over her shoulder at me. And all the time I was asking myself the question: what do you do with a woman like this? What do you do? I was asking myself the question all along the street, as we left the intersection behind, and as we passed the gardens, the shops and the houses. I was asking myself the same question over and again because I’d never had a woman like her before. And then it hit me like an on-coming train. You marry her.

  And when the answer hit me I could have sworn we’d stopped dead on the road. I could have sworn everything had stopped; the wind, the clouds, the moon. The whole show. But I looked down at the wheels of my bike and they were turning, down at the chain and the sockets and the pedals, and they were all moving. And then I looked down at my feet where I was trembling.

  She raised her arm and pointed out her street. Home James, she said, and I was laughing. She was laughing. All along her street we were both laughing and I knew I was gone. You marry her, this voice was saying. You marry her. Nothing else for it. And when we finally stopped laughing and I slowed the bike at the front of that big, wide house of hers, I raised my head to the sky and took a good look at it. Then she handed me a slip of paper and disappeared through her door.

  Vic is quiet. He has taken his wallet from his pocket and is flicking through its contents as if searching for the slip of paper Rita gave him that night, and the telephone number that was written on it. As if recovering that note, and looking at the scrawled telephone number, might recover the time itself.

  It was the night his life turned. He knows that. It was the night he asked himself over and over the same question, what do you do? And it was the night he answered it. And when he realised that he’d really answered the question before he’d even asked it, he knew his old life was finished. Even though he’d always told himself, and everybody else had always told him too, that he’d be a fool to ever marry. He knew that even fools had their moment of truth, and this fool’s moment had arrived.

  16.

  Smoothing the Rails

  The air-conditioned dining car, with its imitation oak walls, is situated in the middle of the Spirit. The diners, seated at the tables, are watching the last of the summer sky dim. The train has reached the outer suburbs of the city and the diners can see the scattered weatherboard houses, the bare, flat yards, the dirt roads and the open paddocks of thistle and long grass. Soon the sky will be black and they will be staring at their own faces in the dining-car windows or in the windows of their compartments.

  Throughout this time, while the first-class passengers are being served their meals in the dining car, they are only faintly aware of the gentle, rocking rhythm of the train and the steady clickety-clack of the wheels passing over the welded joints in the track. The ride is so smooth that nobody remarks upon it. The diners might even forget there is a driver at the front of the train. There are no sudden jolts, no bumps. And even when the train pulls into its scheduled stops later in the evening, the slowing of the train will barely be noticed.

  And so too for the passengers in the second-class compartments who have either brought their meals with them or are munching on their railway pasties or sipping their railway tea. They watch the changing colour of the passing country, they chew thoughtfully on their tomato and onion sandwiches, and pour their tea from thermos to cup without ever remarking upon the ease of it all. From compartment to compartment, carriage to carriage, the smooth nature of the ride takes place without comment.

  Paddy Ryan is leaning back in his seat chewing on a ham and mustard sandwich. The mug of tea beside him is still. The fireman remarks upon a Melbourne-bound goods, still an hour away. Paddy nods. When the time comes they will slow at the lights outside a large country town. This will allow the goods train time to slip into a loop. The Spirit will then continue on its journey and the goods will wait for Paddy to pass, before slipping out the other end of the loop and continuing on its journey through to Melbourne. It is a simple manoeuvre and Paddy thinks no more about it as he takes another bite from his sandwich.

  The teaspoon rattles in the mug of tea beside him. Paddy makes the most minute of adjustments to the speed of the train and the spoon stops rattling. A hush falls over the cabin. The light has almost gone from the sky and the twin beams of the engine’s headlights converge at a distant point on the tracks where a small flock of sheep runs from the approaching train to the shelter of a tree in a paddock.

  17.

  Papa

  Of course mama never approved. She knew what I was getting myself into, she said again and again. She knew because she’d been there. As far as she was concerned I was just marrying my papa all over again, and I was a bloody fool if I couldn’t see it. I pleaded with mama. I said that it would be different, that I wouldn’t be living her life all over again. That I wasn’t marrying papa. I nearly said that I never knew papa anyway, and that it was all her fault. But I didn’t.

  It was true, though. There was always mama, but no papa. And, I swear, there’s not a day goes by when I don’t remember the last of papa.

  I was watching the sun coming through the screen door of the old home in Tivoli Street. It was a Saturday morning sun. Bright and warm in the heart of winter. I was sitting on the floor or standing in the hall watching. I don’t remember. Papa was standing at the door with his hat and coat on, a newspaper in his hand. I could see a small overnight bag on the front porch and mama was nowhere in sight. Papa said he was just going down the street to see a man about a horse and that he’d be back soon. He bent down, kissed me on the cheek and gave me a small brown bag of broken biscuits.

  I knew he wasn’t just going down the street to see a man about a horse, and even now I can still hear the door creak, I still hear the groan of the old rusted springs. I still see papa picking up his bag from the porch and walking out along the garden path. He raised his old hat at the gate, smiled a big smile, his black moustache all turned up at the edges, his pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth, and then he was gone.

  But I smelt pipe tobacco in the hallway all day. Long, sweet clouds of pipe smoke, slowly settling onto the furniture, the hat stand, the coat stand, the old chair, the shoe rack, the umbrellas, settling on it all, in the still hallway, long, sweet clouds of pipe smoke. And I followed it with my nose, out through the screen door like I was following papa’s scent. Out into the garden, and I didn’t even have to use my nose, I saw it with my eyes, a long, still trail of white smoke hanging over the garden path because there was no wind that day. It was Saturday morning, bright with sunshine, there was no wind and papa’s trail was in front of me. I closed my eyes and followed it all the way to the front gate, until my hands hit the painted wire of the gate and I knew I couldn’t go any further. I opened my eyes again, climbed up onto the gate and looked down the street, but there was no papa.

  So I stood at the gate, swung back and forth and sucked broken biscuits from the brown bag that papa gave me. All the time I knew mama was somewhere back in the house, but she left me alone, let me stand at the gate all morning sucking on broken biscuits and waiting for papa. But when the day clouded over and the wind sprang up there was still no sign of papa. Even the sweet smell of his tobacco had gone from the garden now, and if I’d run out into the street and tried to follow his trail with my nos
e I couldn’t have because there was no trail left. And so I waited, hanging over the front gate, till I’d finished sucking on the bag of biscuits and the afternoon turned grey.

  Inside the house I could smell where papa had been; in the hallway, the lounge room, and the kitchen. And when I asked mama where papa was she said he’d gone visiting. He was visiting friends and he’d be back. But mama wasn’t looking up from the kitchen table where she was rolling pastry and I knew she was lying. And although I knew I’d go on waiting at the front looking for papa in the street, I also knew there was no point.

  But one day, a lot later, mama, my sisters and me were all walking down Chapel Street on a Sunday afternoon, in our best walking clothes. Everybody in the street was in their Sunday best, with their hats and gloves, and suddenly there was papa. On the other side of the street. And I said mama, there’s papa, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was walking along with a well-dressed woman and she was holding onto his arm, but I barely noticed her because I was watching papa. And once again I said, mama there’s papa, but mama grabbed me by the arm and told me to shut up. She told everybody to join hands and look the other way and ignore papa.

  I was looking across to the other side of the street while mama was dragging me along by the hand. Papa was raising his hat, waving at me with it and I waved back with my free hand. He was smiling that big smile, with his black moustache curled up at the corners. He blew a small, white cloud into the air, took his pipe from his mouth as he waved again, and I swear, from the other side of the street, over the cars and the trams, I could smell papa’s sweet breath. Then we turned a corner into a small street.

  It was the last time I saw papa, and I never knew why we weren’t allowed to stop and talk to him. It’s not fair what people keep to themselves, what they keep from you, because when they die they take it with them.