Mateship With Birds

by Carrie Tiffany

  Harry doesn’t blame her for being angry. People can’t help but make associations. The difficulty is the two events coming together – Mues’s trouble with the police and the discovery of his letters for Michael. One somehow makes the other worse. He understands when she closes the door against his explanations. It’s the disgust around her mouth that turns his stomach. As he’s walking away he hears the door open again behind him. He turns back smartly, his hands raised in a gesture of apology, of regret. Sip is pushed out of the narrow opening and the door is banged shut behind her.

  Harry cries on the ground then. He doesn’t even wait until he is on his side of the fence. It hardly seems to matter anymore; all of the old lines are broken.

  If she’d asked him why he did it, he would have said because ignorance is cruel, and perhaps because it is what a father should do.

  At thirteen Harry knew nothing. None of what he had seen in the paddocks and the bush seemed applicable to men and women – or at least not the buttoned-up and smoothed-down men and women of his acquaintance. One morning the teacher sends the older boys up to the vicar’s house for a special talk. There are four boys. They walk up the hill to the manse kicking pine cones out from under the dark trees that line the driveway. The vicar doesn’t dilly-dally after service; he’s already home and back in his civvies. They are only admitted to the hallway, but they can hear a kettle steaming and the sound of the races on the wireless. The vicar stands in the doorway to the kitchen and thrusts his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He clears his throat and smiles vaguely at the pattern on the hall rug.

  ‘It’s common to have a build-up. Best thing is to rub the stuff out of the erect organ. You can do it for yourself. Your wife can most likely assist. The cleaning lady helps out here if the wife’s away at her mother’s. Make it regular or you’re likely to go off your head for a bit.’ The kettle starts to whistle. The vicar turns towards the kitchen and then looks back over his shoulder at Harry. ‘Close the door behind you, lad.’

  And that’s what Harry remembers. He’s thirty-three, for Christ’s sake. It’s his wedding night. He’s thirty-three and unbuttoning Edna’s blouse, fiddling with the awkward canvas harness of her bra, his cock buckled painfully in his underpants. The pressure on the tip of it is almost unbearable. And in his head over and over again, ‘Close the door behind you, close the door behind you,’ and the nasal drone of a maiden stakes at Moonee Valley as they come around the turn.

  Harry dreams he is conducting surgery on himself. He’s cut himself open with one incision from neck to groin and peeled back the twin flaps of skin and meat. The triangular bones of his pelvis are now exposed. They are chalky and dry and unconnected to any of the surrounding muscle and flesh. The pelvic bones have two wounds in them – circular with ragged edges – one on either side of the triangle. You would guess they had been made with a hand-held drill. Harry is aware of himself looking down at the wounds and thinking, ‘Well that isn’t good. That will need fixing.’

  Betty will not speak to him. He has spent all afternoon under the mulberry tree on the front lawn at Acacia Court, taking a break only once to buy two bottles of beer and return with them to drink. He leans against the Waratah, one hand resting on the strip of Axminster glued to the tank, the other cooling around the beer. The net curtains are drawn across the long window in the front sitting room; they hang a foot or so short of the floor. A few dead flies lie behind the glass and further in he can see three pairs of slippers, the mottled flesh rising out of them like puddings. Every now and then Betty’s white lace-ups appear among the slippers. She must be feeding the slippered men, helping them with their teeth, adjusting their dressing gowns. He resents this work she does, resents the people she cares for. Why doesn’t she notice him? Why doesn’t she come out to the lawn now and speak to him properly? Her tea break comes and goes. He finishes the beer, but keeps hold of the empty bottle. There are men in this town he has never seen without a beer bottle in one hand. He considers throwing the bottle into the hedge, but someone will have to pick it up. Betty bends down then, just once, in front of the window. The hem of her dress dips into view and he starts within himself as if the fabric is being drawn across his skin.

  He rides out of town, past the cemetery and the butter factory; the saleyards are a mass of afternoon shadows as the sun picks out the posts and rails. He rides through weed blossom; gorse and ragwort flowers are sucked against his coat. The road follows the river for a few miles then peels away and curves across the Tragowel Plains. He opens the throttle. It’s warmer out here – the plains have their own weather – the sun’s eye opens wider across the flat. He moves up to third. He’s doing thirty now – really moving – the ring and pop of the pistons has blurred into a throb. It’s as close as you can get to cruising – except he’s constantly checking the road ahead for potholes and getting up out of the saddle when the shakes set in. He slows down to second for the crossing at Mincha. Four white signposts mark the road in each direction: south to Pyramid Hill, west to Gladfield, east to Turrumberry, north, behind him, back to Cohuna. A stranger wouldn’t know this place had a name – that a crossing of two roads surrounded by acres of flat paddocks was a place in itself. Harry helped his father cart hay at Mincha. Harry and his father and a dog in a dray with no springs summer after summer. Back at school the rhythm of the dray was caught inside him and he was always in trouble for rocking on his chair.

  The road doglegs after Mincha, the land to the south is low-lying and inundated with brackish water, backwash from Kow Swamp. The beer is thick in his bladder and he pulls over to the side of the road to piss. Once the Waratah is warm it runs rich and doesn’t idle easily, he has to sit adjusting the throttle for a few minutes until it settles. He moves away from the exhaust and pisses over the chipped gravel. A pair of brolgas stalk through the shallows in the boggy paddock to the south. He watches them strut along the waterline, their black rod legs hinging tentatively beneath them. The native companion. They must be able to see him standing up on the road and to hear the motorcycle, but they show no sign of it. The larger bird stabs at something in the mud then lifts its head. Harry can see the dark, hairy dewlap that hangs underneath its throat. A breeze lifts the feathers on the bend of the bird’s neck and the pink, penile skin beneath it is exposed. The brolgas look ancient, foreign, misplaced somehow. He feels uncomfortable watching them, as if he is intruding.

  He gets back on the Waratah and coaxes it through the gears. The road is deteriorating. He puts his hand out to block the sun from his eyes and feels the wind push back against it. He rides past a horse paddock where three sets of ears swivel at the sound of him approaching, and then receding, without lifting their heads from the pick. The hill is coming into view. From this angle it looks triangular, but nothing like the pictures of the pyramids he has seen in books. There is rubbish in the samphire on the roadsides – tufts of toilet paper from the daytrippers who come out to climb and picnic. His bowels feel full. It’s either numbness from the ride, or the beer shits coming on. The hill blocks out the sun now and he gets a foretaste of the cold night air against his face. He rides carefully over the soft gravel in the car park and leaves the bike ticking and pinging behind him as he starts the climb up the path. His legs are weak, his neck aches from watching the road. He’d like to pack this in right now and be at home in his bed. The thing that’s kept him going through the day has been imagining her eyes on him. When he waited on the lawn, when he rode out of town, when he stood up precariously on the pegs at speed and cornered too fast on the bad road, it was only possible because he had been able to hold the thought in his mind that she could see him. But he’s too far away now and too much of the day has passed. He can’t keep it up any longer. The cows will be waiting at home. He drops to his knees just a few lengths up the track and sits with his head in his hands. When it is finally dark and the day birds are silent he walks back down to the car park, kicks the Waratah into life and turns towards home. The headlamp picks up
the road ahead of him, but not too far ahead, just far enough to see. And this turns out to be the best bit of the day. His thoughts are dulled; the night air is close around him. He watches the place on the road just ahead of the light, the dark place that is for a fraction of a second made light, and then curves away behind him.

  Winter has arrived before its time.

  I’m feeding silage a full month

  early.

  The family spends much of the day

  torpid,

  together,

  on a branch.

  No lizard lunches,

  no snake suppers,

  no stolen hatchlings,

  fewer mice,

  no grasshoppers.

  Morning sunlight slices through the trees

  catching the edges of their feathers,

  their scruffy top-knots,

  rousing them

  for the working day.

  Mum sings on her own this evening.

  Her voice high,

  unbodied.

  Dad cocks his head to listen

  as if he’s waiting

  to hear his name.

  I put half a cold sausage in Sip’s bowl

  and went back into the kitchen.

  Thirty seconds later

  Sip lets off a heartbroken bark.

  Club-Toe is pushing herself

  off the edge of the verandah,

  a fat cigar of sausage

  in her beak.

  Hunting is hampered

  by the fog.

  A whole morning can be wasted

  waiting for the sun

  to burn the mist away.

  And if the afternoon is lean

  a day goes by

  without food.

  Bub has not attended

  evening chorus

  or slept with the family

  for four nights now.

  I find him in an acacia by the channel,

  clinging to a low branch as if readying himself to fall.

  He looks feeble;

  close to starvation

  in his first winter.

  The lid from an old paint tin

  serves as his plate.

  Three holes drilled in its edges;

  string to hitch it over a higher branch

  and lower it

  down to him.

  A week of mince, molasses and raisins

  for breakfast and for tea.

  It’s not possible

  after all this time

  to sit back

  and just watch.

  It would be a mistake to report

  that the kookaburra family sings only

  at dawn and dusk.

  They chorus

  when a chick first leaves the nest,

  when a snake is captured,

  when a defence post

  or boundary needs announcing.

  And there are other calls –

  a gentle chuck

  to locate each other during the day,

  the nuptial squawk from Mum to Dad.

  The family that sings together

  sticks together.

  The four of them

  in the red gum behind the dairy.

  They come at dusk,

  one by one.

  Mum, Dad,

  Club-Toe

  and Bub.

  The remains of the family

  assemble themselves

  out of the greying sky.

  Looking out of the kitchen window Betty sees a tea towel hanging stiff on the washing line. She lets herself out of the back door and walks towards it, the frozen grass cracking under her slippers. It is just after dawn and everything is close with fog. She squints up at the line. It is too small and shabby for a tea towel. The winking owl has died in the night gripping the line with its claws. The owl has swung below the line in the way of a trapeze artist. The white dish of its face glows, its baby’s eyes are open, but covered with a granulated crust of ice. Betty shivers and rubs her hands on her thighs. She needs to pee. This winter has gone on too long. It’s been too cold. Stan is dying now. Cliff is dead.

  At work she thinks about the winking owl, the odd comfort of it on the line at night as she made her preparations for bed. She doesn’t want Michael or Little Hazel to find it hanging when they get home from school, or Louie to pull it apart. She rings Harry on the office telephone to ask him to go across and cut it down. The telephone rings out three times before he answers and he’s startled to hear her voice at the other end. She never rings, she always comes across. He’s immediately anxious something has happened to one of the children.

  There are some groceries to get after work and Michael’s boots need collecting from the menders. The children have finished their chores when she gets in. Michael is lighting the boiler and Little Hazel has made a gymkhana for Louie out of books on the hallway floor. Louie won’t jump, of course, and Betty can see from the twitch of her ears that it’s been going on for some time. It’s not until tea is over that Betty goes outside. The line is empty except for a few pegs. Behind it, over towards the back fence, there is a small mound of dirt. It has been patted down carefully. He’s placed a line of stones there. Not in a rectangle, like they are marking a grave, but just loosely, following the slope of the ground.

  Harry comes in the kitchen door with his belt undone. He takes Betty by the arm and leads her out to the hall. Then he gets behind her, nudging her along, his face is in her hair with its dank sweet smell. Hair washing is on Sunday. He pushes her forwards, the long bones of his thighs slap against her rump. She isn’t protesting; she isn’t pushing back against him, but it is more his will than hers. He boosts her through the bedroom door, shuts it quickly and pulls the curtains across the day.

  Betty’s breathing is shallow and fast. She reaches for the bedpost to steady herself. She can’t look into his face now; not because she is wary of what she will see, but because her own face would be revealed in the looking. She holds her head to one side, just glancing at him as he shucks the buttons of his fly, pushes his underpants down and reaches for her. He plucks at her skirt, trying to find the edge of it, trying to get it out from between them. He tells her to turn around. He moves her legs apart. ‘Likes this,’ he says, pushing his hands against her thighs. She recognises the peculiar burr in his voice, but it is the sound of her skirt crushing between them as she turns that is, she thinks, impossible to resist. He puts his arms around her and undoes the buttons of her blouse. He lifts her breasts out and over the top of her slip. They both look down. Betty shudders at the sight of her nipples swaying before her. The taut material of the slip pushes her breasts upwards and together.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. Harry buckles forwards, leaning heavily against her. He has a breast in each hand. He squeezes, releases, feels the weight of the flesh between his fingers, runs his thumbs over the nubbly bud of each nipple. Some fumbling between her legs. He pushes her knickers aside, thrusts his cock between the lips of her sex. With his hand underneath he makes a sort of seal and slides into a rhythm of push and pull. Betty comes first, gushing and losing the strength in her legs so he is standing behind her holding the whole weight of her in his wet hand.

  Another thrust and he says, ‘Oh Jesus.’

  Betty reaches behind him so she can feel the kick of it through his rump. They lie down on top of the counterpane. Harry on his back, Betty tucked under his armpit and folded half across him, her little racked belly spreading out across his hip. He stretches down and kisses the top of her head. ‘Looks like rain tomorrow.’

  Mateship with Birds is the title of a book of bird notes by Australian nature writer Alec Chisholm. It was first published in 1922 and can still be found in opportunity shops and second-hand bookstores. I recommend it highly.

  Alec Chisholm was born in Maryborough, Victoria, in 1890. He left school at twelve and had a long and distinguished career as a naturalist and journalist. As a young man, Chish (as he was known to his mates) worked with the poet
Mary Gilmore on a campaign to halt the slaughter of egrets for women’s feather hats. He died in 1977.

  Also by Carrie Tiffany

  Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living

  First published 2012 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, Sydney

  First published in Great Britain 2012 by Picador

  This electronic edition published 2012 by Picador

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-4472-0444-2

  Copyright © Carrie Tiffany 2012

  The right of Carrie Tiffany to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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