The Vintage and the Gleaning

by Jeremy Chambers

  I walk home along the disused railway track, past the abandoned wheat silos. It’s all crows now on the silos. The tops are black with them. There must be hundreds of crows on those old silos.

  You’d be surprised , the dreams I’ve been having. I’ve been dreaming of people I haven’t seen in years, people I haven’t even thought about since I last saw the back of them, people I hardly even knew. Men I worked with, one season, one station even. Girls I used to know, met in towns between jobs, girls I saw one year to the next and then never saw again. Girls I only ever been with once, met outside town hall dances, girls whose faces I only ever saw in the flame of a struck match, the light from a passing car. They’re coming up, coming back, clear as day now, in my dreams, clear as though I saw them yesterday, as though they were still young as they were then, as though I were still young, still the young man I was.

  I’ve even been dreaming of the sisters and the orphanage kids, the mission school kids, little kids I can’t remember the names of anymore, long faded in my memory to ragged short pants and shrill voices, dirty faces. The piccanins we called niggers and coons and left beat up and crying behind the wilgas and the desert oaks. I see them too, in my dreams.

  But most of all I dream of Florrie. And I have this dream and I have the same dream every night, always the same, almost always the same. And I dream it is Main Street, night-time, but the street is all lit up, not just street lights, but lit everywhere, white like under fluorescent tubes, strong, savage, blinding light, and the streets and pubs lit the same, because in my dream the pubs have no front to them and no end and you don’t know street from pub, the two flowing onto each other, into each other, and there is nothing but street and pub and light everywhere for as far as you go and you keep going through both. And there are no shadows cast by the light and all around in the streets and in the pubs there are men, the whole place teeming with men, men everywhere, more men than the town has ever seen, and they are massed together and you don’t know where you are, only shoulder to shoulder with the men, pressed up against them, suffocated by the men. And the men are drinking and their noise is all around, a roar, all talking and yelling and arguing and shouting, smoking, spitting, laughing and fighting, whistling and cheering and pushing, their faces coming out of the brilliant night, red with drink, charged with drink, eyes glazed and bulging, wet-lipped, grimacing, gawping, faces warped and monstrous, deformed with the drink and strange, barely the faces of men anymore, dead drunk and hard, all of them hard, all of them the faces of working men, and they are everywhere and their noise is everywhere and there are no places of darkness or quiet or solitude, only the thundering, jostling crowd, and I can do nothing but keep on moving through it all, through the riot of men and the pubs big as open spaces and Main Street lit brighter than day and wide as a stockyard.

  And Florrie is there.

  Florrie is there and she is walking through the crowd of men with her back to me, walking away from me. And I am following her, calling to her through the men and their noise, through all the shoving drunkenness, but she keeps walking, never stopping, never turning around and she is always moving, always moving away, going further and further ahead of me until I lose her somewhere in that lit-up roaring night.

  And in those dreams she is young. She is as young as when I first met her.

  And once, one night, one dream, I dreamt I finally caught up to her, finally talked to her. And she looked back at me, smiling, but she was still walking, still walking away from me. And I was trying to keep up with her, speaking to her, speaking desperately as she went. I’ve got to talk to you, Florrie, I said. I’ve been dreaming about you, Florrie. I dream about you every night. I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got something to say to you. But she just smiled, glancing back, the way women do. And she never said a thing.

  And in that dream I lost her like I always lose her, among drinking men and bars that go on forever.

  When I woke from that dream I still wanted to talk to her, still had something to say to her. Even when I was awake enough to remember that she wasn’t there anymore, wasn’t there to say anything to, even then I still had something to tell her. And I knew what it was as well. In the dream and in real life it was the same. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to say I was sorry for the life I gave her.

  Tuesday, Spit doesn’t show.

  I hope it’s nothing serious, says Boss.

  Boss is standing looking at a muscatel vine. One of the boys has put his shovel through it. We are all standing looking at the vine.

  Boss squats down to look at the break. He pushes the upper part of the trunk and it swings free on the wires.

  Well you certainly did a proper job of it, Boss says to the boy.

  The boy is standing there puffing and red in the face. He doesn’t say anything. He looks like he is going to cry.

  Boss stands up, his hands against his back.

  Has he seen the doctor yet? he asks me.

  What’s that? I say.

  Spit, he says. Has he been to the doctor’s.

  I wouldn’t know, I say.

  Boss squats down again and rubs his thumb against the inner wood. He picks at the rough and scabby bark around it.

  I mean, I know accidents are going to happen, he says to the boy. But try and be careful with the old vines.

  He looks up at the boy, smiling. He smiles but not in his eyes. His eyes are not smiling.

  The boy looks down at the ground. He looks like he’s going to cry any second now.

  Boss stands up.

  They knew this was one of the old rows, didn’t they? he asks Wallace. You told them, didn’t you?

  Yeah, I told them, says Wallace.

  That vine’s older than you boy, he says. That vine’s older than any of us.

  The boy keeps looking at the ground, his jaw clenched.

  Boss is still looking down at the vine. He looks at me and he looks at me for a while without saying anything, his eyes looking out pale from his face like leather, dark and tough and creased like leather, his eyes looking right through me, his mind somewhere else.

  He really should see a doctor, he says to me. If he’s still feeling crook. You can never be too careful.

  True, I say.

  Well, you tell him I said that, says Boss, smiling. Tell him he should take himself down to the doctor’s. Tell him that’s what I said.

  He smiles, showing his gums and his gaps and his gold teeth.

  For his own good, he says.

  I take my shovel out of the dirt and stick it back in. I lean on the shovel.

  I’ll tell him, I say.

  Boss goes to the next vine along and starts digging about the base with his fingers.

  He stands up, grunting.

  Anything? asks Wallace.

  No, says Boss.

  He walks around to the vine on the other side and digs about. He stands up, flicking the dirt from his fingers and goes back to the broken vine, looking at it.

  Lucy comes past with her nose to the ground. She stops and sits with us for a bit, panting and snorting, and then she’s off again.

  Who planted them? Wallace asks. Your grandfather?

  Probably, says Boss. Him or his father.

  You hear that? Wallace says to the boy. His great-grandfather planted that vine. His great-grandfather planted it, you put your shovel through it. You’ve got to think. You got a brain, don’t you?

  The boy looks at Wallace with his cheeks blowing out and his eyes glittering.

  What do you want me to do? Wallace asks Boss. Tie it up?

  Boss keeps looking down at the vine.

  Yeah, he says. Yeah, well that’s all we can really do with it at this stage.

  He squats down again to look at the break, running his finger along it.

  Wallace goes off to the ute to get twine.

  Boss stands looking at the broken vine. He pushes it with his boot and it swings on the wire.

  Just try and be careful with the old vines
, he says.

  After knockoff I go down Poachers with Roy and then set off home.

  Broken glass glitters on the railway track, scattered across the stones and sleepers, catching the light as I walk. Along the sides, the thick and spongy mass of winter clover has thinned. It is frayed and spindly now, yellowing, delicate and dying. The ditch of quartz-flecked clay is festooned with debris. Grease-mottled paper bags, cardboard takeaway boxes, cans and beer bottles, a brassiere. Plastic bags fill and rise and hover, ghostlike in the breeze. Dog turds turned to chalk. The embankment rises in thick swathes of long grass, meeting hardwood fences, cracked and worn, scrawled with profanities, roofs looming behind them, patches of lichen turned to dust on the terracotta tiles. Here and there sprays of colour, the jacaranda in blossom. I pass a sunk and rotten fence. Inside the yard a gutted car body sits choked with onion weeds, rusted engine parts scattered around it. I smell the onion smell. There are kids down the line.

  They are standing huddled together in the grass at the foot of the embankment, their backs to me. A collie is pacing back and forth behind them, growling and barking and whimpering. The kids push the dog away with their feet. They are looking down at something.

  When I come up, one of the kids, a girl, turns around.

  We caught a rabbit, she says to me. We caught a rabbit.

  Some of the other kids turn to look at me and then turn back. The girl watches me, looking up at my face. She is breathless and flushed, excited.

  In the middle of the group of kids, a boy is down on his knees. He is holding onto a small grey rabbit with both hands.

  I just grabbed it, he says. I saw it sitting there and I just grabbed it.

  The dog is frantic, trying to break through the circle of kids, yelping and growling. They keep pushing it away. It goes from one side to the other, sniffing and pawing the ground, pushing its head against their legs.

  I look at the rabbit. It is shivering and its eyes are popping. It is breathing fast, its chest pumping in and out. It is only a little rabbit and it is scared half to death.

  Best put it out of its misery, I say.

  I take the rabbit by the hind legs and smash its head against a rail. The dog comes up sniffing and begins to lick the blood and brains off the metal and the stones and the sleepers.

  I see the girl watching with a frozen smile and she looks up at me and the smile breaks and tears well and flow. She wipes her face with the backs of her hands, trying to stop, but the tears keep coming, her face dirty where she has wiped it. She lets out a sob and the sob becomes a wail. Then she is running away from us bawling, running through the long grass and along the ditch, her dress billowing as she runs. She slips over in the ditch and gets up again and keeps on running. She keeps running and slipping and crying.

  I’ve upset her, I say, watching her go.

  It’s all right, says the boy who caught the rabbit. She’s just my sister. She cries about everything.

  I didn’t mean to upset her, I say.

  She’s just my sister, says the boy. She’s always crying.

  Blood is dripping from the ruined head of the rabbit and the dog comes over, sniffing and licking the blood on the ground. It sits down and looks up at the rabbit in my hand, pawing the grass and growling from its throat, trying to catch the drops of blood with its tongue, licking them out of the air as they fall. Blood drips onto the dog’s nose and face and into its eyes. It blinks and shakes its head and sniffs around for the blood.

  Get out of it, I say, kicking the dog away. The dog skitters backwards and then creeps towards us whining, watching the blood splatter.

  I take my knife from my belt and show the boys how to skin a rabbit.

  See how easy it comes off, I say, rolling away the pelt.

  I gut it and throw the pelt and the offal into the long grass. The dog goes after them.

  When I hand the carcass to the boy he steps away from it.

  Go on, I say.

  He takes it with one hand and holds it out at arm’s length, looking at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

  You take that home to your mum, I say. She can cook it up for your tea.

  The boy gives the carcass a funny sort of look.

  You mean eat it? he says.

  What else are you going to do with it? I say. That’s fresh meat. Better than anything you’ll get at the butcher’s. Just take it home to your mum. Give it to your mum.

  When I leave, the boy is still holding the carcass at arm’s length. Looking at it funny. Looking like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

  Wednesday Spit doesn’t show.

  It is the day of George Alister’s funeral. Me and Wallace and the boys stand in our rows, watching the distant line of slow-moving cars going through the outskirts of town. They turn onto the highway and head towards the cemetery, taking George Alister’s body to put it in the ground.

  Once and for all, says Wallace. Once and for all.

  Far off the cars shimmer in the heat, the space of vision like liquid. There is the flash of chrome and glass, quick and gone and flashing again, the bursts of light moving along the motorcade as the motorcade moves.

  Can you see Roy’s car? Wallace asks the boys.

  Wallace has his glasses up on his forehead and he is squinting into the distance. His glasses keep slipping down onto his nose and he keeps pushing them back up again. Wallace’s glasses are as thick as the bottom of a bottle and behind them his eyes are huge and seem a long way off. Without his glasses, Wallace looks like a different man.

  Which car? asks the boy. The flash car or the ute?

  Flash car of course, says Wallace. You don’t take a ute to a funeral.

  The boys keep looking, shading their eyes. Wallace’s glasses fall onto his nose and he pushes them back up and they come down again, falling right off and Wallace tries to catch them, fumbling the catch and catching them again as they spin in the air. Wallace’s glasses have been broke more times than I can remember.

  Wallace sees me watching him and grins, holding up his glasses. He puts them in the pocket of his shorts. Without his glasses Wallace looks like he’s younger or smaller or something. Without his glasses he could be a different man altogether.

  Can’t see it, says the boy.

  It’ll come, says Wallace.

  We all of us look into the distance, through the rippling heat and the cars swimming in petrol fumes, distorting them to the eye, and they seem as though molten. The bright vaporous haze thrashes about like a live thing. We keep looking into the distance until all the cars have gone.

  Maybe he didn’t go, says the boy. Took a sickie.

  Wallace is still looking out at the empty highway.

  Course he went, he says. You don’t take a sickie from a funeral. Funeral is a sickie.

  Nah, Wallace says, pulling his shovel out of the dirt. He’s there all right. Probably riding with someone else. He’s probably riding with the widow. Up front with the widow. Probably comforting her. Being her shoulder to cry on.

  Wallace leers at me, the skin around his naked eyes soft and crinkled.

  In her hour of need.

  We go back to work. Wallace knocks off a shoot and then remembers his glasses, taking them out of his pocket and putting them back on. He picks up his shovel and drops it again, turning to look at the boys.

  Who ever heard of taking a ute to a funeral? says Wallace.

  Boss comes straight up and asks if Roy is crook too.

  Nah, says Wallace, hacking at a vine. Gone to a funeral.

  Boss stands shading his eyes with his hand.

  Well what about Spit? he asks. He still crook or has he gone to a funeral as well?

  Spit’s crook, says Wallace, Roy’s gone to a funeral. He slashes hard at the vine as he talks. Mourning, he says. Roy’s mourning. Spit’s off crook and Roy’s off mourning.

  Wallace stops working to mop his brow with his hat. He takes off his glasses and spits on them, wiping them on his singlet and holding them
up to the light. Boss stands there watching him.

  Well, righteo, says Boss. Spit’s crook, Roy’s at a funeral, nothing we can do about that.

  Nope, says Wallace, studying his glasses.

  I mean, we’re a bit short-handed today, says Boss. But if Spit’s crook and Roy’s at a funeral, then that’s just the way it is.

  Roy’ll be back tomorrow, says Wallace. Might be back this afternoon. Depends how long all this mourning goes on for.

  All right then, says Boss. Fair enough.

  He walks off with his hands in his pockets. Then he turns around and comes back.

  So I take it someone’s died then, he says.

  Wallace is polishing his glasses with his hat.

  I mean, if Roy’s gone to a funeral I assume someone’s died, says Boss. I mean is that a reasonable enough assumption to make? Seems reasonable to me.

  Now he is smiling that smile of his.

  Wallace finishes polishing his glasses and puts them back on.

  George Alister, he says.

  He pulls his shovel out of the dirt.

  George Alister, says Boss. George Alister, ay? He toes the dirt with his boot, looking down at the ground.

  Wallace starts working again.

  So George Alister’s dead, says Boss.

  That’s right, says Wallace, knocking off shoots.

  Does anyone know how it happened? asks Boss, looking up and squinting.

  Something like a heart attack or something, says Wallace. Something like that.

  Wallace moves around the vine, chopping at it with his shovel, pushing the foliage back with his elbow and shoulder as he works.

  You knew him did you? Wallace asks Boss. George Alister.

  Yeah I used to, says Boss. I was at school with him.

  I thought you went to school in the city, says Wallace. City school.

  Wallace is working hard, sweating and red in the face. He is trying to make up for Spit and Roy.