Owen Marshall Selected Stories

by Vincent O'Sullivan

  Fiona McCartney passed a message to me saying she wanted to see me by the canteen at playtime, and when she came we went over by the sycamores and railings. She put one hand on the railing and swung her right foot in an arc on the grass. She glanced at her friends by the canteen and considered she had set a good scene. I widened my eyes at her, and held my breath without realising it. She told me that she wouldn’t be going to the dance with me. I hadn’t asked her, but she knew she was every boy’s choice and was letting me down gently. As I was the second fastest and so on, she realised my expectations. I felt dizzy, then remembered to breathe out again. She said I’d have no trouble getting someone to go with. The girls had been talking, she said. She said the girls had been talking and she put the tip of her tongue between her teeth and smiled. I smiled back and widened my eyes as if I were aware of what girls said.

  It made me more anxious, though, Fiona saying that, especially when we started having dancing practices. I wondered which of the girls had partners arranged already, for I wanted to avoid the humiliation of asking them. Kelly Howick saved me the trouble. At the third practice she said to me that I wasn’t much of a dancer, and was I going to the fancy dress night. I said that I thought that I probably would. Casually I said it, and looked to the side as if I were running. I widened my eyes too, which wasn’t much good when I was looking away. Are you listening? she said. In the past I’d thought about Kelly mainly as the girl most likely to keep me from fluking top in maths. She was top in most things. She had definite breasts, though, and was pretty. Only a certain matter-of-fact manner prevented her from being more like Fiona McCartney. It came to me that she was willing to be my partner. Only later did it also occur to me that she and her friends had made the decision without my presence being required. I will be your partner if you like, she said. She didn’t need an answer. She seemed pleased for me. She smiled at me, and at her friends, as we moved awkwardly to the dancing instructions of Bodger and Miss Erikson.

  I’d had my share of success in life. Top of maths and running, as I’ve said, and trials for the under-thirteen reps, but in that school hall I felt for the first time the heady stuff of sexual preferment. Kelly Howick had sought me out. I looked with contempt upon the others in the hall: Dusty Rhodes who could only run fast, and Bodger with the sweat stains on his shirt. For the first time I perceived myself in the mirror of the feminine eye; I was filled with casual arrogance and power, I was aware of a new dimension to life. My head kept nodding indolently as we danced, and my shoulders shrugging in some instinctive male response.

  The knowledge of sexual magnetism was a novelty. I felt I should be able to tap it for other purposes. The day after the dancing practice I raced Dusty again. I felt the new power within me and was resolved to express it in my running also. I would bury him. In fact it made not an inch of difference. I still had to run behind Dusty, his hair bobbing. And he didn’t even have a partner to the dance. It was a shock to discover that the power generated by sexual preferment was not directly transferable to athletic performance.

  In my mind I was quite sure how the fancy dress dance would be. Sure, I had been let down somewhat in the past by the failure of events to conform with my directions, but I wasn’t responsible for that. I saw Kelly and myself always in the centre of the hall, always in the better light, and somehow slightly larger than our classmates. I would dance, or stand quietly and attract the attention of other girls because of my blue eyes, and a certain calmness of manner. Kelly would be constantly asking my opinion, and I would be giving it with easy finality. Instead of the lucky spot waltz there would be quizzes on tables, or a sprint the length of the hall and back when Dusty happened to be outside.

  Kelly Howick talked to me during practices. I made the adult discovery that some people are ugly. I’d had the foolish idea that there were no common standards of appearance. Now I began to realise otherwise. Collie Richardson, for example, who told the best jokes in the school. He had a very small upper lip. It was like a little skirt, and his gums and teeth were always exposed beneath it. Once I realised he was ugly I never liked his jokes as much again.

  At the practices Kelly took over my instruction. She gave an individual repetition of what Bodger and Miss Erikson kept saying. You’ve not got much rhythm, have you, she said. Me! Second fastest and with automatic legs. In other circumstances it would have irritated me, but in the complacency of preferment I let it pass. I just looked aside and widened my eyes at Fiona McCartney. Certain things about girls have to be tolerated for the overall benefit.

  I skidded on loose stones by the sycamores next day and put a long graze along my left forearm. Mrs Hamil put iodine on it and Kelly was quite concerned. It won’t show on the night, will it? she said. What are you going to wear anyway? What’s your outfit like? Her saying that made my arm begin to throb. The blood seeped out into beads despite the iodine. I hadn’t done anything about a costume. The priority of getting a partner had obscured all other aspects of the dance. I asked my mother about it that night, and she said that’s nice, a costume party is nice. Sure, we’ll think of something. And my father made jokes for his own amusement about being cloaked in ignorance, or dressed in a little brief authority. I could tell they didn’t have the right view of the ball at all, that they were thinking of it as some party, some kids’ thing.

  Tony Poole said his parents were hiring a full cowboy outfit with sheepskin chaps, bandanna and matched revolvers. Dusty’s parents were pretty poor. I thought he wouldn’t have much to wear even when he did arrange a partner. But he said his cousin had a Captain Marvel costume which had been professionally made. What is it you’re going as? Kelly asked me again. I started questioning my mother once more. What was she going to do for me? Kelly was going as Bo Peep. What about my costume, I said to my mother. Oh, we’ll rustle up something don’t you worry, she said. But I did. The more casual and unperturbed she was, the more I worried.

  Finally my mother said she thought I should go as a parcel. A parcel, Jesus. She remembered someone at the New Year’s party as a parcel, and he was a great hit. It was a cheap costume too, she said. A parcel, Jesus. It was the originality of it that intrigued her, she said. Anyone could go as a policeman or a musketeer; people grew tired of seeing them. The parcel left only head and limbs out, she said, and I could make up a giant stamp with crayons, and over my parcel body have stickers saying Fragile, London, This Side Up, Luxemburg, Handle with Care. The parcel was set to torpedo my night with Kelly Howick. Bo Peep Kelly with her beginning breasts and braided hair, and me as a brown paper parcel with a stamp done in crayon.

  There was a sense of inevitability about the parcel. I tried to persuade my mother that I should go as something else. I said I wouldn’t wear it, but the parcel became part of me before I ever saw it, something irrevocable and humiliating before I was even dressed in it.

  The dance was supposed to start at eight. It said so on the printed sheet I brought home. Nobody arrives at a dance on time, though, my mother said. She never realised how little adult convention applies to the young. It said eight o’clock on the sheet, didn’t it? Why would it say that if it didn’t mean it? Nobody comes to a dance till later my mother said. It’s just how it’s done. But I saw eight o’clock written. I knew everyone would be there. Anthony Poole in his cowboy outfit, and Kelly as Bo Peep.

  On that Friday I didn’t run well. Dusty beat me without hardly trying, and although I looked away as I ran, I was having a hard time to keep ahead of Ricky Ransumeen in third place. My automatic legs were being affected. I thought a good deal about that because it seemed unfair. When I was selected by Kelly, when desirability was conferred on me, although the power was great, it hadn’t made me any faster, as I told you. But on that last day, as I turned my head in studied casualness, instead of the flowing leaves of the sycamores by the fence, I saw myself in a parcel costume with a crayon stamp. Just for a moment there in the stippled leaves and keeping pace with me was a doppelgänger in a parcel. I lacked rhyt
hm as I ran, I lacked a full chest of air, my automatic legs made demands.

  It wasn’t until after tea that my mother even began the parcel. I had to wear my swimming togs so no clothes would show below the parcel. The brown paper strips were wrapped around me like nappies, and round and round my chest, and holes cut for my head and arms. I was tied with twine and with a yellow ribbon in a bow at the front. Over my heart was stuck the crayoned stamp, huge and serrated. Other oblong stickers were plastered on with flour-and-water paste. This Side Up, Handle with Care, On Her Majesty’s Service, Do Not Rattle. I was finally packed by eight o’clock, and set off on my bike for the school assembly hall. I tried to sit up straight on the seat so that the parcel wouldn’t crinkle too much. The wrapping made noises as I rode, and the greasy blue and red head on the stamp grinned in the setting sun. I told myself that the parcel was really quite clever and would go down well. I could only half believe it, yet I never seriously thought about not going. The power of sexual preferment was enough to transform me. It would make difference distinction, and nonconformity audacity. To be with Kelly Howick would be sufficient to defeat the parcel.

  They had started, of course. I knew it. The sheet had said eight o’clock after all. The light from the hall spilled out into the soft summer evening. The noise of the band and the dancing slid out with the light, and echoed in the quad. Bodger patrolled the grounds, alert for vandalism, or lust. Late, said Bodger. He looked at my costume and said no more. As I went in he was still there on the edge of the light and the noise, and with the blue evening as a backdrop. He had his hands behind his back, and he swayed forward on his toes. Hurry up then, said Bodger. I slipped in round the edge of the door, and worked my way over to the boys’ side. Tony Poole had a curled stetson, sheepskin chaps, checked shirt and six-guns with matching handles. He came back from seeing Fiona McCartney to her seat. Toomey was a fire chief with a crested helmet that glittered, and a hatchet at his belt. Dusty’s Captain Marvel insignia was startling on his chest, and his cloak was cherry rich and heavy. And I was a parcel. A brown paper parcel with bare legs and sandshoes. A brown paper parcel that crinkled when I moved. A brown paper parcel with a stamp drawn up in red and blue. It wasn’t right: not for the second fastest runner in the whole school, not for the top maths boy, and the one preferred by Kelly Howick. What the hell is that you’re wearing? said Dusty. Wouldn’t you like to know, I said.

  I went over to claim Kelly when the music began for the next dance. It was a foxtrot. I had learnt both sorts of dance. A waltz was where you took one step to the side every now and again, and a quickstep was where you kept forging ahead. A foxtrot is just a slower quickstep. I’m a little late, I said, smiling and nodding. I found that, without meaning to, I was trying to compensate for being a parcel. Kelly’s Bo Peep outfit suited her. The bodice with the crossed straps accentuated her breasts, and she had a curved crook. She looked fifteen at least. As we danced I knew that she was looking at the parcel. I heard myself laughing loudly at Captain Marvel who was fighting with a pirate, but Kelly kept looking at my costume. I was going to come as a pirate myself, I said. I had a better pirate outfit than that; a huge hat with skull and crossbones, and an eye-patch. What? she said. I was going to come as a pirate, I said. I can’t hear you for all the noise your brown paper makes, Kelly said. It wasn’t so, of course. The band was making more noise than the parcel. No, she was giving me the message. Even the way she danced with me was different from other times. She had a dull expression on her face, as if she was doing me a favour by dancing. I tried whirling her around, the way Bodger and Miss Erikson had demonstrated. I nearly fell over, she said. It was a lesson for me in the transience of sexual preferment. It was apparently something that had to be taken advantage of immediately.

  I was determined not to mention being a parcel. Not admitting it was some way of keeping the full force of its humiliation from me. I quite like Dusty’s Captain Marvel suit, I told Kelly. A bit overdone, but I quite like it. I told Miss Erikson I’d help with supper, she said. It won’t be worth you coming over for the next dance because I’ll start helping her soon, I think. Sure, sure, I said, we must have the grub on time. The grub on time! I couldn’t believe I was saying it. And afterwards I’ll probably help with the washing up, Kelly said.

  Flour-and-water paste isn’t very successful when there’s any movement. Some of the stickers were starting to work loose on the brown paper. This Way Up fell on to the dance floor. Handle with Care came off and I tucked it under the twine. It worked down low on my waist, and Dusty and Ricky Ransumeen started pointing and laughing at its anatomical juxtaposition. I took Kelly back to her side of the hall after the dance. See you then, I said. She slipped among the other girls with a murmur. Who could blame her? As I went back over the floor I could see several of my labels there. Fragile, Via Antwerp, Airmail. Maybe someone would start collecting them and draw attention to them. The parcel was ceasing to be recognisable as such. Without stickers, wrinkled and lopsided after the dancing, it had lost what little illusion of costume it ever had. I was a kid wrapped in brown paper and wearing bathing togs and sandshoes. Ah, Jesus me. Only the stamp over my heart seemed firmly stuck. A mark of Cain in crayon that leered out on all the world, and would not release itself, or me. I was beaten all right. I couldn’t maintain any longer my vision of how the night should be. And the withdrawal of sexual preferment had weakened me; my esteem had been eroded. I began to work my way towards the door: a paper parcel through the Batmen, policemen, riverboat gamblers and Indian chiefs. Little Wade Stewart was a Pluto. He came up to me with Fragile. Is this yours? he said kindly Yes, what a dag, isn’t it? I said. I kept on moving towards the door, and reached it as the lucky spot waltz was announced.

  It felt good outside. The summer dusk, the distanced and impersonal buildings, the lucky spot music fading as I made my way to the bikesheds. Bodger loomed up. I got a bit of a nosebleed, I told him, but as I was by myself he wasn’t interested. I rode out of the grounds, and the crinkle of the parcel and the lessening music conjoined down the quiet street. I allowed myself the indulgence of self-pity for a time. I was outside myself, I accompanied myself, I consoled myself, for the bland incomprehension of adults and the loss of sexual status. I felt I had been hard done by, that was the truth. Perhaps there would be a fire in the hall. I imagined the flames leaping from the walls, and the riverboat gamblers and fairy queens put to flight. Faster and faster I biked. I saw the fiery press of the blaze, the terror of my classmates, the impotence of Bodger and Miss Erikson. I stood up on the pedals in the soft, summer night and put on a sprint that would have carried me clear of any possible pursuit. Parcel my arse, I shouted, and louder, parcel my arse. I reckoned that I was about the fastest bike rider at that school. I reckoned that even Dusty Rhodes wouldn’t be a patch on me at that. I felt the wind of my flight pushing the brown paper against me as I swept without a light down the blue streets.

  There was a light in the living room when I reached home, however. I put the bike away, and looked through the gap between curtain-edge and window-side. My mother was listening to the radio and talking; my father was cleaning his shoes on a newspaper spread by his chair. I had to find some immediate focus for revenge, and they would serve as enemies. I crept into the kitchen and took a packet of my father’s cigarettes from behind the clock, and struck a match to inspect the pantry cupboard. Mixed fruit pack, I chose; raisins, candied peel, sultanas, figs, cherries. I took the fruit pack and cigarettes to the woodshed. I sat on the pine slabs in the lean-to there, and ate the fruit mix and smoked my father’s Pall Mall. I ripped off the stamp in crayon, and burnt holes in it. I flashed the glowing cigarette against the navy sky, writing Zorro in swift neon. I undid the twine and unwrapped the parcel, burying the pieces in the wood heap. Jesus, I said, so what? Who cares about the dance and being a paper parcel? I was still second fastest in the school, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I! I sat in my togs and singlet, ate my dried fruit, and watched the smoke curl as shadows from my
fingers. Let the world come on, I could take it. And next time it would be different. I could see so clearly the next year’s dance, when I would be Napoleon and Fiona McCartney my Josephine. That’s how it would be all right.

  The Fat Boy

  The men coming from the railway yards were the first to notice the fat boy. He stood beneath the overhead bridge, among the cars illegally parked there. He had both hands in the pockets of his short pants and the strain of that plus his heavy thighs made the flap of his fly gape. The fat boy watched the passers-by with the froglike, faintly enquiring look that the faces of fat boys have. The fat boy’s hair was amazingly fair and straight; it shone with nourishment; it was straight and oddly medieval.

  The men were leaving at twenty past four. It was a conventional extension of the time for washing up that their union had obtained. They resented the fat boy’s regard day after day. They were sure that he was stealing from the cars, and it was just as well they were coming past early to watch him, they said. Sometimes they would shout at the fat boy and tell him to get lost, as they walked in their overalls along the black margin of the track past the old gasworks. Seventeen thousand dollars worth of railway property was found missing when the audit was made. The men knew it was outsiders. They remembered the fat boy. The fat kid is the lookout for the ring taking all the stuff, they told the management. Dozens of workers could swear to having seen the fat boy. They went looking for him, but he wasn’t to be found beneath the overhead bridge anymore.

  Instead the fat boy began to frequent McNulty’s warehouse in Cully Street. Even through the cracked and stained windows the staff could see him standing by the side of the building where the bicycles were left. Sometimes he would kick at the clumps of weeds which grew in the broken pavement there, sometimes he would puff his fat cheeks and blow out little explosions of air, sometimes he would just stand with his hands in his pockets and look at the warehouse as if to impress it on his mind. He had a habit of pulling his mouth to one side, as if biting the skin on the inside of his cheek, the way children do. Often in school time he was there. Sometimes even in the rain he was there. The rain glistened on his round cheeks, and seemed to shrink his pants so that the lining turned up at the leg holes. The new girl looked out and said he looked as if he was crying. The owner said he’d make him cry all right. He was sick of ordering him away, the owner said.