Homesickness

by Murray Bail

  Even Kaddok sat by a window directing Gwen as she focused and described. She began everything, ‘There’s an American tying his shoelace…an American with parcels trying to get a taxi…’ as if they were natives. And Kaddok running his tongue over his blue lips, nodding, nodding: make great natural shots, these, for sure. City Life or The Big Smoke or Americans at Play. Meanwhile Garry began following a policeman and couldn’t help grinning as the magnified red index finger suddenly entered one nostril and worked around, pulling a variety of faces, as if he were tightening a screw inside his head. Searching behind for his Budweiser can he said aloud to himself, ‘The filthy bastard…’

  ‘Let me look,’ Louisa asked Hofmann for the fifth time.

  ‘Just a second.’

  ‘I’ll go next door!’

  What else in the following hour or so did Garry see? What did the Cathcarts see? Black in open sports car scratching his crotch at traffic lights; grey-haired helicopter pilot perspiring and running tongue over bottom lip as he settled on top of a skyscraper; an aproned maid in black who stepped out onto posh balcony and threw out the orange contents of a fish bowl; firemen in a yard behind the station playing poker; the ballet class; chap in a checked suit having pistol practice on his penthouse roof—successive bulls; followed a blind beggar: who left his corner and in a diner opened the Wall Street Journal.

  Gerald spent his time profitably. To his surprise he stumbled upon grimy caryatids and plaques and other folk-carvings set among the entablatures and portals of the brownstones, normally invisible or very difficult to see from the street.

  ‘There’s something wrong here,’ Borelli frowned from his window. ‘Wherever I turn I see a woman, ah, fitting herself into a brassiére. Wherever I turn. Here’s one in a hotel window now. Ah, she too is so beautiful. I don’t think I should be looking. Put yourself,’ he turned to her, ‘in my position.’

  Louisa met his eyes, laughing. She touched her throat, ‘What can you be afraid of?’

  ‘It must be the position of my room.’

  Every room has its own view, its own angle.

  ‘Let me look, I’ll bet it doesn’t happen with me.’

  Silk shirt settled against denim; and Borelli asked, ‘Now the way they pitch forward like that—with these brassieres—is that standard practice?’

  ‘Well I have to,’ said Louisa, not exactly answering. She kept her eye on the telescope.

  Mmmm: Borelli thought for a while.

  ‘It doesn’t suit you,’ he said changing the subject. It really doesn’t.’

  She had gold earrings; hair pulled back; she had pale skin; she had sadness spreading in her forehead.

  ‘What doesn’t? What do you mean?’

  But she returned quickly to the telescope where she was listening more than looking.

  ‘I mean looking through that thing. It doesn’t suit you. You don’t have to do it.’

  But Louisa had noticed something. The telescope pointed down almost vertical. ‘That looks like our Sheila in the park. I think it is.’

  In other rooms others had recognised her, and focused. Every room has the same view, but different angles. Sheila’s paisley scarf and worried expression fluttered large. She was half-running.

  ‘She doesn’t have her handbag,’ Louisa observed.

  In 105, Sasha turned as North sauntered in through their open door. After knocking, of course. ‘We’ve just seen a man and his wife mugged in Harlem!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to show you some squirrels, a family in the park.’

  ‘I’d like to see that! Show us.’

  ‘Since when have you been a squirrel-freak?’ Violet asked out of the side of her mouth.

  Sasha took North’s arm. ‘Show us where.’

  The zoologist easily found the tree and stepped aside.

  ‘There you are,’ he rubbed his hands.

  In the time it took Violet to focus, a Central Park carriage-horse moved into the foreground, black and bulging, obliterating the tree; raising its tail it dropped a pad, a turd, a crap. It was just like Violet to snort through her nose; she could have died.

  ‘Really, you can be so crude,’ Sasha shoved her aside.

  It was then that she joined the others observing Sheila.

  Down there in her English shoes Sheila had left the path and veered across the grass. Reaching the copse she hesitated, expressing second thoughts. For a full minute she stood looking all around. Then she took the remaining few steps to the tree. There was no one near it. In her room while tracking the squirrels from her acute angle, a figure had appeared in the right circumference, busying itself. Focusing she saw a man, his back to her, cutting something into a trunk. COME DOWN AND—. She recognised the neck and shoulders of Frank Hammersly.

  Not a soul around now, only the tree. The message, Hammersly’s task, deep cut and still bleeding, was complete.

  COME DOWN AND

  SEE AUSTRALIA

  Now that would urge and beckon for years. The others in their rooms read it and laughed. They saw Sheila shield her eyes and stare up at their hotel, almost as if she had heard. Garry quickly waved but she couldn’t see. Moving away she sat for a while on a bench. A woman without a handbag can look desolate.

  ‘She’s a dear,’ Sasha declared. ‘I quite like Sheila. Don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve hardly said a word to her,’ North admitted. ‘I don’t think we know her.’

  ‘She’s a bit bonkers,’ said Violet. ‘I can’t get through to her. And what’s more I can’t be bothered.’

  Remaining at their posts they witnessed a few traffic accidents and the cocktail hour until it became dark, and when they sat together for dinner were full of comparisons and anecdotes and conflicting opinions (points of view). All this was old hat to Doug: patting his binoculars hanging around his neck, ‘Ha, you know, I’ve known about this for donkey’s years. You see what I mean?’

  Nodding sagely, Mrs Cathcart could confirm. Doug never offered much that wasn’t solid.

  Without knowing exactly why, they were all specially kind to Sheila, so much so she might have twigged. Animation and concern are certainly the advantages of group travel. Now only Louisa felt left out of things. During all this talk she stroked the edge of her plate. Seated directly opposite, James Borelli had his face averted, deliberately it seemed, listening to Hofmann and Violet Hopper, and there was laughter, nodding among them. Not once did he look at her. Louisa listened. Now he was trying to tell them one Giovanni Borelli, of Pisa, had invented the telescope, and Gerald not Kaddok this time weighed in with the facts. So varied and many were the sights that the party took to their windows early, observing the wakening rites of the great city, and the majority elected to stay in their rooms all day.

  The sun came through the tall glass and bathed their knees. It was warm and pleasant as the world unfolded before them.

  At around ten interest shifted to the avenue below. An argument had broken out between a parking inspector wearing epaulets and a young hood in a lieutenant’s uniform. They could see the neck muscles bulging in one, slight tic developing in the cheek of the other: signals of the species, said to be chemical. All telescopes paused as Hofmann entered, the casual onlooker, smooth-faced and mildly interested, and the telescopes described slow arcs in unison, as he went on heading for (he’d told Louisa) the large survey exhibition of stripe paintings assembled from all corners of the globe, at the Museum of Modern Art; he wasn’t going to miss that. An erect figure of a man with one hand in the side pocket. Hell, could have passed for a successful American; a lawyer maybe. Alone in their room Louisa followed him and smiled slightly, but in a different way from Violet Hopper several windows along, at the way his head jerked at every—and there were many—handsome woman. So Louisa witnessed the freak accident. It was when he entered the sunlight of a relatively open section, flanked by iron railings decorated with arrow heads. According to the Post the American flag had torn free of its aluminium pole and after gliding
and dipping on the city’s tremendous updraughts came down twenty blocks away upon a lone Australian pedestrian (Kenneth Hofmann, dentist, of Sydney), enveloping him. It was the loyal corporate or skyscraper flag, approximately five times larger than normal, and although woven from a silken synthetic fabric it weighed a ton. Hofmann was knocked flat to the ground. The telescopes magnified a momentary beauty—twisting lines and stars. So unexpected was it that a few began laughing until they realised he could suffocate or could be hurt underneath. Louisa had been the first to cry out. The struggle entered their own rooms.

  A small crowd gathered but nobody lifted a finger.

  ‘Get him out! Why don’t they?’

  ‘What some people do to attract attention,’ Violet murmured.

  Hofmann had to struggle with the monster alone.

  It subsided and first Hofmann’s head appeared, blinking, then his torso. He stood up casually dusting himself

  ‘Ah he’s OK. He’s broken his glasses, that’s all,’ Violet reported. ‘He looks funny without glasses.’

  The crowd on the footpath moved closer.

  A man called out, ‘Is this a stunt?’

  ‘Say what’s the big idea?’

  ‘Yeah, what are you trying to prove?’

  Hofmann had taken out his lapel handkerchief to wrap his glasses. He looked down at the flag.

  A yellow truck slowed down and double-parked. Three men in muddy boots jumped out.

  ‘Awright, the funny-boy—who is he? Get it offa the ground.’

  Surprised, Hofmann pointed to the sky. Behind the telescopes they could see his lips moving.

  ‘Get it off the ground.’

  ‘Goddammit.’

  ‘It was some sort of stunt,’ said one.

  Quite a crowd now, ragged-circular around Ken Hofmann. It became increasingly harder to locate him in the telescopes. Of Kaddok’s half dozen or more Ektachromes only one would reveal Hofmann—and then an elbow and the back of his head.

  ‘They’ve got him trying to lift the flag,’ Violet said.

  It was too much for one man and when he held up an armful it began spilling like a mad fluid, the rest suddenly rising and flapping. An impatient American gave him a shove. As he fell—out of view from the windows—the police cars arrived: sirens, flashing lights, the men in blue.

  One of those incidents or experiences of travel.

  ‘It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been here,’ Borelli observed, saying the obvious but making a point.

  ‘You know they asked me where I came from?’ Hofmann laughed. ‘“Goddammit, not another one,” they said. That was when I was about to get lynched.’

  ‘We saw you! It made us hopping mad.’

  Sheila turned to Louisa. ‘Weren’t you afraid? I think I would be.’

  ‘It must have given him a fright,’ Louisa answered.

  ‘Anything can happen in New York.’

  ‘I suddenly saw stripes,’ Hofmann admitted, dry.

  ‘And stars, surely,’ Kaddok added, missing the point.

  Violet opened her mouth and rolled her eyes. She made Louisa laugh.

  ‘What were you doing,’ Borelli turned to North, ‘during the drama?’

  ‘My little friend here dragged me all the way to the Bronx Zoo. Kicking and screaming, I might say.’

  ‘Thank you very much!’ Sasha turned away. ‘You said you had a good time.’

  ‘I did,’ said North and waited for her to turn. He patted her knee.

  ‘And I thought you’d given up the animal world,’ Gerald joined in. He rocked on his heels. ‘I thought you told me—wasn’t it you?—you’d switched to science. Disillusioned with it already? I’m not surprised. Never mind. We understand. I think this is another victory for the humanities. And is it a good zoo?’

  Looking at Gerald, Phillip North simply blinked at the first question. He felt Sasha watching him.

  ‘Oh yes. There’s nothing much wrong with the Bronx.’

  ‘Come off it,’ Sasha returned. ‘The kangaroos were awful; poor moth-eaten things. You said so yourself.’

  ‘I could have been killed,’ Hofmann shrugged. ‘They were like animals.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ muttered Violet, cutting.

  Louisa gave another laugh; for her, surprisingly harsh.

  It had enlivened their day. It stood out vivid, angular, among the everyday; it would for years. A flurry for the future. And since all had in a sense participated they rallied around, adding to it, rendering it theirs. It epitomised their sense of being away, and at the same time their distance from local events. It was a foreign experience.

  Come to that: now that they’d grown accustomed to their hotel, as if their eyes had become used to the dark, they found it a veritable centre of gravity. Mass movements, messengers and energies crossed before their eyes. In the ornate banquet rooms were sales conventions of Caterpillar tractor reps, the Federation of Plastic Bucket Manufacturers, as well as the Private Eyes’ Association of America. High up on the roof, apparently unaware of the hotel’s fall-off in services, the British Caterpillar Club had chosen the revolving restaurant for its annual get-together. An Indian diplomat gave master classes in the sitar on the 23rd. Those sallow, wrinkled-skinned figures in the dark corners of the lobby and bars were fugitives from the symposium of worldwide speleologists. Singing, shouting could be heard after hours. And all along (meanwhile) it had been discovered by accident—Borelli strolling around back—that the entire rear wing of the hotel was being dismantled, and hanging and swinging in the breeze, had been hired out on an hourly basis to an amalgamation of rock-climbing clubs. This then accounted for the steady clink-clinking, like ice rattling in martinis, as dozens of alloy steel pitons were hammered into the perpendicular face. It sure was a centre—a hum, a hive—there could be no denying. At night the tall box-like structure flashed and radiated lights. In the elevator women were accosted by convention members with plastic name tags pinned to their lapels, and other heavy-breathers: accosted in the nicest possible manner. A middle-aged rep with tired eyes actually tipped his hat to Violet and Sasha; was told smartly to ‘Piss off!’ by those two girls.

  Recommended:

  1. The Dog Show.

  2. Police Museum, East 20th Street, (Baseball bats with horseshoes fitted at one end, etc. ‘Graphically they illustrate the criminal potential of misguided youth.’)

  3. Institution of Marriage.

  4. Uniforms: The Psychology of Non-uniformity; exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum.

  5. Collection of Rare Blood Atlases, Morgan Library.

  6. Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge!

  7. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile display; foyer, IBM building, Fifth Avenue.

  The Institution of Marriage. A slice of the bucolic wood of Westchester County has been set aside, near a village of white fences and neat zebra crossings (Pleasantville). Stripped of their leaves the silver-limbed trees had scattered a kind of confetti all over, russet and coquelicot, and there were untrodden paths, thorny moments and unexpected marshy parts, tiny creeks like running tears. The light timber stood still, like the legs of patient men. These were the proper grounds for marriage: idyllic, mysteriously fertile. A pair of geese passed overhead, creaking. It was wonderful.

  The Institution was a fortress. From a distance it looked like a wedding cake—perhaps the architecture was intentional—what with its lavish use of stucco, its lily-white curtains and columns; but although it was fundamentally intact, they could see it had been allowed to deteriorate on the surface, not only by the prevailing climate—flakes of rust—but by time and bird-droppings. It was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. As they approached, they could see a clothes line and two women conversing over the fence. The fat one had her hair wrapped in a scarf and the friend wore an apron. The path went close by; again probably intentional. For when they were within a few yards those in front suddenly pointed: these women were extremely accurate models, a combination of wood and plastic, beau
tifully posed and painted. Reaching out Sasha fluttered the doll-like eyelashes of one; instinctively Kaddok raised his camera.

  They were still discussing the craftsmanship of the models when they reached the Institution’s entrance. A separate enclosure had been fenced off next to the wire gate and two arctic stags were locked in combat, the metallic clash of the antlers metronomic in regularity, supplemented by grunts, bulging thighs and steam, chips of antlers sometimes cartwheeling into the air on impact. Fascinated, they stood watching for a while.

  ‘They’re fighting over a female,’ North coughed. ‘Come along.’

  But this only increased their interest. They rested on the fence.

  ‘I want to see who wins,’ Sasha cried. She turned to North.

  ‘They could be going all day. It’s a process. There has to be a loser. One of them might easily die.’

  ‘Survival of the fittest,’ Garry explained.

  ‘The Origin of Species,’ Kaddok added mysteriously.

  ‘Stupid bloody men!’ said Violet. ‘You can get some idea of the trouble they cause. Look at them, the fools.’

  North laughed and pushed open the gate. ‘They’ll be still battling away when we come out.’

  Following him, they glanced back at the colliding grunting males.

  ‘I wish someone’d fight over me,’ Sasha whispered. ‘Sheila, what do you reckon? Say a sword fight. Something like that.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she glanced at Sasha. ‘If no one was hurt.’

  ‘Someone always is,’ Violet came between them. ‘I’ve always found. But that’s only me.’

  The Kaddoks were at the door bowing and scraping to the guardian of the Institution, a North American redhead, forty-odd, decked out in a tasselled miniskirt, a white Stetson and a lasso. She had a freckled jelly-cleavage and blue knees.