The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall

by Alan Marshall

  Pat hadn’t read very widely, but he knew a lot of songs. Once, in a moment of feeling, he said, ‘Shakespeare was the greatest poet in the world. He was better than Moore, but I like “Oft in the Stilly Night” better than anything Shakespeare bloody well ever wrote.’

  He sang one song, ‘The Glassy-Eyed Woman’, he called it, and though I never quite understood what it was all about, Pat maintained that it was a true story.

  ‘Paddy reckons it’s a true story,’ he said, mentioning a mutual friend in whom we both had great faith.

  ‘I often wonder where it happened,’ he would say sometimes.

  ‘Let me get it right,’ I said one day. ‘What’s the strength of it?’

  ‘Well,’ began Pat, ‘two blokes struck it rich in the diggings. They were coming from the diggings with gold when they heard a woman scream. One chap cleared out. “You’ll be robbed,” he yelled out to his mate, see. Well, that left one bloke on his own, and the song goes:

  He searched the grasses round

  And he found the Glassy Woman

  With her hair pinned to the ground.

  ‘How was it pinned?’ I asked. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘It doesn’t say,’ said Pat, then went on ‘three jolly butcher boys attacked this bloke then, and he yelled out—his name was Johnson -

  “I’ll stop, I’ll stand,” cried Johnson.

  “I’ll stop, I’ll stand,” cried he.

  “I never was, in all my life, afraid of any three.”’

  ‘How did he go?’ I said.

  ‘No good,’ said Pat. ‘They reckon he had these three blokes beaten, but the damned glassy woman got up and stabbed him in the back.’

  ‘Was she in with them?’ I asked.

  ‘She must have been,’ said Pat. ‘I often wonder about her.’

  ‘Did they get Johnson’s gold?’ I asked.

  ‘It doesn’t say,’ replied Pat. ‘That’s where the song falls down.’

  Pat was a short, thickset man of about fifty. He walked with a long, deliberate stride that seemed out of keeping with his size. His eyes were small and quick, and he always wore an expression of anticipation.

  We made for Townsville, then struck west towards Hughenden, camping whenever we met a drover or a traveller sitting over a camp fire by the side of the track. I was after material for a series of articles on the outback, and Pat became a sort of unofficial ‘Contact Man’ for me, making the first overtures to old men sitting on pub verandas or standing at hut doorways or just eating their lunch by the side of the road.

  He usually greeted strangers with the question, ‘Any death adders round here?’ When assured that there were not, the bush around us became more beautiful to him, and he looked at it with contented eyes.

  I was waiting for the day when someone would answer ‘yes’ to his question. When this did eventually happen, Pat glanced uneasily at the tall grass, and the trees, then expressed the opinion that the bush hereabouts was not nearly as beautiful as it was farther south.

  I could rely on his judgment of men. On the bank of a dry creek, shaded by wattle, a car pulled in not far from where we were camped, and the occupants, a man and a boy, alighted and lit a fire to boil their billy. The man wore a grey felt hat, a blue shirt, a check Harris tweed sports coat, and light gabardine trousers. His tan boots were elastic sides, and were highly polished. He walked like a horseman.

  Pat strolled over for a yarn, but in a little while he returned to where I was sitting on the caravan steps peeling spuds.

  ‘What’s he like?’ I asked, wondering whether he was a friendly fellow.

  ‘He talks like a bloke who has been pitchforked into a lot of property,’ said Pat.

  I decided to stay where I was.

  There were times, however, when Pat was confronted with a man who, as he described it, ‘had him tossed’.

  We were driving through lonely, timbered country when we saw ahead of us, standing by the side of the road, a short man, with a black beard, and wearing a topee. He carried a walking stick, had several brown paper parcels tucked under his arm, and wore an overcoat, though the day was hot. Beside him, sitting in the dust with its back against a post, was a ventriloquist’s doll.

  I stopped and asked him if he would like a lift.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘you are a man who is going to get on in this world.’

  ‘Fine!’ I said. ‘I can never get too much of that.’

  ‘The farmers round these parts are no good,’ he went on. ‘They won’t give me a lift, then they have an accident.’

  I got out to unlock the caravan door. ‘That’ll teach them,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll have to travel inside,’ I told him. ‘There are some books there on the bed. You can look at them while we go along.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he said, as he clambered into the caravan. ‘I’ve studied many books, I have. I believe in it.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked before I closed the door.

  ‘I’m known in Queensland as Uncle Jim, the Bush Ventriloquist.’

  He had a young, pink face that lay half submerged in the black growth of his beard and hair. It seemed the wrong type of soil to grow such a crop.

  His ears stood out from the crowding hair like fleshy leaves. Gold rings hung from the lobes. He looked straight at you, but though you looked into his eyes, you felt you were not looking at the man.

  I closed the door and went round to the cabin.

  ‘I was just thinkin’,’ said Pat. ‘Do you think he’ll eat the corn beef?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I couldn’t help hoping that he would. It was the saltiest corn beef I had ever tasted.

  That night we camped on the bank of a lagoon. Uncle Jim lit a roaring fire, then collected scrub to make a bed.

  ‘A fire’s as good as four blankets,’ he said to Pat.

  ‘Four, now. Is that so!’ said Pat agreeably. He was squatting before the fire with his forearms resting on his knees, his hands with drooping fingers motionless in front of him.

  ‘Yes, four,’ repeated Uncle Jim. ‘I’ve tested it.’

  He was thirty-one, and had been tramping the Queensland roads for eight years, he told us. We shared our corn beef and spuds with him, then sat on a log before the fire while he stood back from the flames, holding the doll in one hand, and stroking his beard with the other.

  I had the impression I had stepped into the pages of a book in which the writer had contrived a scene with an eye to dramatic effects, sacrificing reality to do it.

  There was a new moon hanging just above some pandanus palms. Beside us the waters of the lagoon quivered like quicksilver. The red light from the camp fire half illuminated the two of us on the log. It brought a strange glow to the hair and the beard of Uncle Jim. His earrings glittered as he moved. I could hear a mopoke. The constant chirping of frogs accompanied the rather musical voice of this lost man as he looked with some gentleness at the vacant, grinning face of his pasteboard doll.

  ‘This is Percy,’ he said. ‘How are you, Percy?’

  ‘Good,’ squeaked Percy, his hinged jaw jerking up and down, He lowered the doll and turned to us:

  ‘I like working the doll. I can work a doll in each hand and one with the foot. I also tell fortunes. I have a pack of cards, the crystal ball, and the phrenological glass in my pack. I spent fifteen years studying fortune telling. I can tell people’s religion by looking at their bones.

  ‘I can also tell the age of scars. I am the only man in the world who can play a mouth organ and bagpipes at the same time. I came to Queensland to forget.’

  ‘Forget what?’ I asked him.

  He raised a depreciating hand and waved it towards me, his face lowered in confusion.

  ‘Well . . . you know . . . there are things . . . that’s how it is.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I hastened to say. ‘We’re all trying to forget something.’ I turned to Pat. ‘You came up here to forget, didn’t you, Pat?’

  ‘No,’ said Pa
t.

  ‘What a co-operative cow he’s turned out to be,’ I said to Uncle Jim.

  ‘He don’t get the drift of it,’ he said.

  He was silent for a moment, then again addressed his doll.

  ‘They say you have royal blood in your veins, Percy?’

  ‘It’s a lie,’ said Percy in a high-pitched voice.

  ‘Yes you have,’ said Uncle Jim. ‘You were stung by a Queen bee.’

  ‘Queen bees don’t have stings,’ said Percy.

  Uncle Jim lowered the doll and explained: ‘That’s educational, you see. When I entertain kids, I tell them that. Not everyone knows that Queen bees can’t sting. My shows are one hundred per cent clean. I’m never offensive in any way.’

  ‘How do you live now?’ asked Pat. ‘Are you a sideshow man like?’

  ‘I just battle. I took up piercing ears to get some extra money. I say that piercing ears is beneficial to the sight. It’s been proved.’

  ‘Fancy that now,’ said Pat, feeling the lobe of his ear in a speculative fashion. ‘Funny how it does your eyes good. ‘They’re discovering some wonderful bloody things these days. How do you pierce them now?’

  ‘With a cork and needle. There’s no blood. Quite simple. I used to carry a crow round with me. A crow’s a bird of magic and very effective.’

  ‘What happened to it?’ I asked him.

  He sat his doll on the ground, arranging its arms and legs, and placing it back against a stone as if it were capable of appreciating comfort.

  ‘It died of the heat,’ he said.

  He came and squatted before the fire. The backs of the long, pale hands he held out to the blaze were covered with tattoos.

  ‘I must get another,’ he went on. ‘A magpie would do, but it’s not as good as a crow. I’m after a camel. I’ve trained camels. They’re good to get about on. I’ve seen some terrible dust storms. A camel doesn’t mind dust storms.’

  He looked small and hunched as he crouched before the fire—like a gnome. His limbs seemed under a strain, as if he were supporting a weight. But he refused when I asked him to sit on the log beside us.

  ‘Droughts are terrible, too,’ he continued. ‘I met a chap in a drought once. “How would you like a job shifting dirt off my place?” he said. I knew he was joking. I’m a character myself. People often say I’m a bit of a character. I sometimes say, like—“I’ll have a desert lick for a wash.”

  ‘A desert lick is a piece of rag and a two-pound jam tin full of water.

  ‘You put the rag in the water. Sometimes I say I had a desert sandwich for lunch. A desert sandwich is a lizard between two pieces of bark. Those are jokes, of course. I’ve been all over Queensland. I know the lot.’ He paused. ‘Yes, I know the lot.’

  He suddenly raised his head and looked directly at me with his unrevealing eyes.

  ‘I see success for you.’

  ‘H’m!’ I said.

  ‘Looking ahead like that never does any bloody good to any man,’ observed Pat. ‘It puts the moz on him.’

  ‘We’ll have a crack at it anyway,’ I said. ‘Come on into the caravan and tell our fortunes.’

  ‘All right,’ said Uncle Jim.

  He wrapped his overcoat around the doll and placed it, with his brown paper parcels, near the fire. Pat watched him a moment, then turned and looked at me. He tapped his finger against his forehead. Uncle Jim, straightening himself, noticed the action. He walked over to Pat and placed his hand gently on his shoulder.

  ‘Aren’t we all, Pat?’ he said.

  Uncle Jim had all the attributes of a convincing fortune teller. He had an excellent memory, was observant, and could switch from black to white without appearing to contradict himself.

  His long fingers manipulated the cards, independent of his direction. They acted on impulses of their own, moving swiftly and accurately to complete a familiar task while he looked at you and talked of other things.

  ‘Getting your fortune told is the greatest thing in the world to get you into trouble,’ Pat told me as we entered the caravan. ‘It’s like wrastlin’ and foolin’ round. Blokes that go wrastlin’ and foolin’ round with each other always get into trouble.’

  ‘I’il tell Pat’s first,’ said Uncle Jim. He looked at Pat speculatively.

  ‘What date of the month were you born, Pat?’

  ‘October the fifteenth,’ said Pat reluctantly. He looked embarrassed and moved uncomfortably under Uncle Jim’s regard.

  ‘Good!’ said Uncle Jim. ‘I studied psychotherapy besides phrenology. I’ll give you my version faithfully. If I see disaster, I’ll tell you.’

  This announcement disturbed Pat. He changed his position in his chair.

  ‘That’s what I was tellin’ you,’ he said looking at me.

  I filled the kettle. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said. I turned to Uncle Jim. ‘Pat was a farmer,’ I told him, giving him a lead.

  ‘I’m not embittered on farmers,’ Uncle Jim hastened to explain. ‘I’m only crooked on them because they don’t give me a lift.’

  ‘It would be a terrible thing to be told something bad,’ said Pat addressing no one in particular.

  ‘Oh, I do that!’ exclaimed Uncle Jim. ‘I never depart from accuracy.’

  ‘But say one of us was going to get kilt,’ persisted Pat, who would rather have avoided the whole thing.

  ‘If that is to happen, you will know,’ said Uncle Jim raising his eyes piously, then lowering them again.

  ‘All right,’ said Pat resignedly.

  ‘Your birth stone is the opal, Pat.’

  He shuffled the cards, then held up the King of Diamonds.

  ‘You are a diamond by clairvoyancy, Pat. The King of Diamonds in clairvoyancy is definitely a superior man, or a business man.’

  ‘I see,’ said Pat, ‘but I ain’t agreein’ with nothing.’

  ‘This old man will die and leave you money.’

  ‘’Struth!’ said Pat. ‘It just shows you.’

  ‘Do you want to cut the cards now?’

  ‘No, let her slide,’ said Pat. ‘She seems to be going well.’

  ‘I think I’ll do better with you with astrology,’ said Uncle Jim, pushing the cards aside. ‘Here, take this.’

  He handed Pat a small brass sphere inscribed with signs of the zodiac.

  ‘Hold this charm, Pat. It contains the treasures of the earth.’

  Pat looked at it warily as it lay on his palm.

  ‘There’s no harm in it, is there?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘None at all. I see a little money hovering round you.’

  ‘That’s the stuff,’ said Pat. ‘As long as there ain’t any deaths, I’ll run along with you.’

  ‘Now ask me a question.’

  ‘What sort of question do you want?’ asked Pat vaguely.

  ‘It depends on like . . . well . . . there’s no favouritism. Everybody’s got an equal chance. You could ask me if your present girl is loyal to you.’

  ‘Yair, I could do that,’ said Pat agreeably, ‘but I ain’t goin’ to because I ain’t got a girl.’

  ‘That’s so,’ said Uncle Jim. ‘I’m telling everything accurate. Both fortunes will be totally different. You needn’t worry over that.’

  I rose to prepare some supper. I cut thick, corn beef sandwiches, and placed them on the table. I poured out the tea, and handed a cup to Pat who, like myself always felt in need of one.

  ‘You can’t beat a cup of tea,’ he said as he took it from me. ‘If a man took a weakness out there,’ he nodded his head towards the open doorway, ‘I’d rush out and give him a cup of tea.’

  Uncle Jim raised his eyes from his cards and turned them towards his cup of tea which had not yet been registered on his mind. The knowledge of its existence came slowly in the rear of other thoughts moving in procession behind his eyes.

  ‘People say tea is injurious to the stomach,’ he said. ‘It’s beneficial to me under all circumstances.’

  Next day we dropped Un
cle Jim in a little place consisting of an hotel, a general store, and a post office. The street was empty of people. He bade us goodbye, then walked away. He walked with long, heavy strides, his stiff body rising up and down to the motion of his legs.

  He suddenly turned and came to me where I stood with Pat beside the cabin door. He stood in front of me and, this time, looking into his eyes, I saw the man, the terrible, indescribable loneliness of the man.

  ‘Did you like Percy?’ he asked, and I felt rather than heard the note of entreaty.

  ‘Yes,’ I said holding out my hand to him. ‘Very much.’

  The lines of his face did not alter, but some inner change took away the pain from his eyes and left them contented.

  He shook my hand, then walked away.

  ‘There he goes,’ said Pat gently. ‘Life’s kicked him in the guts and he’s still doubled up.’

  ‘He’s hanging on to Percy,’ I said.

  Pat didn’t reply but when we had travelled a little way along the track he glanced out the cabin window at the passing bush with a frown on his face.

  ‘You can’t dodge things by coming to Queensland,’ he said.

  Short Stories

  The Three-legged Bitch

  Tim Sullivan was seventy-five years of age. He was a thickset, powerful man with a crown of grey hair. His face had weathered wind and sun and rain, and now bore the character of an old rock. He had calm blue eyes and spoke slowly, gathering words from a mind that had been given few opportunities to express itself in speech.

  He lived in Jindabyne at the foothills of the Australian Alps. Everybody knew him. He had been a dogger, a dingo trapper, and the years of his youth and manhood had been spent with pack horses and dog traps among the mountains and high plains.

  He had lived by killing. The death of dingoes brought him prestige, friendship, praise and sufficient money to live on. With the scalps of those he killed bagged on his packhorse, he would come down from the mountains to collect the bounties and replenish stores. He would ride down the main street of Jindabyne, his traps clinking from the back of the packhorse following him. Men standing at the hotel doorway would wave to him as he passed.