Tamarisk Row

by Gerald Murnane

  Augustine tells Clement how to avoid temptation

  Augustine stands for a long time in the deep straw of Sternie’s loosebox, rubbing first the wire curry-comb and then the soft bristle brush down the horse’s shining coat. He hears children’s voices through the galvanised iron wall. He stops rubbing the horse and listens, because it is some time since he has been able to take an interest in his son’s games and hobbies. One of the Glasscock girls says she loves a boy from the Brothers’ College who gave her a beautiful picture of the baby Jesus and his mother. Clement says he loves a girl but her name is a secret. A Glasscock boy claims it is Margaret Wallace, the grocer’s daughter. Clement explains that Margaret is not his real girlfriend but only someone he kisses and hugs sometimes. The Glasscocks demand to know more about the secret girl, and he tells them she has never let any boy kiss her or look at her pants. Someone tries to frighten Clement by telling him that they all know the girl he means and that they will tease her about Clem Killeaton when they see her next. Augustine picks up a bucket and rattles it. The talking suddenly stops. The Glasscock children soon start talking again, but Clement says in a loud voice that he has to go and help his father and he hopes they enjoyed all the fairy stories he has just told them. That night when Augustine has finished his tea he invites Clement to sit down beside him. While the boy is sitting down Augustine glances at his wife. She goes to the sink and rattles some plates, pretending not to listen. Augustine says what a pity it is that he always has important racing business on Fridays and Saturdays otherwise the three of them could go to confession regularly as a family. He asks the boy whether the whole grade at school goes to confession before each first Friday and whether he, Clement, makes a fair dinkum confession. Clement answers solemnly that he does. Augustine warns his son that the nastiest sins of all are the ones that boys and girls or young men and women commit when they are alone together. Clement answers that he doesn’t know anything about those things. Mrs Killeaton interrupts and says she is sorry to have to mention this because she was going to try and forget all about it but she has already once before caught Clement talking dirty stuff with young Nigel Glasscock. Augustine says sadly that he’ll get the whole story from her later. He tells Clement not to go near the Glasscocks or any other State-school children for a while until he forgets all about their silly games and talk, that if he feels lonely sometimes because he has no brothers or sisters or mates that come and play at his place there’s nothing wrong with him admiring some good little girl at St Boniface’s from a distance, but that he will get into serious trouble if he goes near her or says anything silly to her. Augustine turns to his wife and says he supposes the kids used to go on with talk about boyfriends and girlfriends when she was a girl at State school. She says that of course they did a bit but she used to think it was a lot of rot and anyway they were big lumps of kids about thirteen or fourteen years old and Clement is still wet behind the ears. Later that evening while Clement is rolling marbles across the mat in the lounge-room Augustine warns him that he does too much dreaming on his own. Augustine looks over his little shelf of books, which he rarely touches, and takes down Man-Shy by Frank Dalby Davison. He tells Clement that Man-Shy is one of the greatest books he has ever read and that it will keep a boy’s mind off that other nonsense that he probably gets from watching too many American pictures. Clement reads Man-Shy attentively during the next few evenings and weeps quietly over the last chapter. He spends the following Saturday alone in the backyard designing an enormous fenceless cattle station where a man goes on long rides each day with a woman who went to a State school in the bush but never showed any part of her body to a man before she met the one she loves. Together they get down from their horses and creep towards a waterhole that they have told their stockmen never to disturb because a herd of wild cattle comes down each night to drink there. They peer through the harsh prickly scrub to see which one of his cows and heifers the bull is preparing to mate with. They are careful not to let the wild cattle smell them because the cattle still believe that the whole of the Australian bush belongs to them. The man hopes that his girlfriend will learn from watching the cattle what he and she should do when they are married, because her own father and mother would never tell her and she is so pure that he does not like to talk to her about it. When the huge bull finally climbs grunting and wheezing onto a young heifer who has never yet been mated with, his weight is too much for her. She staggers and falls, and the bull sprawls on top of her. The young woman throws herself into the man’s arms, weeping and shivering. The man urges her to be brave and wishes he could explain why she need not fear something like that happening to her.

  Clement learns more about the Foxy Glen

  Therese Riordan and her girlfriend, whose name Clement still does not know, sit side-saddle on the lowest branch of the mulberry tree in an enclosed garden that is only one part of the confusing system of flower gardens and ferneries and shrubberies around Riordans’ house. Therese accuses Clement Killeaton of always wanting to talk about rude things. She jumps down to the lawn, using both hands to keep her skirt pressed against her thighs, then walks towards the house. She calls out to the other girl that Clement is only allowed to come to Riordans’ place because his father owes Mr Riordan hundreds of pounds and still wants to borrow more. When Therese has gone inside, the other girl asks Clement does he know any girls in his street who are the same age as her and Therese. He answers that Cynthia Glasscock is about their age. She asks has he noticed anything different about Cynthia’s chest lately or seen anything new between her legs. He pretends to think hard before he answers no. As soon as he answers, the girl laughs and says – that proves you don’t really see that girl without her clothes on because if you did you would have noticed how different she was after she turned thirteen. The girl then asks him has he discovered any more about Therese’s Foxy Glen. He admits he hasn’t and asks the girl to give him some clues about it. She asks what does he want to know about it. He asks how long has Therese had the thing. The girl says that Therese’s mother or grandmother gave it to her when she was very young. He asks whether it has anything to do with religion or the Catholic Church. The girl hesitates, because she herself is not a Catholic, then answers that the Lord Jesus is able to look at it sometimes but that even He is not allowed to touch it. Clement asks how much Mr and Mrs Riordan know about it. She tells him that they have a Foxy Glen of their own to play with that they keep locked in their wardrobe. Mr Riordan would like to get Therese’s out and play with it sometimes but Mrs Riordan helps Therese to keep it away from him. He asks will Therese ever forget about it or throw it away when she grows up. The girl says probably not because Therese will always want to have something that she can keep secret from boys and men and tease them about, and anyway she will want to keep it to remind herself of all the happy times she had when she was a girl. He asks whether the boy Silverstone ever saw it if it was such a secret. The girl laughs and says that Silverstone was her boyfriend for a while so she tricked Therese into letting him play with it. He asks where Silverstone went to live after he shifted from 42 Leslie Street. She answers that there’s no hope of Clement finding out about the Foxy Glen from Silverstone because he went to some town away up north from Bassett but his father was always being shifted around and he could be anywhere by now. He asks what Therese would do if a boy like himself did unlock the tin and touch the Foxy Glen. The girl thinks a little, then says that nothing much would happen at first but a boy who discovered it could sneak into Therese’s room whenever he wanted to afterwards and do what he liked there and Therese couldn’t stop him because he knew her greatest secret. Clement asks whether Silverstone did that after he got at the Foxy Glen. The girl says he wouldn’t do it straight away because he wanted to tease and frighten Therese and then suddenly he had to shift from Bassett but he could still come back to live there again one day and then Therese would be in trouble. Outside Riordans’ front gate Augustine tells his son that he doesn’t want to alarm th
e boy but it’s just as well for him to know that things are going so badly at the moment that they might have to think of leaving Bassett and living somewhere far away. Clement looks out from the hill where Riordans’ house stands, past the edge of Bassett towards the country where a boy might wander from house to house in search of a girl who would give in and let him into a side garden or a sleep-out, where the loudest noise all afternoon is the buzzing of a blowfly lost on the wrong side of a pane of glass, as soon as he boasts to her about the Foxy Glen that he saw and explored one day long ago in a shady place in a wide secretive city, hoping all the while that he will be able to explain what he saw in words that will make her turn away at once and go to unlock her own secret things.

  Augustine mixes with Catholic racing men

  On Sunday morning after Mass Augustine finds his racing friends talking and smoking in the shade of a date-palm near the path from the church to the presbytery. Clement knows that they may go on telling each other about yesterday’s races and trots and dogs until long after the next Mass has started inside the church. He moves restlessly around and tries to catch his father’s eye. Augustine tells the men that he’ll be working as an amateur again next week and turning over his wages to the bookmakers. The man named Frank Hehir laughs and asks him why he didn’t dip into the collection plate when it came past him during Mass. Augustine says that with his luck the way it is at present he would have been sure to pull out the dud penny that Frank Hehir had already slipped onto the plate. While everyone laughs, Augustine whispers to Therese Riordan’s father that it’s no joke because he’s really in deep this time. Stan Riordan whispers to him not to worry because there’s got to be a turn in the road soon. Clement leans his weight on his father’s arm and asks will he go over the road and buy the Saturday Sporting Globe. Augustine makes a face that is meant to show the men that he is exasperated with his son but not able to refuse him. He says – yes I suppose you’d better let me read about all my past sins – it might just teach me a lesson. He pulls a ten-shilling note out of his pocket and hands it to his son. The boy then asks in a voice that is meant to sound innocent and girlish – can I buy myself a chocolate malted milk too please Dad? Augustine looks around at the men and says – why not – it’s the bookmakers you’re robbing – not me. Clement hurries to the shop across the road and asks for a chocolate malted milk and a Sporting Globe. While the young woman with her apron over her Sunday Mass clothes is mixing the malted milk, Clement asks her how much that will be. She tells him – a shilling. He answers that he’d better have a sixpenny cake of fruit-and-nut chocolate too. He chews the chocolate two squares at a time on his back teeth while he sucks the cold milk and the gritty sediment of malt through his straw. As he finishes the last of the chocolate his straw makes a roaring noise among the layers of sluggish bubbles at the bottom of the tall metal cup. He stabs the straw into the soft lump of ice-cream that still remains and lifts the blob to his mouth. When he has pricked the last bubble and captured the last droplets of milk from the can, he takes the Sporting Globe and the handful of change back to his father, dropping the chocolate wrapper in the gutter outside the shop. Augustine takes the coins from his son and drops them into a pocket without looking at them. Later, when no one is looking, he slips a finger into his fob pocket and verifies that it is empty of notes. While the others go on talking around him he reminds himself that he has already handed over the week’s house-keeping money to his wife, who is a good manager, that he needs no money for drinking or smoking, that he can ride his bike to work instead of catching the bus and keep the silver in his pocket for a trunk call to Goodchild during the week, and that he will be paid on the coming Friday. A man that Augustine suspects of having a share of the Riordan brothers’ bookmaking business asks Augustine can he look at his Globe for a minute. Augustine hands over the paper and then pulls his own shoulders back with pride to think that the man probably has a roll of tenners in his pocket but is still too mean to pay for his own Sporting Globe. Augustine sees a soft consoling light in the depths of the harsh sky. Something more awesome than the gaze of thousands of spectators focuses on the little bunch of racing men as God records in His infinite memory the value of their separate prayers in the Mass just ended, the sacrifices they made when they dropped their money into the collection plate, their willingness to buy little treats for their children or wives, the cleanliness of their bodies – whether their teeth and fingers are stained with nicotine or their kidneys poisoned with alcohol or their penises scabby from contact with hard-faced women on the nights after their greatest wins, and begins to decide which few of them will draw clear of the others and collect the reward that has long been due to them. Augustine moves a few feet back from the circle of men to let his own distinctive colours stand out even more clearly from those around him. He waits for that sudden insight that tells a rider even two furlongs from the post that his mount is going so well by comparison with the others that this will be his day. He jingles the few coins in his pocket and wishes his son would ask him for another malted milk or a large block of chocolate so that he could pour the handful of coins into the boy’s palm and send him across the street to spend them all, and then go home with not a penny to his name to wait for the sudden reversal that will bring him all the money he deserves. The great jumble of words and thoughts and secret intentions and silent prayers that spill out across the white glare of St Boniface’s churchyard is no more than a dozen or so patterns of colours sent out yet again by their owners in a last bid to get square, and the least movement forwards or backwards of the least-noticed pattern is only the result of some faint tremor in one of the long delicate strands that lead back from every man and every churchyard and every racecourse to God. The long reins grow taut around the Catholic racing men and tug at their most private thoughts and hopes. Augustine waits his turn to join in their conversation again. He checks himself from beating his fists against his chest, which is still radiant from his Holy Name communion, and crying out to them to let him through because he has only a few shillings left in his pocket to last him for five days and yet believes so firmly that all the rolls of notes in their pockets are only lumps of lead to handicap them that he wants to make his run now even this far from home, to dash clear of them all in his colours that announce to the world how badly he needs this victory, and to chase to the very end of the straight the slender thread that trails down towards him from God. Clement drags his feet through the gravel and pulls at his father’s coat. The taste of the malted milk and chocolate is sour and sickly in his mouth. He asks his father when can they go home.

  Augustine tells why the Barretts are unfortunate

  On the way home from church Clement asks his father what is wrong with Mr Barrett. Augustine explains that all the men back in the churchyard are good practising Catholics. Some of them waste their money on the dirty habit of smoking and perhaps one or two of them are a bit too fond of their beer but they are all good husbands and fathers, although Pat Toohey is a bachelor of course, and not one of them has a dirty tongue or would ever be mixed up in anything that was the least bit unclean. It is a privilege for the boy to be allowed to hang around the men while they’re talking and he must never blurt out to anyone else the things they talk about. Poor Mr Barrett was born and brought up a Catholic like all of them and went to school to the nuns but turned his back on his religion and got into bad company when he was young and silly and worst of all got married out of the church which isn’t really a marriage at all as Clement ought to know from his Christian doctrine lessons because no matter what a man says or how much he tries to fool himself he can’t fool God and he’s still a Catholic for all eternity. Of course Mrs Barrett is not a bad sort of woman and their poor children go off to Shepherd’s Reef State School every day and don’t know any better but it’s not their fault and Clement must never breathe a word to little Kelvin Barrett who’s probably just as good a boy in his own way as Clement himself. But Mr Barrett is a wild sort of chap who suffe
rs from gambling the way some people suffer from terrible diseases and can’t help himself. He goes off to Melbourne every single Saturday and leaves his wife and children sometimes with not even enough money for housekeeping and forgets all about them while he’s rushing round the betting ring all day and off to the two-up at night. If there’s a dog meeting on the Monday night he’s just as likely to stay in Melbourne for that too. Nobody knows how he keeps his job or pays his rent. He plays up his winnings and gets a big roll now and then but he never stays in front for long. He is the worst kind of gambler who chases his losses and can’t let a race go without having a bet on it. Whenever Augustine sees him on a racecourse he keeps out of his sight, and Clement must never say anything about racing in front of little Kelvin Barrett.