Common People

by Tony Birch

  Without a hint of emotion she told us that after the football match he’d met up with a group of boys, some he’d been in lock-up with. They’d gone to a hotel and then to a party. Later in the night Liam got into an argument over a girl and ended up fighting in a laneway. The fight was broken up and Liam walked away. He was shot minutes later, receiving one bullet to the side of the head and another in the back as he lay face down in the street. My mother didn’t shed a tear delivering the news, and seemed unable to console the immediate grief of her children.

  In the days and weeks following Liam’s death my mother hardly spoke. She went for long walks alone, sometimes for hours. My father did the cooking and house cleaning for the first time in his life. Margaret stayed home from school to take care of Rose and kept a watchful eye on the rest of us. While I asked Margaret endless questions, Matthew, who would always take after my mother, remained silent in the days between the murder and the funeral. Irene missed Liam terribly and asked me where he’d gone to and when would he return. Some weeks after the funeral I took her by the hand, and with Sally Ann at our side we walked the cold streets until we arrived at the entrance to the narrow street where Liam had been shot. Sally Ann sniffed the air. I pointed to the roadway. ‘Uncle Liam died here. He won’t be coming back. Not ever.’

  I took it upon myself to pay for Sally Ann’s keep from the money I made selling newspapers after school. I didn’t mind. I loved the dog as much as anyone in the family, and caring for her kept me as close as I could be to Liam. But Sally Ann changed after Liam’s death. She became an angry dog. A debt collector turned up at the front door one afternoon demanding the money we owed on our time-payment television set. He yelled at my mother and she yelled back at him. He made the mistake of putting a foot in the door. Alerted by the ruckus, Sally Ann barrelled past my mother and clamped her jaws around the debt collector’s calf. He retreated, leaving a bloody trail on the footpath. A week later he returned and handed my mother a bill for the ‘invisible mending’ needed to repair the tear in his suit pants. They argued again and Sally Ann bit him a second time.

  The following day a policeman turned up at the house riding a black bicycle. He picked up a broom in the yard and chased Sally Ann with it, waving the stick above his head. She circled him, barking savagely. Eventually he backed her into a corner, broke the broom handle across her back and proceeded to give her what my father would have called a good kicking.

  Poor Sally Ann was stubborn when it came to authority. Only two days later I was coming home from the flat with Sally Ann at my side. It was getting dark, I was late and began running. We turned the corner into our street and crashed into a Salvation Army major, bowling him over. He’d been handing out prayer cards and collecting donations. He got to his feet, brushed the knees of his pants and barked at me to watch where I was going and to restrain my dog. Sally Ann whined and skipped nervously from left to right before leaping at him and taking a chunk of flesh out of his arm. Then she turned and bolted for home.

  It didn’t take long for the police to come back to the house with a piece of paper granting them authority to take Sally Ann away. They came in a van with a locked cage and carried a large net. She put up a good fight, barking, snapping and tearing at the net with her claws but she soon collapsed with exhaustion and was finally captured. I went to the back of the van, where Sally Ann had her snout pressed against the wire cage. She licked my fingertips. A policeman driving the van hit the car horn and warned us to step away. We stood in the middle of the road until the van had turned the corner at the top of the street. That night I asked my mother where Sally Ann had been taken to.

  ‘She won’t be coming back,’ she said, coldly. ‘Sally Ann needs more space to run around. She’s off to a farm where she’ll be happy.’

  I didn’t believe her and said so. ‘That’s not true. The police would not be here with a net if she was going to a farm. And you didn’t ask for permission from me. Sally Ann is my dog, and Liam’s dog, and you didn’t ask.’ I burst into tears. ‘You’re lying to me.’

  My mother, who had still shown no emotion over her young brother’s violent death, grabbed me by the throat and slapped me around the head with her free hand. ‘Don’t you call me a liar,’ she screamed. She continued hitting me until I broke away and ran into the yard.

  That night, when my father asked where the dog was, my mother handed him a piece of paper the policeman had given her. He read it, stood up from the table and walked out of the house into the street. I cleared the table and helped Matthew do the dishes. Irene and Margaret dried up and put the dishes away. No one spoke. With the kitchen clean, I went out into the street to see what was keeping my father busy. He’d dragged a chair from the verandah onto the footpath and was sitting quietly, the offending piece of paper in one hand – a receipt for a dead dog. I sat down on the footpath alongside him. I heard a police siren off in the distance and the sound of a barking dog in the next street. A second dog joined in, followed by others across the neighbourhood, roused to anger.

  PAINTED GLASS

  Each Friday morning Tom caught the train to Parliament station and walked through the Fitzroy Gardens to the psychologist’s office. While the sessions themselves had been confronting, he enjoyed the walk. The air appeared to freshen once he entered the park and walked past the old mountain ash he’d been familiar with from when he was a child. When he reached the model Tudor Village in the hollow at the centre of the park, Tom would stop, lean over the low fence and cast an eye over the miniature replica houses. As a boy Tom had visited the park often and would circle the perimeter of the village, pursued by his sister, Bec, older by two years. They each had their favourite building, Tom preferring the mill house beside the stream and Bec the farmhouse on the outskirts of the village. She assured her brother that one day she would live on a farm just like this one, where she would raise animals of her own. Bec had once dared Tom to raid the village and with a mischievous grin he had climbed the fence. By the time their mother realised what was happening and called to him to get out, Tom was laying in the grass, peering through a window into the bakery. For a few minutes a slightly built boy had been transformed into a giant.

  Leaving the park, Tom would cross Punt Road into Richmond and make his way along a narrow street dominated by nineteenth-century terraces, each of them occupied by one medical specialist or another. Tom thought back to the first morning he had knocked at the psychologist’s door and was ushered into the waiting room by a young receptionist. The building, although recently renovated, carried the scent of its past, a concoction of coal dust laced with rising damp. He imagined the ghosts of the house hovering in its recesses.

  Taking a seat in the waiting room, Tom had opened a newspaper and pretended to read it, while closely watching a woman sitting opposite. She was a nondescript-looking person, younger than him by at least a decade, and soberly dressed in a suit. He wondered if she was making similar observations about him, speculating over the reasons for his visit. The woman stood up and quickly left the room, in a state of distress; a change of mind, Tom wondered? The receptionist looked up from her desk briefly before returning to the computer screen. A few minutes later she called him into the psychologist’s room, where Tom was invited to sit in an armchair. He smiled nervously at the man on the other side of the desk. Were the psychologist’s life story ever made into a movie, Tom thought, the man would surely play himself. His mop of silver hair was parted down the centre, he wore a pair of round-framed glasses perched on the edge of his beak-like nose, a bow-tie under his shirt collar and a three-piece tweed suit.

  That first session had begun with Tom explaining the circumstance that led to his breakdown. He was not the only journalist who’d been let go by the newspaper. Sixty staff members had received redundancy notices on the same day, some of them senior editors. In the compulsory exit interview he’d been reassured that the circumstances of his dismissal were a macro issue and that he sh
ouldn’t feel personally inadequate.

  ‘What did you feel, after the exit interview?’ the psychologist asked.

  ‘Nothing really,’ Tom shrugged, ‘I felt numb. I went home, told my wife, Martha, that I had the flu, and went to bed. For a week.’

  ‘And then a month or so later you drove to the coast. Why?’

  ‘Well,’ Tom frowned, seriously considering the question for the first time since the accident. ‘I’d been down that way when I was younger, in the first year of high school. A boy in my year, I didn’t know him well at the time, he invited me to stay at his parents’ beach house. I was surprised.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘It’s possible that he liked you?’ the psychologist asked. ‘Did you consider that?’

  ‘Not at the time, no. I kept to myself at school. I do remember wondering why he hadn’t asked someone else.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the holiday?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’d never seen the sea. We slept in a bungalow in the backyard and I lay in a bunk on the first night listening to the waves. Early the next morning we walked to the beach.’ Tom pressed a thumb and finger to his eyeballs. The psychologist sat quietly and waited for him to continue. ‘I had no idea what to expect, but was surprised by how beautiful it was.’

  ‘What did you see that morning?’

  ‘Well, the waves were ferocious. They grew louder as we came over a sand dune above the beach. I was disappointed at first, when my friend told me it was too dangerous to go into the ocean. I had no idea what we would do there. Until I saw the rock pools along the edge of the beach, full of shells and small fish and straps of seaweed. The sun was warm and we swam from pool to pool.’

  ‘How did you feel? Do you remember?’

  ‘I felt so happy. And … I know it makes no sense, but even though I was only twelve years old and I’d never visited the sea before, I felt like I belonged there. I never forgot it. I often dreamed about the visit after that weekend …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘What motivated you to drive to the same beach after all this time?’

  ‘It sounds strange, but I’m not sure. I hadn’t moved further than from the bed to the couch for a couple of weeks and my wife was worried about me. Before she left for work that morning she asked me to drive across the city and collect a parcel for her at the freight terminal near the docks. A gift from her sister, who lives in Canada. Martha could have asked the company to deliver but she was trying to help, to get me moving again.’

  Tom took a deep breath and listened to a bird squawking on a low branch of a tree outside the window.

  ‘I drove out of the freight terminal and got stuck behind a truck. I looked up at a road sign. A left turn would have taken me home, the opposite direction headed to the coast. Without thinking too much about it I turned right and didn’t stop driving until I’d parked the car above the rock pools I’d swum in as a kid.’

  ‘And what did you do there?’

  ‘Well, it was very cold. The wind was coming off the ocean and I didn’t have a coat. I walked down to the first rock pool. It was the same one I’d swum in as a kid. I was a little shocked, but pleased as well, that it was just as I’d remembered it. After all the years away it seemed so familiar to me, although I’d only been to the rock pool that one time. Pretty soon, I forgot about the weather and explored the beach, just as I had thirty years earlier.’

  The psychologist brought his hands together. ‘How was it?’

  ‘As I had imagined and dreamed. It was beautiful.’

  ‘What else did you do?’

  ‘I left the rock pools, walked further along the beach and came across a sign with information about a breed of bird that nests at the base of the dunes. Arctic Terns. They’re quite small and yet they fly here from the northern hemisphere each year. I’ve read more about them since. They have a memory map within the brain directing them to the same nest each year. They’re also very loyal. A pair of birds will mate for life.’

  ‘What do you think caused the car accident?’

  Tom shifted nervously in his chair.

  ‘I suddenly felt heavy and could hardly walk. It’s hard to explain, but in my body, I felt weighted down. I don’t know how long I was there. Before I knew it I was shivering again. I hadn’t realised it was raining and my shirt was soaked through. I tried running along the beach, back to the car, but couldn’t do it. I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. When I got in the car I panicked. I was desperate to get home. That’s the last thing I remember. I woke in the hospital and the nurse told me I had run into the back of a truck on the highway.’

  The psychologist rested the palms of his hands on the desk. ‘Do you believe it was an accident?’

  ‘I’m sure that it was. I don’t know what caused it, but I must have blacked out somehow. Like I said, I was exhausted.’

  ‘Why do you think that your doctor referred you to me?’

  Tom looked up at a damp patch in a corner of the ceiling. ‘She thinks it will help me to talk with someone. A professional.’

  ‘Do you think she’s right?’

  The psychologist’s directness annoyed Tom. He hadn’t expected to be put on the spot. ‘I have no idea. You’d know better than me.’

  The psychologist knew of Tom’s reputation as a journalist and that he was an award-winning writer. ‘You were obviously angry about losing your job.’

  ‘I was very angry. And I felt worthless.’

  ‘Do you still feel that way?’

  Tom hesitated. He considered an evasive answer but changed his mind. ‘Yes, I’m still angry. Maybe more than I was the day it happened.’

  ‘Well, you are entitled to be angry. That’s normal, too. We need to find a way to manage these feelings, so they don’t harm you. But worthless? You’re not, Tom. None of us are.’

  When Tom’s doctor had referred him to the psychologist she’d suggested a twelve-week program. He arrived for his final appointment, greeted by the now familiar scent of the building. The receptionist welcomed him with the same formality as his first visit, and Tom took his seat across from the psychologist with a feeling of ease. Towards the end of the session he was asked how he now felt about himself in relation to work and family.

  ‘Well, when I see my wife leaving for the office of a morning, and I have no work to go to, it doesn’t feel good. I wonder what my kids think of me, to be honest.’

  ‘I asked you some weeks ago if you believe that your children love you. Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom answered with a smile that came as a surprise.

  ‘Well, don’t worry too much about what they think then. Most children are as resilient as they are thoughtful. And how do you feel about what happened to you, at the newspaper?’

  Tom opened his hands and studied them as he considered the question. ‘I ran into a journo mate last week, in the supermarket of all places. I was at the end of one of the aisles when I saw her. We had worked on the night desk together, years ago. I thought of hiding from her. How silly is that?’

  ‘Why hide?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to go through the embarrassment of explaining myself, that I’d been sacked. She saw me first, came over and we talked.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Well,’ Tom hesitated. ‘She told me I was the best colleague she’d ever worked with. She said I was terrific at my job and always supportive of her.’

  The psychologist sat back in his chair and lifted his chin.

  ‘How did it make you feel?’

  ‘I felt good,’ Tom said.

  The psychologist reminded Tom that they were coming to the end of their final session. As he spoke, Tom began to feel a little anxious.

  ‘We don’t have to stop here,’ the psychologist added. ‘It’s up to you, Tom. I’d be happy to go on
working with you. What do you think?’

  ‘That would be good,’ Tom said, with a sense of relief. ‘I’d like that.’

  They stood and Tom awkwardly stuck out a hand. The psychologist shook it. Although the gesture was formal it appeared to relax both men. The psychologist loosened his bow-tie and undid the top button of his shirt.

  ‘Apart from your family, what other things do you like to do to relax, Tom? Hobbies?’

  ‘I’ve always been a reader. And there’s the writing of course. Although it’s work, it does relax me. I haven’t been able to get back to it since I was laid off. I don’t have anyone to write for, I suppose.’

  The psychologist walked with Tom to the door. ‘When I’m stressed, I like to look at art.’

  ‘Art?’

  ‘Yes. I find it contemplative, standing in front of a painting or sculpture. It might help you, with the writing as well as the relaxation, engaging with creativity. Do you spend time at galleries?’

  ‘Not really. I was always too busy.’

  ‘You’re not too busy now.’

  A thought came to Tom, one he would have kept to himself in the past. ‘I used to draw when I was a boy. I kept a sketch book and drew in pencil and charcoal.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I did. And then I got a poor school report one term, and my father was so angry he told me I needed to concentrate more. He took the art book and pencils away from me.’

  The psychologist smiled faintly at Tom, but did not respond, filing the anecdote away for a future conversation.

  Tom walked through the gardens, surprised that the mention of art had reminded him of the drawings of trees and animals he’d once filled his art book with. He’d copied the animals from pictures in a world atlas he’d been given by his parents as a birthday gift. His father had expected he’d learn something from the commentary attached to the pictures, rather than waste his time sketching them.