If I stay still, if I don’t acknowledge her, she might come back to check on me. She might at least run her palm down the side of my cheek and say she’s sorry we haven’t had time for a nice chat today. Her doing that would give me a chance to turn and face her in eye-linger position and reach out my hand and touch her cheek and not take my hand away but leave it there for as long as the eye-linger lasts or I hear the clip-clip of someone’s shoes on the floorboards leading to the kitchen.
Genevieve stands in the doorway. “I said your folks are heading off.” I nod that I heard her. “Is everything all right sweetie?” She moves my way. She’s here, she’s back with me. Her long warm hand rests against my arm skin. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
I take a step closer to her. A frown has puckered her green eyes, puckered her brow. She applies the backs of her fingers to my forehead. “You’re sweating. You’re all clammy.” She takes my hand in hers. “And look at you sweetie. You’re shaking,” she says worriedly. She feels the temperature on my cheeks, one cheek then the other. There is no eye-linger from her but I touch her face anyway, my palm exploring her jaw, the soft give in the skin on the side of her neck. I keep my hand there though her frown has reversed. The flesh has been pulled tight into lines down her face beside her gaping mouth, her globe eyes. She snaps her hands to her sides. She cranes out of my reach. She walks briskly out of the kitchen. Blood drums so hard in my ears I can barely hear Heels calling for me. She’s calling for me to come home.
Genevieve won’t look at me. I’m about to leave but there’s no goodbye peck, no wave, not even a glance. I want to say sorry to her in some way but how can I if she refuses to look at me!
HEELS USES “HOI POLLOI” INCORRECTLY. I’ve looked up the definition and it clearly states that it’s of Greek origin and means The Common People, not the upper crust as she uses it. Nonsense, she argues. We’re not in Greece, we’re in Australia, and here the hoi polloi are the hoi polloi, everybody knows that. When she says hoi polloi she flicks the end of her nose to mean the hoi polloi have their noses in the air. She shakes her head in a spasm of exasperation. “I hate to think of the money we spend sending you to a toff school and you get that wrong.”
She concedes that her hoi polloi, the crowd she mixes with, the Genevieves, the Aunty Dorothys, is the second rung down. She admits the ones I mix with at that school of mine are the real hoi polloi, on another rung altogether. But I’m not to forget who put me in that position—she did, and Winks did. “You remember that,” she says. “Don’t you forget it.”
She hopes my kind of hoi polloi aren’t as disappointing as her kind. Her kind have begun taking themselves far too seriously for her tastes. Take that so-called party yesterday at Genevieve’s. Where was the pleasure in that? One doesn’t invite people to a party and then allow a guest to go to water and dominate proceedings with an endless display of the crybabies. “My glass stayed empty for almost an hour. And did we see a skerrick of food? Not a crust. Not a morsel.” But most insulting of all in her opinion was the farewell. What kind of goodbye did we receive? None. Not so much as a handshake let alone a thanks for coming and a kiss. “She couldn’t get rid of us quick enough, that Genevieve,” pouts Heels. “Have you ever seen anything so rude?” she asks Winks. He replies that if Heels feels it was rude then he’ll just go along with her view of proceedings, he has no firm opinion one way or the other.
“I don’t know what we did to deserve that snub. Have you any idea?” she asks Winks. No, he shrugs. “Have you any idea?” she asks me. “You and her were having a right old confab in the kitchen. She didn’t let on why?” No, I reply. “It’s a mystery,” Heels sneers. “You know what I think?” she continues. I hold my breath for an accusation, for a “Who do you think you are? Casanova?” Or a “Here he is, the Romeo for the over-forties.” Heels sneers again: “I think I know exactly what’s happened. I think she’s crossed us off her list. I think she’s decided we’re not good enough for her. That’s what I think. Not good enough even for the second rung down. Not so much as a phone call from the bitch. I’m not calling her. I’ve got my pride. Though I’ve got a good mind to ring her and give her a piece of my mind.”
Winks wonders if now might be a good time to part the curtains and let the sunshine in. We can’t keep having closed curtains on such beautiful days. But Heels is adamant, defi-nitely no drawing of the curtains she yells. She can’t bear that death-place down there. That stupid, stupid boy doing that stupid, stupid thing ensuring her special view of the water can no longer comfort her and be a pleasure for her. Winks reckons she needs a breakfast jolly-up. She agrees, resting her forehead on her palm. Yes, she’ll feel better after a wine-orange jolly-up that makes her happy instantly. Why, a few of these and she might want those curtains drawn after all, says Winks cheerfully. He places a glass in her fingertips. She sips and sighs, reclines in her chair, closes her eyes and mutters that she might as well be back in New Zealand among horis for all the second rung offers her. At least you knew who your enemies were instead of making friends with people who then turn on you and cross you off their list. The second rung hoi polloi think they’re so special, but what about that woman who comes into our liquor store all got up in mink and slips Black Label into her pockets. No better than a dolled-up common criminal. Heels juts and scratches her chair’s suede upholstery with her free hand. She spits on the floor hatefully without actually spitting. She tilts the glass to her mouth till it’s empty and holds it towards Winks for filling, please. Winks says he’d be happy to.
Heels wants me to tell her about the real hoi polloi. The real, genuine article. She sips from her second glassful and is tranquilising into a smiler and sigher. I, her son, rub shoulders with the genuine article every day of the week. I look so lovely in my uniform when I’m catching the bus to the Mansions on the hill. When she sees me she thinks to herself how far she has come in life. “Tell me what the genuine article are like.”
I don’t know, I answer. I merely sit beside them in class. I don’t fit into the bush tribe. I don’t fit into the Jew tribe, or any other tribe for that matter. I merely go to school and come home and don’t fit in with the genuine article.
“But aren’t you going out tonight with a group of them?”
Yes, with the surfie tribe. I’m going to see the movie of Shakespeare’s Macbeth because we’re studying it for English. I understand about the old-style way of the language. The surfie tribe doesn’t understand a word. As the movie goes along I’m to translate it for them.
“What’s it about, this movie?” she smiles.
“It’s about the futility of living and ambition gone wrong,”
I say.
“Sounds dreadful. Not my cup of tea at all. But at least you’re going to the movie with some nice friends from the genuine article. You fit in after all by the sounds of it.”
I’d have to peroxide my hair to fit in with the surfie tribe. I’d have to learn to surf and have blue eyes and sun-dark skin. I’d have to learn to steal from shops like they do: bags of chips, chocolates, cigarettes, cigarette lighters. I’d have to creep out of the house at night and try to gain admission to the Sheaf or Royal Oak in Double Bay, and when they won’t let me in I’d have to go into the carpark and snap off all the car aerials. And when I got caught, they, Heels and Winks, my parents, would have to pay for the damage. They may even have to bribe the police to keep it out of court.
Heels will not have me talk such nonsense. She’s given me the best in life and what do I do? I throw it back in her face by speaking such negative nonsense to spite her no doubt. No doubt I do it to spoil the image she has in her head of the genuine article, she’s certain of it. It’s not nonsense, I tell her, but she doesn’t want to hear my sordid tales. Winks insists I say I’m sorry and promise not to get Heels worked up the way I do with my car aerial talk and police talk and what have you. He pours her another jolly-up and asks if she’s ready to draw the curtains.
“Not yet,” she sn
aps. “I’ll face the world when I’m ready and not before. It’s not every day you get crossed off the list by the second rung.”
THE SURFIE TRIBE DOESN’T KNOW HOW it’s going to sit through this movie, this Macbeth. They want to pay an adult, a stranger, to buy them grog from a hotel. They’ll drink it in the cinema, or better yet they won’t go to the cinema in the first place, for this won’t be like going to the normal movies. It’ll be like going to class.
They must always be moving, the surfie tribe. Movement always. Daytimes they find surf where there’s no ocean. In the streets there are lawns for a beach, transparent arcs of sprinkler water to squat through on skateboards on concrete waves. There are cracked pavements to paddle down with a slapping foot. But night-times they run to street corners, racing when walking would do. Tonight they push and shove each other into headlocks and spitting. They speak the conversational fucks and cunts and shits of their simple play-anger language. They’ve broken their names in half into affectionate stub names. Or they’ve lengthened them by a “sie” on the end to brand each other for their tribe, their “us”—Oggs, Polsie, Jonesie, Coops. They pretend to hide in doorways off Pitt Street like burglars removing their masks. Forget the movie. There are rat-scrapes up narrow alleys, black alleys more like caves you can’t see into. There are clattering noises they dare each other to surprise with rushing, stomping, yelling, a kick of rubbish cans. Find a rock someone and bomb the back windows of offices. Follow that lady in a short dress from the strip-club and offer to leave her alone for a feel between her legs.
Shut up and listen. Can you hear that? Can you hear a voice, a human voice up there in the blackness in the alley? “You check,” Oggs tells Jonesie, nudging him in the back. “You do it yourself,” Jonesie replies. “Let him do it. Let him do it,” says Jonesie urging me to go forward towards the voice. The streetlight throws yellow only so far. It’s impossible to see past the yellow into the black except for a few beret-lids of the rubbish. A man is in there somewhere. He’s cough-singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. The tune is recognisable though the words themselves trail off to forgetful dum-de-dums.
“Go tell him to shut up,” Jonesie says to me. The rest of the surfie tribe agrees that that’s what should be done. Someone should go in there and tell him to shut up. Do it for fun. I should be the one to go in, the translator man. But why? I ask. “Because.” They say no more than “because” as if the reason’s too obvious for explanation. “Why?” I say again. Jone-sie says it’s because the old dero’s an old dero and we can so we should. Polsie yells into the dark: “Shut up you old cunt.” But the singer doesn’t let up with his Irish Eyes. “I said shut the fuck up you old cunt,” Polsie yells again.
They shove me forward. I take a few steps out of the yellow towards the singer then turn around, turn back. Polsie is waving me to get going and see if the dero has any money on him. He might have some money and if he does then we’re entitled to it by rights of, well, we’re here in numbers and he’s just an old dero who’d piss it away anyway.
I don’t move. The surfie tribe sneers that I’m a fucking coward. If I had any guts I’d go see if the old cunt had any money. I say that he’s just a useless old cunt so let’s just forget about him, leave him to his bottle. The surf tribers call me a coward again. A fucking chickenshit coward. They say the dero’s so drunk he wouldn’t be able to stop me taking his money. Suddenly Polsie pushes past me calling me a chicken-shit coward. He crosses from the yellow to the black and disappears into the alley-cave. The rest of the surfie tribers cross into the black to follow and see what he’s going to do. I cross into there too.
My eyes adjust and I make out a human silhouette: the dero wrapped in an ankle-length coat like a blanket, a tent of cardboard over his legs and stomach. He’s lying across the alley with his bushy head kinked against the wall. A thud, a flat beach-ball thud of Polsie kicking the cardboard. Now he’s bent forward, legs spread as if making a cricket appeal for Out directly into the dero’s face. He chants mocking laughter at the dero: “Ha, ha, fucking, ha …” The dero wakes from his song and pulls his knees under himself for protection because Polsie is kicking his shins. The surfie tribers are laughing and turning their heads away because they know they shouldn’t look even though they want to. I too look away. If I laugh now I’ll be confirmed as worthy of this tribe. The tribe is waiting for me to laugh with them and belong to the transgression. But I already belong to the transgression. I haven’t said anything to stop it and therefore I belong. The tribers want more. They slap my back and push me playfully with their forearms to get me to laugh and take Polsie’s kicking and chanting in good humour. I laugh. A forced, false laugh, but a laugh all the same. That makes the tribers nod and put their arms around each other’s shoulders, and my shoulders.
I’m included. I resist being included: I don’t raise my arms to their shoulders. But there’s no denying I feel privileged at this moment to be included in this wrap of arms despite what is happening in front of me, the thing I know is wrong but do nothing to stop. I should unwrap myself. Fine words should be forming in me, a speech to confront the surfie tribers, silence them into guilt. “That could be our fathers,” I want to say, but I don’t want to sound weak and have the tribers’ mouths fart ridicule at me and the notion that their fathers would ever be deros.
Polsie groans and cries out “Fuck.” The dero has kicked him, flung a bottle at him. The dero is yelling for his cardboard to be left alone. Polsie has fallen over, shocked at the retaliation. The surfie tribers stop laughing. They want to help Polsie but are frightened to go closer to the dero who now gathers the cardboard around himself like a prized possession. Polsie grabs the edge of the cardboard and tears a piece off. The dero keeps gathering it up though Polsie rips more pieces. Oggs tells Polsie to leave the dero and come away with us but Polsie ignores him and kicks at the dero, kicks at the cardboard. Jonesie and Oggs each take a side of him and pull him out of the alley into the yellow glow and the passing headlight beams of the night’s traffic. Oggs thinks the dero’s following us so we run up Park Street towards Hyde Park, glancing behind in case the dero’s there. He isn’t there. At the park we bend over for breath and Polsie jigs on the spot exhilarated as if he’s just won at sport. “I got his cardboard. Did you see? I got his fucking cardboard.” He wolf-howls to the world triumphantly. The surfie tribers wolf-howl with him. “Fuck that was good,” Polsie pants, then wolf-howls again.
I say goodbye, I’m going to the Macbeth movie. They say not to go to a boring old movie, go with them.
“Where?”
“We’ll have another crack at the dero,” Polsie jigs.
I twist out of their wrap of arms and leave. The surfie tribers take turns to tell me to “Fuck off, translator man.
You’re gutless.”
Most scenes in Macbeth remind me of the dero. Duncan was king but that didn’t protect him from the Macbeth tribe. The dero was a king in his way, king of his domain, his alley. Cardboard for a castle. I name him Duncan. When Lady Macbeth finds blood on her hands, the phantom blood of guilt—“Out, damned spot!”—I squeeze my hands together and wipe them on my knees.
Is there a church open at this hour? Somewhere to pray for forgiveness and make my slate clean, a holy bird-bath to wash the stain from my hands. Even if there were, God’s easy forgiveness is easily betrayed, and therefore worthless.
Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on this petty pace, says Macbeth, but tomorrow I could go find the dero, Duncan. I will. I’ll take the money I’ve saved that’s stuck behind my bedhead. I’ll give it to Duncan. It’s dirty money anyway—fifty dollars stolen from Winks’ suit; ten dollars for being a pickpocket’s delivery boy. Five dollars in chickenfeed cellotaped coin by coin. A sixty-five-dollar apology to Duncan, one he can hold and count, eat and drink with.
Next morning I get out of bed at six and take the early-bird bus into the city. I walk up Park Street to find Duncan’s alley. Even if it means being late for school I’
ll find the right alley, the cardboard castle, and Duncan himself rugged in his coat, asleep. I’ll wake him with my gift, my apology. If he flinches from me, frightened, I’ll reassure him I’m here to make amends for the surfie tribe and my own part in last night’s episode.
Duncan’s not here. I stand in the alley—I’m certain this is the right alley. The remnants of a crumpled cardboard shelter lie in a doorway. The streetlight is positioned at the alley entrance as I remember it. The rubbish bins have been emptied, their lids tossed aside, but there seems the same number of them as last night. Yes, this is the right alley. I wait for five minutes but Duncan doesn’t appear. A man in a white chef uniform, his apron smeared in kitchen wipings, steps from a door for a smoke. I ask if he’s seen Duncan, a down-on-his-luck type of fellow with a big coat and whiskers. I say this is Duncan’s alley at night. The chef sneers that he’s seen dozens of him. He flicks his cigarette, half-smoked, into the air and goes inside. Streams and cross-currents of crowds dressed in their morning best flood the footpaths, veer into offices. School will have started by now. My name will have been called by Mr Vella for French. He’ll mark my absence with red.
I search the north end of Hyde Park in case Duncan is bundled on a bench, sleeping, watching. Then the south end. A barefoot woman, black soles, black toes with nails like hooks, sleeps on one bench with a grimy shopping bag of her things for a pillow. I ask her if she has seen someone fitting Duncan’s description. She stares blankly into the grass as if asleep with her eyes open.
In the alley a truck has backed up to a door to deliver toilet paper and serviettes. I upturn a milk crate, sit, wait. I stand, walk the streets to find other alleys, but Duncan is in none of them. I return to the milk crate.
Hoi Polloi Page 16
