Just Relations

by Rodney Hall

  – Mr Whitey’s house.

  They all knew Tom Whitey. He had died only two years previously. Persecuted by trivial signs of indifference, dictatorial towards the young, discoverer of the waterfall, visionary who planned a whole city and an aqueduct to supply it with fresh water, he was the man a town had been named after: how often do you meet such a person.

  Some furniture survived, gaping at the joints. An iron mangle rusted over a washtub; underneath, the owner had propped one panel of a red lacquered screen pilfered from the Cinese joss-house. A clock eaten by verdigris declared a permanent amnesty at two forty-four from the mantelpiece. While in the fireplace itself the young treetrunk grew up into the black hole of the chimney. A dismantled bed, stacked against one wall, began its seventy-eighth year of awaited removal to the new house. Maggot Buddall picked up one of its rails, a hefty lump of metal, and swung it for the sake of swinging it, hard against the wall, thud into the thick off-cut timbers, knocking a grey slab loose. That made him feel good, he’d done something to satisfy the anger under his cheerfulness. Why not? Even the brim of his hat trembled with discovery, his red hair thrilled electric. No one spoke a word. The place had come alive at the touch of violence. Lance took up the other rail and with his superior strength smashed the next timber clean off at a single blow. Billy brought in a lump of granite to hurl at the clock which flattened with a pop like a burst paperbag. The twins pulled off their shirts and swung agilely up to the ceiling and out on to the remaining roof where they began ripping the iron loose. Tony had hold of the mangle which he wrenched from its mounting and used to batter down the doorposts, each tremendous blow booming from all parts of the buildings. The place creaked and yawed to the accompaniment of protesting howls from those inside and on top who suddenly found themselves in danger. Billy hauled the last remaining window off its hinges and threw it down with a fine clash of glass. This was a game, a heady game. Lance and Maggot worked as partners, belting out the wallslabs one after another, taking turns and developing a rhythm wak wok-wak wok-wak wok. The twins strained at dislodging a rafter, their young bodies glittering with rain. Competition ran fierce, at every success they’d utter a jubilant wahoo. Sheets of roofing sailed down among splintered timbers. Billy levered up the tallow-wood threshold and used it to sledgehammer the lower part of the chimney. As their excitement verged on frenzy they threw away their tools and worked with hands and feet, rending and kicking, revelling in the physical effort, the pain, drunk on the narcissism of destroyers, flaying the building with bruised flesh, Viking flames among the monasteries, wooden saints and the virgin falling like King Charles’s head, Ned Kelly’s hideout, down it must come. The chimney collapsed round the trunk of the smoke-tree leaving it naked and pale. The entire frame now leaned so dangerously the catlike men on top leapt to safety. The final assault was launched, hands bleeding. They wrenched and shook the ruin. So intense was their excitement when the house sank camel-fashion one end first then the other, they cheered and danced together, stamping on the fallen victim, liberated from restraint, pounded Mr Whitey’s handiwork flat among the weeds of its own simple floor. This was good, purging the darkness of the mines for some, purging the light for others. Leaping and prancing, veins swollen, nostrils flared, their bodies sang. By christ they were going to miss one another. Then they realized Lance was sprawled to one side, rolling on the dirt screaming out, not in hysteria but in agony, a heavy cornerpost pinning his leg. He struggled to shift it. Billy also heaved at it but one end was jammed under the weight of the fallen roof. Lance shouted incoherently, frantic with pain, pleading, sobbing. It was Tony, wrenching at the post with all his strength, who finally released the injured leg.

  – Don’t touch it, said Dave. I know what to do. We’ve got to get the boot off without shifting his foot. It wants a razorblade to cut through the laces.

  – My new knife, Lance gasped. It’s very sharp. In the front pocket of my pack.

  They tipped the pack upside down, sniggering at a dog-eared Playboy in the bottom. But there was no knife. Maggot was particularly definite about this. The victim lay contorted and afraid of the consequences of moving. Tony found some aspirins and gave him a handful with the dregs of the rum to help his pain. Lance became almost as distressed about his missing knife as about his damaged leg. Bill took charge and ordered all packs and pockets to be emptied to find the most suitable tool for the job. The twins set about this with the enthusiasm of customs officials. Too late for Maggot to dive in and save the privacy of his guilt. They rummaged in his belongings and came up with a flashy sheath-knife.

  A currawong sang through the silence. Dust still hung in the air round the fallen house. Lance’s voice sounded harsh and more mature than ever before.

  – I’m glad it’s not lost. Who’s going to do the dirty work?

  – Jesus Maggot, Bill complained. Are you still at it? Why the fuck don’t you wake up to yourself?

  Dave sliced the laces expertly, opened out the boot and slipped it off. The foot seemed undamaged after all. He slit the seam of the injured man’s jeans and laid bare the brown leg already bruised and swollen where the bone was broken.

  – That’s it then, said Dave. But how do we get him on to the truck?

  – Lift him up on to his good leg, Tony suggested. And I’ll carry him from there on my back.

  Maggot the thief was entrusted with re-packing all the bags and took charge of the laceless boot. The twins went ahead to clear a space on the Bedford and make a bed of sleepingbags. Tony took the weight, a curious joy filling him. His superior strength was in kindness not combat. Lance’s arms around his neck, that large handsome body lolled hot and helpless on his own. Bowed down but triumphant, he edged up the embankment to the vehicle. Lance hissed with pain at each step, the puffs of breath hot in Tony’s ear. Even as he strained to be gentle, Tony was conquering his rival with flashes of anguish.

  By the time Lance had been installed as comfortably as possible, half the morning was gone. The Golden Fleece forgotten, the journey home would be difficult. They stretched a tarpaulin for a tent over the injured man as the mountain drew heavy rain from the white air. Already the track had turned into twin runnels of clay-water trapping the wheels to lurch first into one rut, then along the other. The earth gave out its glorious wet smell for purposes not guessed at. Frequently they had to stop to unload the chainsaw and cut through trees fallen across the way and rotting there, moss-covered. All about them water poured down gullies and into holes, dripping, gurgling. Abandoned automobiles stood rusted into the landscape, empty windows and stripped axles an omen. One ridiculous wreck sat dignified and upright, a chassis with steering column, still sporting a white wheel-cover. Lance lay groaning freely in the back, so private he could weep for his beautiful, broken body, because the others had taken to walking ahead of the Bedford, clearing the way. Rain soaked in round their collars, dripping off eyebrows, squelching in boots. They bowed and crawled for the truck, scrambling among stones and dirt, slaves smoothing a path for a cripplingly lavish chariot. Rain under their arms and down their tender sides. So as descendants of slaves they knew how to be slaves, without rehearsal they had every cringing gesture exact, every envious look and rebellious surge of anger and helplessness. Yes, they were ready for the cities and careers. The Golden Fleece forgotten, already a myth. Bill Swan sat erect and vigilant high above them behind a shimmering glass screen, taking to himself the manner of rulers as his hands controlled those tons of steel, at his will the motor roared like a crowd sending echoes out across the immense valley, given the sovereign privileges of dryness and power he was carried along the path their bruised hands cleared for him; and at his shoulder, the sobs of the giant in his custody.

  – Why the fuck don’t you give someone else a go at driving, a voice complained anonymously from among the sodden bent figures.

  – Keep working, Billy shouted joyously. Or I’ll run you bastards down!

  – You would too, the dissident Maggot commented, ha
lf-serious, and Peter slapped him on the back to signal that he was forgiven all else.

  Lance lay joggling in the back on his bed of sleepingbags, absorbed, become a bloodfilled balloon of pain, preoccupied with remaining passive, words too much trouble to form when anybody spoke to him. Even so, once the time came to call a break for lunch, the boys were cheerful, sheltered under an overhanging slab of rock. They passed round hot tea, fruit and hunks of bread. Not so bad then, the morning could be looked at as an achievement. The truck this far down the track, there was a limit to the suffering. Used to hard labour, they soon recovered their strength and were eager to be off. Bill, alone, being reluctant. Apparently safe in his high cab, he knew the lonely burden of authority, anxiously watching the fuel gauge. The journey wasn’t all downhill, the motor had to be driven hard to pull clear of boggy patches and sudden rises, the heavy going used more petrol than anybody foresaw. Periodically they had to stop to let the engine cool and refill the radiator from the many cascades frothing down the cliff faces. Wollongong’s going to be bloody lovely after this, Maggot the optimist promised himself.

  So the young men from Whitey’s Fall, heroes of the Golden Fleece prospecting expedition, looked only a yard ahead, lashed at the scrub, reconstructed the track where they had to, hands crusted with blood from demolishing the empty house. Nothing mattered but this stone or that log as they stooped and slaved for the Bedford; for the sake of getting back to the place they longed to leave, they submitted to the injustice of Billy’s privileges.

  – Are you alright up there? somebody called affectionately. This was how they felt after their second scratch meal and as evening approached, each yard the truck advanced a triumph for them all. They knew why the motor had been switched off, why it was coasting with quiet squeals down the slope, no need to ask or have it spoken. Occasionally they’d look up to catch the driver’s expression so their own fate might be guessed. They accepted that nobody knew where they were. By now they dared not leave the Bedford. Progress slower and more painful. Periodically the motor coughed into life so the vehicle could crash up a part-cleared rise, then able to creep, free-wheeling down the other side.

  Just after dark, they rolled on to a gravel clearing so flat you’d swear it had been graded. They climbed aboard and found this was a properly kept road, smooth as metal, wide and engineered, yes, with a line of white surveyors’ pegs visible in the twilight down one side. The party raised a cheer, a yell of victory and relief. Yet at the same time they felt uneasy. They were safe, true, but why was this end of the track graded, foreign and unknown to anybody? The Bedford roared round the first polished curve and fell silent except for the howling tyres, the motor dissolved into air. The fuel had run out.

  Sunday night. Rain stopped. Thick cloud still covered the moon. The six friends sat becalmed, their decision made for them by Lance’s broken leg. It wasn’t possible to move him before daylight. They still had no idea where they were. Not a single house light could be seen to guide them. Their last shared experience, now at an end, suddenly precious, the wild sea tossing behind, schooldays remembered.

  – Looks like we’re pretty well stuck, said Bill.

  – Yeah. Your dad’s a moral to read you the riot act. Lance groaned.

  – You going to be okay Lance mate?

  – It’s only a broken leg, Lance replied, rising to the occasion.

  Billy and Tony joined the rest huddled in the back for warmth; also to comfort the injured man. This was a gift, a chance to talk through the night. To watch the dawn without cows to bother about. The curse of boy-children would soon be a fact of history; it was a chance for skiting and confessions bringing them closer than they’d been since they were young kids. Being the death of something was perhaps what charmed them most. They lasted till three in the morning when the talk lapsed into a dreamy state of surprise at how the prospecting trip had turned out. Lance stifled his grunts to join in the banter. Had they found what they’d wanted?

  – When we make it as pilots, said one of the twins. I reckon we’re going to look back on this.

  – There’s school for the young ones, the other apologized to those who wouldn’t be going to civilization.

  Life was unimaginable without the twins, those secretive daredevils no one could outrun or outjump. Though you never claimed you actually liked them.

  – Well I always did say, Billy announced in Uncle’s voice. Sydney would be the only place to rival Whitey’s. Winnin form!

  Tony, who could never take emotional difficulties in his stride, admired this. Lost and screwed up, clay stuck in his throat, while the night wore on, he drifted far outside his hulk remaining jammed between Bill and the forgiven Maggot, only just in earshot of their murmured exchanges, surrounded by emptiness, alienated by it, lonely when the flock of moons came up behind the trees into the void of a televised Buddhist monk in Vietnam who burnt to death sitting crosslegged in the street. The monk poured kerosene over himself from a gurgling can, it coursed agonizingly into his eyes and the secret sores of his body. Tony saw the man soaked, robe sticking to his glossy skin, bald head running with the stuff, the shimmer of evaporating fumes a halo … saw the foolish moment when he groped for the box of matches where he thought he had placed it, living the likelihood of pathetic failure, found them with gratitude and horror, still blinded, struck a match and then had not known what to do. But the flame knew; leapt straight from his hand all over him before he could make the gesture of applying it. His eyes, momentarily black, opened at the piercing clasp of fire. Mouth a twisted hole. This burning man should be enough to shame any God worth believing in. And as cameras photographed him, his act took fire in Turkey and China, in Warsaw and Valparaiso, in Newfoundland and at the Cape of Good Hope, even here in the Australia of his own brain. What word in the language was there for it? Tony opened his mouth to the dark, and sounds came. His throat and chest throbbing. Night air poured into his lungs and poured back out as a black sound, his voice rose and sank, swayed and leapt from him into the void he … was raising his voice … was singing. His song streamed blood, to carry through the hell of nothing. This alone declaring truth because there were no words. He sat straight, the long notes reached and dipped their red-brown tones, reached higher, each for the first time exploring some sensation of action. The kerosene flames danced and flickered. Tony was answering that dying monk. The voice swelled with astounding strength, without end to what he had begun. The skeleton became a tree in flames and the voice from the burning bush cried out. The singing unravelled its long thread. The flame of one man spoke from the war of many: I AM THAT I AM, the labyrinth in which is all that ever was, and the world’s knowledge of it.

  Out there the dark moved around Tony, who had never achieved a Remembering. His voice must carry through the uncomprehending years to where Chinese gold diggers had been lynched (as had Jesus) for not being like everybody else. The night seethed with faces, composed of faces as matter is of atoms, and among them hideous cancers. A tremor of eyes, the flutter of countless mouths gaping. He, Tony McTaggart, had no defence but his voice, this new-found weapon. He sang without form, simply sang as an assertion of singing, of life, loyalty, love, until he was exhausted. He grew hoarse. His entire body shook with the effort. When at last his voice gave out and he slumped back, the others again felt their own presence but chose not to move, not to speak. Lance had no sensation in his broken leg at all. The cool night manoeuvred itself around them. They had secretly and humbly, at their different times, acknowledged the desire to weep and to rejoice, their bruised hands stiffened to the permanent shapes of longing. When Maggot felt Tony’s sleeping head loll against his shoulder, he did not move it. He did not even dare touch it.

  In the cold of the morning Billy rode his motorbike into town to get petrol and bring help for Lance.

  Eight

  – Are you always going to live in Whitey’s Fall? Vivien asked him. They strolled in the overgrown backyard.

  – How do I know?
/>   – But Bill, a few hours ago you began to tell me.

  They lay in hot grass breathing dust, stubble pricking their naked skin. In their minds, those two great rocks, dry and domineering, hummed with magnetic forces.

  – You know something about you people? Billy said but not unkindly. You’re always wanting to be told things last for ever.

  She laughed and he watched her belly tremble deliciously as she did so.

  – You people? she burbled to cover the possible injury.

  – Yes, you people who don’t belong in Whitey’s.

  – I hope I do though.

  – Would you stay Viv?

  Yet the question caught them in an undertow, too late to escape having gone too far. She allowed herself to be lulled along by it, she didn’t care, had never been so happy, so secure.

  – With you I would, she murmured letting the sun’s heat fondle her. She could see the pulse ticking in his neck as he bent to kiss her. He’d begun to rise again. His virility excited her and excitement made her beautiful. She teased him, talking her interfering words, her questions.

  – Well those friends you’ve been telling me about, they thought of the future and they were Whitey’s Fallers.

  – Not any more. They’ve gone. We shan’t see them again. Tony and me are the only young ones left. Once they started thinking about nothing … plans and that… well then they were gone. They’ll be pilots soon and engineers or bums or clerks, something useless. And they’ll be stuck with talking about the future all their lives till they haven’t got one left. You can never get there can you? Each day tomorrow is a day further off and then you don’t have time to live today or yesterday.

  She noticed his legs, brown as the soil, furry as an animal, she watched them as he drew his knees up, tufts of grass around them; they belonged like the grass belonged. And to prove it a little blue wren came picking among his toes. Flat on his back he stretched out his brown arms, his brown chest a simple hill. Vivien was astounded by the sheer breadth of him, the sense of lung-power as his chest lifted and subsided and lifted. Exotic as a Chinese opera-mask, she imagined her face must appear when she placed it there, first one cool cheek then the other.