by Stephen Orr
Trevor shook his head.
‘But it got worse,’ Murray continued, to his audience of one. ‘John had gone to Mercy, and he’d got his name on the honour roll. Athletics, wasn’t it?’ he asked his son.
‘Yes.’
‘One day Bill was talkin’ to this fella, and this fella said, Hey, Bill, your boy, they’ve taken his name off the roll.’ He sat back, as if it was the first time he’d told the story. ‘What year was it?’ he called to Trevor.
‘Nineteen eleven.’
‘Yep.’ He returned to Harry. ‘They just scraped it off; you can still see the gap.’ He let his words settle, as though Harry might actually be shocked. He finished buttering the bread, covered it with plastic and leaned forward. ‘Shame,’ he whispered. ‘The worst thing that can happen to a family, isn’t it?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
‘Believe me, it is, isn’t it, son?’ He looked at Trevor.
‘If you say so.’
‘So, Bill Wilkie wasn’t going to live like that. He went to town and demanded a meeting with the principal. Insisted they replace John’s name. He took the stranger with him, and got him to explain. Demanded an apology from the school.’
‘Did he get one?’
‘No.’
‘And they refused to replace his name?’
‘They believed the army over the stranger. That’s what it was like back then. Everyone was very patriotic. If there was even an inkling …’
Trevor put the potatoes into the pot. He placed it on the stove and lit it. ‘I still gotta fill the cars,’ he mumbled, mostly to himself.
‘I can do them,’ Harry said.
‘No.’
‘He can help me,’ Murray added.
Trevor ignored them. He opened the oven door and checked the meat.
‘Go, go, go,’ Chris chanted, like a machine-pistol, as the giant doors of the fortress closed. ‘They’re in,’ he said, turning.
‘Another half-hour,’ Trevor said, closing the oven.
‘What, I’ve never filled a ute?’ Murray said to his son.
‘I’ll do it.’
‘You got shit on the liver.’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘If you wanna sulk.’ He turned to Harry but this time he was in no mood for the familiar story. Still, he continued. ‘For the next few months the stranger helped out with odd jobs. The cattle. Bill would always be asking about John. Did he look pale, sick? Did he shake? Did he talk about us, the farm, his brother, Morris? Could he look you in the eyes? Did he laugh? Did he make jokes? Did he talk about his school? His athletics? His awards? Did he ever say he’d had enough?’ He stopped for breath. ‘Or, I suppose, he’d help Mary around the place. I suppose he sat right here, talkin’ with ’em. Eatin’ the eggs he’d helped gather, the veggies he’d helped grow.’
‘Bit of an odd jobs man?’ Trevor asked his father.
‘Yes,’ Murray replied. ‘He was a good builder too; helped Dad with the old yards.’
‘Probably stood here, cookin’ a roast,’ Trevor said. ‘Although blokes didn’t do those sorts of things back then, did they? They were too busy tryin’ to run the farm.’
Murray took Harry’s hand. ‘Come on, we’ll go fill the cars.’ As he went he said, ‘Yer just diggin’ yerself a bigger hole.’
Yanga kept scratching the hotspot on her cheek. Her skin was raw, bleeding. ‘Stop it, you stupid mutt,’ Murray said to her, digging his foot in her side.
‘She can’t help it,’ Harry explained. ‘We should take her to the vet.’
Murray couldn’t see the point of a vet; not for an old dog. After the eczema came the limp, the cataracts, the loose bowel, the rotten teeth. Vets just delayed the inevitable. ‘What?’ he said to her, as she kept staring at him, accusingly. Then she scratched herself again. ‘Stop it.’ He kept prodding her with his foot. She stood, moved a few feet and sat down on the far end of the porch.
He was smoking, watching his hot tip eat away another rollie. He studied the distant line of steel and noticed a train. Picking up his binoculars, he squinted into the cold eyepieces. ‘NR25 and 26,’ he said.
‘Ladies shoes. Where does the apostrophe go?’ Harry asked.
‘Wherever you want it to go,’ he replied, studying the carriages, the windows, the plastic-looking forms behind the glass.
‘I think it’s after the s,’ Harry continued.
‘Silly bastards.’
‘Who?’ Harry asked, looking up at the train.
‘Why would you take a train to Perth, for Christ’s sake? Why wouldn’t you get on a plane?’
‘They want to see Australia.’
He wiped his eyes and returned his binoculars to the table.
‘What’s to see on the Nullarbor?’
‘Us.’
‘Yeah.’ And returned to his cigarette.
‘Childrens Hospital?’
‘What?’
‘The apostrophe?’
Murray wasn’t happy. How the hell was he meant to know about apostrophes? They just went where they fit, where they looked right. No one knew what to do with an apostrophe. It wasn’t like anyone was going to check. ‘Don’t they give you some sort of … rule?’ he asked.
Harry shrugged. ‘I think it’s after the s.’
‘Your father should be here. He knows all about this stuff.’ He waved his hand above the assignment.
‘I wanna get full marks.’
‘Well …’ He looked at the dog, looking at him. ‘Ask Fay.’
‘I did.’
Murray wasn’t sure it mattered. He’d survived his few years of wireless, his Nefertiti and geometry, attempted with Morris’s or Bill’s unforgiving HB pencil. He’d sat where his grandson was sitting, throwing random apostrophes at the ends of words he didn’t understand; he’d practised his copperplate and added rows of figures. In the end, there wasn’t a lot they could teach him that he needed to know. Two years at Mercy. Before he’d stood in the middle of a lesson, walked from the room, the school, and jumped on a flat-top. Getting off, somewhere in the distance, in the stretch of cattle country that he was staring at now, and walking to the little house on the distant hill. Telling his dad, ‘That’s enough of that.’
‘We’ve paid till the end of the year.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’ Going to his room, and changing into his workpants.
The train was still moving across the desert. ‘Sittin’ in there with their fuckin’… riesling and clean sheets,’ he said. And their air-conditioning and plate of prawns, he thought. ‘They wanna see the outback they should stop off here for a few weeks.’
‘With us?’ Harry said.
‘Yes.’
‘I could rent out my room.’
Murray looked inside the house at Chris, sitting on the lounge helping his mother sew lavender bags. ‘Yeah, real bloody outback experience.’
Harry scratched his head. He looked at the next question and bit his lip. ‘I am unsure to who, or whom, I send the letter.’ He looked at Murray.
Murray glared at him. ‘Ask your bloody father. He brought you into this world, he should be …’ He trailed off again, wondering where his son had gone. His second time to Port Augusta in a week. Second time he’d shaved and ironed his clothes and said to them, ‘I should be home before tea.’ Second time he’d planted a kiss on Harry’s forehead and almost skipped out the front door.
He noticed a small herd of wandering cattle, picked up his binoculars and studied them. ‘All bloody bone,’ he said, spitting tobacco from his lips.
The phone rang. Fay stood to answer it but he called out, ‘Leave it, I’ll get it.’ He flicked the last of his cigarette into his sister’s lavender and went inside.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Howdy.’ A woman’s voice.
Howdy? ‘Who’s this?’
‘Is that Murray?’
‘Yes, who’s this?’
‘My name’s Gaby … a friend of Trevor’s. Is he there
?’
‘No.’
There was a break, and static. ‘I thought he’d be back by now,’ she said.
‘From where?’
‘Here. Port Augusta.’
‘Right … he’s been with you, Gaby?’
Silence, then, ‘Yes.’
He waited for an explanation.
‘He left his wallet here,’ she said.
‘Where?’
‘You’re Trevor’s dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Murray, if you could tell him? I thought he might need it.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Nice to speak to you,’ and Murray thought, Why? Who are you? But then, in a moment of grace, he managed, ‘Yes, Gaby, I’ll pass the message on. Maybe he can call you back?’ He could hear shop sounds—a sliding door, a cash register. ‘Where at?’
‘The chemist.’
‘Right.’ He hung up and returned to Harry, and the dog, still scratching herself.
‘Who was that?’ Harry asked.
‘Bill.’
Harry looked down at his work. ‘Personal pronouns?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Do you know?’
‘No, I don’t know,’ as he cursed Trevor, again, for sniffing around in a chemist when he should’ve been home with his son, explaining grammar.
‘I think they’re words—’
‘Just work it out,’ he growled, standing, pacing the porch, using his foot to stop Yanga scratching.
Harry was watching him. Something had happened, he knew.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Murray was gone, through the lavender, around the back of the house. He walked across the compound and down the access road, stopping under sheoaks and lighting another cigarette.
Another woman? Trevor?
Not that he thought his son incapable. Just caught up with other things. She sounded reasonable, he guessed. But, if he was friendly with her, he was probably more than friendly.
A shop girl? Or maybe a pharmacist? That’d be useful, he told himself. But then he did the maths. It was April 2. When was the accident? December 2, 3, 4? Four months. That he knew of. Four months. And why hadn’t he said anything? Unless, of course, he’d just left his wallet at the pharmacy. That did happen. People left their wallets places.
He stood on his road savouring the silence, kicking a pile of bricks salvaged from a shed Bill had built with the stranger. That he, and his own father, another stranger, of sorts, had pulled down. Then he saw his son slowly coming up the road. He stood where he could be seen. Cocking his head, he looked down at the figure in the car.
Trevor stopped and put down his window. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Exercising.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘I been helpin’ your son with his grammar.’
Trevor smiled. ‘Right.’ He went to drive off but Murray stepped forward. Put his hand on the roof of the car. ‘Maybe you could spend a bit of time with him. I don’t know much about apostrophes.’
‘I’ll help him tonight.’
He just stared at him. ‘Get your insurance sorted?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Trevor shook his head. ‘What is it?’
‘Gaby called.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Said you left your wallet at the chemist.’ Then the thought occurred to him: What if it was somewhere else? Her flat? A motel unit? He could see his son pulling on his pants, strapping on his watch, slipping on his boots.
‘She was one of Carelyn’s friends,’ Trevor said. ‘I popped in to say hello.’
‘And you had to buy something?’
‘No … yes, I did.’
Murray realised his cigarette had nearly burnt itself out. ‘So, you gonna tell me?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t be so bloody clever.’
Trevor took a moment. ‘We had lunch. There’s where I must have left it.’
Murray just looked at him.
‘Okay, I’ve seen her a few times.’
‘So when were you gonna tell me?’
‘When you asked.’
‘Don’t be clever.’
Trevor took off his sunglasses. ‘Can we talk about it later?’
By mid-April the desert had cooled; naphthalene skivvies and flannelette shirts salvaged from the bottom of drawers. The days wilted like so much forgotten fruit. All this was good news for Murray, whose sleep-out was the only uncooled part of the house. Now he could cover himself with rugs and get to sleep easily, lying in his little gully with his face frozen white. Fay, too, who loved to strip the beds and fit electric-blankets. Life was warm, forever breathing, sustaining; except on the other side of her nephew’s bed, destined to remain cold and tightly tucked. There was the woman, of course, Murray had mentioned her, but she couldn’t see a time when Gaby was sleeping here.
Easter had come and gone. Trevor had taken Harry to town to buy eggs. They’d come home with a bag full of chocolates he’d placed on top of his wardrobe. But Chris had sniffed them out, attacking a bunny—so that by the time he noticed there was nothing but a foily set of lower limbs. ‘Chris?’
‘I just had a taste.’
Anzac Day, the whole family gathered around the telly; tea and sultana cake, and John’s battalion, minus any sign or memory of a Wilkie. Ninety years of history hidden in a cupboard, as Murray said, ‘Bill had a fight with them too.’ As everyone just stared at the shuffling warriors, filling in the blanks: Bill catching the train to Keswick for a meeting with some brigadier. But in the end there was no Anzac Day for those on the Cowards’ List.
Aiden, home for the holidays, emerged from the laundry carrying four tins of paint. The wire handles cut into his fingers and he stopped and knelt in the middle of the compound. He noticed the sunset and red flare that coated the undersides of the big, scalloped clouds. He picked up the cans and went into the shed. Harry was waiting, sitting on a stool in front of their EH mural. ‘What should we do first?’ he asked.
‘Wait,’ Aiden replied. He put the cans down, picked up a hammer, opened the front passenger door of the car and started flattening the dents he’d made with his foot.
‘Are we getting more?’ Harry asked, checking the colour of the paints.
‘That’ll do. Mix and match.’ He tapped a dent and it magically popped out.
‘There aren’t as many colours as we had before.’
‘So?’
‘It won’t look as good.’
‘Bullshit.’
Harry loved to look at their unfinished mural: the house with its green roof and red walls; the black path leading down to the road, which crossed the railway line, although it didn’t; the whole family standing in front of the house; Carelyn, still smiling, holding his hand, her feet obscured by Yanga and her twenty hot spots.
This was still the real world, Harry guessed. Paint on metal. There was nothing he wanted to change—not the oversized bottle tree, reaching into the sky, or Murray smoking a cigarette twice the size of his head. He used a screwdriver to open the red and sat stirring it with a length of wood. As he found his rhythm he looked at his mum. He’d given her a red dress, because she had a red dress. But he hadn’t finished painting it. ‘Did you meet Gaby?’ he asked his brother.
‘For a minute.’
‘What was she like?’
‘I don’t know … okay.’ He used the claw of the hammer to smooth more dents.
‘Man, you’ve got a temper.’
‘I’m fixing it.’
Harry looked at his unfinished mum. The margins rough, the shape absurd. ‘You shouldn’t have kicked it,’ he said. ‘You should’ve kicked a lump of wood or something.’
‘Or you.’
‘You can’t kick me, I’m a cripple.’
‘My arse.’ He continued working the metal.
Harry studied his own balloon portrait, his two good legs. ‘You dre
w me too short and fat.’
‘You are short and fat.’
‘I’m disabled, you should have some respect.’
‘Would you shut the fuck up?’ He closed the door, stood back and looked at it. ‘That’ll do.’
‘Can we start?’
Aiden fetched the brushes. They stood looking, trying to think of objects that might be red. Harry painted his mum’s dress as Aiden started the undersides of his cotton-wool clouds. They worked silently, savouring the moments, each stroke, each breath. If Harry’s foot got in Aiden’s way he’d just kick it. If they brushed against each other there’d be a sharp, unforgiving elbow. At one point Aiden said, ‘Mum didn’t have a red dress.’
‘She did … does.’
‘I can’t remember her having one.’
‘She did.’
Soon, all of Aiden’s clouds were bleached twilight. He stood back and looked at them. There was nothing end-of-the-day about them, he thought. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘It’s meant to be a sunset.’
‘Well … none of it looks real, does it?’
It annoyed Aiden how the little shit always made sense. As he studied his brother’s small, glazed nose, he wondered what would’ve happened if he’d been killed: another empty bed, the quiet hours, the lack of words. But then he spat out the thought and looked at the family portrait. ‘Yeah, I remember the dress,’ he said.
Harry stopped painting. ‘I wish she was here,’ he whispered.
‘Well, what are you gonna do?’
Harry flicked the excess paint off his brush. ‘There’s no point worrying, is there?’
Aiden smiled. ‘Come on.’ He took his brother’s arm and led him over to the biggest of the trail bikes.
‘No,’ Harry said.
‘Get on.’
Aiden slid onto his taped seat, kicked out the stand and angled the bike so Harry could get on. ‘Come on.’
‘Dad’ll kill me.’
‘Dad won’t know.’
‘What if I come off?’
‘Get on!’
Harry slipped his good leg over the seat. Then he held on to his brother, feeling ribs and muscle.
‘Ready?’ Aiden asked.
