The Hands

by Stephen Orr

  … Fay and Chris can live with us, then you won’t be bothered by anyone.

  The boys returned to the house and he could hear more smashing, more breaking.

  Murray sat on the porch, looking out towards the long train. Fay was cooking chops; was always cooking chops. He finished rolling a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it. And thought: I can’t go. I can’t.

  Yanga was sitting at his feet. She looked up at him. She twisted her head as though she was confused about something.

  He studied the phone number on the scrap of paper on the table beside him.

  I can’t.

  Yanga stood up and walked away. She found another spot and sat down.

  I can’t.

  The undersides of the clouds were red, and he thought it was more beautiful than anything. The land was hot, honey-coloured, breathing. It promised life, a future, income; it always had.

  Fay popped her head out. ‘You can come in now.’ And she was gone.

  He could never leave the ghosts: Bill, John. Although, he supposed, his son and grandsons had given up their mother. Maybe that’s what it took, he thought. Maybe something had to be given up. Something precious. Something irretrievable.

  I can’t.

  He picked up the number, and studied the digits.

  ‘Come on,’ Fay called.

  He could smell the chops; but couldn’t go in.

  It was after nine as they drove through the back streets of Port Augusta.

  Trevor was feeling excited; light.

  Aiden stopped at a roundabout to let a boy on a dragster pass.

  ‘That’s an old one,’ he said to his dad.

  ‘Don’t think I ever had a bike,’ Trevor replied.

  ‘Not much point,’ Aiden said, as they drove on.

  It was hot in the small houses. People had come out onto front porches to escape the heat. Some of them sat on old benches, some on car seats; others on lounge suites.

  As they drove into Gaby’s driveway, Harry woke. He looked and saw where they were; remembered why; felt it under his feet; board games, even, on the parcel shelf behind his head.

  Gaby was soon out, waiting beside her dead garden, her arms crossed. She could see they’d filled every inch of the car with their crap.

  Harry was out first, and he ran over to her; across the dead lawn, catching his T-shirt on her mouldy roses.

  He tried not to smile. ‘Guess what?’

  Then she wrapped him in her arms. She looked up at Trevor, emerging from the car, stretching. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you a coffee first.’

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Michael Bollen, Angela Tolley, Margot Lloyd, Molly Jureidini, Michael Deves and Julia Beaven.

  Songs

  ‘Comrades’ Felix McGleason

  ‘Eileen Bawn’ words H.J. St Leger, music M.W. Balfe

  ‘I couldn’t even swear to the colour of her hair’ words Harry Hunter, music Walter Redmond

  ‘Tell me, darling, that you love me’ John A. Orway

  ‘Underneath the mellow moon’ Wendell W. Hall

  ‘When you and I were seventeen’ words Gus Kahn, music Charles Rosoff

  Wakefield Press

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