She hands me the flowers and I carry them in the crook of my arm like I’m a thoughtful mourner and not just a haphazard one and we walk on into the newer section of cemetery designed for and used by the dead of the age of travel and displacement who it’s safe to lie hard up against one another without having to leave unkempt patches of paspalum and dock and Scotch thistle for their families to follow into. Here are lone Smiths and lone Pearsons and lone Kernahans and lone Steiners and lone Ngs and lone Beanlands and some of them are beloved and sadly missed and some of them are fondly remembered and some of them are forever in our hearts but more of them than all those are just themselves and their life-span which is a hyphen sandwiched between two dates.
The peppermint gums haven’t grown high enough to lie any shade over this part of the cemetery yet and it’s fierce with light. Hard up against a chain-link fence where the cemetery ends and a housing estate of identical blue-tiled houses rises up is a gathering of people with their hands clasped solemnly down in front of their crotches and then up and waving flies and then solemnly clasped again, waiting for us, watching us come. As we get closer we can hear the tinny hymns coming out of a portable speaker on the tailgate of the navy blue hearse parked there with its back end gaping at them.
Val and Ron Keszig are up from Albany and Bridget and Mal Slee are back from staying in the Howard Johnsons of New England and Margot Dwyer is here and so is Phil the foreman who eventually found her once the batteries in his megaphone had gone flat and the sun had come up and the men had told him, ‘Go on, Phil, for fuck’s sake. You get two bucks an hour more than the rest of us. Get over there.’ He has the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up just enough to bare the arse-end of a panther on one wrist and to bare the mythical fish-arse-end of a mermaid on the other.
There is a big preacher here and there are four men from the funeral parlour in suits that are shiny with sun and who don’t look old enough to be actual undertakers and so must be just lifters and carters of clients. Standing behind what my mother would have called the old gang, with a grave in between him and them, is Barry Campbell of the Kunimara people dressed in a black T-shirt and black suit pants. Next to him is Charles Wadlow in a grey suit with an appropriately muted blue Hawaiian shirt beneath his suitcoat.
When we get up to the gathering everyone nods sympathetic hellos and Val Keszig shuffles forward and takes my hand that isn’t holding daffodils and holds it while she looks me up and down with round eyes and an impressed smile like she can’t believe how big and manly I’ve got and then she hugs me and tells me it’s a dreadful business and we’re all so shocked. And Bridget Slee steps forward and says, ‘Dreadful, dreadful business,’ and hugs me as well and tells me, ‘Deeply, deeply shocked,’ which Val Keszig rolls her eyes about. And Bridget Slee tells me I’ve been through so much and tells me not to worry any more because she’s with your Dad now and with Molly … and with Adrian, too, she remembers.
The preacher is dressed in a long flowing white number over his long flowing black number and has some purple round about his throat and he steps up to me smelling of incense and takes my hand and introduces himself as Reverend Ian Gibbs and tells me we talked on the phone and I tell him, ‘Jerusalem,’ and he nods and I tell him, ‘The Twenty-third Psalm,’ and he nods again and says, ‘That’s right. And most poignant. Most appropriate and poignant.’
Mostly what I can see of her in the back of the gaping hearse is a square oak panel of casket end which is just one of the niceties of all of the niceties it has been BBK’s pleasure and duty, they tell me, to arrange.
I shake a few more hands and I nod at Barry Campbell and he nods back at me and I nod at Charles Wadlow who yells, ‘Pisser of a day for it,’ at me and I introduce Jean around and then the Reverend Ian Gibbs nods at the four lifters and carters standing there with their hands clasped in front of their shiny suit crotches and they take her up out of the hearse moving slow and blank-faced and inconspicuous despite the sunglare coming off their rayon. They bring her over and lie her gently on the two taut green canvas straps that span the hole and that feed out of the chromed lowering device that frames the hole and that sits on the bright green close-cropped astroturf that is laid all roundabout the hole.
Then the Reverend Ian Gibbs holds up his hands and tells us he will say a few words and looks straight down on her casket lid at the red roses there that are another of the niceties BBK has arranged and says a few words at us about the Good in people, and about how the Good in people doesn’t die but lives on after them in their example, in their remembered deeds, and in their family, and in their friends, and lives on especially in their … ‘Caravans?’ asks Charles Wadlow and the Reverend Ian Gibbs looks at me because I’m the one who laughs and then he turns around and stares full on Charles Wadlow and tells him, ‘In their Eternal Souls,’ and Charles Wadlow says, ‘Sorry. I thought maybe it was in their caravans,’ and winks at me while the four members of the old gang whisper fiercely to each other.
The Reverend Ian Gibbs continues with his few words about the Good that was in my mother and about the afterlife of the Good as well as the afterlife of the mother and about how it and she surely triumphed through her many little trials and her many little tests which he goes ahead and lists as the loss of her daughter Molly and the loss of her husband Francis and the loss of her son Adrian.
But the wind has been taken out of the Reverend Ian Gibbs’ sails by the caravans question he got asked and he’s more-or-less wincing in anticipation of another one and can’t hold his line of thought too well. So he passes control to Val Keszig to read out the Twenty-third Psalm which was a big psalm with my mother and which Val’s honoured to read out and she takes a beautifully bound antiquarian psalm book out of her handbag to read it out of and then makes a great show of not needing to consult the book at all but just reciting it straight-off-the-bat out and up at the blue-tiled housing estate that is starting to shimmer with the heat of the day. The Lord is my Shepherd, she tells those houses on their quarter-acre blocks, therefore can I lack nothing.
When she’s finished the Reverend Ian Gibbs decides, ‘Let us pray,’ and we put our chins down on our ties and our shirt fronts and blouse fronts and stare into the astroturf while he prays for her to locate all those family members she was pretty sure she would locate once she was inducted into the Sweet Hereafter, and he goes from being quite certain to knowing outright that she’ll find peace at last in their presence.
As he prays I read the headstones either side of her, who turn out to be a Bert Bamblett to the north of her who is a free spirit too soon departed and a Monica Crick to the south of her who is just Monica Crick 1920-1985. And that Monica Crick with only her 1920 and her 1985 makes me ache for all that’s gone and makes me want to tell Mum’s whole fucked-up story in the eight hundred dollars of Italian marble headstone that is another of the niceties BBK has sprung for. Get some stonecutter with a steady hand and a dry wit to carve it all down, Lord’s-Prayer-on-a-pinhead small.
But maybe that Monica Crick has it right. Maybe the only way to tell her whole fucked-up story is just with her Belle Furphy and just with her 1926 and then with her hyphen and then with her 1995.
When he’s prayed and he’s Amened and we’ve all Amened right behind him by reflex he says, ‘We will sing now a lovely hymn chosen by Jack as his mother’s favourite. “Jerusalem”.’ And he nods at one of the shiny-suited lifters and carters who bends and presses a button on the tinny speaker which sends forth the tinny organ music and the tinny choir as well and we join it in singing ‘Jerusalem’ and another of the shiny-suited lifters and carters steps forward and gently nudges with his riding boot the chromed lever on the chromed lowering device that frames her grave and the chromed lowering device starts feeding out canvas strapping and lowering my mother’s oak casket with the red roses on top down into the hole at such a dignified pace it may not even be happening.
But it is. Takes the whole slow-sung hymn to happen. And when ‘Jerusalem’
is sung the only way to see her casket is to step right up to the lip of the grave and I step right up to the lip of her grave and toss down on her the daffodils of John Derrick Atchison and I don’t start crying but I start swallowing hard and blinking fast and looking at the blue blur of housing estate.
Ron Keszig steps backwards off the astroturf and grabs a handful of grey earth from the mound that was dug up to make a hole to lower her into and comes forward with it to her grave-lip and sprinkles it in there and what of it doesn’t land mute on her roses or on the daffodils of John Derrick Atchison runs hollow across her casket lid. Mal Slee does the same and says a few silent words down at her. Phil the foreman takes up a handful of dirt in his bare-arse-end-of-panther hand and squeezes it with the bare-arse-end-of-panther hand and the mythical-fish-arse-end-of-mermaid hand as well and by the time he’s at grave-lip it’s an actual clod that brings an echoing thud up out of the hole.
Barry Campbell comes round from behind the free spirited and too soon departed Bert Bamblett and gets up to grave-lip and looks in like no one else has looked in and takes a handful of red earth out of his suit pants pocket and sprinkles it from one end of her to the other with the smaller and lighter parts of it lifting on the breeze back up onto his black trousers and his black and scuffed riding boots. And looks up at me and says, ‘That much I can give her.’
And for some reason I tell him, ‘Thank you.’
Then the Reverend Ian Gibbs says he will pray the Lord’s Prayer and everyone puts their chins to their blouse fronts and their shirt-fronts and their ties again but me and Barry Campbell and Charles Wadlow who look from one to the other, making our big philosophical statement with our eye contact and our pursed lips and our neglect of the prayer.
The Reverend Ian Gibbs tells us the Lord’s Prayer marks the conclusion of the service, except there will be tea and biscuits and sponge cake, and wine for those that want it, in the Friendship Room just off the Colonel Lightfoot Chapel by the main gates. All paid for by a corporate benefactor that would rather remain nameless, he says. And the sponge comes from Cakes Most Definitely-R-Us in Subiaco and is the best on this side of the Nullarbor by a country mile and he should know because his own sister is Cakes Most Definitely-R-Us herself and learnt how to be Cakes Most Definitely-R-Us at the knee of his own mother who, he says, knew a thing or two about creating desserts.
Phil comes up to me at the grave-lip and takes my hand in his bare-arse-of-panther hand and holds it, not shaking it but just clasping it hard, and lays his mythical-fish-arse-of-mermaid hand on the back of my hand he’s clasping and tells me, ‘Jesus. I wish I had’ve done something when I had the chance.’ And I tell him don’t give it another thought. And tell him it’s the way of ninety-nine per cent of all thoughts on the restraint of suspect types, they start out as Maybe-I-Shoulds and turn into Maybe-I-Should’ves and end up as Jesus-I-Wish-I-Had’ves. Natural life-cycle of a thought like that, I tell him. Only that rare one per cent of Maybe-I-Shoulds ever blossom into actual action, and the type of action that one per cent does blossom into is usually pure fuck-up anyway.
He releases my hand from his bare-arse-of-panther hand and claps me on the back with it and tells me, Thank you. ‘Thank you.’
In the Friendship Room Jean and I listen to stories of the old days from the old gang. They eat passionfruit sponge from the sister who is Cakes Most Definitely-R-Us and drink coffee from the big chromed urn and talk about the hardships. About the setting up of Hannah. About what pioneers they all were. Especially my mother, being from England and all, and knowing nothing about living with hardships like heat and like isolation and like Australian men, Val Keszig says. And Bridget Slee tells me she really tried. Really tried. And made it more of a home than anyone else did, in the end, she supposes. Ron Keszig tells me she certainly was a feisty little girl, your mum. Certainly drew her line in the sand.
Margot Dwyer is drinking wine with Charles Wadlow and Barry Campbell. She’s explaining to them how regeneration of desert scrub can be expedited artificially, she calls it. Explaining how in a year or two you’ll be able to fly over where that town used to be without knowing it was ever there. The environmental reclamation will be that perfect, Not a trace. She nods at Barry Campbell to reassure him. Apart from the huge hole in the landscape which was the mine and which will always be a huge hole in the landscape now … but is a huge hole you got royalties for anyway, she tells him.
Jean and I join them. Jean asks Charles Wadlow, ‘Caravans?’
He laughs. ‘Yeah. Caravans. Didn’t the padre take fright when I offered caravans as accommodation for the Good that lives on after people die. I reckon I saved us about a half-hour out there graveside with my offer of caravans.’
‘Have you been drinking? Jean asks him. ‘What on earth were you thinking to heckle a priest in the middle of a funeral service?
‘That wasn’t a heckle,’ he tells her. ‘That was my half of the debate.’
‘Had to be said,’ I tell him. ‘Caravans. I liked it. Laughed, anyway. Which I didn’t expect to today.’
‘What about you?’ I ask Barry Campbell. ‘What brings you down here throwing the dust of your sacred land on dead white women? I thought she had no right to it? I thought she had to be cut out of the story?’
He looks me in the face and tells me, ‘When she was whitefella she did. But she was blackfella, by the end.’
‘She was a blackfella?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘She become blackfella, looked to me. That’s why she was scared shitless of us other blackfellas, ‘cause she’d found out what it was to be one.’
‘A blackfella?’ I ask again. ‘The pale-skinned English variety?’
‘No, brother,’ he tells me. That ain’t a variety. That a colour.’ He has a drink of wine and scratches his chin deep inside his greying beard. ‘She the variety had the heavy machinery of the whole new world idling out front of her house. Idling out front of her whole old world. The variety lived tense waiting to hear some bastard slip it into gear. The variety could only turn up the volume of whatever she thought was holy to try and drown it out.’
‘You could have let her stay,’ Jean says.
He looks at Jean for a long time. Looks at me. Tells me, ‘You don’t think that.’ Looks back at Jean. Tells her softly, ‘Hey … I’m not the heavy machinery, baby. Wish I was. But I fuckin’ ain’t. You don’t understand nothin’ ‘bout where all this is goin’ if you think I am … or if you think I ever will be.’
In the Friendship Room with a connecting death our only reason for standing around with strangers eating the sponge of the sister who is Cakes Most Definitely-R-Us it turns out we aren’t any of us admitting to being the heavy machinery. Aren’t any of us in here who aren’t bewildered by the identity of the heavy machinery. By the who it is, or by the what it is.
We are all just septuagenarians in here, who bloom, now and again, into beautiful pre-war thought. And we are all just blackfellas in here, who bloom, now and again, into beautiful pre-white thought. And we are all just company employees in here, who bloom, now and again, into a beautiful pretence we can stand tall and can dig in our heels when we need to stand tall and to dig in the heels. And we are just a fat man who blooms into jokes, now and again. Or just me fully bloomed hours back into a square-jawed, brow-knit face immune to sadness.
But we aren’t, we all agree, with tiny shrugs that profess ignorance and with wide-eyed head shakes that profess more ignorance and with long stares into the steam off our coffee that profess even more ignorance, we aren’t the heavy machinery. Would like to know why we aren’t. Would like to know who is.
19
The Jesus Trap
In Lorne no one much wanted to talk about it when it had just happened, but wanted to talk right over the top of it and on to something else. Maybe by clapping me on the shoulder like old Tom Mercer does and looking over that shoulder out through the Norfolk Island Pines at the sea like some endangered species has just surfaced there
and telling me, ‘Sorry to hear about your troubles, Jack. Just dreadful. You going to the cricket club do tonight?’ Or talk right over the top of it and on to something else by maybe stopping me out front of the newsagency like Joe Stewart who owns the Sea Vista Holiday Flats does and looking down at the footpath and poking an icy-pole stick right across it into the gutter with the toe of his Blundstone boot like it’s a real and compelling piece of civic duty and telling me, ‘Don’t know what to tell you, Jack. Only we’re thinking of you at the Surf Club. Come down and have a paddle on Sunday Anglesea are coming over for a local ironman.’ Or talk right over the top of it and on to something else by maybe looking down at the Cameron Tartan pub carpet like Pete Armytage does and telling me, ‘Helluva thing, Jack. Helluva thing. Really is. Let me buy you a pot and tell you about my new sixteen-foot Savage.’ Or talk right over the top of it and on to something else like Norm Doñean does by waving the Geelong Advertiser at me with the photograph of Ablett leaping over Hocking at pre-season training on the back page when I’m in George’s Bakery buying a croissant for breakfast and laying a finger on a skerrick of John Barnes in the background of that photo leaning up against a goal post and telling me, ‘Barnes, Jack. Barnes is the key. Now I know you and most people think Ablett’s the key. But it’s Barnes. Getting first touch of the ball and keeping it away from Williams and away from Bradley and the like. Sorry to hear about what happened, Jack. But anyway … Barnes is the key No known way he isn’t.’
Or talk right over the top of it and on to something else even by catching hold of me by the bony part of the elbow with an age-splashed hand as I’m walking past like old Mrs Roberts does and whispering up into my ear, ‘I’ve said a little prayer for you, Jack. And I’ve baked a little fruit loaf,’ and handing me something aromatic and still warm and browned on top and sprinkled with cinnamon and brick-heavy with raisin and apricot and fig. And whispering, ‘Old Pa Drew liked it with figs. So I got used to making it with figs. So there’s figs in it. And I was just wondering … you aren’t allergic to figs, are you?’
Silences Long Gone Page 27
