by Stephen Orr
Would you forgive me? If this didn’t work? he asked his wife, but she just turned, and walked towards a spice seller.
Sevanand rolled his jumper and used it as a pillow. He laid back and looked at the millions of stars and eventually whispered, ‘All beings are in Me, I am not in them.’
Later, I discovered that when Trevor returned in the morning, he’d called for me, and looked, but mustn’t have looked far. He fixed his carburettor and returned to CP. Meanwhile, it seems, I was in a deep sleep.
Sevanand stirred slowly. He could feel the sun on his skin. He sat up and started removing clothing. Looking towards the road, he noticed the taxi had gone.
He stood and studied the area. ‘Trevor?’ Ran to the side of the road and looked left and right. Perhaps the car had been stolen? Maybe someone had retrieved it for Trevor without knowing he was asleep? If so, he would just have to wait and they would come back for him. Then he thought, Maybe Trevor couldn’t find me … but he mustn’t have seen me walking into town. Perhaps he thought I’m returning to the airport and he’s checking there?
Either way, I just have to wait.
He repacked his clothes and returned to sit beside the road. Every time a car or truck went by he stood and tried to hitch a lift. People slowed, looked at him strangely and continued.
By nine am it was hot again. He used his jacket for shade. By ten he was soaked with sweat and could smell himself. Out of desperation, he emptied his case again, set it up as a sort of tent and slid under it. By lunchtime he’d given up. Repacked his belongings and started walking towards Coober Pedy.
Not long after, a police car passed, slowed, completed a U-turn and drove up behind him. He put down his bags and turned to face the constable as she approached him.
‘Dr Sevanand Singh,’ he said, extending his hand.
She was unsure, but shook it. ‘Should I ask?’
Yes, it was a town, he guessed, but barely. Someone or some people had avoided resurfacing the highway that ran into town, paved as few footpaths as possible, abstained from fixing gutters or installing stoplights and put off replacing the plywood police station. When he saw children playing on the primary school’s old monkey bars and kicking balls on the dusty oval he wondered if he had come all that far from Nangal.
Beyond the dry-cleaners, delis, supermarkets and newsagents of Hutchison Street, there were openings in the earth where suburbs should have been.
‘These are the famous underground homes?’ he asked the constable.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘This is no place for human beings.’
‘But people adapt?’
‘Apparently … until they escape.’
She slowed, stopped, got out and moved a shopping trolley from the middle of the road. When she got back in she said, ‘Some of these wog miners, they’ve been here for sixty years. They’re the ones go and dig out these homes. But if you ask me’—and she drove off as she looked across at him—‘some of their circuits have fried.’
She stopped in front of the hospital and helped him with his bags. ‘Well, Dr Singh,’ she half-sang, ‘I’m sure we’ll be in contact.’
‘You’ll keep me in work?’
‘Long as you’ve got a good supply of stomach pumps.’
He thought of the baggage handler—humour, beer and sex—although he was unsure of the order.
He climbed a few stairs littered with cigarette butts and walked into a terrazzo foyer with an almost life-size portrait of the Queen. A faintly reassuring antiseptic smell, the sound of plates being thrown onto a metal trolley, guttural moans and a distant cricket match on a tinny-sounding radio. An old Aboriginal man with a bandage around his throat approached him and asked, ‘Are you a doctor?’
‘Yes.’ Proudly.
The man started undoing his bandage.
‘I can’t look at you now,’ Sevanand explained, holding the man’s arm.
‘Why not?’
‘I haven’t started work yet.’
‘When do you start?’
‘A few days.’
The man was confused. ‘So I gotta see that other fella?’
‘Yes.’ For the first time in weeks he felt like a doctor. ‘Now, return to your room. Do you know the way?’
The man shrugged, and indicated. ‘That way, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Is it?’
‘I’m asking. Do you remember?’
And then he turned and walked off.
Under a sign that read ‘Dial 9 for Assistance’ (which somebody had changed to ‘Arse-istance’) he found an old touch-phone and called for help. An irritated voice answered and he explained who he was. ‘I’m very tired. Could someone please come rapidly?’
‘Hold your horses, Doctor.’ The line disconnected.
As he waited he read the names on an honour roll. ‘Directors of the Coober Pedy Area Hospital’. Starting with 1928: ‘Dr HV Kimber’. He noticed there was a new name nearly every year. Dr White had lasted for five years in the fifties, but apart from that.
A tall man in his early thirties, wearing jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt, entered the foyer through a swinging door. ‘Nice,’ he said, staring at him. ‘You’re our next fella, eh?’
Sevanand looked surprised. ‘Next?’
‘But I’m sure you’re the one … are you?’
‘Which one?’
The young man shook his hand. ‘We weren’t expecting you until next week.’
‘I arrived yesterday, but I’ve slept in the desert.’
‘The desert?’
Sevanand explained and the man said, ‘I’m sorry, I was going to come and get you.’
‘It’s done now.’ Thinking of his wife and his promise.
The man introduced himself as Mark Ash, Director of Nursing, and took him into a small room. Made him watery coffee, sat down and said, ‘You should’ve called.’
‘I didn’t think, but I’m here now. If you can show me my room I’ll shower.’ He noticed the look on Ash’s face. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘The thing is, the last fella left it in a bit of a mess. So we’ve had the painters in.’
‘Are they finished?’
‘Started.’
‘I was promised a room.’
Ash tried to smile. ‘Yes, we’ve got one … Might even be able to arrange some new curtains.’
Sevanand tried the coffee and the taste made him madder still. ‘I really do need a rest and a shower. Someone should’ve told you when I was coming.’
‘You see, there’s your problem. You never assume anything with the government. If you want something done you gotta do it yerself.’
‘It’s been a long few days.’
And with these few words Mark Ash knew that Sevanand was not the one. He could already guess how long he’d last—four, five, maybe six months.
‘Listen, Dr Singh, Sevanand,’ he said, ‘up here you gotta take things as they come. It’s bush time. You know? Outback time. Like the black fellas. Doesn’t bother them if it takes six months to change a tyre. A year, ten years, so what? Get what I mean?’
Sevanand tried to smile. ‘And people enjoy their sex?’
Ash slapped his knee and laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s it, that’s how you wanna be.’
‘Flexible?’
‘That’s one way, eh?’ And he broke up laughing.
‘Beer?’
‘Plenty of beer.’
‘And humour?’
Ash stopped. ‘That, my friend, is the most important thing of all.’
‘So, I wait for my room? In the meantime?’
And smiled. ‘A few nights’ kip? I’ve got the perfect place.’
Yes, I agreed to be flexible, and I tried, but a professional man must maintain some dignity. The following night I stayed in a backpackers’ hostel run by one of Mr Ash’s friends. When I first met the landlord (Mr Bruce Grierson) I thought that things were looking up. He wore a business shirt and tie and the carpeted foyer within the undergr
ound bunker was clean, well lit and decorated with posters of German castles and Greek islands. But then I discovered that Mr Grierson had just returned from a funeral (a Swiss man who’d fallen down a mineshaft and broken his back, waiting nine days for help that never came). So, looks are deceiving. Very much so.
Mark Ash said his goodbyes and climbed the carpeted steps to the surface. Meanwhile, Bruce Grierson pulled off his tie and started to unbutton his shirt. ‘Punjab, eh? We don’t get many Indians. Mainly Brits and Germans. Germans seem to love underground bunkers, eh?’
Grierson removed his shirt to reveal a landscape of saltbush, and a pair of nipples that had hardened in the cold air. ‘Should be able to squeeze you in,’ he said, before pulling on a T-shirt (‘If you’ve got the shaft, I’ve got the drill’). He led Sevanand through double doors into a classroom-sized chasm lit with half a dozen bare globes hanging from a ceiling of chicken wire over red rock. ‘We’re pretty full up, but there’s always people coming and going.’
There were nine or ten triple bunks against each wall and three more rows extending across the room. Someone lazing on each bed, or a backpack and clothes as a claim. The entire floor was covered in sleeping bags, piles of washing and food and maps and books, more bodies (some wearing nothing more than bathers and shorts, one girl in a bra and undies), beer and spirit bottles scattered everywhere (although Grierson had said alcohol was banned), a pair lying on a bunk kissing and someone’s pet rat in a cage on top of an old fridge. A school group, perhaps nine or ten boys, throwing a basketball to each other while singing a riff on some sort of hymn:
The blessed saint,
A sacred start,
The Lindisfarne Creed,
A holy fart …
‘Here we go,’ Grierson said, creating a space on the floor. ‘Got a sleeping bag?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve got some spares. Make yourself at home. Gratis, too, eh? Mark said the hospital will pay yer bill.’
Sevanand searched for a suitable response. He’d learnt something about sarcasm (No, that’d be far too generous) and a lot about incredulity (Exactly how much do you charge for half a square metre of beer-soaked shag pile?). There was always aggression (Do you know who I am? Do you know who’ll be removing your appendix when it bursts?), bile (You wouldn’t house animals like this!) or acceptance (Here? Yes, that’ll do nicely).
Still, what was the point? He could see his wife smiling down at him, her face highlighted by hot, yellow globes. At least it’s shag pile, she said.
‘Thank you, Mr Grierson, and if I could borrow a sleeping bag?’
Half an hour later he was stretched out on a Camp-Masta 690. He’d showered, combed his hair and doused himself in powder before dressing in a pair of light summer pyjamas and returning to his square of carpet to rest.
Strange, he thought, as he closed his eyes. So much emptiness. So few people. And here I am back in my apartment building. Then he drifted off, his children’s voices mingling with muffled AC/DC.
‘Oi, mate, you’re on me jocks.’
Sevanand opened his eyes to see a caramel-coloured Aussie towering above him. Apart from a towel around his neck, he was naked. Sevanand studied bulging, steel girder legs that led up to a tight, dimpled scrotum frosted with grey hairs, a lopped cock dangling like overstretched taffy, a sixpack like the gorilla in Mumbai Zoo.
‘Me undies?’
Sevanand felt under his sleeping bag and found the underpants. Handed them over, and the giant put his legs through the holes, eventually gathering his tackle and packing it away in a manner that left nothing to the imagination. Then he pulled on some shorts and a singlet and said, ‘You sleepin’ next to me?’
‘Do you mind?’
He sniffed the air. ‘What you got on?’
‘Powder.’
‘Fuck, I’ve got some Old Spice if you want it.’
‘What sort?’
‘Old fuckin’ Spice!’
‘No thank you.’ He extended his hand.
The giant shook it, combed his hair and said, ‘My name’s Rob Foster, from Broome.’
‘Dr Singh.’
‘Doctor?’
‘Yes.’
Foster smiled at him. ‘What you doin’ here? Did yer kill someone?’
Sevanand sat up and crossed his legs. ‘My room at the hospital is being painted.’
‘Doctor, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Some of the fellas are goin’ down the pub. You wanna come?’
Sevanand stopped to think. Yes, he had to make an effort to fit in, but no, these weren’t locals. ‘Thank you anyway, but I’ve just arrived.’
‘Suit yerself.’
And with this Foster slipped on a pair of thongs and headed for the big double doors. Sevanand returned to his resting position, interlocking his fingers across his stomach, crossing his legs at the ankles and breathing deeply.
It was late, and dark, when he woke. The only light came from the fridge, the door having been left ajar. He could hear movement and a guttural moan, and he froze. A girl’s voice, laughing, and Foster’s, whispering. He kept his eyes closed and tried to control his breathing.
The voices stopped and he could hear lips and tongues and slurping and sucking. It wasn’t subtle. Bodies moving and clothes and sleeping bags rustling and then, an even longer silence. A few moments later the rustling became regular—a slow, acrylic whoosh getting faster and faster. He dared open his eyes just a few millimetres and made out the giant’s frame moving on top of the girl. He could see his monstrous buttocks rise and fall in the Kelvinator’s dim light. Before long the movement became forceful and louder and the girl started to moan. Foster soldiered on, grunting as if he was shovelling a pile of dolomite. And then there was a sort of frenzy of clothes and skin and oohs and ahs and, ‘Just there … don’t stop now.’
He heard them fall apart, and laugh and whisper, and then Foster burped and said, ‘Ssh, careful, you’ll wake the Paki.’
‘He’s probably been listening,’ she replied.
‘Oi, Paki, you awake?’
They laughed again.
Sevanand was petrified. He’d gained his own erection and feared they’d be able to see it through his light summer pyjamas. He improvised a roll to the right and they laughed again.
Over the next hour she returned to her giant three times. After this they stood, walked through the minefield of bodies and made their way to the showers. When Sevanand guessed it was safe he jumped up, pulled on some clothes over his pyjamas, gathered his bags and made for the foyer.
Twenty minutes later he was heading back to the hospital. With his briefcase in one hand and bag in the other he tried to balance, occasionally tripping on a gutter, slipping on gravel or stumbling on an old beer bottle. He could hear the grunting, and the baggage handler’s words: one of three things. Not because of any sense of sloth, laziness or stupidity (he supposed, as he passed the Chicago Motor Repairs with a herd of white utes parked out front) but out of necessity, a lack of alternatives, an acceptance of a life composed of imperfect things. Maybe, he guessed, as he looked up at the stars in the bruised, black sky, this was a sort of alcoholic perfection, a utopia sparkling with veins of red and green. Yes, colour. That’s what it was all about. Finding the perfect in the imperfect. But still, he mused, it was the life of a gambler. Sixty years of body odour, lung disease and frozen food for a few small stones. But if that’s what people wanted.
Three small consolations.
Or the story of the man who’d come from Russia. Three weeks later he was a millionaire. First shaft he’d ever put down.
A car slowed and pulled up beside him. A few young men stuck out their heads and said, ‘I’ll have a vindaloo, please,’ and, ‘How hot’s your masala?’ They all laughed.
‘Do you do butter chicken?’
‘I’ll have a fuckin’ laksa.’
And his mate. ‘That’s not fuckin’ Indian, y’ prick.’
The driver planted his f
oot and they disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Would you forgive me? Sevanand asked his wife, as he stood collapsing under the weight of his bags. As I sat listening to that pair, I was thinking how I could arrange it.
How? she asked.
He put down his bags. I could write a letter to the Health Commission explaining how the heat has triggered my asthma. Or maybe depression … or something like heart disease?
Or you could tell the truth?
Yes, I could write it all in a letter, couldn’t I?
And with this realisation, that the world wasn’t about to end just yet, he found the strength to pick up his bags and keep walking.
He passed what seemed to be a spaceship, a blocky, beyond-this-galaxy Nebula Class cruiser (yes, he could remember, sitting in his uncle’s lounge room, watching a grainy Star Trek) that promised an escape from one hostile planet to another. This led to a fish shop where he ordered whiting and chips and sat in front of a 60-minute dry cleaner to eat his meal. The fish was flavourless, full of bones and speckled with scales, cold in the middle, tasting of old cooking oil. The chips were undercooked and flaccid, soaked in vinegar and sprinkled with pepper (he’d seen the girl pick up the wrong shaker, but thought perhaps that this was the way the locals liked their chips).
He passed the Commercial Hotel, and for a moment thought about going in for a drink. He too could succumb, adapting to local conditions, joining the choir of teenagers vomiting on the weary Digger in the car park across the road. He watched as one of them flashed his arse at the traffic, held up his bottle and chanted, ‘Lindy, Lindy, Lindy, oi oi oi.’ But why should he? He needed order, routine, structure—a hierarchy of people in their places. He wanted to hear the words appendectomy, sclerosis, staphylococcus and peritoneal. To be around people who knew what CCF, ESR and FRC meant. He’d never be able to make conversation with people who were proud of their genitals.
