While I was trying my best to be at ease with all of this, the inescapable fact was that my mother had signed up to live out her last twenty-five to thirty-five years here, and this knowledge could grip me at any unwanted time. When it did, it cut through my stomach like a hot blade, and I would reach for another cigarette, another drink. I wasn’t sure how a person was supposed to live with something like that, or if many people did live with the weight of knowing their parent’s life had been emptied out.
When I arrived outside their unit, crows were quarrelling in the treetops and keeping the smaller birds from scavenging the foliage below.
Noonie had provided a spread of cold meats and bread and condiments, all laid out on the dining table. This table had always fascinated me – it was off-grey and bordered with a red pattern that looked partly floral but also like ribbon. I’d eaten countless frozen pizzas at that table, and I’d always been compelled to trace that pattern with my fingertips, a compulsion I’d fought off since growing conscious of my childish fascination.
‘Beer, Ford?’ Pop asked.
‘Sure. Thanks.’
He extracted three bottles of VB from the fridge and poured them into the glasses he’d arranged on a tea towel on the counter. Without a drinks cabinet this was his method – there needed to be a designated place from which to pour and serve. He distributed the glasses to me and Mum, and we cheersed ourselves before sitting in the living room.
‘So, how’s university going?’ Mum asked. ‘Tell us all about it.’
‘There’s not much to tell, really. I’ve got exams coming up and an assignment due later in the week, so —’
‘Well, just so long as ya study hard, boy. If you apply yourself, you’ll be awright,’ said Pop.
‘Yeah,’ I said, looking across the walls of the house.
In the living room, nothing had changed. Beside the large framed picture of Noonie and Pop on their wedding day was the equally large image of Deidre and Robert McCullen on theirs. This image dominated the wall – dominated, in my view, the entirety of the house. Why? Why have they hung it back up? Why did they bring it into their new home at all? And why has Mum allowed this?
It struck me, then, in a way it never had before, that there was no accounting for the unequal distribution of the weight people assigned to the various aspects of their lives. The marriage had been the defining relationship of Mum’s life, and its end one of the defining aspects of Noonie’s and Pop’s. But for Dad, his marriage and divorce – while significant – were quite different. The spaces between people were vast, and these spaces made them unknowable, because someone will move on when someone else will not; because someone will carry the memories of a summer romance to their grave, while their summer love will forget not only their lover’s face but also their name, possibly the entire summer. What was the point in remembering a thing that everyone else would forget? What was the point in thinking or feeling? It only made everything worse. Memories, thoughts, emotions – they didn’t enrich life, they only crippled it, made it unbearable.
I finished my lunch quickly, made my friendly excuses, and left. When I got back to Coburg, the house filled with boxes made me claustrophobic, and so I tore the cap off a beer and began putting them away.
That night I found myself at my tram stop waiting to head into Brunswick. I had a tight lager-head, and I was unsure where exactly I was going, knowing only that I planned to lose my call centre paycheque in some pubs.
Normally I was the only person down at my stop at a late hour, but when I arrived there was a skinny old man dressed in a cheap suit, his tie askew, strands of limp, greasy hair matted to his glistening forehead. He was sweating profusely despite the cold night, against which I was pinching the collar of my coat, and he was swaying back and forth on the spot with his hands in his pockets. A handkerchief protruded from one of these pockets, and because of this I considered us bonded. I’d always counted fellow handkerchief users as friends.
‘Where ya been, mate?’ I asked, when he looked me up and down.
‘Casino,’ he slurred, his blue eyes glowing.
I thought I’d misheard him. ‘Sorry? Casino?’ I clarified.
‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded, his chin on his chest.
‘You mean Crown?’
‘No. Casino.’ He pointed into the neighbourhood, in the direction from which I’d come.
I looked back up the street. Where the fuck is this casino? ‘
They kick me out.’ He laughed. ‘No money.’
‘Yeah? For real?’
I realised he was talking about some illegal casino. A poker table in the backroom of someone’s house, I imagined.
‘I lose tonight,’ he said.
The old man was Italian, and the booze and his advanced years were eroding his grasp over his second language, leaving us to converse in short bursts.
The tram arrived soon enough, and we got on together. I walked us down to my usual seat in back, by the rear door facing sideways, and the old man and I sat beside each other. It was the same place I’d sat with Ellie the day we’d defeated Mr Tracksuit, but the old man did not look much like Ellie.
‘What do you need?’ I asked.
‘Need?’
‘How much money?’
‘For my house, rent, heater. Everything. So much money. Hundreds. Thousands, mate.’
I touched the coloured notes folded over and tucked into my shirt pocket. It wasn’t enough to cover his utilities, I knew.
‘Hey, ya got money for booze?’ I asked.
The gambler pulled out the lining of his pockets and laughed.Nothing but lint and a crumpled handkerchief.
‘My shout,’ I told him. ‘Come on.’
The tram rolled into Brunswick and I tugged the cord at Victoria Street, where we alighted, the old man following me politely, curiously, to the bottle shop at the East Brunswick Club. I didn’t have the kind of money needed for his wife to forgive him, but there was enough for a couple longnecks and a couple bottles of cheap, nasty claret, possibly enough for him to forget his losses, to forget what a fuck-up he was in his old lady’s eyes. A man deserves a chance to forget.
The old man wouldn’t come all the way inside the bottle shop, just loitered at the door and waited for me to collect the grog. I handed him one of the bottles wrapped in brown paper, and we walked down Albert Street to Fleming Park, a public footy oval where we took a seat and looked out across the green grass.
‘Cheers,’ I said.
When we tapped our bottles together they didn’t clink through the paper. The old man had little to say in his stupor, just sad eyes that said it all, and so I kept mute, too, staring out at the oval and wondering how it’d come to this for a friend.
‘Must go home now,’ he said, after a long while. He’d polished off the last of his claret.
‘No worries. Good to meet you.’
‘Nice to meet ya, too, mate.’ He extended his arm to shake my hand.
I shook his hand. It wasn’t shaky, but it wasn’t steady, neither frail nor firm.
‘See ya round,’ I said.
‘Goodnight,’ he said, and left.
I stuck in the park a minute longer. I still had the beers on me and so walked the rest of the way down Albert and across Nicholson. The miner’s cottages were getting smashed in and the apartment blocks were going up. Just like Steven had said they would.
When I got to the creek I followed the bike path north, back up to Coburg, past CERES and then around the curve where there was a religious building – not a church, maybe a mosque or a temple or a synagogue – and where the bell miners congregated in the trees, making their distinct ping that rang out from all directions
… ping… ping
… ping… ping
... ping
and then up past the velodrome and under the bridge, all the way back to my favourite spot, the steep-sloping embankment that overlooked a ford of large stones, where I sat in the long grass and drank the beers. I’d imagined
that at some point, at that moment perhaps, God might reach down and pluck me up and inspect my innards, just the way I’d done to those yabbies dying in that seamy pool. But it didn’t happen.
One day, I’d be buried in a grave in Fawkner beside Nan and Hamish, beside Noonie and Pop and Mum. My life would end where it’d begun, in the north. But what would be in between? As I looked into the dark water I couldn’t envision my future. It was as murky as the ripple that flowed over the rocks.
But when I was out of booze and about to head home, that’s when I saw it, something silvery that flashed on the surface of the Merri before disappearing beneath
pblump
Acknowledgements
Much effort and many years has gone into seeing my fiction in print – the many unpublished other manuscripts, a disastrous attempt to write a non-fiction book at one stage, and so on … Fourteen years have passed and, finally, here is my ‘first’ novel … Just in case it’s another fourteen years before I see myself writing an acknowledgments section again, I wish to thank a range of people both specific to this project as well as those who’ve come in and out of my life over the time that I’ve been writing, as well as those individuals who have fuelled my desire to do this thing, whatever it really is ...
I’ve been incredibly privileged to know a handful of great friends, mentors, peers, colleagues, supporters, and early readers, whose conversations about life and literature and all other things has been invaluable over the years, and whose passing comments on my work, their enjoyment and support of it, I’ve cherished more than they understand. Thanks to the following people for making me laugh, getting me drunk, offering me a job, lending an ear, spinning a yarn, inspiring a line, or whatever it was you did: Rihana Ries, Meg Kirkland, Eddie Paterson, Emily Bitto, Scott Robinson, Elyas Khan, Tony Birch, Chris Ringrose, Connor O’Neill, Mark Baker, Jane Leonard, Colin Riess, Elizabeth MacFarlane, Grant Caldwell; Marcus Picaro and Jack Burns and the rest of the Preston contingent; the 2005 Coburg Giants U18 men’s team (Eli, are you there? Is that you?); the old HG/new SSB crew, especially Michael Hart and Paul McNally (thanks for taking a chance on me, Paul, it meant more to me at the time than I think you realise); and all those wonderful people who serve drinks. And Butters, the next one’s dedicated to you, if I can find a publisher – we’ll get the story out if all the arseholes in the world don’t stop us.
The development of this novel was aided by a Varuna Residential Fellowship. I cannot think of a better or more beautiful environment for ironing out, riffing on, honing, buffing or whatever else you do with prose. Thanks especially to staff and peers, Veechi Stuart, Amy Sambrooke, Vera Costello, Sid Walls, Alex Philp, Zenobia Frost, Elizabeth Humphreys, Anne Gorman, Laura Elvery and, most importantly, Sheila Atkinson!
Special thanks must go to Nick Gadd and Vince Leigh – my brilliant editors, close readers, dear friends, favourite audience – without whose help this book would never have made it to print. Thank you so, so much for taking the time and making the effort, for taking me seriously and for treating me as an equal.
Special thanks also to Antoni Jach – mentor, friend, inspiration – who, perhaps more than any other individual, has helped me realise my aim of seeing my work through to publication and to whom I am forever grateful and indebted. And a big thank you to all my classmates from the various masterclasses and publishing days facilitated by Antoni, which I’ve attended. In particular, thanks to masterclass groups XV (Enza Gandolfo, Heather Gallagher, Sue Robertson, Kathryn O’Connor, Moreno Giovannoni, Pauline Luke, Stella Glorie and Deborah Wardle) and XVII (Bridget Haylock, Maggie Baron, Miriam Zolin, Jos Kasperczyk, Lawrence McMahon, Maria Abbatangelo, Adrianne Howell and Anthony Ham). Without this great network of people this novel would not exist.
Thanks to my wonderful editor Kate Goldsworthy. You’ve helped make this novel as strong as it could be and for that I owe you. Thanks for the in-depth discussions, your sharp eye, fantastic editorial insights, and for treating this novel with care, warmth and the seriousness it deserves.
Thanks also to Peter Lo for providing such a great cover design. So, this is what my first book looks like … And to Thomas Holst for taking my picture.
And thank you, thank you, thank you to my publishers, Transit Lounge. Thanks to Tess Rice and to Barry Scott. Barry, thanks for taking a chance on me. Your interest and faith in my work grounded me during a rough trot and provided a fixed target to aim for. You didn’t just publish a book, you helped salvage the best of a bad couple years. I’m delighted to be part of the Transit Lounge family, whose community of authors have already made me feel at home and supported. Thank you to Roger Averill, Catherine de Saint Phalle, Angela Savage and Sallie Muirden. Great writers, even better people. Cheers!
Finally, thank you to my family – Mum, Nanma and Pa – to whom this book is dedicated. Thank you for always encouraging my writing and facilitating the space for me to steer clear of those two dreadful pillars of Australian culture – mediocrity and conformity – and for allowing me to become something or someone of my own making, for better or worse. Thank Christ for that! This book wouldn’t exist without you, so you really only have yourselves to blame.
This book is for Coburg, where I grew up. I spent the first twenty-five years of my life living within the boundaries of the Merri Creek, Bell Street, Sydney Road and Moreland Road. It’s the most important and sacred tract of land on earth, in my opinion. Except for an incredible amount of persistence and consistent, hard fucking work, writing is quite simple. You just have to see what’s right in front of you, and then you need to find it fascinating. In the end, despite everything, this has been easy: my life and this city is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a joy, all of it, even the bad stuff, even those cracked bitumen streets.
Tobias McCorkell spent the first
25 years of his life in Coburg.
This is his first novel.
Everything in its right place Page 22
