Bloke, page 15
‘No one ever catches up with that old man. And anyway, it’s you said you didn’t like sheds and hills.’
‘It was just a way of saying I couldn’t get any news, why I couldn’t do anything about the bloody boat business. I’m not even sure Giovanna is trying to —’
‘Giovanna.’
‘That’s her name.’
‘Nice. You like them photos?’ The old woman fixed me to the wall like a butterfly with a pin.
I stared at her square black face, not prepared to continue deferring to her antagonism. ‘I never knew anything about those people and they never knew anything about me.’
‘We tried.’
‘Well, so did I, as much as a kid can.’
‘And now you’re a man.’
‘And it wasn’t until I was in with Soloman that I knew.’
‘You musta known sooner than that. Look at you.’
‘I never knew for sure. I was just trying to survive.’
‘Like all of us.’
‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ Retha asked, lifting her eyes to mine as she said it.
‘I don’t know. She saw me once in prison and that’s it. Hardly heard from her since. That’s why they sent me here. To disappear.’
‘Had a blue?’ Aunty Cookup gave the knife a little exploratory twist.
‘No, I’m just trying to lie low.’
‘Any photos you want out of that album?’
I turned to the old woman, who was pretending the innocent occupation of chasing peas with her fork.
‘There’s one of her when she was about twenty or so. Must have been about when she had me. Standing in front of a Prefect.’
‘Uncle Ronnie’s first car. Well, not really his, truth is known.’
‘I’d like a copy of that one.’
‘Take it. This one here too.’ She drew a photo from an old black bag hanging on the back of her chair. ‘This was taken when she was about six months pregnant. Aunty Mabel sent it to me when she knew you was comin.’ She held the photo out to me but my hand seemed to have lead in it. Retha took the photo from her aunt’s hand and put it in front of me.
I could feel it coming. The photo blurred mistily. It could have been taken in a pond. I bit my cheek. Refused to cry in front of the Tannish Inquisition.
I picked up the photo and took it out to the shed. I lay on the bunk and willed my chest to subside, controlled my breathing, swallowed my tears. A man crying for his mummy. After an hour, two hours of staring at the bare iron of the ceiling, long enough to see the light of empty nail holes darken, I picked up the photo and saw my mother’s face. She was sitting with an older woman on a verandah lounge and her belly was obvious. She looked shy, nervous. Pretty, beautiful even. And she looked kind. Even as a young woman she looked kind, and happy to be pregnant. I picked up the album and turned the pages, looking for any other photos of her with a man.
It was a family album but no man of the right age ever stood by her side, no man who wasn’t an uncle or cousin. You could tell the cousins, the way they held their bodies. There was a photo of Retha with a handsome young man and even though he had an arm around her shoulders and was laughing as she was, you could see it was a cousin’s laugh, a kid’s laugh.
The men in the lives of these two young women seemed to be strangely absent every time someone pointed a camera at family.
There was a knock at the door.
‘What?’ I called.
‘It’s me, I wanted to see if you were all right.’
I opened the door and she came in carrying Lilly, groggy with sleep. ‘We were pretty rough on you.’
‘Like the bloody Supreme Court.’
‘She loved your mother, Jim. She grew her up after she was about eight. She’s suspicious.’
‘What was I supposed to do? I was a kid. They told me nothing. I thought I was on my own.’
‘Well, Aunt has been given plenty of reasons to hate gubbas – or people who think they’re gubbas.’
‘Listen, Rumpole, about six months ago someone tells me I’ve got a Koorie family and now I’m to blame for not knowing.’
‘But you knew earlier than that.’
‘Knew? What, some old black woman stops you in the street and asks where you come from and you’re supposed to know? What was I supposed to know? All I was doing was trying to stay out of trouble.’
‘And it didn’t work.’
‘No, well you’d know that, Miss Law, but I —’
‘They wanted me to be Miss Law,’ she said, unable to completely disguise a tilt to her jaw, an involuntary flourish of pride. Captivating. Doused my indignation.
‘How long were you at uni?’
‘Two years, and a bit. Got four units to complete. When she’s at kinder I’ll go back.’
‘Two more years!’
She looked away and adjusted the weight of the child in her arms.
‘I can see why they wanted you to be Miss Law.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Too arrogant. Too much of a smartarse.’
‘Not much call for smartarse blackfellas in law school.’
‘Except in beauty competitions, because the other five girls in the course looked like Wally Lewis.’
‘What, all of them?’
‘Well, one of them looked like Bronwyn Bishop.’
It was good to laugh. Eased my chest. I got up, not knowing why until I found myself looking for a drink. She saw my glance.
‘Won’t find a drink here, I’m afraid. She won’t even have a beer glass in the place. She’s had enough strife for one old lady.’
‘Well, thanks for making me laugh. I haven’t laughed since …’ La Paz. I saw the cable car inching up the vertical chasm like a stubby yellow and red caterpillar.
‘The boat?’
‘Yes.’ Shamefully I let her believe it was the boat, because I knew I wanted to kiss her lips. ‘I think you’re very beautiful.’
‘Yes, most men do … especially men living in sheds. See you tomorrow. I’d better put Lilly to bed.’ As she went past to reach the door she touched me on the shoulder. ‘See ya.’
My shoulder felt like it had been tapped by a soldering iron. Heard the flesh sizzle. Too long in sheds, I thought.
thirteen
At dawn I went for a long walk by the river. Past the sawmill and school, heralded by the shriek and wheel of galahs and corellas, down by the bridge, up past the pub, and slowly back to the lane behind the mill.
I had dreams of women during the night that had me tight as a drum. And not the right woman, either. Dreams are like that, sex dreams. Sometimes a man’s brain latches onto the closest scent. What a mess.
I wrestled my conscience. I had an obligation. A woman had given up her dream to help me get out of trouble and all I could think about was my cock. Gradually I calmed and worked to conjure Giovanna’s beauty, but it was a body without a face. But I was able to laugh at myself. A bit. Able to relax and think of the pleasure of being with Giovanna, even just sitting on a train or watching her brush her hair.
And then, as I walked around the corner of the house, I saw Retha, stretching to hang washing on the line, Aunty Cookup’s Battle of the Bulge undies – little tents. As she reached, the hem of her skirt rode up the back of her thighs; her top stretched tightly over her breasts.
I doubled back around the house and contemplated repeating the bachelor’s walk, but thought I might achieve the same effect by making tea and toast for Aunty Cookup. An image of her enormous pants made me grin, momentarily forgetting the stern, square visage of my inquisitor. I boiled the kettle and put bread in the toaster. I heard the old lady shamble in and pull a chair over to the fire door of the wood stove.
‘Takes a while to get the cold outa me bones.’
I glanced at her. It was summer. ‘I know, I know, but old bones feel it.’
‘Want a cup of tea, Aunt?’
‘Of course I do, it’s my kettle.’
She wasn’t about to be mollified by a Johnny-come-lately.
I put a plate of toast on the table and she began mashing a piece with her gums. Too early for the teeth just yet.
‘Your mother,’ she said, inspecting the toast like a Melbourne Show cooking judge, ‘she had the loveliest nature. It killed her losing you.’
We ate in silence.
‘Did she have any other children?’ I asked, after waiting to see if she’d provide that information.
‘No, no, she didn’t. But then she didn’t have any boyfriends either. So we never knew if something happened to her in the hospital, she never said. She fostered kids.’
‘Fostered?’
‘Well, it was like fostering. The Advancement League would have to look after kids from time to time, if their mothers got sick or died or had too many kids at once. Elsie would look after them.’
I made more toast and boiled the kettle again.
‘What about my father?’
‘Never saw him again. Gubba. Gift of the gab. Gubba gab. Good-lookin bloke but never looked like stayin around. Elsie thought he was Clark Gable. But he wasn’t. We only got the pictures once a month them days.’
Lilly came into the room, tottery from sleep but assured, certain. ‘Toast, Unca Jimmy?’
I turned my back and put more bread in the toaster. Uncle Jimmy.
‘And a story.’
I scraped butter and honey onto the toast.
‘Long ones,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘She wants it cut in strips, not squares.’
‘Oh.’ I cut the toast and picked up the child, sat her in the highchair and read as she methodically ate the toast. No spilt bits, licked the butter off her fingers, looked in alarm if some got on her shirt.
‘One day this man —’
‘What man?’
‘This man, look, the one on the cover.’
‘Oh, him.’
‘One day this man, a fella called Albert Cutts, went into the forest to cut trees. He was a tree feller. A fella who cuts down trees —’
‘Koorie man,’ she declared.
‘Yes. People will always need wood —’
‘Mum, Mum, Uncle Jimmy made toast.’
Retha walked into the room, her hair freshly washed. My jaw dropped.
‘Story, Unca Jimmy.’ The little girl rapped on the table to drag my attention from her mother.
‘Wood … wood for their houses, he told the possums, but possums always needed apples for their mouths …’ Lilly laughed. She wasn’t a giggly child, but possums eating apples amused her.
‘And possums only concentrate when there’s food involved.’
‘I knew that old man.’ Aunty Cookup had her eyes closed. Sitting in her armchair, still holding her plate. I thought she’d gone to sleep. ‘Nash really. Dasher we called him. Dasher Nash. Cousin of ours.’
‘Albert had a red dog, a dingo.’
‘He did too.’
‘What he call that puppy, Aunty Cooka?’
‘Brim. You know that, you heard this story thousan’ times.’
‘Come on, Uncle Jimmy, I want the story again.’
‘Brim she was called and …’
After the story was over Retha lifted the plate from the old lady’s hand, she really was asleep now, and took the child to play under the apple trees. I washed the dishes, and then made myself another cup of tea and took it to the back step to watch them play.
Retha sat at the edge of a rough old sand pit and helped Lilly pour sand into moulds and dampen them with water. They hardly spoke at all, just murmured together like bees in the flowers. I nearly dozed off myself.
It was warm. The day’s heat began to build. Soon the little cottage was uncomfortable. Aunty Cookup opened the back and front doors and sprayed water over the hydrangeas.
‘Me air conditioner. Me Coolgardie safe, this one.’ Cool air crept down the central hall of the house.
‘Come on, Uncle Jimmy,’ Lilly called, ‘swim now.’
Even Aunty’s Coolgardie safe was struggling to cool the house by two o’clock, so Retha decided to take the little girl for a swim.
We walked down through the blond crackling grass, ticking and chirping with crickets and grasshoppers. Swallows swept in quick flat circuits over the paddock. Kookaburras and wattlebirds retreated to the trees, subdued by the heat.
The river bent in a broad arc, creating a sandy beach that gave way to smooth round pebbles and then a darker green pool beneath the cliff, a glowering boss of rock that had resisted the river’s rush. The pool was beautiful. Bellbirds chimed incessantly. A large lilly pilly towered over the beach, creating a deep blue-green shade.
Retha towed the child into the water on an old tractor tube. The kid could barely grasp the sides but she clung on with amazing strength, ecstatic to be afloat. Retha wore a sarong and T-shirt. The sarong dampened and clung to her legs as Lilly splashed with her little feet. The T-shirt gaped a little. I wrenched my eyes away, like Atlas lifting the world.
She began teaching the kid to swim, supporting her on the flat of her hand.
‘Look at me, Unca Jimmy, I’m swimming.’
When they’d finished I got in the water and the little girl ran and jumped at me, certain I would catch her. She climbed onto my back and I swam to the other side of the river.
‘Let me touch it,’ she demanded, reaching out her hand to touch the cool flat face of the cliff. ‘Touched it!’ she yelled in triumph. ‘I crossed the river and touched the mountain!’
Retha was shielding her eyes and against the mauve shade of the lilly pilly she was extraordinary, a painting of the rural idyll. Although that usually involved white women with large hats and flowing dresses.
Lilly ate a banana and supervised the pouring of cordial, ensuring everyone had exactly the same amount. Then she curled up against her mother’s thigh.
‘Tell me a story, Uncle Jimmy.’
‘I haven’t got a book.’
‘Make a story.’
‘All right. Well, once there was a princess —’
‘Was it me?’
‘Could have been.’
‘Was it Mummy?’
‘Probably.’ I avoided looking at either of them.
‘No, me, I want it to be me.’
‘All right, once there was a Princess of the Lilies —’
‘I’m the princess, Mummy.’
It wasn’t much of a story. The princess had a beautiful black horse and rode off into the forest to save her grandmother from the bushfire, rode back home and had a cup of tea. The ending was a bit lame but Lilly just drifted off; the same as the story.
Retha and I were left in companionable but edgy silence.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked. ‘You could be anywhere.’
‘I’ve got no money. Aunt lets me stay for nothing as long as I buy some food and help her with the house. She grew me up. She’s like my mum. I always come back when I can. I love it here, this river.’
‘I can’t stop looking at you, Retha.’
‘I know.’
‘Sitting in the shade here, when I looked back …’ She said nothing. Stroked Lilly’s hair. ‘But that’s what I mean. Why here? Men would walk over hot coals to be near you.’
‘I don’t like firewalkers.’
‘But you know what I mean. Any man —’
‘But I don’t want to rely on any man. I’m going to get Lilly to school, finish my degree and then I’ll be —’
‘You’ll be thirty or more.’
‘That’s not so old.’
‘No, and you’ll still be gorgeous.’
I made her uncomfortable. I made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t prevent myself from saying the bloody obvious. Retha shifted Lilly’s weight, bending a little as she did so. The T-shirt gaped. I glimpsed those indigo veins. I didn’t remove my gaze and she tugged the shirt back into position.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve tried not to look. Those veins, I’m …’
‘They’re weird.’
‘No, they’re gorgeous, like maps …’
‘They’ve always been like that.’
‘Like you can see through your skin.’
‘I hated them when I was a kid. They called me Spiderwoman.’
‘Retha, you are —’
‘Shh, Jim, shh, you’ve got a girlfriend and I’ve got a child.’
‘You’re using Lilly as an excuse.’
‘I’m not going to repeat my mistake.’
‘What?’
‘Her father. The all-Australian male. Beautiful, athletic, sensitive – and feckless.’
‘Feckless? Funny word.’
‘I am studying law.’
‘Feckless doesn’t come from law.’
‘Arts/Law.’
‘Well, arts, I suppose, they’d say feckless.’
‘Anyway he did a runner. The charm of road map breasts ran out after staying home three Saturday nights in a row. Lilly was nine weeks old.’
‘Sounds like my … mother.’ I couldn’t say mum.
‘Yes, a bit like that. He found it easier to roam about than do the domestic stuff.’
‘Men are mongrels.’ I intended irony.
‘No, people are just selfish. Most of them. Can only think of one person at a time. Usually themselves. I have to think about two.’ I looked at her, challenging her martyrdom. ‘You might think it sounds corny, but I do.’
‘Or you’re making that an excuse.’
‘What, to resist the overwhelming charms of men?’
‘No, I didn’t mean that, I meant … to do what you want to do.’ ‘Perhaps.’
I felt my body inclining toward her, every breath tilting me ever closer to the warmth of her face. ‘Can I kiss you?’
She put a hand on Lilly’s arm, like a barrier between us, staring me down.
‘Who kissed the princess?’ Lilly murmured.
‘A handsome prince,’ I replied.
‘And then he rode off to chase dragons and other damsels.’
‘What dragons? Uncle Jimmy didn’t say dragons.’ Lilly seemed to be about to sit up but it turned into a lazy roll and she was back to sleep in an instant.
‘Not all princes ride off.’
‘But a lot of them have two princesses.’
It stung like a whip. Not that I didn’t sting myself with the same lash. I was constantly aware of Giovanna, but when I conjured an image of her she had blue snaky lines on her breasts and reclined in the purple shade of lilly pillies. I struggled to edit the image but having Retha and her beauty before me made it difficult. I simply couldn’t walk away. I was a man. A stupid fucking man.
