Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

Now that the holidays were here, the three of them just mucked around in the house or out in the yard. There was always the river, so often they walked down to Crawley to the baths for a swim. The old man was at work and the old girl didn’t seem to care much what they did, these days.

Down by the tracks, the three of them dug a cubbyhole. Well, Ted and Rose dug. Chub just sat round looking like he might do something any moment. It was a kind of alliance forged in boredom, but they got the long trench dug. They made a rectangular chamber at the end hacked into the side of the embankment where trees grew and shielded them from view, and they roofed it with tin from dunny roofs in back lanes and shovelled sand back over so the whole thing was invisible. Ted was good at building things, Rose had to concede. He was good at pinching things, too. They pulled nails out of other people’s fences, knocked off the odd fourbetwo from wood heaps and even copped a shovel. It took a week. The final touch, a trapdoor, was the oven door from an old Kooka stove, and it opened out on a hinge and all. Inside, the sand was blackpacked, and Rose thought it smelled of chook feathers. It was quiet in there, and even with a candle you could only see a foot or two ahead. Rose could barely believe they’d done it. In the whole week there wasn’t a quarrel or even a bad feeling. Ted was funny, cracking bum jokes and teasing. He loved to make things join up. It made him happy, and Rose wondered if this was the first time she’d really seen him happy. They got on so well they didn’t even mind Chub walking up and down, pressing his lips together and doing absolutely ringall.

But it all went to the dogs in a hurry. The day it was finished Chub went in the trapdoor and climbed straight out again and wouldn’t go back in.

I don’t like it, he said.

Well if you’d done something to make it better, you wouldn’t need to complain, Rose said.

I don’t like the sand.

Shit, said Ted.

Then Chub ran off. Ted and Rose climbed in and lit candles and sat in the dead quiet of their bunker. Ted showed her the tin of Capstan tobacco he’d knocked off from a shop in Subi. She was outraged, but she wanted things to go well so she watched him take out his Tally-Ho papers and open the tobacco tin crouched down on his haunches with his loose shorts showing that revolting little thing of his hanging down. Then it was all over. Someone banged on the door, Ted snapped the tin shut in fright and screamed. The roof started caving in, and they spent an hour in Mrs Lamb’s kitchen watching her try to get Ted’s dick out of the Capstan tin. Some grownups stomped the cubby in, and Ted snarled at everyone that came near. Every time one of the Lamb kids passed they’d laugh their boxes off and Rose knew there’d be no fun before Christmas.

The old man lost big at the races. Things started to disappear from the house. Then the old girl disappeared from the house.

It’s the Hairy Hand, the old man said.

Rose couldn’t speak to him.

Poison

Dolly followed the rails. It had been a long time since a train had come by. The moon lit up the steel so it looked deadly cool, and now and then she had the feeling she could just lie down there and go to sleep and the whole world, the complete fucking mess, would just evaporate. She was drunk. She was stinking putrid drunk and she didn’t care, though she’d like to know where her left shoe was. Her mouth tasted like burnt sugar. They could all go to hell.

Remember those hot buckling rails up there, up north where childhood lived? Remember that? Coming back from that ride with your father who was, after all, not so much your father as your father’s father-in-law. Remember all your sisters hanging off the great long gate as it swung open to let you in? Can you still see your big-boned sister watching you pass, her eyes narrowed in the dust, the diamond engagement ring plain obvious on her hand? How far it was from the rails, that blanched stretch of dirt where you got down off the horse, and with your fingers in the wire, climbed up on that gate, to look her straight in the face and say absolutely bugger all. Remember the groaning of cows? The sound of your grandfather leading your horse away, the other sisters climbing down all quiet. Oh, God, there was poison in you, Dolly. Right then, if you’d spat in her face you’d have blinded her, killed her. So why didn’t you? Well, that’s the question, old darling, that’s the wonder.

It only took Dolly’s body a second to decide that it couldn’t go on. She dropped in the dry grass, even as she walked. The moon hung over her like a dirty Osram globe. She watched it till it was a sure bet it wouldn’t fall on her, and then she passed out.

Rose knew she’d be the one to find her. She set out early with this fact sitting on her back, and an hour down the rails towards Karrakatta she came on her. At first Rose didn’t know what to think. There was dew on her, and she smelt like she’d be dead. Rose stood and looked a while. The old girl’s feet were black and bare. Her skirt was twisted, foul. There was a pile of chunder next to her head, some dried like the glaze on a teapot, along her cheek.

Rose thought: If she’s dead, then I won’t have a mother.

She stooped to touch. Well. She still had a mother. But the old girl couldn’t be woken. Rose shoved, poked, slapped. In the end, she walked up to the station, and with the money the old man had given her, caught the 7.15 home.

Oriel Lamb had never seen anybody throw up like Mrs Pickles was throwing up. Yesterday she was hitting the wall and erupting into the air and Mr Pickles was cracking nervous jokes about her being an old geezer after all, but today it was black-green stuff coming up and no one was joking. Oriel poured water into her and sponged her down and left the shop to Lester. The poor woman’s flesh was the colour of pastry and cold to touch. It was like she’d been poisoned. The Pickles kids came and went. Mr Pickles was at work. The house was dim and in need of scrubbing and airing. Everywhere there were saucers full of fag ash, dirty clothes, unwashed plates and dust. Oriel Lamb sat at the foot of the bed to wait. It went on all day like the law of diminishing returns, Mrs Pickles puking and moaning, until in the end there was only her heart and lungs to eject before it could logically cease. But late the second day, Mrs Pickles eased back into sleep and Oriel knew it was finished. She got up and looked at the place and decided to finish the job.

Rose walks in and it smells different. Windows are open and curtains thrust aside. She goes into her mother’s room to find her sleeping. The room smells of phenyle. There is no dust on the dresser. The big tilting mirror is free of specks and splats. Down in the kitchen the dishes are done and there are nine fresh pasties on the draining board. The floor is still damp. Rose thumps upstairs and puts her head in the boys’ room. Their beds are made; their dirty clothes are gone, the window is up. The rug looks beaten within an inch of its life. She goes next door to her room and looks at the brushes and ribbons rearranged metrically on her dresser; she regards the remade bed and feels her jaw harden. In one movement she rips the bed clothes back and tosses them across the floor. Her eyes fatten up with tears, fury, shame.

Downstairs the old man is stamping around, back from work.

Four weeks to Christmas! he’s yelling. How’s the old girl?

Rose kicks the door shut and begins to destroy her room.

Summer