Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

Your father’s not in, Laine, Beryl murmurs behind.

Hmn?

The truck’s gone. His bed hasn’t been slept in.

Elaine turns and is distracted from wondering how Beryl has the nerve to go into the old man’s room, by the mystery of his absence.

Probably gone to the markets early, I spose.

He hasn’t been here.

He used to be in the army, Mrs Lee. He knows how to make his bed. Elaine isn’t used to being firm with Beryl. Sometimes she has the feeling she’ll end up like that poor woman, alone, too old, pathetic and dependent, it’s the only thing that keeps her from lashing her now and then, the image of herself in Beryl’s rednosed maudlin face.

Well, says Beryl, I hope he comes good on the apples today. People are asking.

Here comes Mum, put some wood on the stove. I’ll wake the boys.

Quick wakes from a plain wide sleep without dreams to remember, and finds Fish in bed beside him. It brings back more mindpictures than any dream — they could both be boys instead of the men they are. Fish has his head against Quick’s chest and his arm thrown over his belly. Quick smells his brother’s hair, feels the weight of him against his ribs. It feels like forgiveness, this waking, and Quick is determined not to be embarrassed. He looks around the room and sees how shabby it is. Wallpaper has gone the colour of floor fluff. The bedspread is patched, and he feels the pillowslip against his chest, an assembly of old pyjama tops. The furniture could have come from any combination of shutdown pubs from Beverley to Bakers Junction, the kind of firewood gimcrack he’s seen as a shooter and rouseabout and truckie.

Quick?

Hmm?

Lester goed.

What?

He didden come.

Did you get lonely?

He didden.

He probably had somethin to do.

Everyone goes.

Quick chewed his lip. There was more action around the old house than there used to be. It took all your energy just to keep track.

Down the corridor Lon sleeps openmouthed. Pimples break out on his chin and others are plotting. A bomber jacket, new and wrinkled, lies across his chair. Out on the landing, Red gets on with her situps. She has a shine on her, the firmness of green fruit, and wind comes out of her like truck brakes.

On the other side of the corridor, Chub Pickles sleeps like he was custombuilt for it, Rose Pickles writes in her diary with her tongue wickedly in the corner of her mouth and listens to him snoring through the wall. She checks her nails between sentences. She has beautiful hands and they still surprise her.

And then the silly drongo told me my ear tasted like treacle, and that HAS to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Still, he’s nice enough for his kind. It’s hard to believe I come from this nuthouse every morning and go out there into the world without everyone guessing straight off. It’s like two lives. Ha, ha. Like a book!

Rose hears the Lamb truck pull in and goes to the window. Down below she sees her mother’s arms protruding from her ground floor bedroom. There’s Mr Lamb with Stan the cocky, but no Sam. Curious.

Dolly can’t catch Lester’s eye as he stumps up onto the verandah with a crate of lettuce. She waits, braving the chill in her thin nightie, but he comes and goes as though she’s not there. He looks tired and needs a shave. The windscreen of the truck is running with the goo of a hundred exploded bees.

You look like you just lost a quid and found a shillin, she says in the end.

Lester stops, a box of Jonathons swaying in his arms. I’ll let you know when I find the shillin.

Are you in the poo, too?

Let me put it this way, Mrs Pickles. By midnight we’re probably all gunna be in the poo.

People like you aren’t used to it.

Being in trouble, you mean?

Yeah.

She watched him thinking about this for a good while and she could tell that a thousand cruel comebacks were reeling through his mind. She braced herself for it, but he said nothing and she felt ludicrously grateful. It gave her the feeling that there’d be no more visits to her kitchen and she was surprised to find she regretted it.

Lester went to bed with the curtains drawn and slept till noon but instead of getting up to make tonight’s pasties and do the afternoon grocery deliveries, he stayed where he was, paralysed with wondering how he could have gotten himself into such a spot. All their cash savings in a two-up game depending on a dud gambler landlord whose wife he had been knocking himself only yesterday. And it wasn’t only his own mystification he worried about. He could feel the wonder of the others almost crashing at the door.

He didn’t sleep, though he wished he could because he was still weary from the night. He looked around the room, tried to concentrate on its contents. I miss kids, he thought; I miss having children around. To fool with and muck about with. I was somebody with kids — they believed in me, I made them laugh. And now … what is it? That they see straight through me? The bloke who’s married to the lady in the tent.

He noticed how patched together everything was, everything in the room. What had they been saving for, anyway?

All our clothes are old and mended, he thought; we never buy anything except for the shop, so what are we intending to buy?

He listened to the sounds of lunch being prepared down the hall.

He’s probably picked up a wog, said Elaine.

Do the knife, Quick, said Fish.

Quick spun the knife with a grin.

This is for the biggest bloke in the family, and remember, sport, the knife never lies.

Fish hunched over the spinning blade, giggling. It was a strange sound to hear coming from a fourteen stone man whose hands were as big as T-bones. A pale forelock bobbed on him as his head followed the slowing movement and Quick set his teeth against that old feeling of grief and blame. The blade crept around now, and Beryl and Elaine stopped putting out the ham to watch. Lon looked out of the window. Oriel turned from the stove looking blank. Fish’s giggle thickened and he barely seemed to need a breath to sustain it.

It’s me! Meeeee!

Fish beat his fists on the table and they laughed with him until Oriel put the early potatoes out, steaming in their pale jackets with butter sliding over them and parsley sprinkled on top. There was tea from the urn and fresh bread, a salad with grated carrot and cheese, chutney for the ham.

Before anyone else was finished, Quick excused himself and went down the hall. He knocked at the old man’s door and went in uninvited.

How you feelin?

The old man was lying there with his arms behind his head. He looked pale and worried.

Oh, I’m orright.

You crook?

No, not really.

Quick sat in the old reading chair that used to be in the loungeroom before the loungeroom became the shop. He could smell the lemon scent of the old boy.

Good to have you back, son. You get out of bed and I climb in, eh?

You’re lucky Red’s at school. If you’re not crook she’ll be onto you. She doesn’t believe in sickness. Even if you were crook she’d have you out.

They laughed quietly at this.

She’s like her mother.

Quick shrugged. Well, she hasn’t been in to hook you out, so I gathered you must be on yer last legs.

Well, that remains to be seen.

What dyou mean?

Oh, I’m in the poop. I’ve lent money to Pickles.

Quick whistled. A lot, eh?

The old man nodded.

Mum know?

She’s got a nose.

You’re too soft, Dad, Quick murmured without much censure in his voice. Let’s go fishin, take Fish along.

Not tonight.

They sat quiet for a while. It was like a hospital visit, or what Quick imagined a gaol visit to be like.

You ever dream? the old man asked.