Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

Is there someone up? Sam backed out of the room and called down the corridor.

A door opened. Mr Pickles? It was the Lamb girl Elaine, who always seemed engaged but not married. Fish? She poked her rollered head out into the hall. What’s happening? Where’s his clothes?

I think he’s a bit at sea, said Sam.

She won’t let me play, blubbered the boy. He was bigger than Sam and heavy.

Sam felt his joints tingling as if somewhere out of sight there was a small wire shorting.

Whirling Dark

What is it whirling dark across the rooftops and down the streets like a wind, like a hot rancid breath? Cloudstreet suddenly looks small, and the further up you go the flimsier it looks. It could blow away in a moment. All those rooftops could go like leaves, and across the world there’s men with circuitry and hardware, men with play lighting their eyes, fellows whose red faces flash like the buttons beneath their hands. All the rooftops of the world become leaves. They quiver and titter before the indrawn breath of brinkmanship and world play right through summer and winter. While down in the streets below their roofs, some people, the people I knew, the people I came to know better having left them behind, fidget before other withheld winds. Dolly drinking and hating up a storm, the shadows bulleting around the library like mullet in a barrel, Fish himself quaking with pent force and worry while across town in the orderly quiet suburbs, Rose Lamb meets the oncoming hayfever season the way she meets the Cuba crisis — with the windows down and the curtains drawn.

Lost Ground

Rose stopped reading newspapers, and put the radio in the linen press. She didn’t want to know about Cuba and all the horrors gathering. The world was a sad, miserable place and soon it’d be no place at all. Quick was off deluding himself in uniform, bees hummed mindlessly at the window, the sky was the colour of a suicide’s lips so she blotted it out altogether with paper on the panes. Oh, they were waiting for grandchildren over at Cloudstreet but they could bugger themselves as far as she cared. The girls from Bairds called round a couple of times, fat, whorish ignoramuses that they were, calling her Love and Petal all the time. They were gross, sweaty, powdercaked, and their nervous laughter made her want to scratch their eyes out.

The little bedsit was cramped and cheerless, perfect for the hard feeling that had come on her. For the first time since she was a girl Rose felt invincible, as though no one alive could alter her course. The little belly she’d had, which now seemed so gross in memory, was gone, and with it the flesh of her thighs and backside. In the mirror she looked lean and unpredictable; she liked what she saw, though she knew Quick could barely look at her. He despised it, this vomiting food after meals, though he’d exalted over it when there was a baby to cause it. It was puking from emptiness that he hated. Doing it for nothing.

All day she sat inside making and remaking the bed, arranging the cups in the kitchenette so their handles pointed exactly the same way. She boiled and reboiled the cutlery, and on all fours she searched for floor dirt. She didn’t touch her books, there was no order in books. When Quick came home she locked herself in the toilet because she couldn’t bear to see him deface order.

It was a shock to see the old man at the screen door one Saturday afternoon. He had his hat in hand, smelled of shaving soap, and had a dried out bunch of roses in his fist. She let him in and pulled her housecoat around her.

This is a surprise, she said unevenly. Shouldn’t you be at the races?

Well, he said, shouldn’t you be out doin somethin?

She shrugged.

You look awful.

Thanks.

You don’t have to, that’s what pisses me off, Rose.

You’ll want a cuppa.

Yeah. No milk.

I remember, Dad. I — m the daughter, remember.]

Yeah, I recall right enough. Small here, isn’t it? You gunna let me sit down?

Rose wiped a vinyl chair and pushed it his way.

There must be something wrong, said Rose.

I’m here about your Mum.

Aha. Can’t you manage a friendly visit?

We don’t exactly see you makin nuisance of yerself visitin Cloudstreet. Besides, it’d be a brave bastard who tried makin a friendly visit on you.

Rose felt the heat of anger gaining on her. Let’s just have a cuppa, shall we?

If you can keep a cup of tea down, that’ll be fine with me.

Don’t harp at me, Dad!

The old man took a seat and slung his hat over his knee. He looked a little changed, as though he’d decided something. And he looked older.

Yer mother’s losin control altogether.

She never had any self control. Rats have more discipline than old Dolly.

Jesus, Rose.

Well, what’s news?

News is she’s gettin old an scared. If she doesn’t lay off the slops a bit she’ll just die.

What dyou care? She’s only ever made you miserable.

She’s my wife, he said looking at her anew. Looking at her as though she was a snake underfoot.

I can remember a time, Dad, do you remember? When I was a girl, the miserable little girl I was, and I found you in the bathroom getting ready to slit your throat. She drove you that far. You remember that?

I remember, he said, looking at the floor. You came. I stopped. For you.

Rose poured his tea, wiped her hands over and over with an ironed teatowel.

She’ll stop for you, too, you know.

So you came for help?

Yeah. Sam let off one of those grins that she hadn’t seen since God knows when, since Geraldton and days when there were only air raids and Japs to worry about, and her fury subsided a moment, despite her.

Help? Dad, I cleaned up her vomit, washed her clothes, dragged her home from the pub every bloody night of my childhood. I replaced her, you know. I did her work. My childhood was taken from me, Dad. She hurt me all her life. Don’t you think I helped enough? Don’t you think you’ve got a bloody hide even comin to ask?

She’s grievin. It’s Ted, you know.

Ted, Ted, Ted! She only ever loved the one of us!

Well, for Chrissake, how do you think that makes me feel? You think you’re the only one? Nothin can fix that for us, Rose. But show some pity. She lost a child.

Well, she’s not the only one!

You never even knew yours. It’s not the same. She was Ted’s mother.

She was never a mother. She never loved me.

You wouldn’t let her, Rose.

Rose stared at him, mouth open.

Sam looked at his cooling tea.

You’ve lost her, that’s why you want me to come.

She’s been gone a coupla days.

She’s left you.

No, she’s left herself.

You still love her, don’t you?

Sam shrugged, wet-eyed and stiff in his seat. I got used to her. I dunno.

Well, I’m not crawling through the bars of any more pubs looking for her, Dad.

You won’t go with me?

Why?

It shames a man lookin for his wife.

Jesus, Dad! Haven’t you got used to the shame of it all? She’s made an idiot and a laughing stock out of you so often it’s like a joke now. Hasn’t it worn off yet?

I thought you’d come lookin. Just for me.

I always went for you, Dad.

Don’t try to be cruel to her, Rose. She’s had her chances, she’s nearly finished. Winnin out over someone like that isn’t much of a victory. She can only lose from now on in. She’s nearly sixty odd. She can only get old and die. You’re young. You can have more babies, things are ahead of you. Look at me. Whatever I’m gunna get in this life I’ve had, and damnnear all that’s been lost. You can bear it when you lose money and furniture. You can even grit yer teeth and take it when yer lose yer looks, yer teeth, yer youth. But Christ Jesus, when yer family goes after it, it’s more than a man can bear. A man’s sposed to have that at least to look forward to.