Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

The ladies won’t like it, he laughed.

Quick came home grimfaced but he brightened at the sight of her.

I’m trying for a transfer to Traffic, he said.

Given up on fighting evil?

This bastard’s got us beaten.

Will they let you move?

He shrugged.

Well, I never liked you prowling about all night knowing you might run into him. Now there’s a baby to think of.

Yeah, he said, unconvinced of his own motives. Yeah.

Slipping

It’s well after two and cold as charity in the cowering streets of Nedlands when Quick hears the BSA howling through the streets. It’d be Murphy come looking for him for sure. Something’s up. A headlight swings into the street and Quick goes to meet it.

Get on, says Murphy.

What’s up?

Christmas, what do you think? Hold on.

When they get there, only a street away, the CIB have a car outside the house already and an ambulance is squealing down Broadway.

They go in and the body’s still there on a sofa, a hole in her forehead.

Babysitter, says the dick with the notebook. The baby was still asleep when the parents got home.

We’ve gotta do something, says Quick. Bugger it, we’ve gotta do something!

Yeah, says the dick, start by makin us a cuppa, willya?

Day after day, Quick feels himself slipping. It’s sadness coming on like the old days, the vast seamless hopeless weight of sadness looking for a place to rest. Willpower, he tells himself, willpower. But it’s useless. Even on lonely night patrols that week he sees misery pictures dancing in the darkness. Indo-Chinese, shark victims, President Kennedy’s dead baby, lynched negroes with newsprint faces. He’s beyond willpower. He’s getting hopeless like the Quick Lamb of old. They’re losing. There’s someone out there killing and doing evil and he’s losing the fight with them, and day by day it gets him further into despair.

Does the Poo Hurt?

Fish finds Quick weeping in the outhouse.

Does the poo hurt, Quick?

But Quick says nothing.

Fish stands by the old pen where the rugged survivor of a pig rubs against a post. He goes up to the dunny door.

Quick?

It’s orright, Fish.

Doan cry.

No.

The ladies like it.

Go back inside, mate. Leave me alone, orright?

Fish goes obediently.

Somethin’s Up

Somethin’s up, said Murphy. The CIB know somethin, they’re settin somethin up. Even the papers know about it.

Hmm? said Quick by the urn looking at his own handcuffs.

The weapon. The papers are goin quiet. We’ve got him rattled, the sick bastard.

I just wish it’d stop rainin, said Quick.

You wouldn’t notice yer own balls ringin vespers, said Murphy.

I could drive trucks, said Quick.

Jaysus, said Murphy.

Oh, see down there, Fish, see down there something happening at last. A tip, a copper’s hunch, an old couple coming across a.22 under a bush above the river. And the net closing.

On Sunday, Murphy was on the shift fresh from midnight mass.

They got him, he said.

Who’d you get it from, said Quick, the priest?

Father of seven, said Murphy, can you imagine?

Sure, mate.

I know a journo.

And I know a load of bollocks.

The Sarge came in: You hear the news, Lamb? They got him, the Monster.

Who told you, Sarge? said Quick.

Murphy knows a journo.

That’d be bloody right, said Quick. He just wouldn’t let himself believe it. No, they’d have this mad bastard hanging over their lives from here on in. He was here to stay.

Lamb? Lamb!

Sarge? What was that?

The phone was for you, you galah. You gone to sleep on us? Constable!

Sarge?

Get home.

Sorry, Sarge. It’s just I’m … It won’t happen again.

Go!

But Sarge!

Get him home, Murphy.

But why ? Quick pleaded.

Because yer about to be a father.

It’ll be in the morning papers, shouted Murphy riding through the streets on the single sidebanger.

My baby? said Quick.

The bloody murderer, you nong.

Oh, him.

Him

Him. Already they’re bundling him into a paddywagon, disappointed at the size of him, the hopeless look of him ambushed and frightened and suddenly not winning. He’s just a frustrated man with a hare lip who’s gone back to his lifetime of losing, and the pathetic sight of him robs the detectives of the feeling they’d expected. The Nedlands Monster, the man who made the town a city, who had gallows written all over him. Him!

Wax Harry

All these months Rose has been rehearsing the whole business in her mind, the steady buildup of contractions, the developing stages, the orderly nature of nature, but what she finds when the contractions come is that this baby means business now and to hell with stages and order.

The house wakes inside a minute and Lester goes downstairs like a falling cupboard to finish up naked and grazed on the corridor rug below. Pansy comes down scowling, with Lon behind. Fish wanders out with his slug tilting gamely from his pyjama bottoms.

Get to a phone, Lon. Lester calls once his specs are in place. Tell Quick to come!

Rose stands up for a few musclecranks and decides that she won’t try the stairs alone. They are flurrying about down there like maggots in a Milo tin and she’s having this squeezebox routine every minute or so. She sits down, puts a pillow in her mouth and she can hear a motorbike coming already — or is it her pulse backfiring?

Quick comes hammering upstairs. I’ve gotta get her to the hospital!

Get the truck started! says Lester.

I’m not going in that bloody truck! yells Rose, putting her head to the wall where a vicious white old woman looks down aghast at what’s pinning her knees.

The Rugby’ll never start in time!

I’ll start the Harley! says Lon. She can go in the sidecar.

Oh. Gawd Aggie! Don’t bother. I’m having it right here and now.

Lie down, Rose!

I can’t.

Elaine gets her back on the bed.

Lester slips quietly off to get Oriel, but she’s inside already with her gown sleeves rolled up and her specs on awry. Sam stumbles into the corridor.

Fire?

Baby.

Oh, gawd. Dolly’s out to it.

Rose sees Oriel coming up the stairs two at a time with her mottley forearms swinging, her boots a-creak, and she’s never been so grateful to see her. Already Rose is bearing down. She can’t help but push.

Hot water, towels, boiled scissors and a laundry bucket! Oriel barks, and some purpose comes into the gathering.

Oohhhghm!

Rose feels herself lifted like a child. The library light comes on. There’s the bed.