Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

Lester came and went, as though distracted somehow. Rose sensed that he’d lost interest in the shop. He baked irregularly, made no icecream.

Within a week, Rose had feelings about the shop. If Harry was impossible and kept her from it, she regretted it. Oriel noticed.

They were wary of one another, Oriel and Rose. When Oriel came into the room she was all over it instantly, like a hot rash. She brought the place to attention just by entering it. Rose remembered the way she took command of a situation in a dozen crises — when Dolly was sick, when she herself was hurt, and she couldn’t think why the very strength of that woman’s actions felt so unforgivable. Her kindness was scalding, her protection acidic. Maybe it’s just me, thought Rose, maybe I can’t take it from her because my mother never gave it to me. What a proud bitch I am. But dammit, why does she always have to be right and the one who’s strong and the one who makes it straight, the one people come to? Why do I still dislike her, because she’s so totally trustworthy?

Geez, Rose, Elaine said offhandedly one afternoon in a quiet moment between the shelves, you remind me so much of Mum when she was young. I can see why Quick married you.

He didn’t, love, I married him, she said from some old reflex that took over in moments of terror.

Ha, ha! Just like Mum. You’re a ringer, Rose!

Rose choked.

Oriel wasted nothing and she despised waste in others. There was no point walking from the shop to the kitchen for one task if it could incorporate five more and save walking. Nothing was thrown away, nothing written off to chance. When Oriel sent you to the butcher’s she armed you with a diagram of the cut she wanted, the name, weight and a list of defects to watch for. There was one way of storing eggs, one way of sealing a preserve jar. There was a way of looking after your breasts, a better way of pinning a nappy and an inspired way to get the shit off them, and you couldn’t take solace in the possibility that she might be wrong because she never was. You’d hold out stubbornly with your own inferior methods until you got sick of yourself and gave in with relief. When she found you doing it the right way she’d lay a hot, square hand on you and congratulate you as though you’d just thought up that ingenious method yourself.

Yer a wonder, she’d say, Rose yer the real thing.

And Rose never knew whether to leap for joy or puke.

Fortune

Sam Pickles was starting to slow down at work, all the blokes at the Mint knew it. He looked weaker these days and that cough of his took up as much of his time as working did. The men who worked on the hosco knew he wasn’t worth his day’s pay any more but they wouldn’t see him laid off until the silly old bugger couldn’t walk in through the gates of a morning. They were used to seeing him round; they liked to hear tips from him of a Friday afternoon about the weekend’s punting. Stories had sprung up around him, that he’d lost his fingers in some covert commando exercise in the war. He’d been at the Mint so long the young bods figured there must be gold dust in his pores by now. All the stories of his legendary bad luck started to ring suspicious to the young crew.

Coming up for twenty years in the job, Sam still smuggled out duds, blanks and new releases, only nowadays they were for his grandson. No one checked him at the gate anymore, beyond the old question: Got any ingots in yer pockets, Sam? If he’d had any greed at all (some would have said any sense at all) he could have been making his pay ten times over.

Twenty years ago, Sam Pickles might have been invisible at the sorting table. Nowadays it was all: Gday, Sam, and What’s the dirt, Sam? How’s things today, Sam? They talked to him like he was management and they expected him to work about as little. The last few years he walked around all day with a smile on his face, and wondered why no one would believe he was that unlucky. He lost at the races every weekend, more or less without relief, and if he died tomorrow he wouldn’t have enough money to bury himself, but the blokes swore he was onto something somehow, and their admiration was infectious. When he got home of an evening, Rose and Harry’d be in the kitchen often as not, and he’d sneak the boy a peppermint, bring down his two-up pennies and toss them off the paddle for him to get a giggle. Rose would fuss over his cough, pour him a cup of tea, and he was hardpressed to feel unlucky.

He seemed to be growing smaller.

A thought occurred to him. In a year or so he could sell this house, cop the profits and retire to some little place by the sea, maybe even back up in. Geraldton, or Greenough — yes, Greenough where summers had been so good so long ago. He’d mention it to Dolly, he thought, but he never did. The two of them sat in the kitchen by the wood stove without real antagonism, in silence most evenings, with the sounds of the house around them. Harry might squeal upstairs at bedtime, kicking the wall in protest.

He’s givin er a run for er money tonight, Dolly would say.

Yairs. Cheeky little bugger.

Needs is bum kicked.

Yairs. He’s a one orright.

And that would be it. The kettle would growl. Water moaned in the pipes. The wireless came on.

Sam went to bed at nine with a Daily News and a glass of VO, thinking that he might just live to see his fortune. His hacking cough had become a comforting, familiar sound in the house, innocent as a boy’s bronchitis.

News

The Nedlands Monster comes to trial but he’s forced off the front page by the Kennedy assassination. Rose comes across the startling byline: by Toby Raven, exclusive and feels a smile on her face.

A letter comes from State Housing demanding that they move into their new house. She looks at it, gives it to Quick who sighs.

Soon, he says, when we’re settled.

No hurry, she says.

1963 turned toward 1964. Cloudstreet sweetened up like a ship under full sail. The only shadows were the shadows of nature, the products of strong, direct light, and as the stonefruit came out again there was laughter, shopjokes at noon in the corridors, and kidsilliness all evening. The lines were strung with nappies that flapped like pennants above the tiny scratching chicks who escaped their mothers to forage in the grass. The place stank of happiness, but the world went on its way. The Nedlands Monster got the Hangman’s promise. The city went wild with exaltation. There were hanging parties, theme nights, ugly jokes.

Whacko! said Quick, turning the pages of the paper. They gave him death. Thank God for that.

Good riddance, said Rose, giving Harry her breast.

Oriel and Lester looked horrified at one another. Lester put his finger to his lip, advising caution, but Oriel couldn’t help herself.

Killin is men’s business, she said, not God’s. If you think it’s somethin to celebrate leave God out of it.

Quick smiles in disbelief. What’ve you gone soft on the Monster all of a sudden?

He’s only a man, said Lester.

What about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

Barbarism! snarls Oriel. That’s for primitive tribes.

Gawd, she’s gone all modern on us. What about the Bible, Mum, that’s your old inspiration isn’t it? I’ve seen you out there with it, burnin the midnight candle. I know what you’re doin out there where no one can see you.