Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

‘Bill was a bit worried,’ he said. ‘I just tested it is all.’

His veined face flushed and his ears burned red with pleasure. He sat on the plastic bench, his cancerette hidden in his palm, and listened to repeated readings of the review. It was not until the sixth recitation that he noticed the mention of the ‘Witch’s homunculus’.

‘What’s a homunculus, for Christ’s sake?’

‘A foetus,’ Moey said.

‘A baby,’ Claire said. ‘It means a baby.’

‘The Witch doesn’t have a baby.’

‘Felicity does,’ Claire said. ‘You both made your début the same night.’

‘Jeez,’ said Wally. ‘Hope it looks like Bill.’ He winked at Moey. ‘Hope it doesn’t look like you.’

‘It’s a boy,’ Claire said.

‘How is it?’ he asked Moey. ‘Who does he look like?’

‘He’s got very intelligent eyes.’

Wally registered the tone. They were like actors talking about a performance they hated. They would never call another actor a ringhard. They’d say, oh, I loved your business with the tea towel.

‘What does he look like?’ he asked Claire Chen.

Claire fiddled with her big silver death’s-head rings and told him Flick’s baby was amazing.

Wally stared at her with his still grey eyes until she said it was time for her to go and lock up the theatre, and Moey said he’d better walk with her across the park. When they said goodbye they looked mournful and depressed. They gave the review to Wally — just a scrap of paper — but it was the first time he and I were linked together. I found it among his papers when we were leaving Efica, just before his death. It was folded inside his driver’s licence — as dry and fragile as something from a flower press.

At one o’clock in the morning Wally was alone in Casualty waiting for the results of his X-ray. He knew something was very wrong with me. His arm was throbbing. His leap now seemed no more than a vulgar joke, a raspberry in the face of fate. There was something wrong and he knew he had to be with my maman.

He tried to go to her. They would not let him. In Saarlim you could have walked right out the door, but this was Efica — more humane, more bureaucratic — there were forms to sign, the forms were missing, and thus it was nearly three in the morning when he walked out the door, with his unset arm held in a Lasto-net, and that was how he was — with that knobby white material on his arm and that slight ammonia smell-when he first held me.

The lights were all out except an Anglepoise on the floor beside the bed. Felicity was asleep on her back in a long white T-shirt, her hair spread out on the pillow, snoring ever so softly, and Tristan Smith was placed between her legs.

Wally approached me with his neck craned, squinting, his lips compressed in a pale grimace.

He saw — loose-skinned puppy — marsupial not ready to leave its mother’s pouch — skin folds, wide staring eyes.

‘You poor guy,’ he whispered. ‘You poor little guy.’

Felicity, in her sleep, put her hand across her mouth and moaned.

‘Flick?’

Her lips were dry and cracked. She made a small whistling snore.

Wally leaned over and managed to scoop me up with his good arm. He held me against his shirt, one-handed.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’m here now.’

He sat on the edge of the bed. Felicity listened to him. She heard him sniffling.

‘They mean well, mo-rikiki,’ *Wally said, ‘but they don’t know anything.’ He held my puppy-skin against his old veined face.

Felicity began to sob. Wally knelt on the bed and, jerkily, panicking, tried to return me to my resting place.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Hold him, hold him.’

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Hold his head, hold his head.’

‘Flick … I’m sorry.’

‘No, no.’ She was rubbing her running nose with the sleeve of her T-shirt, but her whole beautiful face was wrung like a rag.

‘I’m just an ignorant old violiniste. I should shut my mouth.’

‘They rose to it, they really did. I was proud of them.’

‘I’m putting him in his crib. He’ll be happier there.’

‘Do you know about babies, Wally?’

‘Oh Flick,’ Wally said, as he laid me on my back in the crib and tucked a sheet around me as smooth and tight as any matron at the Mater. ‘I’m just an old pea and thimble man.’

And then Felicity was crying again. This was the first time she let herself really cry in company. Bill was downstairs in bed with Annie. Vincent was at home with his wife. It was Wally who came to hold her. My second night on earth was the only time he ever held my mother’s body.

He was wide awake. He was so shaken, so sad, but at the same time he knew this was his moment, his time. He had seen himself, he told me later, in my eyes. While my maman and I slept, he made the promise, said the words, out loud. He was going to be the father, the one who would really do the job.

*

Students of the Efica circus may recognize the story of Petit Paul who, having died in 335

EC

,

was probably still performing when Wally was a child.

†

Originally a chauffeur, but later a mechanic. Probably originates with the job of starting an engine with crank handle.

*

‘My little one’, or ‘my little finger’. Rikiki can also refer to a 4 fl.oz. glass of beer.

It was my fourteenth day and I woke to the noise of heavy rain thundering on the tower’s thin roof. My first Moosone had arrived. The Nabangari had begun to flow again. Outside you could hear the river roaring, the muffled noises of boulders and logs crashing against the river wall. Slowly I became aware that my mum and dab were already awake, talking to each other. We lay, the three of us, on the same hard mattress I had been conceived on. My mum was on the telephone side, Bill on the window side. I lay between them, staring up at the pressed metal ceiling whose fat-bottomed little Cupids must have dated from the time when old Ducrow brought Solveig Mappin *into his bed.

‘It’s your life,’ my mother was saying to my father. ‘You’ve got to live your life.’

My bandock was wet. My stomach burned me. A bitter taste was in my mouth. While I grizzled quietly, my mother stroked my head, ran her little finger down into the soft indentation at the base of my skull.

‘If I go to Voorstand now,’ Bill said, ‘I know I’m going to lose you.’

‘You can’t lose me, sweets,’ she said. ‘I’ll always be here.’

‘You want me to go,’ he said.

‘No, I want you to stay.’

‘Tray bon. I’ll stay.’

‘If you stay, mo-chou, that’s your business, but if I persuade you to stay you might hate me for ever.’

‘I guess,’ Bill said, lying on his side, stroking his chest with the back of his fingernails.

‘You guess? You’re not meant to agree with me.’ She started tickling him. He squirmed and tried to still her. As they bumped and rolled, I lay there between them, a concrete fact of life. I kicked my legs and farted.

‘Watch the baby.’

They came to rest with Bill lying on my mother. She put her hand out, just checking me.

‘It’s your life,’ she said again, but she had become sad, and the animation had left her face.

‘Oh Flick,’ Bill said, ‘I feel so bad, mo-chou. I get offered a part and all it does is make me feel like shit.’

My mother smiled wanly. She had sore breasts, cracked nipples. She did not mention them.

‘I know it is an honour.’

My mother stroked my head. There was a clap of thunder.

‘It’s a great honour,’ my dab repeated, a little petulantly.