Gerald Murnane - A Lifetime on Clouds

Then he had met Denise McNamara, and in all the seven years since then he had committed not one sin of impurity, even in thought. Of course, many times during those seven years he had looked forward to marrying Denise. But he had proved on his wedding night that his dreams of marriage were certainly not inspired by any carnal desire.

His only regret was that Denise herself would never know his story. He could hint to her that she had changed his life and saved him from misery. But in her innocence she could never imagine the filth she had rescued him from.

Sherd lay awake for a long time thinking over the wonderful story of his life. As the ship neared the pleasant island of Tasmania, his heart overflowed with happiness at the thought of the weeks ahead. His honeymoon was the last chapter of a strange story. And one day he would write that story in the form of an epic poem or a play in three acts or a novel. He would write it under a nom-de-plume so that he could tell the truth about himself without embarrassment. Even Denise would not know he was the author. But he would leave a copy in the house where she would see it and read it. She could not fail to be moved by it. They would sit down and discuss it together. And then the truth would slowly dawn on her.

At school Adrian kept away from Cornthwaite and his former friends. He thanked God that they all lived on the Frankston line and never came near his train at night. He could never have faced Denise again if she had seen him with them and imagined they were his friends. He saw them leering at her and heard O’Mullane scoffing at him (almost loud enough for Denise to hear), ‘Christ on a crutch, Sherd, you mean you gave up your American tarts for her?’

Adrian’s new friends were some of the boys whose names he had once marked with golden rays on a sketch of the classroom. They were obviously in the state of grace. All of them lived in garden suburbs and travelled home on trams. They talked a lot about the Junction. (Adrian eventually discovered that this was Camberwell Junction but he was not much wiser, since he had never been there.) Every night at the Junction, girls from Padua Convent crowded onto the boys’ trams. At St Carthage’s, Adrian’s friends squealed or waved their arms or pushed each other hard on the chest or staggered and reeled and did strange little dances whenever someone mentioned the Padua girls.

At first Adrian wondered if he had stumbled onto something shocking — a pact of lust between these fresh-faced boys and the Padua girls. Groups of them were meeting in a park somewhere in tree-shaded Camberwell and behaving like young pagans together. But when he had listened closely to his friends for a few weeks and learned to ignore their animal-noises and bird-squawks, he realised the most they ever did was to talk to some of the Padua girls on the crowded trams (although some of the more daring fellows did play tennis with the girls on Saturday mornings).

It puzzled Adrian that their only aim seemed to be to know as many Padua girls as possible. Sometimes they held frantic conversations that meant almost nothing but gave them the opportunity to blurt out dozens of Padua names.

‘Helen told me Deidre couldn’t play on Saturday because Carmel and Felicity called round with Felicity’s mother to take them out in the car.’

‘Yes, but Deidre told me she was upset to miss the doubles comp. and Barbara had to forfeit. She couldn’t have Maureen or Clare for a partner.’

Adrian listened to them impatiently. He wished he could have told them he didn’t have to babble to a tramload of giggling Padua girls because he had already chosen the pick of the Catholic girls on the Coroke line for his own.

Sometimes a fellow said, ‘Tell us about your social life, Adrian.’

Adrian always parried the question. His friends would never have understood that he and Denise had no need for tennis and dances.

Sometimes Adrian’s new friends seemed so innocent that he wondered if they had ever experienced an impure temptation. But one morning Barry Kellaway rolled his eyes and pretended to stagger and said, ‘It’s all right for you lazy baskets. You were snoring your heads off last night while Mother Nature was torturing me.’

Martin Dillon made eyes at Kellaway and sidled up to him and said, ‘Did Mummy’s little Barry mess his pyjamas in his sleep, eh?’

Damian Laity grabbed Kellaway from behind and twisted his arms and said, ‘Tell us everything, Kaggs. Who were you holding in your arms when you woke up this morning?’

Adrian listened quietly. He knew Kellaway had had a wet dream. Over the next few weeks, every boy in the group had one and talked about it next day.

Their talk was very different from the stories that Cornthwaite and his friends used to bring to school. Adrian’s former friends were reticent and modest about their adventures. Seskis would say simply, ‘Rhonda Fleming nearly killed me last night.’ Or O’Mullane would say, ‘I saw a colossal tart on the train and when I got home I went into the woodshed and rubbed myself nearly raw.’ The others would nod quietly as if to say, ‘It could happen to anyone.’

Kellaway and Dillon and Laity were proud of their dreams and recounted them like adventure stories with themselves as heroes. It was all the more fun because nothing they did in dreams was sinful. (Adrian had his own wet dreams now, but he didn’t enjoy them. They were confused struggles in landscapes suspiciously like America.)

Adrian’s new friends looked forward to their dreams. Laity marked his in his pocket diary. He had calculated that he had a wet dream every twenty days or so. On the eighteenth or nineteenth day he would tell the others it was due any day. Kellaway and Dillon would say, ‘Better not stand too close to Catherine or Beth in the tram this afternoon or you might end up married to them in bed tonight.’ Adrian thought of himself and Denise in the Coroke train and was disgusted by the loose talk about the Padua girls.

If a fellow described a dream that was too unseemly he usually apologised at the end of his story. Kellaway said one morning, ‘The tram was somewhere in East Camberwell. I kept praying, “Please, God, make the Padua girls get off before it’s too late.” But they kept crowding round me. The conductor asked me what was the matter and I told him to stand between me and the girls to hide what I was going to do. But then it happened. Some of the girls screamed. The conductor started wrestling with me. And I know you’ll never forgive me for this, Dillon, but I reached out and tried to grab you know who. Yes, it was your one and only Marlene with the adorable legs. I just couldn’t help myself.’

Some of the stories were lost on Adrian because the people or the places in them were known only to the Camberwell boys. But one morning he heard a story as sensational as any that Cornthwaite or his dirty friends had told.

It was the time of the Royal Tour of Australia. Every morning the Argus had full-colour pictures of the Royal couple, showing Her Majesty’s frocks and hats in all their gorgeous detail. One Saturday the Royal car was due to pass only a few miles from Swindon. St Carthage’s and every other school for miles around had a space reserved along the route. Nearly every boy from St Carthage’s turned up early and waited for hours in the sun for the Queen and the Duke to drive past.

On the following Monday, Damian Laity gathered his friends together and told them solemnly that his dream had come a few days early and it was nothing to laugh about this time.

He said, ‘It must have been all those hours I sat in the sun. I must have gone mad with sunstroke. I couldn’t eat anything for tea except half a family brick of ice cream just before bed. All I can remember after that is waiting and waiting for Her car. When I saw it coming I turned into a raving lunatic. I ran out onto the road with only my singlet on and jumped up to the running board of the car. The kids from the public schools were all roaring and screaming at me. I think the Padua girls saw me too. I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped into the back seat beside Her. She was wearing that beautiful lime-green shantung frock and the hat with white feathers. I tried to put my arms around Her. As soon as I touched Her elbow-length gloves it ended. Thank God I didn’t do anything worse to Her with all those people watching. I lay awake for hours after it was over. I kept seeing the headlines in all the papers on Monday: MONSTER FROM CATHOLIC COLLEGE DISGRACES AUSTRALIA.’