Peter Carey - His Illegal Self

I want to wash.

You understand it would be a bad thing to see?

I threw up, the boy said. I need to wash the stuff off.

Once, not so long before, he had pooped himself. He had been hosed down in public by a nasty man in boots.

Come here, said Trevor.

The boy was relieved to feel his hand held gently.

See, Trevor said.

The boy looked down into the ground-it was the damp he had smelled, a smeary rainbow, thick clumps of brown grass.

Snakes.

He could see no snakes. All he saw was water.

There. What do you reckon that is?

He thought, A bone?

It’s not a good idea to come looking for my stash. You understand me.

At that moment the boy saw the actual stash, in the fallen tree. On the underside there was a splintered rotten place where there was blue plastic showing clear as day.

You understand? Trevor’s eyes were cold enough to hurt.

Yes, sir.

Don’t call me sir, Trevor said.

The boy washed his arms and legs and down his front. He did not stare at where the money was.

You OK now?

Yes thank you.

You don’t come back here without me, OK. The voice was not unkind.

From the corner of his eye the boy could see the flag of blue plastic. It was so clear, like underpants showing through an unzipped pair of shorts.

Always look at the ground, Trevor said, as they headed up the saddle.

The boy did what he was told.

Where’s your father?

What?

Where’s your dad? Trevor mocked the boy’s shrug. What does that mean?

I don’t know, sir, he said, his heart like a washing machine inside his ears. He thought his dad might be in Sydney but no one knew his name.

Trevor took the boy’s chin and tilted it so there was no escaping the interrogation.

The boy’s blood was swooshing and thumping in his ears. He met Trevor’s cold gaze and let himself be seen in all his everything.

That’s right, Trevor said as he released him. That’s right.

The boy understood his secret had been touched. There had been a conversation of some sort.

She had gone through Sydney and Brisbane on chocolate bars and Coca-Cola, trusting the force of her will and energy to reach the other side. It was what she was used to doing, and of course there had been more to it than Hershey bars. In the aftermath of Susan Selkirk’s death she had trusted Harvard men to save her. She knew famous people, Dave Rubbo, Bernadine Dohrn, Mike Waltzer, Susan Selkirk obviously. On the run with Che she had trusted the Movement, most particularly that Harvard representative of Students for a Democratic Society whose silky penis she had once loved holding between her lips. It was he, with his large hand resting very lightly on her forearm, who had persuaded her that they would be safe and cared for in Australia.

We’ve got people there, he said.

What crap that turned out to be.

It was the Movement which had provided the passports, so she was given to understand, although what the Movement was by 1972 depended on whom you were talking to. Some like Waltzer were now campaigning for the Democrats; Bernadine Dohrn and the others had formed the Weather Underground. Susan Selkirk had belonged to a faction that had threatened to shoot Mike Waltzer. Instead she’d gone underground and blown herself sky-high.

Dave Rubbo said he was in an alliance with the Black Panthers. He showed Dial an AK47 and gave her air tickets from San Francisco to Honolulu to Sydney, Australia. He scared her. She took the bundles of dollars not understanding the transaction. She bought nuts and candy and comics for the flight. She had no guidebook, no Australian currency. She had no idea of what Australia even was. She would not have imagined a tomato would grow in Australia, or a cucumber. She could not have named a single work of Australian literature or music. Why would she? It was only temporary. She persisted with this all the way up to Yandina, through the storm, the stolen money. It was only when Trevor and the boy ran into the bush, when she was left alone to face the bulge in Jean Rabiteau’s pants, she knew she had fallen into a pit she would not get out of easily.

She picked up a sturdy broken branch, maybe four feet long.

Are you on the Pill?

The branch was seared by fire, black as velvet in her hands. Looking at the Rabbitoh’s excited eyes, she thought, He has no idea what I could do to him.

The Rabbitoh stepped forward and she knew that this had always been her destination. She had a father with bullet wounds in both his hands; she should have trusted that.

Cool down, babe.

She saw his fragile collarbone, felt the heat of tropical sunshine on her back, heard the flies attempting to crawl into her ears.

She swung at him and he stepped back, stumbling. This moment had been waiting all her life. This was always going to happen but who could have known? Who could have told her? When, in 1957, she huddled in the doorway of the Girls’ Latin School, waiting for the janitor to arrive for work, it was this that was on the other side of that bright green door, not the silverware her mother wished for her. Fish fork, salad fork, dinner fork. The fish fork is shorter, with broader tines to pick out bones. The salad fork is shorter than the dinner fork, and has one tine on the left side that is thicker than the others. This way you can cut the lettuce without a knife. She had no time for silverware. She would crack his fucking collarbone if need be. She could not imagine what came next. In New York she could not imagine Philly. In Philly she could not have imagined Seattle. In Seattle she could not have imagined the Australian Builders Labourers Federation where she had brought the boy and her request for help. She sat beneath the neon wondering who controlled the Australian garment industry, who decided on these Chinese zippers down the front of the maroons and dirty greens. Albania, she thought, must be like this.

But she was cute. She smiled at them. I’m sorry, this particular young man said. He was big and plain with worryingly short hair. They had gone to sit in a coffeehouse in Harris Street, Ultimo. Che was pouring sugar into his Coca-Cola. The young man talked to her earnestly, gazing somewhere above her shoulder.

This is not something we can involve ourselves with. He spoke like this, politely, dully. To Dial he sounded English and when he cupped his hands around his teacup she saw him like someone in a film who would say guv’nor.

He was just so completely straight. He was blunt, with conscript’s hair.

You know who Dave Rubbo is, right. And she was not wrong to expect he would. Those boys had gone a long way since Somerville, gone from playing politics, to being the revolution. She was here because there was an alliance, Dave had said so. This Australian dork was meant to be the vanguard, but he waved all this away.

The executive will not support this, Dial. It’s not like you’ve dodged the draft and we have to hide you.

Draft for what, she asked, watching Che’s Coke bubble up and spill across the table. She found the young man glaring at her directly.

What?

You’re joking! he said, wiping up the Coke himself.

Australia is in Vietnam?

His cheeks were red, his eyes blue and cold.

Right? She tried to catch herself. Vietnam.

But he was already standing, an earnest lanky boy, raw jawed, with heavy workman’s boots and a tartan shirt. It’s a shame, he said, you never learn more about the countries that you fuck with.

But he had misunderstood who she was. I’m in SDS, she said. Dave Rubbo’s friend.

He stood with his big hands grasping the back of the chair, looking down at her, the dress, the golden hair she had washed that morning. He laughed through his nose. Good luck, mate, he said to Che.