Peter Carey - Illywhacker

It is my belief that there are few things in this world more useful than a hessian bag, and no matter what part of my story I wish to reflect on I find that a hessian bag, or the lack of one, assumes some importance. They soften the edge of a hard bench, can be split open to line a wall, can provide a blanket for a cold night, a safe container for a snake, a rabbit, or a duck. They are useful when beheading hens or to place under car tyres in sandy soil. You can stuff them full of kapok to make a decent cushion and there is nothing better to carry frogs in.

Which is why it is surprising that in all the McGraths' possessions I could not find a single hessian bag. I had been forced to come in search of frogs with two small white paper bags which smelt as if they had held confectionery and, indeed, when the snake eventually devoured the first frog he would find it lightly dusted with icing sugar like a special treat from the ABC Tea Rooms.

With paper bag in hand, I felt foolish. I imagined lines of women in white aprons behind the windows of the flour mill. They were laughing at my legs.

I was confident enough of my shoulders and my arms. I was proud of my height and even arrogant about my general carriage. Even my calves, in isolation, met with my approval. But my bowed legs mortified me and I turned sideways to the staring windows, presenting myself at my least ludicrous angle.

That was the problem with a Gentleman's Stroll. It produced expectations that could not be met. It was not the right walk for a man who must, when it is over, take off his clothes and walk in black mud.

When the editor of the Geelong Advertiser had used the word "herpetologist" to describe me, I had readily agreed. Later, in answer to a question from my host, I persuaded him to look it up in the dictionary. At the time it had seemed an interesting thing to be, but now, in the middle of the soak, it did not seem so fine.

I found my first frog where the small stream disappeared into the soak. It sat there, brown, shiny and horny-skinned. Its eyes bulged up at me and I grabbed it with a shudder.

It was then I heard the cough.

The first thing I thought of was my legs. I turned, still holding the frog in both hands, and saw a swagman, although that is not much of a description of the fellow. He was a swagman who had let himself go, a swagman who had long ago given up trying to wash his shirt once a week in summer, a swagman whose natural affection for pieces of string and odd discarded rags had entered a virulent phase where it overwhelmed any of the conventional restraints placed on fashion and became a style of its own.

His face, where you could see it through his rampant beard, was weathered and beaten by the combined forces of sun, rain and alcohol. His teeth were rotting. His bulbous nose made its own confession. His hair was grey and matted and one eye, half closed by a blow or a bee sting, gave him an untrustworthy appearance.

He was squatting on the ground like a blackfellow, quiet and still and cunning. I thought the swagman was looking at my legs.

"Good tucker?" the swagman asked.

I tried to hold the Gentleman's stance while I held the frog and walked in a modest fashion through the mud.

"You scared me, man," I said.

"You scared me," the swagman said. "Walkin nekkid like that." He watched me place the frog in the small white bag and then place the bag in the inside pocket of my folded suit coat. "Is it good tucker?"

I was always fighting people I didn't need to fight. I feel like I've been awake all my life with a gun across my knees, waiting.

"Yes," I told the swagman, "very good tucker."

"That a fect?"

"Like chicken," I told him. "You can't tell the difference. That is what they serve the kings and queens of France. It's only the ignorance of the average Australian toff that stops them doing the same thing."

"That a fect?"

"Yes," I said, tucking my singlet into my underpants, "it's a fact."

The swaggie shifted on his heels. His attitude was uncertain. "I thought they killed the kings and queens of France," he said. "I seem to recall that they were killed. They had their heads chopped off, so I was told. They don't have kings and queens in France any more."

This was all news to me. If I had not been a pig-headed fool I might have learned something, but I was more worried about two contradictory things – my dignity and the other frog. I went back into the soak while the swagman took the opportunity to have a closer look at my suit.

"I used to have a suit like that," he said, "but it was took from me up in Albury."

"That a fact?" I mocked.

"Well," the swaggie shrugged away his suit, "you know those Albury types."

I got my second frog and walked carefully back to solid ground. The swaggie watched me put it in its bag.

"We ate roof rats in Albury but we never tried the frogs, never even thought of them. I'm much obliged to you for the information, I must say, much obliged."

I perched on the edge of the stream and washed my feet and then my hands. I managed to dress standing on a grass tussock.

I was given to doing things suddenly. I had strong emotions like unexpected guests and the urge to laugh or fight often overwhelmed me without warning. Similarly I was often beset with the desire to be good and generous, and I have no idea where this part of me comes from. Certainly not from my father who was never held back by his scruples. He was a fine man for talk of Empire and loyalty but it wasn't the Empire or loyalty that made him successful: he was a liar and a bullshitter and hungry for a quid.

If my father had seen me hand the pound note to the swagman he would have laughed out loud.

"Here," I said, "get yourself some flour and tea. Don't eat frogs. Christians don't eat frogs."

We were both, the swaggie and I, puzzled at this development. He held Jack's pound between the thumb and forefinger of both battered hands and turned it over and over.

"If you don't eat frogs," he said at last, "why the dickens do you catch them?"

"My damn snake, man," I said. I was furious about the fate of my pound note. "I've got to feed my snake."

"Of course you have," the swagman said sympathetically, "of course you have."

"I'm deadly serious, man."

"Of course you are."

His mistake was to wink.

The pound note disappeared from the swagman's hand before the wink was over, but even when I held it, tightly crumpled, in my pocket, I did not feel any release from my confusion, I felt worse. I felt guilty, and this did not seem just.

"Charity is good for no one," I said. "Would you like to earn a pound?"

Later, when I recalled how I had made the deal with the swagman, I always felt ashamed, not of the deal itself which was certainly fair. (The swagman honoured it too, delivering two frogs each morning for the snake's breakfast.) I felt ashamed of reneging on the grander gesture which was more in keeping with how I would like to be.

I felt the swagman had looked at me and seen something less attractive in me than my bowed legs.

The whole household was in love with me, and although I knew it I doubt if I knew how much. Bridget blushed every time she put a plate in front of me, and Molly banned her from serving in the dining room, whereupon Bridget burst into tears and had to be comforted. I bought her an ice-cream from the ABC and she left the empty cone on her dressing-room table for weeks. However, she was not readmitted to the dining room. That was Molly's territory; she cooed and fluttered, big-breasted and blowzy, over dishes of vegetables, and Phoebe saw how she took such care with the arrangement of vegetables on my plate and also (a telling point this, for a woman raised in a poor family) that she gave me bigger portions, so discreetly bigger, somarginally bigger that they were, in Phoebe's words "like brief eye contacts made between secret lovers, like the shadow of a moth passing across a night-time window".