Peter Carey - Collected Stories

As I mentioned before, Joe doesn’t have the family nose. He was sixteen yesterday and went off to the pictures by himself after the early birthday tea. We always have an early tea on birthday nights. It is one of the things we do. Afterwards we sing songs.

However, Joe excused himself after his birthday tea and went to the bathroom where he shaved the fuzz off his lip with my razor and then he changed into a clean shirt and Jack’s tartan tie. Then he borrowed my white sports coat and wore his own trousers and brown desert boots. The sports coat was too big for him across the shoulders.

Then he went out. It was his birthday tea and no one was too upset, although of course we were.

Joe doesn’t have the family nose, is what my father said. Then we all sang songs and my mother played the accordion and we were still at it when Joe came home. He sang a number or two with us and then went off to bed. I remember that he didn’t clean his teeth. That is one of the things we are particular about, cleaning teeth, because once you’ve lost them they’re gone for good. It is the same with crossing the road and taking precautions during the bush-fire season. People always think it’s too much bother and go on as if it’s a big joke. But you don’t see anyone laughing when they get knocked down on the road or when there’s a fire burning up their place. If you’ve ever seen anything like that you won’t easily forget it, believe me. Father saw Reg McLeod’s little girl get run over by a semi-trailer and he’s never forgotten it.

Anyway, Joe went straight to bed. None of us said anything. After all, it was his birthday. We finished up the cake just the same. Mother said it would have gone stale if we’d left it.

Harry Bush claims our Joe raped his Shirley during the interval. The picture theatre is just out the back of our place; its back fence is next to ours. I mean, we share a back fence. So he probably heard us singing songs for his birthday, while he did her.

We are all in the lounge. Joe is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. It is where he usually sits. You can see the mark where his head touches the wall. He is reading Modern Motor. Everybody else is doing things. Doreen looks a bit fidgety and is knitting booties for Alice Craig’s baby which is due any day now. Mother has her knitting too. She is knitting a birthday jumper for Joe and is casting off the last arm. It is one of those bulky sweaters. Joe hasn’t said anything about it. Father hums a little tune as he fills his pipe. It is one of his characteristics that he sings when he is edgy or angry or at all upset, which he naturally is.

No one has said anything to Joe yet. We are all looking at him. He has rolled up the leg of his jeans and started to pick a scab. Naturally, we study him picking his scab — nothing else is moving in the room, except for Perry Como, and no one seems to have much interest in that. So we all look at Joe picking the scab and he looks up at me and says, it’s a wart.

Dad says, do you know Shirley Bush?

Joe looks at his scab very hard and tries to lift its lid. He says, yes. Then he scratches his brown skinny arms and leaves white scratch marks behind.

Dad says, I hear she was abused.

Joe says, I never abused her. I don’t think Dad made himself too clear. Joe has bare feet. He starts hunting for things between his toes.

Doreen says, don’t do that, Joe.

Joe looks a bit startled and says, what?

Jack says, don’t pick at your tinea.

Joe says, I haven’t got tinea.

I say, none of us have got tinea, Jack. No one in the family has got tinea. If one of us had it we’d all have it.

Joe says, you get it from not drying between your toes.

Doreen says, it’s a fungus, it grows in the bathmats.

Exactly, I say, that was exactly my point.

Dad lights his pipe again and we all be quiet and watch him to see what he will say to Joe.

Dad says, were you familiar with Shirley Bush?

When?

Answer the question.

Joe looks around at all of us and sees we all know. I feel a bit sorry for him.

Joe looks at Mother and Father and Doreen and Jack and me and then he grins from ear to ear like he’d just won Tatts.

He says, yes, last night during the interval.

He looks happy. Obviously, he has not understood the meaning of the question or, alternatively, of his answer.

Dad says, do you know what rape is?

Joe grins and says, yes.

Dad says, did you rape Shirley Bush?

Joe laughs and Doreen gets up to walk out. She drops the knitting for Alice Craig’s baby and bends down to pick it up. When she bends down I can see she doesn’t have any pants on. Doreen walks out with her feet scuffling on the floor and her legs rubbing together; I can hear them.

Dad says, did you?

Joe is going a bit red at last and he tries to put his skinny brown arms somewhere comfortable. He unbuttons his shirt and hugs his chest. He says, I don’t think it was.

Dad says, how do you mean?

Joe looks sort of embarrassed. He begins to pick at the scab again. He bends his head to look at it closer, so all we can see is the top of his head. He says something we can’t hear.

Dad says, what?

Joe says, is it rape … if you do it standing up?

Jack says, only if she didn’t want to.

Dad says, did she want to Joe? You can tell us.

Joe says, no.

No one says anything for a bit. Dad looks at Joe as if he was seeing him for the first time. Joe looks up and grins.

Dad says, well?

Joe rolls over and lies on the floor on his stomach. He looks at some pages in Modern Motor. Then he says, she wanted to do it lying down … but …

Mother has been counting a row of stitches for some time. She appears to have been losing count. She says, yes … go on …

Her voice sounds high and tense, like it does when she wants to go to the lav and someone is already there.

Joe says, she wanted to do it lying down, but I said there wasn’t time during the interval.

Then he cries, looking around at all of us. His grinning mouth melts like a wax doll in an oven. His face slowly caves and he cries without noise.

No one moves for a while. We sit and watch Joe crying.

Then Jack turns the TV off and Dad goes over to the phone to get in touch with Phil Cooper, the solicitor.

PART 1

Vincent is crying again. Bloody Vincent. Here I am, a woman of thirty-five, and I still can’t handle a fool like Vincent. He’s like a yellow dog, one of those curs who hangs around your back door for scraps and you feed him once, you show him a little affection, and he stays there. He’s yours. You’re his. Bloody Vincent, crying by the fire, and spilling his drink again.

It began as stupidly as you’d expect a thing like that to begin. There was no way in which it could have begun intelligently. Vincent put an ad in the Review : Home and companionship wanted for ex-drunken Irish poet shortly to be released from Long Bay. Apply V. Day Box 57320.

I did it. I answered it. And now Vincent is crying by the fire and spilling his drink and all I can say is, “Get the Wettex.”

He nods his head determinedly through his tears, struggles to get up, and falls over. He knocks his head on the table. I find it impossible to believe that he hasn’t choreographed the whole sequence but I’m the one who gets up and fetches the Wettex. I use it to wipe up the blood on his head. God save me.

Yesterday I kicked him out. So he began to tear down the brick wall he’d started to build for me. Then he gave up and started crying. The crying nauseated me. But I couldn’t kick him out. It was the fifth time I couldn’t kick him out.