David Malouf - The Complete Stories

“What would you have called Ralph?” Ned asked, interested in catching his father for a moment in a new light.

“I'd have called him — let me see now — Biffer!”

The children went into volleys of giggles. “That's a great name!” Ned yelled. “It really fits him. You should have called him that.”

“I did,” Madge said, "in one of my books, I forget which.”

“I know,” Jenny shouted, " The Really-Truly Bush, I've read it. The boy in that was Biffer.”

“Well, hark at the child, she got it in one.” Madge gave a snort of laughter.

But Ned was affronted. “That's not Ralph,” he insisted; "that's nothing like him. That's not Ralph.”

“No,” Madge agreed, "but that's because a whole lot of different things happened to that boy. If they'd happened to Ralph he'd be just like it.”

“Would he really?” This from Jenny.

Ned, whose idea of the world was very different, was unconvinced.

Madge laughed again. “Really and truly.”

She got letters from her readers, which she answered in the same distracted style as the books and had been looked up to by three generations of children as the mother they most wished for, a cross between a mad aunt and a benign but careless witch.

The boys too had had no complaint, though they had from the beginning to give up all hope of shirts with all the buttons on or matching pyjama tops or even a decently cooked potato. It was Audley who had attended to them, wiping their noses, picking up their toys, dishing up Welsh Rarebit, which he had learned to make at cadet camp when he was a schoolboy and which had remained his only culinary skill. They had had to fend for themselves, shouting one another down in the war for attention and growing up loud and confident. They admired their mother without qualification and were fond of Audley as well — too much so, some would have said. “The true sign of a great soul,” they would have replied, citing Goethe, "is that it takes joy in the greatness of others.” They were quoting their father, of course.

Today was to be a meeting of the clan. All the Tylers would be there with their wives and children, a few cousins, and neighbours from as far as fifty kilometres off if they cared to drive over.

It was the Tylers’ annual party, an occasion they celebrated as a purely family affair since it was Audley's birthday. That it coincided with a larger occasion was of only minor significance — though Audley, when he was a boy, had thought it might not be, and had built his dreams on the auspicious conjunction. Later, when some of those dreams became reality, he mocked his youthful presumption as tommy-rot, but by then it had already served its purpose.

“No, no, Audley's seventy-second,” Madge was shouting into the phone. “Just come along as usual if you've got nothing better on, it won't be special. Oh no, Audley's birthday, like we always do. The other thing's too big. I couldn't cater.”

When Audley came up the path he did have something: two black-fish, each the size of an Indian club.

“Oh la,” Madge said, "now what am I going to do with those?” She stood with her hefty arms folded, looking down at where he had laid them side by side on the bench, the eyes in their heads alive but stilled, a pulse still beating under the gills. “The freezer's full of things for the party. Isn't he the last word?”

Audley, meanwhile, in his jacket and tie and with his long legs crossed, was perched on a form, hoeing into tea and burnt toast.

Angie watched him. He chewed on the blackened wafer as if he were doing penance. He appeared to enjoy it. He wants people to think he's humble, she thought.

She could never quite believe, despite the evidence, that in Audley she had come so close to power. He had none of the qualities you read about in books, but for thirty-seven years this odd, hunched figure, who was devoting himself at the moment to ingesting the last of a blackened crust, had been in charge, one after the other, of four government departments. Wasn't that power? His signature had appeared on the nation's banknotes. He had, as he put it, "had tea with the sharks,” survived a dozen blood-lettings, dealt with thugs of every political persuasion. Six prime ministers at one time or another had slipped into his office, sometimes with a bottle of whisky, to steel their nerves before a vote or share a moment's triumph or grief, and still turned up, those of them who were among the living, to check a detail in their memoirs or clear up with him a matter of protocol or just talk over what was happening in the world — meaning Canberra.

He had disciples too. The oldest among them now ran departments of their own or were professors or the editors of journals. The youngest were alert, ambitious fellows who saw in him the proof that you could get to the top, and stay there too, yet maintain a kind of decency. He bit into the blackened crust, masticating slowly, while Madge, arms folded, regarded the fish.

“Well,” she said at last, "this won't buy the baby a new blanket. Birthday or no birthday, I've got my words to do.”

She hefted the two fish into the sink, scratched about on the win-dowsill among the biros, testing one or two of them to see if they were still active, then, using her forearms to push back a pile of plates, made space for herself at the table among the unwashed tea mugs. She opened a child's plastic-covered exercise book and began to write.

Angie wandered off. She ought by now to be used to Madge's offhand discourtesies and Audley's tendency to withdraw, but the truth was that she always felt, down here, like a child who had been dumped on them for a wet weekend and could find nothing to do.

She went down the steps and stood shading her eyes, looking to where the children would be hunting the slopes above the sea for spinach. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, an arm came round her waist, so awkwardly that they nearly went over, both of them, into a blackberry bush.

“Hullo,” Ralph said, "it's me. Are you up to a bit of no good?” He kissed her roughly on the side of the neck. “Hope no one's looking.” He kissed her again.

He was a big fair fellow who had never grown out of the schoolboy stage of being all arms and legs, a bluff, shy man who liked to fool about, but then, without warning, would go quiet, as if his intelligence had just caught up with some other, less developed side of him that was all antics, leaving him suddenly abashed.

He pulled her down in the grass.

“Mmm,” he mumbled into her mouth, "this is better than Mum's toast.” He sat up. “Did Dad catch anything?”

She told him about the blackfish and he nodded his head, suddenly sober again.

“Oh, he'll be pleased with that, that's good,” he said. “What a terrific day it's going to be.”

2

An hour later Jenny was shouting from the verandah rails. “Hey Ned, Mum, Fran's here.” She ran down to the gravel turning-place to greet her.

“Where's Clem?” she demanded when she saw that Fran was alone. “Angie said you were coming with Clem.”

Fran stuck her head out of the window to look behind and backed into a shady place under the trees.

“We came in separate cars,” she explained. “He's closing the gates.”

Almost immediately they heard his engine on the slope.

Fran swung out of the car carrying the little deerskin slippers she liked to wear when she was driving, coral pink, and a soft leather shoulder bag. She was very slight and straight, and with her cropped hair looked childlike, girlish or boyish it was hard to say.

“So,” she demanded, glancing about, "what have you kids been up to?”

“When?”

“Since I last saw you, dope!” She gave Ned's head an affectionate shove, then threw her arm around him. She was barely the taller.