4
Tonight I must tell them.
The lights move on the river, rippling like long tapering silkworms that dance in the night. Prawns are soft and still warm from the boiling pot we have cooked them in. Vinegar runs down our chins. Mary has her feet in the water where the little bodies of gobbleguts and smelt lie discarded from our net. I run my fingers over the mesh. The piles of the jetty across from us smell of barnacles and slime. Odours I remember well.
‘She’s a nice girl, Quoi,’ says Mary. ‘I hope you’re very happy.’
‘Yeah,’ Simon smiles. ‘Good luck.’
From my pocket I take the tiny medicine bottle which has been hidden in so many places, and shake out the pearls. These are what I have collected from the bad shells, imperfect greyish-white pearls, small enough to be hidden in an ear or under a fingernail. The skipper would have beaten me, had he found out.
I show them the big one I have chosen for the ring for Hoa and they marvel at its beauty. It is not perfect, but it is surely beautiful.
‘And this is for you,’ I say shyly, uncertain of how they will react. The two pearls are faulty, oblong specimens with lines in their skins like scars. Simon and Mary hug me and say thank you. I am grateful, because I know they do not agree with pearls.
‘Why, Quoi?’ they both ask.
‘Because I am going to Brisbane. Hoa’s brother has been found there. She must see him before we marry, and there . . . is no money for a return fare.’
‘Going? Again?’ Mary looks hurt.
‘We could get some money together for you,’ says Simon.
‘No, you cannot,’ I say, truthfully.
‘What about your Uni course?’
‘It cannot be helped.’
We sit awhile, the light flickering in our faces, and I observe the limestone monument behind us set with a metal plaque. The limestone thing is indecipherable. I wonder if they notice it? Mary, crying, hugs me. Simon is turning the pearls over meditatively in his palm.
‘They’re probably not worth anything, commercially,’ he says.
‘No,’ I admit. I am ashamed.
‘A peasant’s gift?’ Mary asks.
I smile. I will miss these strange people.
The Woman at the Well
THE TIRED horses shuffled in the dust, burying their heads in the buckets the soldier had drawn. The creak of the rope made them prick their ears, half alert. The well was old, the stones worn from animals and women.
Heavy blowflies knocked against his brow as he grunted, carrying the heavy buckets. The horses also grunted, half submerged, almost satisfied but for the wet rope that bound them. The well jutted out of the smooth, packed dirt of the deserted marketplace, and the buildings around the square were full of soldiers as young and old as he. Shouts drifted from the shade. A two-up game was spilling onto the street, a nodding mass of curses and thudding coins.
It was a strange place, but the men, like all soldiers, brought their country with them. They fought and swore and slept and waited. The liberating forces called this resting. Women in the area were as scarce as in any other pock-marked town on the peninsula. They stayed indoors; too many things had happened.
Returning to the edge of the well with an empty bucket in each hand, the soldier noticed a shawled woman walking, bucket on her head, towards him. He lowered the rope again, feeling under his palm the smooth stone.
Although he did not hear her footfalls, he knew when she was behind him. Turning, he saw that she was quite young – scarcely out of adolescence – but there were lines in her face.
The woman stood, hands limp by her sides, and stared at him. He busied himself with his buckets in the dirt around the well. His arms were hairy and streaked with sweat, his shirt prickling with moisture. She watched him.
‘Will you draw me some water?’
He swallowed, his mouth dry, and croaked.
‘Ah-er, sure miss.’ He wound slowly, searching for something to say. ‘It’s a bonzer day, eh?’
She didn’t seem to hear. He didn’t feel like saying anything else. The bucket came to the surface, brimming with clean desert water which forced the sun into his face. The two-up game was rowdier, with the laughter of winners and the grunts of those on the lose.
‘Do you have money?’ Her English was perfect. The question startled him; she seemed to be speaking to someone else. Perhaps she was mistaking him for another man.
‘Er, why do you ask, miss?’
Covered in a sprinkling of fine dust, the black shawl over her head was holed, and there were callouses on her feet.
‘Do you have anything?’
‘Pardon?’ Sunlight danced in the creases of his face. He squinted at her. ‘Listen, I haven’t got anything you’d want.’
‘Have you money?’
‘. . . Yeah.’
‘Will you trade?’
‘In what exactly?’ He grew cautious.
She put a hand on his arm. His body contracted. He was quiet for a moment. The horses drank and shuffled. There was peace here. But her hand was on his arm and his breath came out with a sigh.
‘What the hell; here today, gone tommorrer. Where?’
Turning from him, she walked slowly across the square towards one of the crusted, flat buildings. With the sun on the back of his neck, the soldier loped along behind.
She stopped in the shade of what looked to him like a shop or an office, then disappeared into the entrance. Coming to the step, he peered inside, hesitant. He saw nothing in the musty darkness, heard nothing. Her face appeared; she took his hand, her palm cool against the damp heat of his.
For a few seconds the contrast in light left him blind. Led through the front room, he could see the forms of a desk and an empty bookcase. The desk was bare, edges burnt. Papers crackled under his feet. The woman padded and he clumped across the floorboards, following her into an equally dingy room that smelt of ash and sweat and urine. There was a small window high on the wall; the ceiling was black from smoke and flies. On the floor lay a large pallet, stolen from the barracks, he supposed. There were a few boxes in one corner, and a wooden chair covered in cigarette burns and graffiti.
Hands in his pockets, he stood as the woman began to undress by the pallet.
‘How much, love?’ he croaked, throat tighter.
‘Two pounds.’
Still standing, he watched her as she lay on the gritty mattress, naked, resigned, absent. Her breasts were small, her ribs like an ugly corset beneath her skin, her belly scarred and limp. He unbuttoned his shirt, and as he peeled it from his back he heard a shuffling sound. Standing still, with his head cocked to one side, he waited and heard it again. Then a baby wailed.
‘Where’s it coming from?’
The woman stayed stretched feebly on the floor. Her eyes were expressionless. The cry continued as he went over to the boxes in the corner.
‘Gawd, who’s this, then?’
A small head poked from a rag in the smallest of the boxes. Its eyes oozed yellow. Shaking his head, the soldier turned to the woman.
‘Forget it, blossom. Here, take a quid. Buy Mohommed here something to eat.’ He gave her a pound-note, moist with sweat. He showed her his open wallet.
‘See these? That’s my kids and my wife.’
She nodded again.
‘The littlun’ll be two soon.’
She stared.
‘I’d better get back to the nags. I’ll probably be in for it already.’
The sun burst into his eyes as he strode out across the square to the well. No one had noticed his absence. The two-up game was nearing a climax of anger and laughter as he drew a bucketful of water and splashed his face and arms. Refreshed, he turned to the stomping horses and noticed the woman’s bucket at his feet. He filled it then stretched his back. He saw the black robe at the doorway across the square. Chuckling, he returned to the horses. She was coming to thank him, he thought.
An insect hum crept into the air, but his mind was on o
ther things as he checked hoofs and mouths. The woman, now halfway across the square, looked up and then fell flat as a shadow. The blur of the plane hurtled overhead, the Turkish pilot beetle-like in his goggles and yellow scarf. The two-up game continued, a few of the less engrossed gamblers scuttling to safety, and the horses stirred.
The soldier turned. A bullet pierced his left arm, throwing him sideways to his knees. It was then that he heard the cicada sound of the machine-gun, and felt another blow in the side, just above his pelvis, and the third seemed to open his chest inwards. The horses thrashed against the ropes, falling over each other with wounds in their legs and bellies. One lay broken backed, crimson ribbons gouting down its belly. In their fear, the others trampled the beast, staggering and snorting.
On the earth near the well, the soldier lay spread-eagled, bleeding into the dust. The sound of the aircraft faded and the horses calmed a little, still disturbed by the presence of their dead.
At his side, the woman. Her eyes were empty, her mouth tight. Pinned to the dust, he breathed loud and spoke.
‘There’s ten quid in my wallet . . . top pocket. Keep it.’
The woman moved closer, to hear him better, he thought. She was reaching into the bloodied pocket above his heart.
‘But . . . keep the pictures, the wife and kiddies . . . promise.’
She paused as he spoke, and when his words faded and his eyes were as empty as her own, she pulled out the wallet, red with blood and blue with the ink of his burst fountain-pen. Opening the leather, she took out the ten pounds, wet and torn. The bullet had passed through money, photos, papers. She noted the name embossed on the inner flap: Pte. W. Williams. Stuffing the money into her robe, she closed the warm wallet and dropped it into the depths of the well.
Turning again to Bill Williams whose blood had disappeared into the dust, she stepped over his splayed figure and picked up her bucket. It was holed and empty, so she left it by the well and walked back to the dark entrance across the square.
Scission
1
IT IS four o’clock. He paces through ribbons of glass, stepping hard on his heels to feel the shift and snap. As he stares at the walls with their dainty pictures of women, he inserts a magazine, secures it in the weapon with his palm. He feels the rifle’s dark weight and observes the plaited sinews locking in his forearms.
He sits on the piano stool and surveys her room. In one corner there is a vase of peacock feathers on a small table. He notes carefully the fine spray of colours. The feathers ease up out of the mouth of the vase like soft words. Everywhere, inflated armchairs, animal rugs, knotted, baked pieces of clay. He is a stranger in this flat.
Light through the shattered window is soft. A breeze brings in the dry grass smell of late afternoon.
There is another smell, though he is puzzled because it is also a quality of light. Hers.
He lifts the lid of the piano gently because he is afraid of its dark smoothness. With his thumb he depresses the last key but one, and then, the last. It is like pushing white teeth. To him it makes the word:
A – MEN
and the last, lowest, darkest note trembles in the wood until his breath is gone. He sees his face, distorted in the polished wood. And smiles.
2
‘McCulloch.’ He says his name aloud. His voice is close in this room. He takes pride in his name; it is the brand-name of a chainsaw. He looks at his hands curled about the tube of gunmetal. There is no paint on these hands. They are soft. He once loved to roughen her flesh with his spirit-hardened callouses. He stirs at the thought.
McCulloch is a big man. His muscles have grown soft with the years and he must constantly will them into firming. It makes him squint as though in pain.
In the bedroom the vast bed is unfamiliar. Posts, big pillows, eiderdown. He faces the mirror. The T-shirt is tight; the outline of his nipples shows through. He holds the long barrel before him.
He keeps a careful eye on the space around his image in the glass. Nothing moves in the dimness.
3
Rosemary McCulloch lounges perfectly in the fortified sunlight by the pool. Her thoughts are far from the chunk-chunk of heavy camera shutters and the talk of the photographer. She is possessed by whiteness.
Behind her eyelids there is quivering white. It reminds her of the past; clean, fresh brick pulsating in a street of salmon-pink and terracotta, bright, pale faces of the family just out from England (she remembers the woman’s accent as she called for her child – ‘Murr-rraaay!’), and the modest chiffon of the bride arriving next door. At dusk the sound of other people’s children. Everywhere yards barren with pale coastal sand and harassed-looking runners of buffalo grass.
Sweaty summer nights in white sheets, under his biceps, listening to the sprinklers.
4
A small woman moves among the empty cardboard boxes, and, after a moment’s indecision, crosses the glass-strewn floor to the bookcase. She notes, despite herself, that it has not been dusted. She pulls books out, Herbert Kastle, Helen Maclnnes – scruffy paperbacks that she drops into the nearest box. Anna Karenina she remembers and pulls the cardigan tighter about her as if to secure the memory of debate through the pickets of the fence. Pure Metaphysical Knowledge and New Idea join the thrillers in the box. Then she scoops out an armful of Simenons and reads the back covers once more and turns and says: ‘Remem . . .’ and puts a hand to her mouth. Yes, always Maigret, she thinks.
For a few moments she is happy and strong, moving along the shelves, boxing books and discarding more issues of Bilbert Kann’s Pure Metaphysical Knowledge with resolve. She breathes shallowly, scuffs aside the broken glass.
5
The weapon rears in his hands.
A red geyser issues from an eye socket. The woman staggers.
There is a roar like the heavens opening.
6
Soon after the Housing Commission opened up Playne Street there was an influx of young married couples and English migrants who found deposits for the sandy, treeless blocks, and waited and saw State houses built on them. There were only four styles but designs were often reversed, as if copied in a mirror. Instead of the door of the terracotta double-front opening on the left of the little cement porch, it opened on the right. Tile colours varied.
The McCulloch house, however, was none of the four, and this set it apart. McCulloch, a signwriter, worked at home much of the time and this also held a certain prestige. His wife stayed at home; it was expected of her, but she, like most of the young wives on Playne Street, was happy with her new life in which she had a home that would one day have a garden and a greenhouse and a concrete driveway.
Next door, on the left, lived another young couple. The husband, Phillips, was a clerk with the government; his wife, Ruth Phillips, spent her housecleaning hours planning her new home, nuggeting and polishing the jarrah floorboards each week. Rosemary McCulloch could be sometimes seen standing outside her white house brushing the spiderwebs from the asbestos eaves with a broom, whistling. Her neighbour watched through the pickets.
One afternoon, after the Phillipses had their driveway bituminized, Ruth Phillips, who was lashing the sandy verge with water to coax the buffalo grass, saw the McCullochs pull in on McCulloch’s motorcycle. Flinging dark hair from her eyes, Rosemary McCulloch met her neighbour on the kerb. They spoke shyly, asking girlish questions, laughing in little ragged shreds, often turning to point out things about the two houses, salmon pink and white.
Thereafter, the two spoke daily – often by the hour – through the fence. They shared cups of Robur tea in each other’s kitchen and shopped together in the Phillips’ Morris Minor. The two husbands spoke little. Sid Phillips thought conversation with McCulloch was like talking to a small boy; he found himself being patronizing and he tired quickly of talking cars and women. McCulloch spent hours after dark working on his motorcycle with his friends. He thought that Phillips was a bore. Phillips tended to share this view, though his wife did no
t.
When the Beatles came to Australia, all of them went together; it was Rosemary’s idea. For the Phillipses it was deafening and terrifying. For the McCullochs it was like being near the Queen or seeing the Pope. There was a poster of Paul McCartney in their hallway.
The rest of the people living on Playne Street noticed that numbers seven and nine had become close. People told stories of wife-swapping and other titillating atrocities, but there was no truth in them.
Ruth Phillips had a baby, Rosemary McCulloch had a miscarriage and a long depression.
Soon after, McCulloch almost got the contract for a concert tour of Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, but the promoters decided that they did not like the funny slant he gave to all his letters. Other clients did not like the long shadows he painted into his signs, although most never complained. Many were afraid to offend him.
A woman, a year later, gave birth to a baby with no arms. She and her husband moved from the street. A Jugoslav woman moved in; she was no more popular.
On Sundays ‘the kids’ came to see McCulloch. They were his old friends from school; he still called them ‘the kids’. Rosemary and Ruth, for a year or two, went on picnics on Sundays. Sid Phillips took up golf, despite his loathing it. McCulloch and ‘the kids’ lifted weights with a transistor bellowing, threw empties over the fence and tuned cars all day.
The Phillipses had another son. Rosemary McCulloch gave birth to a son, and the next year, another. The Phillips children grew to be noisy, happy children. The McCulloch boys were quiet. Sullen, some said.
It sometimes occurred to Ruth Phillips that Rosemary was like a young sister. She thought of herself now as a woman, and could not help but feel as though Rosemary was still a girl. Rosemary had a worldly air about her – she knew more about sex than Ruth – but her speech betrayed a schoolgirl’s naivete. Because Rosemary was beautiful and Ruth plain (though her husband did not agree), Ruth Phillips thought of herself as a much older woman. In fact she was five years older.