Currawalli Street (22 page)

The dance begins, the rhythm unknown to those not dancing. For a moment she sees a wild pig trail in a dark jungle, steaming with a sudden rain and crowded in by large dark green leaves that swallow up the path ahead.

He has stopped pulling her towards him and his hands are now on her shoulders. He is thrusting and thrusting. The rhythm has gone from his movements and an animal urge has taken over. The thrusts are faster and not as deep and he now talks under his breath in another language. The syllables are far apart and the sound is guttural.

Suddenly his hands let go of her shoulders and grab her hips again as he pulls her back to him. Then he is deep inside her and he calls out a name which is neither hers nor one that she has heard before. But she knows it is a name. She lifts her chest up off the table and once more arches her back as he shudders and grips her hips tightly.

He falls onto her, exhausted, and she drops back onto the table. They lie like this until he rises from her and she hears the nails again
as he pulls his trousers up. She thinks they must have been around his ankles.

Thanks for the tea
, she hears in her mind as the door opens and then gently closes. She decides she will go back to bed and start her day a bit later on.

After lunch, Mary comes out to see Jim's work. Already it is starting to look like what they discussed.

Yesterday she visited the railway station and the new stationmaster gave her a box of expired tickets, an old sign with the name of the station that had once sat over the ticket window and, most touchingly of all, Patrick's old office chair. The chair and the tickets now sit under a tarpaulin on the veranda. Jim thinks he has one more day until the job is done. Then he will spend another day helping Mary dress up the platform so that it looks authentic.

The name of the real station is Choppingblock. Mary has decided to name the new platform Currawalli Street. The new signs are being painted up by Peter Alexis who apparently has an eye for that sort of thing. His father is a signwriter, he says. Mary took the old station sign up to Peter yesterday so that he could make three new signs in the same style. He said he would start on them straightaway. She is a little concerned that he won't achieve a convincing result.

And now, as Mary is standing on the veranda looking at Jim's work, Peter comes walking down the street with the four signs under his arm. He sees Mary when he is still out the front of number nine and he stops and holds up one of the new signs. It looks just as it should. The words
currawalli street are clear at that distance and, best of all, they look authentic. Mary feels a touch of relief.

She claps her hands silently in approval as Peter walks in the front gate. He pauses as he looks for the veranda steps, which have been moved from the front to the left-hand side.

‘The signs look really good, Peter. Will you come in for a cup of tea?'

‘No, I can't. I'm working on something at the moment and I have just this morning had a breakthrough, so I must get back to it while it's fresh in my head,' he says seriously.

‘What are you working on?' Mary didn't know that Peter works.

He steps up close to her. ‘I paint cats,' he whispers.

‘Oh.' Mary doesn't know what else to say. But Peter is already stepping down from the veranda and heading through the gate. He certainly is an intense man, Mary thinks to herself as she watches him retreat up the street. She places the signs down next to the tarpaulin and walks to the screen door. She hears Jim call her as he comes in the gate. He doesn't bother walking around to the step, just jumps up onto the veranda in front of her.

‘I was thinking last night, Mary, that I could change the configuration of that window there'—he points to the small one that looks out from the dining room—‘to make it a sash window that you can open and, I don't know, sell tickets, or make cups of tea or something.'

Mary looks at the window and then at Jim. ‘Can you do it?'

‘Easy.'

‘That's a really good idea, Jim. Are you sure you have the time?'

‘I'm sure. I'm really enjoying all of this. It's a good way for me to get
used to being back. I try to do a bit at home every day—weeding the garden, washing tea towels—but my heart isn't in it . . . I suspect that my head isn't ready yet.'

‘I don't see how it could be,' Mary says gently.

‘I suppose not. Every time I go into the house I can hear my father telling me to get a move on, but I'm not having much luck. Luke helped me get a few things done—the general stuff—but there are things that I think I should do myself. Mum wouldn't like too many people going through her clothes and things.'

‘If I were you, I wouldn't even try to do that at the moment. Focus on what you need to do—what you want to do. No offence to your parents, but they're dead; they're in no rush. What's the hurry? As I said before, help me get Patrick's platform done and then I will help you at your place. We'll make it a brand-new home for you with only as many reminders of your mum and dad as you want, no more. If you don't do that, you'll always have your parents looking over your shoulder at whatever you do. They are very hard to get rid of once they have established themselves.'

Jim looks momentarily puzzled, so Mary explains. ‘The ghosts of parents. They never want to leave. You have to force them. Don't worry, I know how.'

‘How do you know?' Jim asks, suddenly serious.

‘This is Patrick's parents' house. His grandmother lived next door, at number nine. After Patrick's mother died, I pushed all of the ghosts out onto the street: his grandmother and grandfather, his father, his father's friends, and his mother. That's all it took. They never came back, so I can only assume they weren't angry enough with me to kick up a stink.
The thing is, I knew what needed to be done because it was Patrick's grandmother, Rose, who told me. I don't know who she learned it from. Apparently she was some sort of psychic. I was just married to her grandson, but she took the time to show me how to do it. She said that I might have to use it one day to get rid of her ghost.'

‘Was it easy?'

‘Yes and no. She said the secret is knowing where the essence of each ghost lies.'

‘Where do ghosts lie?' he asks, the image of that old hermit suddenly appearing in his mind.

‘In the most surprising places. The bottoms of drawers, in old paperwork, the backs of cupboards, even in the garden, entwined in the roots of plants . . . Don't worry, we'll move your parents on.'

Jim looks at his elderly neighbour, seeing her in a new way.

Mary looks at him narrowly. ‘You're shaking your head. Don't you believe me?'

‘Oh no, I believe you. I was just thinking that I don't know very much about people at all. I look at all the external things to show me who they are—what sort of person they are. It doesn't work, but I make do with it each time. I must take everybody the wrong way.'

Mary smiles. ‘I think that's what we all do. But you must remember that most people are pretty good at hiding themselves in among what they present to you. Most people don't want you to know who they are. So don't be too hard on yourself. We all have secret lives. And we are all pretty good at keeping them secret.' Mary stops and laughs. ‘Listen to me! I never used to be this philosophical. I think it is only since Patrick has gone that I have thought about such things. So there you are. That
is another secret you know about me.'

‘What do you mean, since Patrick has gone? I saw him this morning.'

‘I mean since some of his mind has gone. He hasn't the ability to talk to me much anymore. The reality, which he is sometimes actively engaged in and talks to me about, is, sadly, not the same as mine. And the difference is getting bigger each day. Unfortunately, it has arrived at a time when we were both becoming more reflective and starting to look back on the past more than looking towards the future. That's what I mean.'

‘He seemed alright when he came over to my place the other night,' Jim says, frowning and trying to remember if Patrick did anything strange.

‘Yes, he comes and goes. I can never predict when he is going to be with me or when he is not even going to recognise me.'

It has been a remarkable day; something has changed. Certainly, Megan has never felt this way before. Her head is in Derry's lap as he talks. With closed eyes she pictures what he looks like as he speaks, for the first time ever finding it satisfying and calming. They are on the couch in the lounge room; he is sitting upright nursing a glass of rum with one hand and she is lying on her side with her feet curled up under her. Her own glass is empty, abandoned on the coffee table. She opens her eyes to ask him a question and then closes them straightaway to hear the answer.

‘Why do you like the painting?' There is no need to identify which
painting she means. There can be only one worthy of comment. It is hanging in front of them.

‘Besides the colours and the candlelight, I like the subject,' says Derry. ‘It is strange enough to be remarkable. The man is curled up on the mother's lap as if he is a naked baby but he looks unnatural and tense. He isn't really showing any expression, when you think in that position he would. After all he is just about to be, or he has just been, breastfed. But his face, although it has been competently executed by the artist, shows an odd detachment. Which makes the whole thing very strange.' Derry takes a sip of his drink before continuing. ‘But the things that really attract me to the painting are the religious images. The stained-glass windows, the gold candlesticks, the rich brocades, the mother looking up to heaven. That religious tone must make the painting offensive to some people; people who we let through our door even though perhaps neither of us likes them very much.'

Megan raises herself up on one shoulder. ‘Like who?'

‘Geoffrey and Alison.'

‘I thought you liked them. I put up with them for your sake.'

‘No—I thought
you
liked them.'

‘Not at all. She is so neurotic and he is . . . weird.' They both laugh.

‘Well, that's good to hear,' says Derry. ‘We don't have to have them over here again.'

‘And we won't have to go to their dinner parties anymore.'

‘Hooray!'

Megan sinks back down onto Derry's lap. He brings his drink to his lips. ‘Now continue about the painting,' she instructs.

‘Well . . . I found out who the man is. We've never really talked
about the painting before, only to disagree about it, so I haven't told you. I was looking through a book on the history of this area and there was a photograph of a priest taken outside our church in 1914. He is standing with a small man, the bishop of the district. And that man in the painting is that bishop. Can you believe it?'

‘Are you sure?' Megan asks, a little shocked.

‘Positive.'

‘But that woman is breastfeeding him. Bishops don't . . .'

‘Who do you think that woman is supposed to be?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Who do you know in the Bible who's a mother?'

‘No!'

‘That's who I think it is. Look at the way she's looking up to the heavens and the way he's gazing at her face—just like the Baby Jesus.'

‘And you're sure he's the bishop?'

‘Yep, it's him alright. After I found that photo I looked up histories of the diocese and his picture appeared again. He was bishop from 1910 to 1923.'

‘And then?'

‘He died in a car crash. The car he was a passenger in went over that cliff up Choppingblock Road a bit. You know the one? The driver managed to jump out before it went over.'

Megan sits up again and looks at the painting. She shudders. ‘Where did you get it from?'

‘Across the road—number ten. The bloke who got shot found it under his house, of all places, wrapped in oilskins and tarpaulins, a few days before he gave it to me. He must have wanted to get rid of it before
his wife saw it. I was just getting out of the car at the time and he called me over. I hadn't talked to him before.'

‘I thought you bought it from an antique shop.'

‘No—I might have told you that at the start so that you would let me keep it.'

‘Oh. Do you know who painted it?'

‘I think the bloke across the road knew but he didn't want to say. And there's no signature.'

‘The artist didn't want to be held responsible, I suppose.'

‘I suppose.'

‘Bed?' asks Megan.

‘I'm not really tired.'

‘Me neither. Bed?'

T
he Choppingblock Hotel stands on the corner of Choppingblock Road and Little Road. It is the oldest building in the district, mistakenly built in an empty paddock miles from anywhere by a drunken builder who misread the address on his directions. The streets came later to cluster around it like village houses around a Norman castle.

The Choppingblock Hotel is mainly frequented by men. It is a fact that men generally don't like women to overhear them when they are talking to other men and so the manager frowns on women leaving the ladies lounge. Whenever there is an occasion for mixed company it generally takes place in the hotel dining room over a plate of ham steak with pineapple or nasi goreng and a bottle of Porphyry Pearl. There are topics of conversation for these occasions that are masculine without being revealing. But they are not really satisfying. That's why the men in these groups are always ready to leave.

But they don't have to be anxious to leave a public bar. A shallow glance would lead you to think that perhaps it is alcohol that keeps
men from all walks of life at the bar, but it is not that particular vice at all; it is the demon spirit of conversation. Here they can say and hear what they know to be true and do not have to argue any difference of opinion that uses words or emotions they don't understand. That's why many sober men stay until closing time and have to be ushered from the premises.

It is the type of late afternoon when the bushfire smoke has been blown away by a southerly breeze. Jim leans against his front fence looking across the street to the block of land next to Megan's house that is number eleven. As a child, he often found himself looking at that land without having noticed that it had drawn his attention. He didn't like it then and he still doesn't like it. But now he knows land like this. He saw it in Vietnam. Nothing ever grows there. It is barren as if from a drier part of the country. Most likely something bad happened there. There was a spot like this near the camp where he was last stationed. The local people wouldn't walk across it, they wouldn't eat anything that grew near it; they wouldn't drink water from the stream that ran near there. It was a place where something evil had happened. Number eleven feels like that.

Jan Domak walks in front of the block of land and crosses the street to Jim. ‘Fancy drinking a beer with me?'

Jim nods. ‘Yes, I was planning on going down to the pub. I may as well go now. I don't drink beer though.'

The reverend holds the front gate open for him and they walk down the street side by side. At Little Road they wait for a break in the traffic
and then step across to the pub car park together. Inside, the public bar is surprisingly quiet for this time of day, and they lean on the bar together underneath the thirty-eight tin mugs.

‘Do you know why they're up there?' Jan asks.

‘Well, I've heard stories about men nailing up their mugs on pub walls before going away to the Great War but I don't know whether that is what these are. Maybe the barman knows.'

He doesn't. Jim isn't surprised. It's the same barman as when he first walked in here on his return. Jim turns his drink around before raising it to his lips.

‘So, you come from around here?' Jan asks.

‘Lived in Currawalli Street all my life. Where are you from?'

‘Czechoslovakia. I was brought out here by my parents. That was when I was a baby and so I have very few memories of there.'

‘What do you remember?'

‘Snow on my father's shoes when he came inside and the smell of breath.'

‘What does that mean?' Jim lifts up his empty whisky glass and shows it to the barman who doesn't register what Jim means by this action.

Jan considers. ‘I think there was a lot of sausage eaten, a lot of garlic, butter, chicory coffee, and over the top of it all was cigarette smoke. It added up to a certain smell of breath.'

‘I see.'

‘I was only a baby, so it could have been just my family's breath that smelled like that, but the truth is, whenever I smell garlic and tobacco I think of Czechoslovakia. And snow on my father's shoes.'

Jim finally resorts to words to get the barman's attention. Thus prompted, the man flies into action and a new drink is in front of Jim in seconds.

‘Do you ever want to talk about your parents?' asks Jan.

Jim has his glass halfway to his lips. He puts it back down gently on the bar. ‘No, I don't. Something happened, but I don't know what, other than what the police and the coroner said. I suppose that one day I will find out. And I don't know if finding out will be a good thing or a bad thing.'

‘Did he have secrets?'

‘My dad?'

‘Did he?'

‘I would think he had secrets. Only they wouldn't be secrets if I knew about them, would they? I'm not interested in talking about this. If it's why you invited me for a drink I'll go home and wash the floors.' Jim has met one or two men like the reverend before. Always asking questions at the wrong times. Women know when to ask these same questions, and when to talk about something else.

‘Every man has a secret world that he goes to sometimes, a shadow life. I just wanted to know what your father's was, that's all. I'm sorry. I just . . . if you ever want to talk . . . I'm always available,' Jan says quietly.

‘Do you have a shadow life, Reverend?'

‘Of course. All men do. You know what yours is, I know what mine is.'

‘Good for you.' Jim pushes his glass away unfinished. He turns to leave.

Jan draws in a deep breath. Remembering the note that was thrust into his hand at this very spot, he says, ‘I must go too. I have important work waiting in my office. No one else can do it.'

The barman doesn't notice their departure.

Jim waves to Rodney in the apricot tree as they walk by. He waves back and writes something down in his logbook.

As the two men walk up Currawalli Street, Jan says, ‘I'm sorry, Jim. It wasn't my intention to be insensitive . . .'

‘What was your intention?'

Jan stops walking and turns to him. ‘To offer you my . . . services if you ever need them. That's all.'

Jim is looking up the street at the church spire. ‘Thanks, Reverend. I'll keep it in mind. I don't know what will happen or how I will feel. I may want to knock on your door. You know, I knew a man like you once. Over there. He got bitten by a snake. He was too big to move out of its way.' Jim's voice is cold and on the edge there is a touch of anger.

‘I always watch out for snakes. Goodnight, Jim.'

‘Goodnight.' Jim crosses the street and leaves Jan to continue on alone.

The cool air eases Jim through his front door, which he leaves ajar. He walks through the house to the back door and pushes it wide open. The screen door is being assaulted by a Hercules moth. Jim sits on the grass, looks up at the stars starting to come out, and thinks about the reverend's statement that every man has a shadow life. It's not strictly true, he thinks; in Vietnam there was never any need to keep a shadow life: men did what they wanted, out in the open, because all around was
darkness and everyone was living in the shadows.

Jim looks into the darkness now, tired of needing to know what is out there. Suddenly, though, his body jerks into alertness.

Before he hears them in the sky he can feel the shells coming closer. The earth begins to vibrate in very quick, small movements. Without pausing to process the information he falls flat to the ground. That is what you have to do: men who stop to think before they take action are the men who die.

Now the sound overtakes the vibrations. It is a screaming machine that roars in from over the horizon. It pushes Jim into the ground so hard that it seems to force the air out of his lungs. He buries an ear into the dirt and slams his hand over the exposed one, but that is good only for a moment. Before long he has to turn his head and bury his face in the dirt with his arms thrown out ahead of him.

The sound gets even louder. He lets his mouth fall open, needing to rid his body of some of the screaming noise that has entered through his ears, eyes, nose and skin and whips along his veins to his brain, which feels as if it is swelling dangerously. His throat has begun to hurt and he may even be yelling or screaming himself but he can't hear it over the noise of the machine, which keeps getting louder.

He knows that he is sobbing though because he can feel tears on his cheeks and his shoulders are jerking up and down.

It is too much. He gives up, lies out flat and doesn't attempt to protect himself anymore. Makes his peace with God and the moment.

The sound very quickly dies away. The shells will not land here, he sees. They are meant for somewhere else. Now he can hear the
crump crump
as they hit the ground a few miles further on.

Jim often finds himself thinking about bravery. Specifically, what
makes a man take a positive action when it is acceptable and understandable that he take no action at all? Does that compulsion come from a conscious thought or an unconscious thought? Jim has no idea where the impetus comes from.

He remembers Brent bending over him, yelling for him to move as he lay spreadeagled in the middle of a track, paralysed by the noise of shells. It was the first time he had heard such a salvo roaring in close overhead, and it wasn't until the following evening that he realised his fingertips were causing him great pain. He looked down and saw that there was dirt packed under his nails right down to the quick, he had grabbed the earth so hard. As he discovered, it wasn't unusual to see men with no fingernails remaining; nor was it strange to see soldiers with trails of tears on their cheeks as they returned from patrols.

The sound has now completely left his mind and roared over the horizon. It is then that Jim sees he is lying close to the lemon tree in the backyard and in the air is the smell of the diesel fumes of a goods train locomotive. He looks up at the railway line over the back fence.

All is quiet.

At number four the Alberto family is drinking wine. Rosa finishes hers quickly and walks over to a pot boiling on the stove. Her husband, Gerald, sips from his glass and looks across the table at his mother-in-law, who is shelling peas. Her glass, almost empty, sits on the table beside the basket of peas that she has brought in from the garden.

Gina has a flourishing vegetable garden. She only ever goes to the fruit and vegetable shop to buy potatoes and look at the prices. She doesn't
grow potatoes because they take up too much room. Gerald doesn't mind, even though he likes potatoes. He is smart enough to comprehend the role that Gina plays in all facets of their life, from cooking to house painting, from joking to child minding, from good company to silent presence.

The only contentious issue in the house is who has control of the stove, Gina or Rosa. The problem would be easily resolved if Rosa could say to her mother, ‘You are a guest in our home and therefore I want you to stay out of the kitchen unless I invite you.' But it is actually Gina's house. Rosa grew up here; her dad Joe died one night in this very kitchen. Rather than live in an empty house like a widow, Gina invited Rosa and her family to move in. So she still retains a little authority. The lines are grey and blurred. She has moved into the bungalow out the back, right next to the train line.

Gerald doesn't mind who claims domain over the kitchen. He simply likes to eat good food.

Rosa and Gerald have two children. Kathy is twelve years old and listens to the radio all the time. Bradley is eight and spends a lot of time digging holes. He likes to look over the fence at the trains.

Across the road is where the strange boy Rodney lives. Kathy often sees him up in his tree and her intuition tells her to be wary of him. She doesn't have to worry. Rodney has no interest in talking to her.

Next door is Norm Norman's house. He comes over for dinner every Thursday night. His dog, Bruiser, always comes in about half an hour later. The dog generally stays out of Gina's garden other than to scare the birds away with a bark, for which Gina rewards him with a polpetta that she makes specially for him. And for Gerald. Mainly Bruiser sniffs
around the windows and empty paint cans to see if there have been any cats about other than Thomas.

The Albertos' backyard is Thomas's hunting area. There are always mice in the garden and sometimes sleepy birds. Thomas and Bruiser have an understanding. Bruiser will only chase Thomas if he is out of his designated hunting areas. But he is nowhere to be seen at the moment.

As she shells the peas, Gina suggests that Gerald build a chook shed. Rosa agrees. Both women look at Gerald, who only looks up from the paper when he feels the heat of their stares.

‘What?'

‘Mum is suggesting you build a chook shed,' Rosa says brightly.

‘Me?' Gerald is nonplussed.

‘You could do it. It won't be difficult.'

‘Time is the issue. There is a busy time coming up at work right now and I don't know when I will be free. Why do we need chooks, anyway?' He lowers the paper to his lap.