The Idea of Perfection (43 page)

At the gate of the Mechanics’ Institute, Harley glanced around as if she had heard someone calling her, but no one had.

 

 

She had missed all the excitement: must have slept through the sirens, too far away in her peaceful sunroom. But Coralie had told her all about the fire, when she had driven over with the quilt, because Chook was the Fire Chief, and had been the one to go up the ladder to get Douglas Cheeseman down from the window.

She had not asked how it had been done.

There had been a picture in the paper of Chang’s shop with the back all burned away into a ragged hole, the curls of roofing-iron hanging down, the gaping window where Douglas had got the quilt out, and a big headline:
HERO!

Not such a heroic thing really, Coralie said. The fire escapes that close to the window, you can just about walk straight in.

It would take more than that for Coralie to forgive Douglas Cheeseman.

Bloody Main Roads, she grumbled. Who needs heroes like that?

But Harley remembered what he had told her about having to be sedated, up on some bridge or other. He had laughed that embarrassed laugh. She wished she had not laughed, and then had to pretend to be coughing, when he had got to the bit about the stretcher.

She had thought of telling Coralie about all that, but decided against it. In telling her, he had given her a weapon that she could use against him if she wanted to. But she did not want to.

 

 

Out the front of the Mechanics’ Institute, where the colonnades had been before they filled them in with fibro, she could see the urn rumbling away on a trestle, sending up wisps of steam. Beside it Mrs Fowler was making salad sandwiches, plying the tongs in and out of shiny metal bowls as if playing on some complicated musical instrument. Next to her Merle — or possibly it was Helen, she had never really got them sorted out, but they seemed not to mind when she mixed them up — was dealing saucers on to another trestle like a hand of cards, talking to Mrs Fowler. When she turned her head Harley heard her exclaim:
But I said to her, Mrs Davey always does the pumpkin scones!
Leith, with a serious expression, pressed a pink plastic food cover against her big soft bosom and made it unpop like a little umbrella. Beside her Helen — or perhaps it was Merle — picked up a knife and sliced across a big pink cake with a grand gesture.

Donna was sitting behind the table in the entrance selling the raffle tickets. The patchwork hung from a stand behind her. In the crowd of bright fresh clothes it looked drab and shabby, and Harley’s heart went out to it, hanging lonely from its rod, being stared at by eyes that were used to
Log Cabin and Bow Ties.
She loved it in a particular, protective way, the way you might love a homely child. She had called it
Under the Bridge,
to help people get the idea, but she did not think it would help much.

 

 

Inside the hall, the crowd was so thick no one could move and there was a high excited buzz of talking like at a party. She had begun to think she knew everyone in Karakarook, and now she was astonished at how the seemingly empty landscape had produced all these other people she had never seen before. There were men in tee-shirts and baseball caps. There were older women in flowered dresses, and young ones in shorts, and children running around everyone’s legs. There seemed to be a lot of men in hats. Big beefy ones, little skinny ones, ones with little pea-heads and big beer-guts that strained the front of their shirts, tall ones with smiling brown faces.

Not a single one of them was Douglas Cheeseman.

She stood looking into the crowded hall. Each time she saw a flat hat she started a smile and a movement of her hand, but each time it turned out not to be Douglas Cheeseman’s face underneath, and she closed down the smile.

After the day at the river, she’d assumed that she’d simply bump into him, though perhaps not literally this time. He would be coming out of the Caledonian, or picking up the paper at the Acropolis, or the brown Datsun and the white ute would pass each other on Parnassus Road and they would stop, the way people did here, to have a conversation through their wound-down windows in the middle of the street.

But in spite of Karakarook being such a small place, it was amazing how you could not find someone you were looking for. After the first couple of days, when she had kept her face prepared for him as she went about her day and gone to bed with her prepared face still unused, she had finally gone to the Caledonian. She had blushed ridiculously, leaning over the bar to ask for him, with all the drinkers turning to stare, and the publican shaking his head. She could see how it looked. She had wanted to say,
It’s not what you’re thinking.

But of course, when you came right down to it, it was.

She had not thought beyond the moment when they would be face to face. Words would have to be produced, and smiles would have to be created, that said what you wanted them to say. That part would probably bring all the usual difficulties.

But first, she had to find him.

She tried to push through the crowd, but did not get far before her way was blocked by a group of women staring at the mangles and galvanised washing tubs in the WASHDAY exhibit.

Blue bags, one of them said in the resonant authoritative voice of a deaf person. A small tight perm sat on her head like a tidy brown animal. Without actually pushing at her large flowered bottom, Harley could not get past.

Fancy that, Olive, remember the old blue bags. And look, Empire Starch. Remember starching?

Harley stood on tiptoes and looked over the heads in front of her. All over the hall, flat-topped felt hats were moving slowly around.

The woman with the perm had moved on now to the kitchen behind its red rope, and Harley let herself shuffle along behind. She looked in as if she had never seen it before. The basket of kindling was very life-like, even though there seemed to be more aprons hanging from nails than an average kitchen might be expected to have, and rather more tea-cosies than tea-pots.

Oh look, Olive, the old range. Takes you back, doesn’t it?

It was interesting being a stranger in the crowd again. It was like a rehearsal for being back in the city. It would seem odd to be where no one knew you, and no car would ever stop in the middle of the street so the person inside could talk to you.

Lot of old rubbish if you ask me, a man just behind her said sideways to the woman with him.

He leaned in, right over the red rope, and picked up a toasting fork from the kitchen table. She knew without needing to look what the card said:
Toasting Fork Made from Fencing Wire, about 1910.

Bloody rubbish, the man said.

He was talking out of the corner of his mouth, but loudly. He was only pretending that he did not want to be heard.

Used to have one just like it at home, the woman said.

She laughed in a snort.

Chucked it out, soon as we got the power on.

She took it from him and ran a finger along one of the bent tines.

Rusty. Can you believe it, putting this in a museum?

In her hands, the fork had a pathetic home-made look. Harley watched as she flexed it carelessly. The red rope and the labels were supposed to stop people doing that. It was supposed to
re-contextualise
things — that was the term for it at the Museum in Sydney.

The woman put the fork back on the table next to its card.

Heritage!

Somehow, she made the word sound ridiculous.

Peering around above the heads of shorter people, Harley was pleased to see that the cadet from the
Livingstone & Shire Weekly Clarion
was there, with a camera around his neck and a spiral notebook in his hand. He was Coralie and Donna’s brother’s brother-in-law on the Fielding side, or some such connection. There would be a nice big splash on the front page. Coralie was there, standing in front of AND SO TO BED, getting ready for him to take her photo.

Freddy Chang had come up with the idea of putting a window frame on the wall and he had supplied a big glossy coloured photo of a view of paddocks and rather overly green trees, which he had cut up and carefully glued into the window-panes. The effect was quite realistic. Under the peaceful scene, Coralie’s old wagga looked endearing. It was easy to imagine getting in under it, feeling the warmth of all those old socks and woolly singlets.

Anything that was wool you never threw away, Coralie was telling the cadet, scribbling into his notebook.

It was like a crime to throw away wool.

She was getting herself ready for the photo, making sure the wagga was visible behind her, getting her smile ready, but she suddenly held out a hand.

Stop! Chook’s got to be in it with me! Come on, love!

Chook was there then, huge beside her, still in his singlet from the woodcraft demonstration. He put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her so tight Harley could see the breath was pushed out of her. Harley could see how embarrassed he was, out there with everyone staring at him and Coralie and the wagga, but she could see he was proud too, looking down at his wife with a sort of grimace of tenderness. Coralie looked up into his face with a shy, pleased look, a look just between the two of them, in the moment that the camera flashed.

They were looking deep into each other’s eyes, but Harley saw that what they were doing was not the same as
looking deep into each other’s eyes.
The fraction of a second that the camera had captured was a fraction of a second of simple love. Their love for each other was at least as complicated as most people‘s, but just for that moment, it was the simplest thing in the world. That ought to be enough. It did not have to be simple for every single minute of every single day.

 

 

She went back out to the porch and sat down behind the table with Donna. There was quite a crowd, pushing around to look at the patchwork. Not everyone liked it.

Oh, she heard someone say, on a surprised and disappointed downward note. It’s very original, isn’t it?

Harley kept her head down.

Don’t know that you’d want it on the bed, though, would you?

She opened the little tin box the money was in and rattled around, pretending to count it.

I wonder if they washed the old suits first. And look, the seams don’t line up properly.

It was one thing to know that people thought it, but it was nicer not to have to hear them saying it.

She looked up, and there he was, Douglas Cheeseman, right in front of her, holding a handful of change and saying
One, please.

When he saw that it was her, he dropped all the money. It bounced and rolled under the table, around the feet of people waiting to come in.

Sorry, he said. Sorry.

He was awkward, stooping and kneeling for the coins. She could see the top of his head, bobbing around on a level with the table. He was not wearing his hat, after all.

Sorry, he kept saying from underneath the table.

When he stood up, she could see that the knees of his pants were picked out in a brown circle of dust. He was red in the face, flapping at the dust on his knees, and his ears had never looked so big.

His mouth was forming words, but as if by remote control. The words did not seem to match the look on his face.

Oh! he was exclaiming. Hello again! Fancy bumping into you here! Terrific!

He laughed, but he did not sound happy.

I’ve been looking for you, she said.

It seemed important to say it all straight away, while he was here, but everyone was watching.

To say thank you.

A listening silence had fallen around them, as if they were on stage.

Oh, that was nothing! he cried. That was easy!

He choked on the word, and had to cough, and that made him redder in the face than ever.

No, she said, it wasn’t nothing.

She wanted to say,
I remember about the vertigo,
but could not go on, with all the silent people watching.

They had to carry me down on a stretcher.
It was a vivid picture in her mind, Douglas Cheeseman injected full of valium, strapped on to a stretcher, his eyes staring upwards at nothing.

Yes! he cried loudly and quickly, as if thinking the same thing, and not wanting her to say it. No worries! No big deal!

They sounded like another man’s words in his mouth. He glanced around at the people waiting behind him, everyone looking from him to her and back again like people at a tennis match.

Look, I’ll have ten, he said.

Suddenly he was a man in a hurry.

How much is that?

Harley could not seem to get her brain to do the arithmetic of it, but Donna had the answer.

A dollar a ticket, or six for five dollars. Take the dozen, pet, and that’ll be the ten.

Involved with the change in his hand, he glanced up, startled, at that
pet
and met Harley’s eye. Her mouth jumped into a smile, all by itself, and he looked away as if he thought she was laughing at him. She bowed her head to the little book of raffle tickets, smoothing out the dog-eared corners, ironing them flat. She felt herself frowning down at them as if it was important, watching her fingers flatten the corners over and over again.

Then she remembered she could start writing on the tickets.

The Caledonian, isn’t it? she asked, as if she did not know.

Caledonian Cheeseman. Caledonian Cheeseman. Caledonian Cheeseman,
she wrote on ticket after ticket. No one had bought so many before.

Oh, I never win anything in raffles! he said, watching her write.

He laughed, although it was not actually funny. She glanced up and he stopped laughing, as if she had accused him of lying.