Cloudstreet (13 page)

Rose woke up to the sound of bells. She opened her window and the world was mad with noise: church bells, tram bells, air raid sirens, train whistles, a rocket going up, klaxons and trumpets, dogs howling nutheaded at the sky. Cloud Street was filling and below, the shop was bursting with huggers and clappers who were opening bottles and crying out on the lawn where she could see them. The house shook and a thousand smells whirled through it with a bang of doors.

The war is over!

Ted came bursting in: The Japs! We creamed em!

It’s finished, listen to the wireless.

Rose rushed to the landing. Downstairs she saw that Mrs Lamb giving her mum a roast chook and a plate of fruit. The old man was breaking open a bottle of grog he’d got from who knows where. There were a couple of Yank sailors out in the hallway and that wet eyed Mr Lamb squeezing his accordion fit to wring blood from it.

She went down into it and couldn’t help but have a smile cracking her chops. She danced a barn dance with a Yank and got a smack across the bum passing the old man on the verandah.

Here, said Quick Lamb, holding out a jar of humbugs.

She went elbow deep for them.

Mum’ll kill us, he said.

Me! said the slow kid, the goodlooking one who was on the front step spinning a butter knife. The blade pointed at his chest. It’s meeee!

IV

Break in the Weather

T
HAT’S
it, Sam thinks; that’s bloody it. The streets are still full of revellers as he heads for the station with his pennies in his pocket. This is the break in the weather, Sam my man. Come in bloody Spinner.

His teeth ache. His hair buzzes at its roots with power.

Wherever it is, I’ll find it.

Whoever it is, I’ll find em.

And I won’t be back till I do.

Makin Millions

A couple of days after VJ Day, when everyone was still crazy with peace fever, and the old man still hadn’t turned up and the old girl was getting vicious, Rose walked home from school with her booklumpy bag, wondering if he was gone for good and how she’d have to tough it out with the old girl. It was torture. Other kids swept past on junky grids, pulling wheelies and skids in the dirt, startling clumps of gossiping girls and sending small boys up trees in fright, but Rose walked straight and sensible as though nothing could touch her. Up ahead she saw the Lambs shagging along under the Geraldton wax that burst over the fences beside the station and hung full of bees and fragrance. Somewhere behind her, Ted was shouting at Chub not to be such a wanker and that he could flaminwell carry his own bag.

If the old man was gone another day, she reckoned, that Mrs Lamb’d be over with some advice quicksmart. She knew the fast, cheap, clean, sensible way of doing everything and she’d be dishing it out like the Salvos, and the old girl’d be pukin.

Rose stopped by the Geraldton wax. Geraldton. Already it seemed like something she’d dreamt up. She pulled a waxy blossom off its stem and took it with her.

Kids were milling round Cloudstreet buying penny-sticks, freckles, snakes and milkbottles in little white paper bags. Rose pushed through the congregation on the verandah, heaved open the big jarrah front door and went inside.

And there he was. Arms akimbo, like General Douglasflamin-MacArthur, the old man was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, polishing his stumpy knuckles and grinning fit to be in pictures.

You look like you lost a penny and found a quid, she said.

Sam held out his two-up pennies.

Where you been?

A bit of scientific work.

Oh, gawd. So what are you grinnin about, then?

I got ajob.

A job! How?

The shifty shadow, Rosie.

Arr!

True as me word.

How?

He rattled the pennies.

Two-up?

That’s right.

You gotta be jokin, Dad.

Plus a bit of the foldin. Sam slipped a pound note down the front of her pinafore.

Rose shivered, ready to burst from excitement, anger, disbelief, something.

I put a bloke so far in the red he had to pay in kind. He’s the union boss, Blackie Stewart. He owes me a job. Start Monday. I’ll be makin money.

Don’t get beyond yerself.

No, fair dinkum, I’ll be makin millions. It’s a job at the Mint.

I hope they don’t find out that you count on yer fingers, Rose said.

Sam started after her and she ran giggling through the door into the rangy mob of kids outside.

Cheeky blighter!

Rose stood in the yard and looked back at him and it didn’t seem so strange to love him.

Monday. Rose ran home from school and waited for Sam to show. Even the old girl seemed nervous, up there cooking his tea.

He came swinging his gladstone bag into the yard.

Well? she said.

They’re for water, Sam said.

What do you do? Rose asked as they went up the stairs.

Push a broom. Take turns looking for duds. Not a lot a fella with one hand can do, love.

They came into the kitchen.

Rose looked at the new penny he’d just taken from under his tongue. She couldn’t imagine money being made.

They just cook it, like yer ole lady cooks a batch a scones. Cept more regular and a bit softer.

Dolly hissed at him without malice.

Out they come, pennies, zacs, deaners, shillins. The place stinksa money. Ya feel it in yer hair and on yer clobber. Spend all day breathin in gold dust. Fair’s fair, the place is like a cake shop and the smell always gets ya hungry.

Chops are done, said Dolly.

They sat down to eat, and Sam told them all about the noise and the machines and the heat of furnaces and the bars on the windows and the colour the limestone had gone on the outside. He described the wheezy press and the smell of kero and the way all the blokes thought he’d lost his fingers on some secret mission in an unknown archipelago instead of from sleepiness and bad luck while carting birdshit. They called him Sam and got all serious in his presence. He saluted with his thumb and half finger and they didn’t laugh.

Rose saw it all as clear as if she’d been there herself. After dinner she worked on her geography, colouring maps and diagrams at the kitchen table while her parents smoked and talked in short, low bursts. Ted and Chub disappeared outside for a while. Everything was normal and right. There were dishes in the sink and the sound of kids playing in the street and the trains passing smutty wind. Something settled over the kitchen. Rose kept the colours inside the lines and all the patterns were proper, sensible and neat. Happiness. That’s what it was.

Winning

In spring Sam Pickles went back to the September races and started winning. All through October, and into November he bet on a gelding called Blackbutt and saw him place or win every time. Sam knew it didn’t make any sense at all that this horse should keep winning. But luck came from some other place, bringing weirdness and aid into the world and he didn’t question it. He kept every winning ticket in the hat band of his Akubra. He bought binoculars and a grey suit and you could spot him there amidst the soldiers and sailors and women, despite his smallness, because he looked like a punter, and more importantly, a winner. When they thundered around on the last turn, filling the air with sods and dust and great creaturely gasps of horsepower, Sam Pickles stood still with his teeth set and his blue eyes clear to see Blackbutt come home the money. His blood was charged, he felt the breath of magic on him. He came home with his pockets stuffed, his stump aching, and the kids grabbing at him on the stairs to feel success.