Cloudstreet (55 page)

Rose’s havin a miscarry.

Oh, Lord, I’ll come.

I’ll go find a phone.

Pedalling uphill with a buckled front wheel and half a uniform on, he can’t for the life of him think what to do. A Holden passes, pulls up at the stop sign ahead and Quick has his idea.

Right, he wheezes to the driver who’s about to pull away. Police. I’m yer neighbour. I’m a husband. Me bike’s busted. Me—

What the bloody hell is this?

Yer car’s under arrest.

Rose woke from a doze and they were still there. Her father looked so small against Quick. He hadn’t shaved and he was taking it badly enough to make her worry. She was sore, and she could feel a great, surprising bitterness coming on her, but something made her sound stupid and cheerful.

Cmon, you two, you’ve been there forever. What’s the game?

Did yer hear Quick ran over his own bike in the car? said Sam.

Yeah, yeah, he told me, Dad. I laughed.

Good. Good. It’s funny, orright. The bloke was a decent sort in the end.

The old man’s jaw was starting up a wobble and Quick kept looking about him, as if for somewhere to spit. I wish they’d go home and leave me here, Rose thought, I wish I could sic the nurses onto them and be done with it.

I’ll be alright, Dad. You can go, you know. You look terrible.

Quick looked at her and then him, pressing his lips together. Sam mashed his fist into his stump.

What is it, you two? What’ve you cooked up? You look guilty as gold thieves.

There’s somethin I have to tell you, Rose, love. I figure there’s no use tellin you tomorrer when you’ve started to feel better.

Quick nudged the old man: Carn, Sam.

I got a telegram today from Adelaide.

From Ted?

No, from his missus. Ted died yesterday. In the sauna. He was tryin too hard to get his weight down. His heart just went. They reckon he was a decent jockey, though he rode em too hard too early. He’s dead, an that’s what I had to tell ya.

Well, Mother’ll be upset. Thank her for coming in.

She broke her leg, Rose. I didn’t get time to say it.

Ah, the Shifty Shadow strikes.

He was a good boy.

No he wasn’t, he was a bastard. Go home, Dad, I’m tired. My baby died.

She felt Quick looking at her in puzzlement, but she couldn’t look him back. She felt like she was made of steel. It was shiny and bitter and it shone all around like starlight. She was steel and Quick couldn’t know. No one could know.

The One

With a huge and terrible moan, Dolly reached the window and kicked it out with her plastered foot.

My baby!

She fell back on the floor, breaking her nails in the rug, foaming and spitting and squealing till she was hoarse. Her breasts flapped on her, and her nightie rode up to expose her naked, mottled body, her angry slash of a vagina, her rolling bellyfat and caesar scars.

They killed my baby! Him, he was the one I loved, you useless spineless two faced bastards! Heeee was the one. He was the one. He was the one. You can all go and fuckin die because I want him back. He was the one.

In the library the shadows danced. Oh, how they danced. Can’t you still see the evil stink coming through the cracks, Fish, the swirling rottenness of their glee turning to gas across the rails, the rooftops, the tree crowns of the city? Take your hands off your ears, Fish, and listen to it.

Two Florins

Rose just wouldn’t be comforted about the baby, and in the end Quick knew there was nothing he could do. In bad moments he wondered what it was in him that brought these disasters on people. Even his posting to Claremont seemed to bring no relief. For two months after Ted died and the miscarriage, Rose worked on at the switch, getting thinner all the time, looking darkeyed and ghostly when she got home. He cooked for her and she didn’t eat. She had little to say as they washed up together, and when he put on the blue for the night’s shift she picked listlessly at it as he straightened up.

A whole night of pinchin pervs in the public toilets, he’d say. Maybe I’ll get a lost dog or a burgled brooch. It’s tough out on the streets, love. Don’t you worry about me?

I just worry about how many bikes you’ll go through before you make commissioner, she’d say with a weak effort at a grin.

Everythin’ll be orright in the end, love.

Yeah. That’s what they say.

When Rose quit work and stayed home, Quick knew it wasn’t because she’d had enough of Bairds or that the company’d had its fill of her. She was just too weak and spiritless to get through the day any more. He could hear her moving aimlessly all day in the next room as he tried to sleep. She picked up every cough and cold passing through. Clothes hung on her as though she was made of wire. Quick did his shifts glumly, filled in break and enter reports, and rode that mongrel beast of a cycle round and round Claremont until summer came.

When it came down to it, Quick knew he was missing Cloudstreet. There was so much quiet now between Rose and him, and Mrs Manners in the front never made a living sound. The house didn’t heave and sigh the way Cloudstreet did; it wasn’t restless in any way at all, and there weren’t the mobs brawling through, the clang of the shop bell, the rattle of crates and smokers’ coughs, the tidal sounds of people stirring up and settling down. This was orderly, calm suburbia. This was merely a list of things missing. And the new house, their dream? Well, it went up bit by bit and Quick sometimes went out just to look at it, the brick box with its red tile roof same as all the other half-finished houses in the street. It looked empty and he’d lost his way with it somewhere. He couldn’t imagine them living in it. And Rose just didn’t want to talk about it.

One night in December when Quick had the late shift, he was working on the occurrence book at the spanking new Claremont station with only the Sarge asleep in the cells to keep him company, when in walked the old man with a fifty pound mulloway on his shoulder. Quick snapped the big ledger shut and stepped back.

Strike a light!

The old man dumped the great fish on the counter. It was silver and gillheaving, fresh from the river.

I just couldn’t wait to show someone, boy. And I knew there wouldn’t be another livin breathin soul as’d appreciate it like you would.

Dad, it’s beautiful.

Kept me windin a good half hour. Took him at the Brewery wall.

Just then, the fish convulsed with dying, shook scales and mucus all over the joint and coughed up a plug of blood.

Well, that’s it for him.

Beautiful.

Think we better … get it out, Dad?

Oh, gawd, yeah. Sorry. Back in a sec.

Quick wiped things down with the urn cloth and poured a cuppa for the old man who came back in, excitable as a kid.

Quiet?

Deadly, said Quick. I just wish somethin’d happen.

Wish for somethin nice to happen. There’ll be crook things all along the way.

Yeah, maybe. How’s Cloudstreet?

Oh, quiet as the grave. Your mother’s … outside a lot. The girls are seein fellas. Lon—well who knows what he’s doin. Dolly next door’s got rid of the limp but she’s hittin the sauce. Sam’s losin again.

How’s Fish?

Quiet, quiet. Lies on his bed all day with that wireless goin. Gets a bit rowdy some nights, talkin and singin and things. Says the house is angry. Good old Fish.

Yeah, old Fish.

Miss you, Quick. All of us.

It’s hard at the moment, Dad. Rose is so crook still. She’s wastin away.

I wasn’t meanin to bother yer.

Want another cuppa?

Nah. Lester looked around the smoke stained office with its rows of binder files, notices, mug shots, the old Imperial on the desk, the government ashtrays.

Too quiet, isn’t it?

That’s what I mean, said Quick.

No, I mean everythin. Cloudstreet, the town, the lot.

Quick shrugged, not understanding.

I sound like Sam Pickles, but I got a feeling. Oh. I almost forgot. Look.

Lester put two coins down on the bench.

Florins, Quick said.

1933.

The year Fish was born.

Have you kept em?

No, I only found em tonight.

Down the river?

In the fish.

What?

He coughed em out with the hook. Out they came, mintfresh. Like a sign. I’ll give em to Fish.

He won’t know what they are.

Who does? I’ll drill holes in em and he can hang em round his neck.

Dad, there’s a law against that.

Aw, there’s laws against everything and no justice at all. Take it from an old walloper. Look after yer missus, Quick.

Quick was alarmed at the old man’s sudden kiss and he was wiping his face as Lester shuffled out.

Weathering It Out