Cloudstreet (56 page)

Sam Pickles went to work to earn his pay packet and on the weekends he delivered it faithfully to the bookies and came home broke but not greatly troubled. A long time ago he’d decided that this was to be a straight up and down life of bad luck, and besides the odd shift in the shadow, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it except go on losing. If anything, he figured there was some strength in knowing the way things were—it gave a bloke security, something to believe in. People knew who he was. At the Mint he was the sentimental favourite—old Sam the Stump who’d been around since the war and wasn’t much use at anything except being a familiar part of the place. On the racetrack he was old Sam the Slump, the bloke whose luck was running at a temporary low which began at birth and would probably stay with him to the coffin. Everybody loved a loser, especially a loser of such romantic proportions. He was a cheerful little bloke, always with a wheezy laugh and a fag to give. You knew he was probably right when he said he’d have made a brilliant jockey if he’d thought of it in time, if his father hadn’t died, if the luck hadn’t gone nasty on him. And at work or on the track, you put up with him saying things like that because he never said them often, and as some lark said, he was too stupid to feel sorry for himself. Dolly was always completely shickered when he got in these days. She drank with a will and an energy he hadn’t seen for years. Snoring beside him in bed at night, she gave off a formaldehyde stink that got so bad he moved into Rose’s old room. He knew he didn’t have a chance trying to figure women out. They were always set on killing themselves. Now Rose was starving herself again like when she was a teenager. He never saw her, and young Quick seemed to be at a loss. One was bloating up like a fat spiritous pile of moans and the other was trying the disappearing act again. He was buggered if he knew what to do. He’d lost a son; it seemed fit that he’d lose the rest of them. Well, there was Chub, but Chub was too lazy to get off his arse and make any trouble; nothing would get rid of Chub. He was apprenticed to a butcher who’d become a depressed man.

By December, Dolly wasn’t even home when he got off the train. Some mornings she wasn’t even in bed. Things went missing from the house: rugs, silver, even the brass spittoon with the star of David on it that they’d brought down with them from Joel’s pub. The times he did see her she was sick and mean and Sam couldn’t find the will in him to go at her about all the things she was flogging, the way she looked, what was happening to her. He sat by the wireless, listened to the house cracking its knuckles and decided to weather it out.

One morning, with the hot hayfever easterly blowing in from the desert and whipping the dry grasses against the walls of the house, Sam got the fright of his life. It was light already and he’d finished his breakfast, and had only his hat to find before going off for work. He went through his bedroom, the kitchen, loungeroom, the ground floor hall without a sign of the damned thing, so he went upstairs and looked in Rose’s old room, remembering now that he’d left it on her dresser, old fool that he was. But it wasn’t in the room at all. There was a thumping in the walls like an erratic heartbeat, the kind he felt with a headache coming on, though when he went out into the corridor he knew it was actually someone pounding and it came from that no man’s land room at the end, the one he never much liked. He was getting late for work, but he was curious about that beating in the walls, and besides, he thought, it might be the old girl—there was no sign of her about.

The library door was open a crack and a dim glow showed. Sam went on down, and when he pushed the door open he saw the retarded Lamb boy with Sam’s own Akubra on his head, wearing nothing at all else except two silver coins on a chain round his neck. The boy stood against the wall staring back into the corner behind the door, and he was thumping the walls furiously. His nuts swung beneath his belly; his buck teeth were bared and there were tears on his cheeks.

Sam felt a bolt of panic. The boy didn’t even seem to see him. He stepped into the room whose atmosphere made his stomach twist, and when he turned he saw the most vicious-looking old bitch he’d ever seen in his life. She was white and dressed in some outfit from another time. There were lacy gloves in her hand that were beautiful, delicate as he’d ever seen. She seemed to be smiling; a sweet, frightening smile. Sure that he might shit himself at any moment, Sam Pickles took the boy by the shoulder. Fish went limp and weepy against him.

She won’t let me play! the boy sobbed in his man’s voice.

I know how it feels, son, Sam replied, certain at that moment that he’d finally laid eyes on Lady Luck herself. But when he looked back, the old lady was gone, and the only light in the room came from the hallway.

Is there someone up? Sam backed out of the room and called down the corridor.

A door opened. Mr Pickles? It was the Lamb girl Elaine, who always seemed engaged but not married. Fish? She poked her rollered head out into the hall. What’s happening? Where’s his clothes?

I think he’s a bit at sea, said Sam.

She won’t let me play, blubbered the boy. He was bigger than Sam and heavy.

Sam felt his joints tingling as if somewhere out of sight there was a small wire shorting.

Whirling Dark

What is it whirling dark across the rooftops and down the streets like a wind, like a hot rancid breath? Cloudstreet suddenly looks small, and the further up you go the flimsier it looks. It could blow away in a moment. All those rooftops could go like leaves, and across the world there’s men with circuitry and hardware, men with play lighting their eyes, fellows whose red faces flash like the buttons beneath their hands. All the rooftops of the world become leaves. They quiver and titter before the indrawn breath of brinkmanship and world play right through summer and winter. While down in the streets below their roofs, some people, the people I knew, the people I came to know better having left them behind, fidget before other withheld winds. Dolly drinking and hating up a storm, the shadows bulleting around the library like mullet in a barrel, Fish himself quaking with pent force and worry while across town in the orderly quiet suburbs, Rose Lamb meets the oncoming hayfever season the way she meets the Cuba crisis—with the windows down and the curtains drawn.

Lost Ground

Rose stopped reading newspapers, and put the radio in the linen press. She didn’t want to know about Cuba and all the horrors gathering. The world was a sad, miserable place and soon it’d be no place at all. Quick was off deluding himself in uniform, bees hummed mindlessly at the window, the sky was the colour of a suicide’s lips so she blotted it out altogether with paper on the panes. Oh, they were waiting for grandchildren over at Cloudstreet but they could bugger themselves as far as she cared. The girls from Bairds called round a couple of times, fat, whorish ignoramuses that they were, calling her Love and Petal all the time. They were gross, sweaty, powdercaked, and their nervous laughter made her want to scratch their eyes out.

The little bedsit was cramped and cheerless, perfect for the hard feeling that had come on her. For the first time since she was a girl Rose felt invincible, as though no one alive could alter her course. The little belly she’d had, which now seemed so gross in memory, was gone, and with it the flesh of her thighs and backside. In the mirror she looked lean and unpredictable; she liked what she saw, though she knew Quick could barely look at her. He despised it, this vomiting food after meals, though he’d exalted over it when there was a baby to cause it. It was puking from emptiness that he hated. Doing it for nothing.

All day she sat inside making and remaking the bed, arranging the cups in the kitchenette so their handles pointed exactly the same way. She boiled and reboiled the cutlery, and on all fours she searched for floor dirt. She didn’t touch her books, there was no order in books. When Quick came home she locked herself in the toilet because she couldn’t bear to see him deface order.

It was a shock to see the old man at the screen door one Saturday afternoon. He had his hat in hand, smelled of shaving soap, and had a dried out bunch of roses in his fist. She let him in and pulled her housecoat around her.

This is a surprise, she said unevenly. Shouldn’t you be at the races?

Well, he said, shouldn’t you be out doin somethin?

She shrugged.

You look awful.

Thanks.

You don’t have to, that’s what pisses me off, Rose.

You’ll want a cuppa.

Yeah. No milk.

I remember, Dad. I—m the daughter, remember.]

Yeah, I recall right enough. Small here, isn’t it? You gunna let me sit down?

Rose wiped a vinyl chair and pushed it his way.

There must be something wrong, said Rose.

I’m here about your Mum.

Aha. Can’t you manage a friendly visit?

We don’t exactly see you makin nuisance of yerself visitin Cloudstreet. Besides, it’d be a brave bastard who tried makin a friendly visit on you.

Rose felt the heat of anger gaining on her. Let’s just have a cuppa, shall we?

If you can keep a cup of tea down, that’ll be fine with me.

Don’t harp at me, Dad!

The old man took a seat and slung his hat over his knee. He looked a little changed, as though he’d decided something. And he looked older.

Yer mother’s losin control altogether.

She never had any self control. Rats have more discipline than old Dolly.

Jesus, Rose.

Well, what’s news?

News is she’s gettin old an scared. If she doesn’t lay off the slops a bit she’ll just die.

What dyou care? She’s only ever made you miserable.

She’s my wife, he said looking at her anew. Looking at her as though she was a snake underfoot.

I can remember a time, Dad, do you remember? When I was a girl, the miserable little girl I was, and I found you in the bathroom getting ready to slit your throat. She drove you that far. You remember that?

I remember, he said, looking at the floor. You came. I stopped. For you.

Rose poured his tea, wiped her hands over and over with an ironed teatowel.

She’ll stop for you, too, you know.