The Glass Canoe (23 page)

HANGING ON TO THE PAST

Wednesday when I went in off the course for lunch there was a telegram waiting.

‘From Denmark,' Ray said. Ray's the boss.

‘Back Thursday,' my darling wrote. ‘Love.'

‘Denmark?' he said.

‘Just west of Albany.' How could it be
that
Denmark if it was spelled Denmark?

All afternoon my hands and feet felt light and airy and strong and able to do anything. Valuable, as if they were gold. I was conscious of how precious they were and how lucky I was that everything worked without me having to think about it.

Springy and marvellous, they felt; people in their own right. They ought to have separate names.

I breathed deep, looked at the sky. Day and night, night and day. Beautiful. The sun's hot, the moon's big and yellow or small and white. Beautiful. And the stars at night, what can you do with stars but shrug and shake your head and say nothing? And the sea—think of the sea. And her hand, resting on her belly with the fine white skin. Think of her hand. And her laugh, like little bells.

No one could ever want to die.

After work I lobbed at the Cross and began to drink like a fish. As I drank, the air outside got congested like an angry face. Thunders muttered in the distance, soreheads getting themselves worked up to put on a blue. I alone was calm and happy.

I awoke on a little island in a creek. I recognised it. Hunter's Creek, not far from the Cross, where that girl was found unconscious, ants eating her tongue. Where that kid from Merry Lands tried to hang himself over the edge of the steep part with a rope tied to the fence, but the fence broke and he landed up to his neck in the drink, unhung.

That was OK, I knew where I was, but I didn't feel like me. Who was I? I tried to see myself, but that was too hard. There was no information round me. My pockets. Not even a scrap of paper. Had I been parachuted into enemy territory? Was I on a picnic?

The creek murmured softly. I bent to listen to what it said, but it was in code, I could make nothing of it.

A bottle floated downstream. I captured, uncorked it. No message.

I began to fill it with water and empty the water on to dry land. This struck me as a useful thing to do. An hour and it was drudgery.

Then Fuse floated past, naked. Why was he dead? Should I try to fish him out? Too late, he had swept past towards the Parramatta, Port Jackson, perhaps the sea.

Then Danny. I should empty the creek. Yes. I worked like mad, the water tinkled on dry land like broken glass. The murmur of the creek became louder, angry voices detached themselves and broke off at the edges of its steady flow of sound.

Mick floated past, gloved fists spread wide. I was alarmed. Danger.

Flash and old Hugh floated by, face up. Mac and Aussie Bob. Why were they all leaving me? Behind me a shape grew out of the trees and advanced on me with a woman's panty hose taut between its hands. A strangler. I knew helplessness.

Sammy and Ernie went by towards the inexorable sea.

No matter how I turned and dodged, the strangler was behind me, but I never stopped baling for a moment. If I could empty the creek of water I could
stop them all floating away. They might be dead but at least they wouldn't be leaving me.

Two young kids pool cues crossed, were followed by Red and the Darkfella, talking.

That wasn't right. I brought them back past me again, lips properly shut, tongues stilled.

The soft material was round my throat, a knot was tied.

A hill began to form above the creek. On top of the hill a figure sat at a table, bent over a typewriter. I waved, called out, then saw the man wasn't working at the machine, he had fallen asleep over it. Was he drunk?

I yelled, hoping the noise would wake him. No noise came.

The Great Lover and Tom passed quickly. The water was flowing faster.

The strangler tightened his hand in the stocking, but where I should have choked, it passed through my neck and fell to the ground.

Dog Man, Eh and Gibbo rushed past. Perhaps a weir further down would stop them and I could fish them out on dry land again.

The strangler dissolved into another shape. A thin man stood there, one arm steadying me, the other plunging a broad-bladed knife again and again into my chest. But where I should have crumpled, the knife passed through me without harm. No drop of blood stained my shirt.

The creek was choked with old publicans, bar managers, Sharon and young Sibley, the men that came round with supplies in baskets, Missus Mott and the old guys under the window, Serge and Ronny.

There was less water in the creek, my baling was reducing it, but there was little chance I could stop the flow.

The queer fella, the old man with the sack, Vivian, away they went faster and faster. Shorty and Blackie went so fast I couldn't properly see them, though Elizabeth Large was easy to make out.

The rest, from the new publican to Pat, his poem and the King, raced by. Only Alky Jack was missing. I pictured him; all the rostrums in his head deserted, mikes dead and audience gone.

I waited, baling furiously with the bottle. The creek was nearly empty when Alky Jack whizzed grandly past, nose in the air, mouth open, talking.

‘We only came here on earth to say goodbye,' I heard him say.

I stopped. The creek ran suddenly dry as if someone pulled out the plug.

This young guy of my age appeared not far away. He was very big, it was easy to see every detail of his body, for he was not only big, but naked as the day he was born.

While I watched him, his body withered. Pieces of face slipped, chunks of flesh slid from his bones and
rotted as they fell, crashing miniaturely to the creek bed and exploding in puffs of brown powder. Last of all, the bones cracked in sections and collapsed downwards in a heap of white dust.

Peculiarly, tufts of brown hair remained, undecayed, lying where they had fallen.

I knew.

It was
my
hair,
my
collapsing bones, exploding puffs of flesh; my body.

I had dreamed me.

THE DYING CROSS

I slept out in the grass at the back of the Cross till morning and woke, as usual, without a hangover. I washed my face at the tap behind the pub buildings, took a long drink to counter the dry mouth of drinking, got in the car and headed west by the median strip, made a U-turn and drove back past the pub on the way to the course.

Hunter's Creek wasn't dry, no dead bodies were floating away to sea, leaving me.

The Cross was as it had been for years: a mess. Today its flaws seemed more obvious, pushing out towards me, demanding to be seen. There were bits missing, side fences broken, gates bent, walls chipped and bricks gone from the carelessness of drivers; tiles had lifted and cracked across, the roof sagged as if very tired. I knew that inside were smells that strangers
noticed and disliked but were so ingrained in the skin of the place they could never be got out.

As I passed I thought of the loss of the characters who made it a pub to be nervous in, to be excited in, to be expectant in, to be wary in, to be drunk in. Now they, its spirit, were gone.

The Cross lay sprawled on its uneven block of bare ground like a beached whale, a great wounded fish; old and damaged, spirit gone, parts of its body far on in decomposition, though not yet dead.

THE GLASS CANOE

On my red tractor, cutting round the fourth green, the whole course lay below me. I stopped the motor and sat. The grass, as one brilliant green blade powered by energy of earth, sun, water, raced skyward to the white moon at voluptuous speed, my eyes following till the green of the blade was lost in blinding blue.

Looking into the sky I saw myself with an arm round my darling. I saw the sick and dying Cross of the South. I saw new bricks laid and rising and growing out of the old pub until a new shape sat there blinking and brand-new in the sunlight. I saw the uneven dirt of the yard paved and marked out for parking. I saw a host of young kids leaving off shooting butterflies and learning to drink well and play bad pool, and a younger host along Hunter's Creek shooting butterflies. I saw a new publican and a new staff, and carpet on the floor.
And one by one all the prodigal children of the Cross returning home where they belonged. I saw a surreptitious ring marked out at the far end of the carpark behind the new pumphouse near the creek, where fists could reign again. I saw the spirit of the old pub revive and get to its feet and shake its head and look round ready to challenge or be challenged and to put on the line the safety and comfort and wholeness of its bones and muscles and skin.

And on the bar, as at the edge of an ocean or the banks of a river, I saw endless rows of empty glasses being filled; those frail glasses men commit themselves to, some days floating calmly out onto broad reaches of water between sympathetic shores and willows and friends and waving picnickers on the bank, and other days whipping dangerously round a sudden bend toward nervous shallows and sharp aggressive rocks.

And now and then, as they drank deeply, they saw in the bottom of the glass, not the face of the man they knew, but the monster within that was waiting and all too willing to be released.

A ball plopped on the green, hit the pin and rolled away from the hole. I started the motor and went on cutting grass.

‘Tonight's the night,' I said aloud. ‘That's far enough into the future for you, boy.'

HER LITTLE HOUSE

Friday, on the way to the course I had to stop at the lights outside the Vauxhall Inn. The car saw the pub and pulled over into the outside lane. It was ten past six in the morning.

‘Silly old bugger,' I told the car. ‘Won't be open till ten.'

I was a healthy animal, I lived a reflex life of hunger, thirst, desire, aggression, revenge; but mostly thirst, with hunger and desire a good second. I thought of my darling and how she'd been away a few weeks to think—I guess it was about us—and came back last night with her mind made up; how she had a laugh and a cry when I gave her the two red woollen pullovers for the bent toes; and how she ruthlessly drained everything out of me: life, affection, desire, the lot. Until I was fit for sleep and sleep only.

‘Stay here,' she said. ‘I'll wake you in time for work.' Then as she covered me she gave me a kiss, unlike any tempestuous or greedy kiss she ever hit me with before. It was so light.

So light.

I didn't say anything. But a moment later I shivered. I remembered the little house next door to Fortress Australia and the patient mother waiting for her children to come home from their foolish games. And her kissing them each lightly. After which they stopped their noise and laughter and playing and fighting.

And went quietly in her little house.

I don't remember getting to the course. I don't remember anything but sitting half asleep in the sun all day on a red tractor cutting grass.

STRANGERS AT OUR WATERHOLE

It was the atmosphere. There were eight of them when I lobbed and one had a broad hat like you see at rodeos. By four o'clock a lot of the tribe were at the bar and pool tables, settling in for a good weekend, a wet weekend, sheltering from midsummer sun. In twos and threes another eight strangers came. Another ten. More broad hats.

They didn't bunch up together, stayed spread round the bar. Leaning not looking. Talking quietly.

Others began to feel the atmosphere. But there was no focus, nothing you could put the finger on.

I found Mick.

‘Where's the King?' I asked.

‘Doesn't knock off till five at the deathtel.' The King had a new joke, the funeral parlour was no longer a fun parlour, it was a motel for the dead; overnight stay, vehicular transport: deathtel.

‘What do you think?' I said.

‘Yes,' he agreed. ‘Looks like it. Who are they?'

He didn't care. The calm mouth, contented eyes told the story. This was the beginning of a great weekend. And why not? He was made for combat. The monster peeped joyfully out of his eyes and got ready.

‘The bar manager's at the races,' he said. ‘Only the publican in the way.'

Then the clueless young kid walked in, the one that re-entered the pub weeks ago, backwards through the glass door. Round him were three guys that looked a lot like him, only much bigger. I watched. Groups of strangers glanced up briefly and did nothing. The young kid looked right round the pub carefully, not missing a face. He didn't seem to find what he was looking for.

‘Who is it?' said Mick.

‘A few weeks ago. They took him out the front then shot him back through the glass.'

‘Who?'

‘Barred now. Drink at the Bull.'

‘There's a few of 'em,' he observed.

‘More coming,' I added. Another car peeled off the conveyor belt and pulled in to the car park, red dust halfway up the sides. They were from one of the western tribes. The kid must have been visiting relatives for Christmas.

One came in with his arm in a sling. Keen.

Mick walked over to the three with the young kid and addressed himself to the one he chose as the most formidable. What Mick said seemed to please them. They almost nodded. Mick went up to the phone on the bottle counter, past which the accommodation part of the pub started. It was one of those red phones that have an extension to the occupier of the premises; it was just inside the publican's office.

He followed the flex back to the little white junction and eased out the male part to see if it was separate. It was. He turned and nodded. The men from the west caught the nod.

Mick came back. ‘They agree.'

I wasn't the King. ‘Agree what?'

‘No weapons—knives and that. No glasses in the face. No outside help. No fighting out front where the public can see. And we isolate the place when it starts so no one can make phone calls. We'll lock the publican in his office.'

‘What about the far door of his office?'

‘I'll do that. Jam the bars into the sockets.'

‘What's the signal?'

He looked at me, blank-faced.

‘The first punch, Meat. What else?'

‘But you'll be into it, Mick. You won't think of phones then.'

‘You know how to isolate a phone?'

‘I know.'

‘You won't rip it out?'

‘Cigarette paper.'

That satisfied him. He drifted away, having a word to the boys.

Only the rules were necessary, they had eyes. When they saw the tableau of young kid and three brothers and the pockets of strangers all round, they knew. Philosophers might dispute the nature of knowing till the earth falls into the sun, but the boys at the Cross knew what they knew and knew they were right. And they were.

Mick drifted further, doubling round towards the private entrance, to get that other door.

It was like a ritual. They waited until we were set and they had all the troops they were going to get. There were no neighbours either side of the pub after working hours, so as long as we kept it inside or out the back, we could go for our lives.

The politeness was intense.