This Is the Life (11 page)

“Still got a bit to sort out. Another two weeks or so.”

“Come down and have a cup of tea then.”

“Thanks, Hugh.”

“See you then, Louis.”

“I'm not—”

And he hung up.

I felt as if I'd spent a lifetime in the shadows of tall trees, walking down a track of old footsteps—as if dinosaurs had once passed that way, and you could still hear the echoes of their rumbling. And every time you tried to get a bit of attention for yourself, someone would remember them.

18

See Red

I wasn't supposed to know about the Kirstin episode, at least not as far as other people were concerned, for I was sworn to confidence, but know about it I did.

I never met her until the funeral. Louis had left her a bequest in his will—or at least in the copy of it I possessed—and so plainly still carried some small burning candle for her that the slipstream of the years flying by had failed to extinguish.

I had no number for her, but found one for her daughter on one of the pieces of paper with coffee-cup rings on them that acted as Louis's address book. I rang and introduced myself and said, could you please tell your mother that Louis from ten years back has died of a tumor and this is his brother and he has left her something and she would be very welcome to attend the funeral service, but if not, no problem, and everyone would understand. But, in either event, would she have an address for her mother as the lawyer would want to be in touch.

Ten minutes later Kirstin rang back and sounded genuinely sorry that Louis had gone. She seemed perplexed that he had left her anything and said she felt she could not accept it. This was in strong contrast to some beneficiaries of wills, who often feel they should have been left a whole lot more.

“Kirstin,” I said, “the wording in the will says: ‘To my friend Kirstin, three thousand dollars.' ‘To my friend' is the phrase he used. ‘My friend.' I think he wanted you to have it. Don't you?”

* * *

She turned up at the funeral, both she and her daughter. Two nicer people you would not meet.

Louis, I thought, what went wrong?

But I knew what had gone wrong.

Louis had tried to strangle her.

Inexcusable, but excuse it I must, even though I feel like the body-in-the-bath murderer saying, “It was just the one lousy corpse.”

It was after the halcyon sailing trip up the coast, and they had been back awhile, and the old black dog was nipping at Louis's heels.

He always had the yearning in him to strike out on his own and to be his own boss, but every time he tried it, things seemed not to work out, and it was back to the drudgery of some ill-paid assembly line.

The two of them set up in a franchise business, but it went wrong. They spent a lot of money up front, but little was coming in. Kirstin wanted to stick at it, but Louis wanted to cut their losses and quit.

Then, one morning, Louis rang me.

“Louis, you don't sound good. You ill?”

“No, but I've done something terrible.”

“Well?”

“It was Kirstin. We were in the kitchen and having an argument, and suddenly I saw red, and the next thing I knew—when I came to—I had my hands around her neck.”

I didn't know what to say.

“Well—that's bad, Louis, but it's not as if you do it all the time.”

“No.”

“I mean, that's a first, isn't it?”

“Yes, yes.”

“We all have bad days, Louis.”

“Yeah, but I tried to strangle her. And didn't even know I was doing it.”

“Yeah. I can see where you're coming from, and it isn't good. But, I mean, you stopped—you did stop, didn't you? Louis, she isn't dead, is she?”

“No, no. No, no, no. But she's gone.”

“Right.”

“And she's not coming back, she says.”

“Yeah . . .”

“I feel so bad. . . .”

“Oh, Louis—why do you live so far away?”

“I feel—I mean—I've never done anything, ever. I just saw red. I just saw red.”

“I know, Louis. I understand.”

“I could have killed her.”

“You didn't.”

“But I could have done.”

“Louis, why don't you grab a plane and come on over and see us, and we can go around and visit the old places?”

“It would be nice, but I can't right now. I've got to find a job and . . .”

“Louis, are you all right?”

“Not really.”

“Come over, Louis.”

“Have you ever strangled anyone?”

“I've thought about it.”

“Who have you thought of strangling?”

“You.”

“Yeah, funny.”

“Oh, you think I'm joking?”

“She's gone and I don't think she's ever coming back.”

“Come over, Louis, why don't you just come on over?”

“I can't. I've got to get a job.”

“Louis, what's life for?”

“Maybe next year.”

“You always—”

“I feel so bad about it.”

“Try calling her.”

“She won't answer.”

“Louis, are you all right?”

“No, not really, I'm not.”

“Louis, you're my brother. I don't care what you've done. I mean, I'm not endorsing it, but—”

“I just saw red. I didn't know what I was doing. I just saw red.”

“You're a good person, Louis. Really. Remember that stuffed koala bear you sent? Dan loves it.”

“He does?”

“He winds it up and it plays ‘Waltzing Matilda.' And Kelly, she loves the kangaroo.”

“How's the boomerang?”

“Still coming back.”

“You got it to work then?”

“Sort of. Are you all right, Louis?”

“I'll maybe call you tomorrow.”

“If you don't, I'll call you. Come over and see us, Louis.”

“I can't. I can't right now.”

“Louis—”

“I've got to go now.”

“I'm going to call you tomorrow.”

“Did they really like the toys?”

“Do you want me to go and get them and put them on the phone?”

“No, it's all right. Say Louis says hi. Don't tell them about the strangling.”

“Louis, they're kids. I'm not going to tell anyone.”

“Thanks. Okay. I couldn't help it, didn't know what I was doing.”

“We're all still alive, Louis. Nobody died. Nobody got killed.”

“Maybe talk to you tomorrow.”

“If you don't ring me I'll ring you.”

“Okay then.”

“Bye.”

* * *

Of such mistakes is life compounded. Louis, for years the gentlest and most considerate of men, snapped and saw red, and he lost her and frightened her. And she would never risk going back, although she loved him and he loved her. And that was it. No going back. And the next time they were in the same room, he lay in a wickerwork casket, and she sat in a pew. So of such errors and mistakes and sadnesses is life
constructed, and who, if they had some kind of repair kit upon them, would not rush to the latest emergency or scene of crime, and apply the healing powers and the make-and-do and the make-and-mend and the stitch-in-time and make things better and put things right?

Who would not do that if they could? Who would not wipe clean the slate and reset the clocks and let the runners run again after their unintentional false start? But nobody can. The bad things are done, and may even be forgiven up to a point, but they can't be written out; nobody can pretend they did not happen. And you can never, never, never go back.

* * *

When we went out on the boat that day to scatter Louis's ashes, Kirstin told me how much she had missed him, and had thought of going back to him, but never had. She didn't know that I knew what had happened, she just referred to an incident and talked in general terms.

There was no one else for either of them. The older you get, maybe the harder it is to find that compatible soul. And the years that could have been spent otherwise go by in isolation and even loneliness. And that's how it is for people. That's how it often is. And you can sit on the train and read your magazine or go home and watch the TV show, but it doesn't make one iota of difference. Because that's just the paint and decorations. And that's just how it is. That's how we are. That's how it is for us. That's how we live.

19

Phascogale

Louis said you had to keep the lids on the jars and the fridge door shut tight, because there was a creature that came into the house called a phascogale. He said it was carnivorous, but that wouldn't stop it climbing in with the vegetables or gnawing on the cornflakes to see if it liked them.

“A what-go-gale?”

“Phascogale.”

“Fast?”

“Why don't you look it up in the bits and pieces?” he said.

So I did, and got a picture of it. It was small—a small marsupial, quite nice and amiable-looking in its way, with rather large eyes. It was about the size of a squirrel. I saw it once or twice, hiding under the eaves, but mostly it kept its distance and didn't bother us much.

I started to get interested in its private life, and read up a little more about it.

“Louis,” I said, “did you know that the male phascogale dies after it has sex?”

“No,” Louis said. “I didn't know that. You think I'm some kind of pervert voyeur who stalks small creatures?”

“Don't you think that's interesting, though, Louis?”

“It's interesting for the phascogale,” he said. “But then, being a phascogale, it doesn't know what it's got coming to it. Whereas, if it were human . . .”

And he was right, of course. We know what we've got coming to us. That's what distinguishes us from the other and so-called lesser creatures. It isn't that we walk upright or have developed languages of extensive vocabulary capable of expressing fine shades of meaning. Nor is it that we have prehensile fingers and thumbs.

No, the main thing is that we know what we've got coming. And maybe, if we didn't know that, we too might be happily chewing the grass in the fields, or plucking the plums off the branches, or drinking water from a pool—not worrying about the cholera, typhoid, parasites, and worms that might be in there. That's the trouble—we don't know enough and we don't know all we need to know, but we still know too much.

“Don't you think that's weird, Louis, that the male has sex with the female and then dies?”

“You mean she kills him? It wouldn't surprise me. Like a black widow spider. They mate, and she does for him. Or ants. They mate, and same thing, they're left to die.”

“But getting back to the phascogale, Louis, where is the evolutionary advantage in the male phascogale not being around?”

“He doesn't have to listen to the nagging?” Louis said.

“What about his genes?”

“Well, he's reproduced, hasn't he?” Louis said. “His genes are safe. He no longer has a function or purpose. So he dies.”

“But isn't that true of a lot of mammals?”

“He's a marsupial. They see things differently. They've got pockets. At least the women have.”

“So have kangaroos. But the males don't die after they've mated.”

“Maybe he hops off before she can get him.”

“But the female doesn't kill the male, that's what I'm saying. He just dies.”

“Then at least he goes out on a high.”

“Would you have sex the once if you knew it was going to kill you?”

“There are worse ways of committing suicide,” Louis said.

“I really do not see the Darwin in it,” I said. “I do not see the evolutionary logic behind it at all. If he lived, he could help provide.”

“Maybe he's a lazy bastard,” Louis said. “Maybe all these male phascogales are lazy bastards who'd live on benefits if you let them.”

“You know what it means, though, Louis? It means that every phascogale family is a single-parent family. The phascogales are brought up by the mothers and the father is not around.”

“Having died of fornicating?”

“Exactly. You look at Mum, Louis. Now, she was left a single parent and brought us both up, right?”

“She wasn't a phascogale, though.”

“Louis, I know that. You think I don't know that our own mother was a woman and not a phascogale?”

“Why do you take everything so seriously?”

“I thought that was you who did that.”

“What's your point?”

“They're all single-parent families, Louis. That's my
point. None of the little phascogales ever has a father. No growing phascogale ever knows its dad. Do you know the correlation between being brought up in a family without a father and juvenile delinquency and the incidence of depression?”

“So what are you saying now? You're saying that phascogales are juvenile delinquents, suffering from bipolar disorder?”

“For Chrissake, Louis.”

“What?”

“I'm just saying, where is the evolutionary advantage in forcing children to grow up psychologically damaged?”

“You think phascogales are psychologically damaged? You think that's why they've been coming into the kitchen and getting the tops off my jars?”

“No, not necessarily. But possibly—if animals can feel emotions the way we do—they might look around and not see their fathers and feel kind of sad.”

“No. Definitely not, no.”

“Why?”

“Because you only feel deprived by comparison. If you look around and see all the other phascogales don't have fathers either, then you won't feel deprived.”

“You might notice that other animals have fathers.”

“No. They wouldn't. They'd only be interested in their own species. You're just being anthropomorphic.”

“So are you.”

“No. I'm being logical.”

“Yeah, you're Mr. Spock, Louis.”

“What?”

“Louis—don't you think not having a father is damaging?”

“It's all too late now. What difference does it make? We can't bring him back. And if he'd lived, he'd be an old, old man now, if he was still here. And we'd be saying what a pain he was that he'd lost his marbles. Or maybe we'd have fallen out. You got away with murder when you were a teenager. If you'd had a father there you wouldn't have had it so easy.”

“Easy? Louis, look at yourself. These jobs you do, all this working with your hands—when you're capable of—”

“That's what I missed, that he wasn't there to show us how to do things, how to use tools, how to—”

“Louis, he didn't want you to work using tools. He wanted you to get educated.”

“Those people that you have to work with in those white-collar places, these labs, these universities, they've got no authenticity. It's all ass-licking and politics.”

“Do you seriously believe that? You think there's no ass-licking and politics on the factory floor? You really think that sawing wood and bending steel and unblocking drains is some kind of noble calling that, say, being a chemist isn't? We wouldn't have anything if it wasn't for people using their brains. If using your hands is so noble, why isn't using your head?”

“I thought we were talking about phascogales.”

“Yeah, well—as an illustration.”

“Of what?”

“I just don't see any evolutionary advantage, Louis, in not having a father.”

He looked at me from under the beanie hat.

“Well, we're not going to know now, are we?” he said. “It's done. We're the same as the phascogale.”

“Our dad died, yeah.”

“No. We're screwed.”

“Don't start that again, Louis. We are going to get through all this.”

“You were there. You heard the consultant. You know the chances.”

“I heard what he had to say. Five, six, seven years, and by that time they may have found—”

“No. Five to ten percent survive five years. Nearer five. Five percent. Twenty percent are alive after two years. The rest—a year to eighteen months. Eighty percent chance, almost, of not lasting eighteen months.”

“Louis, we have to think positive.”

“No, we have to think practical. I'm tired. I'm going to lie down.”

I left food out that night for the phascogale. But she never came and took it. I threw it in the garbage in the morning before Louis would notice it, and then we drove to the hospital for Louis's radiotherapy again. We had time for Starbucks, so he shouted me a flat white. I said I'd get him a danish. He said he didn't want one. We went to the radiotherapy department. While he was in treatment, I went back to Starbucks and bought him a danish and returned to the waiting area. When he came out of treatment he said he was starving, so I gave him the danish and made him a cup of tea at the sink-and-kettle unit for the use of patients and their relatives.

Louis drank his tea and ate his danish and I said, “What shall we do now?”

He said, “I'll show you the city.”

So we drove down to the river and he showed me around and I thought what a splendid city it was, and I liked the wide streets and the flowing water and the speeding ferries and the feel of the place. I thought that maybe I could have
lived there, and had a different life. And who would I have been then?

We caught a tourist boat and went on a trip downriver and back. It was cool but sunny and we sat up on the top deck and ordered a couple of flat whites and drank them as we sailed along, and Louis pointed out the sights to me, and said, “See there, that's where they have the Sunday market, that's where I met Kirstin and used to have my jewelry stall.” And he was smiling under his beanie hat, and the milky eyes were sparkling.

“What did she sell?”

“She was an artist.”

We returned to the embarkation point and strolled on along the walkway, until we came to a café there.

“Shall we get some lunch, Louis?”

“Looks pricey,” he said.

But what the hell, we had some anyway, and we sat and lingered over the meal and the drinks and we talked of yesterday, and before we knew it, it was late afternoon.

“I'm whacked,” he said. “You want to go?”

We walked back to the ute and drove home. Louis went straight to his room and crashed out cold.

It was, in its way, a perfect day, like in the Lou Reed song. All the small unexpected things that line up just as you want them, and there isn't a blemish on the cloth.

“That was a good day, wasn't it, Louis?” I called to him, as he headed for his bed.

“It was all right,” he said. A short while later I heard him snoring.

He didn't wake up until five the next morning, when he took his anti-nausea and then his chemo an hour later.

We drove to the hospital.

We got there early, so we went to Starbucks and he insisted on shouting me a flat white.

“Your money's no good here,” he said.

“Louis,” I said, “let me get you a danish for later.”

“I don't want one,” he said. “I'm not hungry.”

You know how the rest of it goes.

You know how it goes on from there.

That's how it was, every radiotherapy morning, back when Louis was still alive.

I did feel sorry for those phascogales for a while. But then I realized I was being ridiculous. It wasn't the phascogales who were worrying. They were just getting on with looking for food, and mating, and then dying afterward. Maybe they were happy with that. Maybe they didn't expect anything else—or, more likely, anything at all.

It's in the matter of expectations—that's where we go so wrong.