Quick lies awake that night with shadows vibrating on his wall.
Next day at lunchtime, Quick leaves Lon and Red and takes a pastry over to Wogga McBride.
I’m full, Quick says. Want it?
The skinny blue kid takes it with a nod and Quick leaves it at that. From then he resolves to take food to Wogga McBride every day, but most days he forgets.
The McBrides live further down the tracks towards West Perth but they cross at the walkway just below the big house on Cloud Street. Quick gets into the habit of falling in behind Wogga and Darren McBride and following them until they jump the tracks and head down toward town to their place.
Not long before the holidays, Quick is behind the McBrides, straining to hear a bit of their rare conversation. He doesn’t know what he finds so fascinating about them. True, they have blue-mottled skin and legs like hinges, the way they fold inside the knee. There is a kind of weariness about them. Their hair lies flat against their birdlike skulls. To Quick they look like ghosts.
Quick tails them down Rokeby Road, through all the food smells and the odour of newness seeping out of the open doors and shopfronts. They skirt the football ground. Quick can’t hear them saying anything. A truck clatters by loaded with pumpkins. Quick has the feeling he should catch up with them, just bust into their ghostly tight aura and say g’day, but what if they don’t want him? They actually look like they don’t care about the world, not what people think of them or wonder about them. And yet there they’ll be at lunchtime palming pieces of nothing — of air — into their mouths. Aren’t they pretending so that others won’t think they’re poor? Geez, Quick understands that much pride. Or are they keeping up the fantasy for themselves? Do they feel less hungry, less lean and hopeless, if they pretend their bellies are full? This kind of thought bothers Quick in class and it’s on his mind this afternoon as he sticks close enough to hear the voices, but not so near that he can understand what they’re saying.
And they hardly ever laugh, that’s another thing, though it isn’t until late tonight that he thinks of it, and by then it won’t help to think at all.
Quick climbs the bank behind West Leederville Station with the wild oats parting before him. Wogga McBride and his little brother are at the top and heading down into the cut where he loses sight of them for a few moments. When he gets to the crest of the embankment he can see Railway Road and the date palms in front of the rich people’s places. A train is hauling out of the station going his way and he sees down the track, behind the wobbling carriages, the slant of his own roof. A dog is barking. Someone has the flag flying in the front yard across the tracks, there’s a war over somewhere. Quick feels the breeze coming up behind him, cool and southerly. He’ll never catch up with Wogga McBride today. They’ll be across the tracks in a moment. He’s twelve years old and primary school is almost over. Smuts rise and the rails groan. Down there Wogga McBride is fooling with the dog, some carpetbacked stray that’s got a hold of his school bag and he’s laughing. Laughing! The two boys prance around the brown dog up on its hind legs, twisting and feinting with the leather strap in its mouth. Quick can hear their virulent laughter. He wants to go down there with them and run that dog ragged with them. Oh, the laughter, even over the sound of the train.
And then Wogga McBride tears the bag free of the dog and sways back, shrieking with glee, and the sleeper catches his heel and he staggers and the engine smacks him with the sound of a watermelon falling off the back of a truck, and he’s gone.
Everything is screaming. The train punishes itself to a halt. Down there, Wogga McBride’s little brother stands with his mouth open and train noise coming out. There’s men jumping out and down, there’s screaming, alright. Screaming, screaming.
Quick hoists his bag and goes home and gets into bed and pulls the sheet over his head and stuffs his ears with notepaper.
Fish Waiting
What can you tell him, Fish? Right now, while you’re down there on that side of the water with your strange brain and your black, wide eyes. What do you understand enough to say? You stand there in the morning and the afternoon and see Quick all closed, white and hard. Motes rain down. The sun is alive. The whole house is shaking with sound. Why won’t he look at you? How do you bear it? How can you just stand at the end of his bed like that, with the patience of an animal? It’s like you’re someone else down there, Fish. Or does it just hurt me to think it’s not so?
Debts
Every morning the old man came up to see Quick and sit on the end of his bed and sigh. Quick lay under the sheet, smelling all the trapped stinks and odours, and through it he could see the shadow of the old man moving in front of the window.
How’d ya be, son? the old man said quietly. He seemed to know something was wrong, but he was stuck for some way of fixing it.
Quick was glad it was him coming up and not his mother. She’d be too busy getting the shop open for the day and anyway, she’d be liable to just hook him out of bed, kick him in the ring and send him on his way. He didn’t know why he was staying here in bed anyway; he just knew he didn’t want to get up and it had something to do with Wogga McBride.
The second day Lester had a better idea of what was wrong. Quick heard him rustling a newspaper theatrically, walking up and down, stopping now and then to say: It’s a flamin tragedy, Quick, an honest-to-the-Lord flamin tragedy.
Quick didn’t think about that wet teatowel snap of Wogga McBride disappearing. Neither could he let himself imagine what had happened after, how Wogga would have been dragged and ricked and torn and wedged and burst and broken. He thought about nothing like that. Quick thought about nothing at all. He listened to the grinds and groans of the house. Flies went about their mysterious business. Ticking noises came from in the walls. The cocky next door squawked and quipped. Below, the bell clonked on the shop door. Sometimes, when the hunger drifted over into dreaminess, he forgot he was Quick Lamb at all. It excited him to discover how quiet he was inside.
On the third day the old man came in and rustled a newspaper, and then Quick heard scissors going, hissing through paper.
A lot of sad people on the wall, Quick. What’re you doin with em? What’s it mean?
Quick said nothing.
Knocks me round to see you like this, boy. You’ll starve to death. Look at these poor sods — you don’t wanna be like them. You don’t need to be. You’ve got a roof over yer head, family — well, we’re not much I know, he chuckled. But, strike. Here—
Quick saw the shadow cross him and hover. He heard him thumbing a couple of tacks into the wall.
There. Another one. That’s yer schoolmate, if you really wanna feel miserable. They’re buryin im in Fremantle tomorrow. Be dressed by eight. After that we’ll go down the wharf for some fish and chips.
Quick set his jaws. He realized suddenly that he was aching; he was sore and tight in the guts and he stank.
No.
It’s for Fish. He’s worried.
No.
Quick heard the old man cross the room and slam the window down.
Christ Almighty, boy, if you care that much about someone from school, why don’t you care about yer own blood? You know damn-well your brother is busted in the head and he’ll never grow up right. The least you could do is let him be happy. Don’t torture him, Quick. And us. You don’t need to be like this — it’s a lie, a game, and yer not helpin anyone at all. Yer feelin sorry for yerself and it’s making me sick. Don’t pretend to Fish. And then the old man’s voice got quiet and dangerous. You and me understand about Fish. We were there. We were stupid enough to drown him tryin to save him. You remember that. We owe him things, Quick. We got a debt. All we can do now is let him be happy, let him be not too confused. I can sit here and talk and get nothin back for as long as it takes to get angry enough to swat your arse and send your mother up to deal with you. But Fish, he’ll wait. He’ll wait till you say something to him. Don’t you forget about Fish, boy. Not as long as you live, or your life won’t have been worth livin.