What about women?
Sam chuckled. Women? Reckon I know more about cars.
Lester laughed. Which do you prefer?
Sam pursed his lips, reminding himself that he still had his own teeth: I’m partial to trams, meself.
No, dinkum. I’m askin.
Gimme a horse any day.
Over a woman?
By Christ, yeah.
What about Rose … Lamb?
She’s not a woman, she’s a daughter.
Lester laughed. And yer missus in there gettin her leg plastered? Lester felt reckless all of a sudden as though he might confess an old sin to Sam right here and now. But he held himself. We’ve already taken his daughter, he thought; I couldn’t do it to him now just to clean meself of it.
Dolly? No, Dolly’s a woman, orright. She always said she was too much woman for me.
Well, Oriel’s always been too much Oriel for anybody.
And when they wheeled Dolly out, plastered up like a swearing saint, Lester was singing:
Give me Oriel in my lamp, keep me burning,
Give me Oriel in my lamp, I pray.
I should be drunk! yelled Dolly.
I should be rich, Sam murmured.
And I should be home, said Lester, herding them out to the truck.
Thank Christ, said Sam. I really thought it was somethin serious.
A broken leg’s serious enough, said Lester.
It’s a bloody gift.
Steam
A long way off, in a cloud of steam like the ante rooms of Hell itself a small man falls naked to the sauna floor feeling his heart stutter. So many women have loved him and suffered him, but none so much as his mother. Sometimes he has dreams about her, the kind he doesn’t like to think of. She’s just like the girls he chats up and backs up. She’s just … steam steam steam steam steam steam!
The Blacks and Whites
Look at that, the house’s timbers clenching right there in wild daylight. There’s no wind, no subsidence in the ground, nothing to resist, but every joint bleats there for a moment as if the place is bracing to sneeze or expel or smother. The river runs louder than a train on the midday air and the lost dead are quaking like sunlight.
Fish Lamb clumps the piano, but all that comes from it is the thick unending drone of middle C and he’s not pleased. He knows the sound of his own music, and this is not it. The musty, windowless room is lit like a rainforest floor, the greenish colour shed by the two figures pressed against the wall on either side of him, and in the dimness he sees his own stubby hands thumping the blacks and whites as his fury grows. The floorboards let out a horrible sweet smell. Curling in a snarl, the old rug quivers. Nails vibrate in the walls, and Fish keeps on with some hardfaced determination, while around him the two women bare their teeth at each other, dark and light, light and dark, hating, hurting, hissing silently until Fish, the great trunk in suspenders, heaves up from the stool, whirls and becomes an angry, heavy, menacing man for a moment, and bawls at the walls.
I hate youse you stupids! This is my house!
When he is gone, the two faces are vicelipped, and still, and even the sound of middle C falters a moment before continuing on like an electrical current.
Steel
The last part of the ride home from the station is downhill and it’s the only time the old police bike is any use at all. Quick pedals in a fit of aftershift madness with the wind frigid on his face. He feels so good, it’s all he can do not to yell out and yodel jubilantly all the way to Swan Street. He swerves around a milk truck, nips the claws of an ageing labrador and takes the last corner leaning out like a sailor. Some people are at their gates, getting papers and pints, men have their hats on, walking home from bus and train, and the sun is breaking up in the sky. He gives the bell a stiff thumb and coasts down the side of the old brick house where the wireless is on and someone is sobbing. The sound of it shakes him and he’s off the bike before it’s stopped. It crashes into the empty garage the moment he opens the back door.
Call someone Quick, says Rose, on her knees by the stove. She’s dressed for work and white in the cheeks. Call someone. I’m losing the baby.
Mrs Manners! Mrs Manners!
Quick stumbles through boxes and chairs on the verandah on his way to the landlady’s door, but she has it open before he knocks. She’s a small, startled looking English-woman with spectacles and soft pink hands.
Whatever’s the matter, Constable?
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.