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.
So you came for help?
Yeah. Sam let off one of those grins that she hadn’t seen since God knows when, since Geraldton and days when there were only air raids and Japs to worry about, and her fury subsided a moment, despite her.
Help? Dad, I cleaned up her vomit, washed her clothes, dragged her home from the pub every bloody night of my childhood. I replaced her, you know. I did her work. My childhood was taken from me, Dad. She hurt me all her life. Don’t you think I helped enough? Don’t you think you’ve got a bloody hide even comin to ask?
She’s grievin. It’s Ted, you know.
Ted, Ted, Ted! She only ever loved the one of us!
Well, for Chrissake, how do you think that makes me feel? You think you’re the only one? Nothin can fix that for us, Rose. But show some pity. She lost a child.
Well, she’s not the only one!
You never even knew yours. It’s not the same. She was Ted’s mother.
She was never a mother. She never loved me.
You wouldn’t let her, Rose.
Rose stared at him, mouth open.
Sam looked at his cooling tea.
You’ve lost her, that’s why you want me to come.
She’s been gone a coupla days.
She’s left you.
No, she’s left herself.
You still love her, don’t you?
Sam shrugged, wet-eyed and stiff in his seat. I got used to her. I dunno.
Well, I’m not crawling through the bars of any more pubs looking for her, Dad.
You won’t go with me?
Why?
It shames a man lookin for his wife.
Jesus, Dad! Haven’t you got used to the shame of it all? She’s made an idiot and a laughing stock out of you so often it’s like a joke now. Hasn’t it worn off yet?
I thought you’d come lookin. Just for me.
I always went for you, Dad.
Don’t try to be cruel to her, Rose. She’s had her chances, she’s nearly finished. Winnin out over someone like that isn’t much of a victory. She can only lose from now on in. She’s nearly sixty odd. She can only get old and die. You’re young. You can have more babies, things are ahead of you. Look at me. Whatever I’m gunna get in this life I’ve had, and damnnear all that’s been lost. You can bear it when you lose money and furniture. You can even grit yer teeth and take it when yer lose yer looks, yer teeth, yer youth. But Christ Jesus, when yer family goes after it, it’s more than a man can bear. A man’s sposed to have that at least to look forward to.
Rose watched him go out, dusting off his hat, striding down the steps with his elbows in the air and he was gone before the screen door came to with a slap and left her in a shrinking room.
Arrest
Night falls. All down Swan Street the dogs bark and children are hectored indoors. Alone in her two rooms Rose sits on the bed, picking at the candlewick bedspread with a great blankness expanding in her mind. She’s hungry, but the feel of food in her mouth just makes her retch. Quick is late off the afternoon shift but she’s not thinking of him anymore. For a while there, around five o’clock, when she realized that her flesh had come to feel as though soap had dried on it, she thought that perhaps she should go out and find a doctor because she was suddenly afraid of falling asleep and waking to find herself pinned to the wall by the faint grass-smelling easterly that murmured at the screen door, but the thought petered out somewhere and left her with a fear that seemed to have lost its source. And now, now she’s not thinking of anything at all. She’s even forgotten to be afraid. The candlewick bedspread moults under her hands.
She listens to her own breathing. It fascinates her, reminds her of things, so mesmeric. Girls. It’s a girl’s breath, that’s what she hears. And these two rooms don’t exist. Something bad is going to happen. All this breathing here in the hallway in front of 36. The Eurythmic Hotel when you’re eleven and a half years old. This isn’t a memory — she doesn’t recall this. The door of 36. Those sounds behind, Jesus Christ, she knows what that is. They’re fucking in there behind the door. Who is that? And anyway, what’s she waiting for? Listen to them go in there, snorting and snouting like … but I’m a girl, I don’t know this. I don’t … I … my God. Mum? There’s been an accident, an accident. Dad’s lost his fingers. And she’s in there huffing and puffing with someone else. Your mother’s on her bed under some stranger and you’re turning to steel right there.
A car pulls up noisily somewhere.
Rose begins to weep. I didn’t want to remember that! I don’t want that.
And now someone is running, someone close by.
I was a girl, she thinks; I shouldn’t have had to hear that. I shouldn’t have had any of it.
Rose? Rose?
A policeman at the door. He bursts inside like he owns the bloody place.
It’s not fair! she yells, Not me!
Rose?
The taxi floats down Stirling Highway. She sees the clock-tower of the uni lit in the far distance.
Rose, says Quick.
Yes?
Are you orright?
Looks like a fuckin scarecrow to me, says the taxi driver.
She’s also my wife.
Shit! Sorry, Constable. I thought it was an arrest. Gawd, I’m sorry.
Just drive.
Quick?
Yeah.
You putting me in the hospital?
Quick smiles. He looks beautiful in his uniform: No. Though I probably should. Look at you.
I’m ugly.
Not as ugly as me.
Where we going?
Cloudstreet.
Is everything alright?
We’ve found your mum.
Oh God.
I don’t wanna do this, Quick! Rose pleads, trying to slow him up in the corridor.
From a doorway, a woman’s voice comes screaming: You fuckin bastards! Get your stinkin hands outta me stockins or I’ll piss all over the lotta yer!
Quick looks pale and nervous himself. His tunic is crumpled from holding her in the taxi. Elaine drifts by squinting with strain.
I don’t know much about this stuff, Rose. I got the call and thought I’d better bring you. I thought you’d come.
The call from who?
Yer dad. Some bloke slipped a note in the mail box, I dunno, someone told him. I dunno.
Dad, you little mongrel, she murmurs. You gutless little runt.
Down the corridor the woman screams again. Aaargh!
You don’t know what this is like, Quick!
He shrugs.
You’ve been sheltered from this sort of stuff, damn it!
He nods. Yeah, I’m finding that out, orright.
No one should make me do this again. I’ve told you all that stuff. They shouldn’t make me.
Quick shook his head.
God, Quick, I’m married. I’m my own person.
She’s yer mother.
I can’t help that.
Neither can she. They said she wants you.
She can go to hell.
The voice is broken and hoarse now, pouring from that room. A man comes out sweating and closing a bag. The doctor. She’ll settle now, he says leaving.