Currawalli Street (25 page)

Inside he wipes out the box, finds his dog tags on the table, places them inside and returns it to its former place in the cupboard over the fridge. He sits for a moment at the kitchen table. Where his father always sat, although it doesn't feel like it's his father's seat anymore. He remembers what a forgotten soldier said to him while they were standing out on a street in Saigon, watching as the two sad girls with smiling faces whom they had picked up easily and would most likely never see again walked into a department store to spend the money the two Australian soldiers had just given them. The soldier was married and talked
constantly about fidelity. He said that secrets are, in fact, living things. They expand, contract, stay silent, cry out. And like any other living thing, they eventually emerge into the sun.

Jim smiled because he understood now. He may have sweated in his hurry to rebury those letters, but it didn't matter; his father's secret is now stretching itself in the light of day.

He picks up the photo of Kathleen and Johnny, posing by the side of the house, and tries to decipher some more of the words written on the back.

All day, the clouds have allowed the sun to pass by undisturbed. The wind blew the smell of a bushfire down the street in the morning but now in the late afternoon it has drifted away and been replaced by the currawalli tree scents. The only real noises during the day were the trains and the cockatoos and now there is the last of the birds and the first of the crickets.

Upper Lance stops at the First World War monument, the statue of the silent soldier. He looks idly at the list of names. The fallen, from the streets around here. He reads each name aloud and notices there is only one woman. He doesn't know what that means.

What do men normally do on their evenings off? he wonders.

Go to the pub.

He begins to walk slowly down the street. Although he doesn't normally think twice about going to work, now that he doesn't have to go for a few days it feels as if a weight has been lifted from his mind and body. He must dread it more than he realises. He tries to put a spring in his
step. He has time to look down driveways and paths. When he is walking to work he keeps his head down and tries to think over the things he has been meaning to do that day because he knows that once he is at work they will evaporate and never come back. He has a dangerous job, though no more dangerous than the man standing next to him on the factory floor. It requires concentration. Safety guards look good as far as inspectors are concerned but they are an impediment to the work. They turn a ten-minute job into a twenty-minute job, and the boss can't afford that. Upper Lance hates it when the union comes in and talks about safety: he knows how to use this equipment and keep safe; he's not a child.

Debra isn't around and this idleness is starting to irritate him. She has gone into the church to pray for something or other. She likes to do that. He looks at the church door. It is closed. It is after six. Maybe he should go in and pray with her? No, he wouldn't know what to say. She asked him once if he had doubts about God, if that was why he wasn't very religious. He replied that he thought God had doubts about him. That was very clever; he always remembers it. He will use that line again if ever anybody asks him about his religious beliefs. So far, though, no one has asked.

No, maybe he will go to the pub and have two beers. That is his limit and Debra will be home by then, making dinner.

As he turns away from the church he sees Jim walking ahead of him, no doubt heading for the same place. By the time he walks in the front door of the pub, Jim is standing at the bar, throwing back some sort of spirit. Upper Lance is a little discouraged by the ease with which he drinks the spirit; as if it is water. As a boy Lance was taught by his mum to be wary of men who drank easily. His grandfather cut a swathe through his family life before he died of the drink. But in memory of his
grandfather he walks up to Jim, says hello and asks to join him.

Lance's two beers turn into three as they talk about all manner of things. Jim is a good listener, Upper Lance thinks to himself, and I must be a good talker. As he finishes his third beer, the fourth is already on the coaster waiting for him.

Upper Lance looks around the bar at all the faces. He turns towards Jim as a ballet dancer would if he was offstage and heard his name called. It is a sudden movement. Jim steps back, a little shocked at the unexpectedness of it.

Upper Lance says, ‘I was looking at the statue at the end of our street. That poor soldier. And all the names. I was thinking about him.' Lance grabs Jim's forearm. ‘I don't believe he just stands up there on his own. No, all the secrets of the street—all the ghosts that have been pushed out of the houses, all the memories that have tried to be forgotten; all those thoughts that were believed and then suddenly not believed—all of those things are up there with him. Up there watching what goes on. No wonder he bows his head. All that weight on his back . . .' He releases Jim's arm and pauses to drink. The beer spills out of the glass and runs down his hand, under his sleeve.

‘. . . And another thing. If his head was up, he would be able to see right down Currawalli Street. See who goes where, see what happens when no one is looking, see who keeps their curtains open when they should be closed, see who is knocking on whose door . . . God knows what he would see.

‘Jim, you're a lot younger than me and I've learned a few things over the years. I'll tell you something: the main difference between then and now is simply this. Then, telling a lie and not telling the truth was
exactly the same thing. But now you are able to not tell the truth without telling a lie. And in that,' he smiles at Jim, ‘lies the destruction of the human race.'

‘Oh,' Jim says, realising that the other man has passed his alcohol limit.

‘And it will only get worse.' Upper Lance comes one step closer and lowers his voice. ‘There are times when I wake up and I can clearly see what is happening to the world. But my clarity disappears within minutes. Sometimes at night when I'm at work, I get a chance to ponder things. I worry about my daughter's future. I also worry about being at work all night and not being with my wife. Whether she gets lonely . . . if you know what I mean?'

Jim thinks he does and decides that he doesn't want to go down this path with a man he hardly knows. But Upper Lance continues without waiting for Jim's response. ‘Especially because our daughter has been away, so Debra is alone in the house. She says she likes it but I don't know . . . She used to have an appetite, if you know what I mean, but recently she doesn't . . . you know?'

Jim does know what he means. He shared a tent with a soldier from Sydney, roughly the same age as Upper Lance who wondered about the same things, and every time he came across a term or situation or emotion too uncomfortable to describe he would say exactly this: ‘do you know what I mean?' Jim eventually learned that the issues being resolved didn't stop the
do you know what I mean
s; they continued unabated and ended up saying more about the man in the tent than it did about the woman in the house back at home in Sydney.

‘Oh, I'm sorry.' Lance collects himself. ‘I'm rabbiting on. I have a few
nights off work and I'm a little excited.'

‘Maybe we should go home now?'

‘I'm not sure . . . I'm not sure if I can . . . walk that far.'

‘I'll help you. We'll walk together.'

So Jim holds Upper Lance by the forearm and they step back from the bar with its hanging tin mugs and over to the door. The sun has gone down and the streetlights have come on. Jim anticipates Upper Lance's weaves and holds him tighter with each sudden movement. They walk past the unoccupied apricot tree (Jim is pleased Rodney won't be logging this in his book), past the honeysuckle on Jim's front fence, under the apostle bird tree and on up to number sixteen. Jim is going to leave Upper Lance at the letterbox, but when Jim releases his arm Lance overbalances, and so Jim walks him down the driveway and around the back. Through the kitchen window, he can see Debra at the stove. The two men walk in the back door and she looks up from the pan.

‘I'm afraid I might have made him drunk,' says Jim. ‘We got carried away talking.'

Debra turns off the stove and walks over to the table, pulling out a kitchen chair. Jim helps Upper Lance sit down.

‘Oh Lance. Did you drink too much?' She looks up at Jim. ‘He's not much of a drinker . . . thank God.'

‘No, I can see that. I think he had four beers.'

‘Two is his limit. Any more and he gets . . . like this. He will be alright after a couple of hours. What was he doing down the pub? He doesn't normally go.' She smiles at Jim as she straightens up. ‘Thank you for helping him home. I bet he talked a lot. He loves to talk. As I bet you found out.'

‘Oh well. I don't mind. I like to hear what people think.' Jim smiles back. ‘I better be going. See you later.'

As he leaves he hears Debra call, ‘Thanks again, Jim. Bye.'

He turns the corner of the house and begins to walk back down the driveway. As he does so, he sees Eve softly close the church door and begin to walk down the other side of the street towards her home. He doesn't call out to her.

T
he last four steps before you reach the tree trunk are the most important. And they need to be deftly executed just at the point that your body starts to react to the panic rising in your throat. Enough momentum must be gained so that the impact on the bark of the trunk is minimal. Scratches and indentations are some of the things looked for when a tree sniper is known to be about. As with an athlete's preparation, it takes time and care to prepare oneself for the ascent, but Jim knows that this is an emergency—there is no time for mental preparation. He can hear the patrol as it makes its way through the rushes by the river. They are not far away and they are looking for him, that much he knows. Otherwise they would be keeping quiet and employing stealth. But when you are tracking a tree sniper you know that the panic provoked by the sound of voices is often the cause of an involuntary sudden movement. And that is the only giveaway needed. Twenty metres ahead of the patrol will be a silent scout, the soldier who is noted for having the best eyes. It is he who waits
to pick up any panicked movement. Then he makes one call and the patrol closes in.

Jim has heard of the things done to captured snipers and he always carries a pistol with one bullet should he ever be discovered. It is a tiny Chinese pistol made for ladies of the night in Shanghai to keep hidden in their clothing, in case they ever needed to protect themselves. Jim bought it in Saigon from a gun dealer as discreet as the pistol. The man told Jim that this was also a popular gun with high-ranking officers of the armies. Generals and colonels were never sure who they could trust among their support staff or for how long. And being in the High Command meant that you didn't know whether that pistol would eventually have to be turned on someone else or turned on yourself. Such was the instability of being a general.

Jim was pleased with the pistol's weight and size, which meant he could climb a tree unaffected. It didn't matter to him how accurate the aim was. And he carries it everywhere in his pocket as casually as he would a set of keys back in Currawalli Street.

As he tries to scale the trunk without marking the bark, Jim realises with a sudden shock that he doesn't have his rifle or his pack with him. He quickly looks down to check that he hasn't left them at the foot of the tree, sees he hasn't; then he has no more time to think about them and where they might be. He can hear the footsteps of the patrol now, and the scout must be closer again. He reaches for a strong branch above him and firmly pulls himself up onto it like a tree python. Steadily, so that no leaves are shaken by his movement. Deciding to keep climbing, he reaches for another branch above him, pulls himself up to this branch solely with his arms, keeping his legs
still as if paralysed from the waist down. There are now leaves below him as well as around him and he begins to feel safer.

He has been doing this long enough to know that feeling safe in these situations is dangerous—this is when lethal blunders are made—so he stops breathing and scans the area around the base of the tree. He can now make out soldiers' voices more clearly but the sounds have little meaning. The scout may have already passed him by or he may be very close. Jim has no choice: he must climb higher. Sweat is beginning to run down his face and he wipes his cheeks slowly and delicately with his hand. This has the double advantage of rubbing off the dirt on his hand, making his face darker and ensuring that any loose bark he might touch will stick to his damp hands rather than fall to the ground below. Still, some drops of perspiration have run into his left eye; the salt stings and for a moment his vision is blurred.

He has no time to wait for his eye to clear; he must keep climbing. With his left eye squeezed tightly shut, he looks around him to ensure his next movement isn't going to brush against anything that could rustle or fall. Above and a little ahead of him he sees another branch, thicker than the one he is currently stretched out on. After quickly looking below, he reaches for it. As soon as his hands are clasped around it he begins to pull himself up, holding his legs out from the branch like a gymnast. Once he has pulled himself up to the branch and then pushed his chest and arms above it, he slowly draws in his legs.

Now he has to breathe. He is careful not to gasp even though his body is crying out for oxygen. He knows that if he lays his face down
on the branch and forces his mind into another space, a similar space to the one he sinks into when waiting for a target, he can suppress his body's urgent need to gulp in air.

He looks about, moving only his eyes. He is completely surrounded by leaves and can no longer see the ground. The patrol is approaching; he can hear the clinking of each man's rifle and pack.

Stay still.

There is nothing more he can do.

Still.

Suddenly he hears movement on the branch beside him, jerky and unexpected. It is not the smooth movement of an animal or reptile for whom this tree is home. It can only be human. Holding his breath again, he continues to lie still.

‘Why are you lying there like that?'

It is Rodney's voice.

Jim opens his eyes. There are three apricots hanging in front of his face.

‘Have you come up to look at the pub's rose arch?' the boy asks.

‘Um . . . I was just thinking about something from a long time ago.' Jim shakes his head to clear his eyes. ‘Let's see what this rose arch looks like. Then we can go inside and design one.'

He holds Rodney steady as the boy squeezes past him. Even though it is a thin branch and they are up high, Jim can tell that Rodney knows he won't fall with Jim holding him safe. Jim suddenly sees this knowledge as something important.

From Rodney's observation spot, Jim looks up and down the street. It is the street where he grew up, and where once he knew every tree,
bush and stone; the street that he was once pleased to leave behind so that he could touch new things. Yet, now he knows that what he was hoping to touch were just exposed treasures, which are only shallow imitations of hidden treasures, he is able to look about him with different eyes. That is what the memory of Mai's heart beating against his chest is. That is what this apricot tree is. That is what this street is. That is what home is. Hidden treasures.

He thinks a lot about the words scrawled in a man's handwriting on the back of the photo of his grandparents, Johnny and Kathleen. Some of the writing is indecipherable, and he looks at the photo every night, waiting for its meaning to become clear. But he can make out a few words. They read: ‘the fine art of belonging'.

Jan looks up from his desk in the church office. Next Sunday's sermon is almost finished and so he allows himself a break from concentration. He looks idly at the last paragraph he has written, then leans forward, suddenly alert.

He then rereads the whole sermon. Most of it is alright. Just the last paragraph. It is almost a confession. That's how it reads. He doesn't need to make a confession. Who should he make a confession to? God? The Bishop? Sally? Of course not. He rubs his forehead and squeezes his eyes shut. All he can see is the blue light of her earrings from the other night. There is a knock at the door. He looks up at the clock and pauses before answering it.

*

And so, as they have always done, the clouds run across the big sky. When the wind blows one way it brings the smell of the bush; from the other way, the smell of the city.

Val no longer looks out her window for Thomas. She now gets tired at odd times and has taken to having a sleep in the afternoon.

People still meet on Patrick's platform—even people who don't live in the street come to sit there. Mary still makes her coronation cake, Patrick still checks his watch to see that everything is running on time, the apostle birds still hop and play with one another in their tree, dust and feathers blowing down the street still come together to give shape to a tiny spirit flying away, the Lances still conduct their rubbish-bin warfare, the reverend still waits in his office after six every night and pretends to work on church records, people still look up at the same sky and think about the future. Rodney no longer sits in the apricot tree; he is too busy working with Jim. They are now building a new front fence for some people around the corner on Little Road.

Parakeets still fly at ground level up the street, then lift themselves over the currawalli trees. And the smell of a distant bushfire is in the air.