Eucalyptus (21 page)

‘The woman stood up from the piano, and turned her back. She had a small waist and hair pulled into a bun. With his lost bird perched on her shoulder, she left the room.

‘Sackler went straight to the front door and was about to ring.

‘The bell was polished brass. There was a doormat the same sandy colour as his eyebrows. Camellias were flowering in two large tubs. And the windows had neat curtains.

‘Below the bell was printed HEIDE KIRSCHNER, PIANO.

‘The next morning he returned. From several houses away he could hear the piano. It seemed she never stopped playing. Through the window he saw the woman seated alongside a pupil, pointing to the sheet music and demonstrating. As he watched he saw the grey canary land on her shoulder.

‘Sackler went away. He had to think about this. He was forty-eight. Whenever he returned to the house his bird was on her shoulder. Finally, he rang the bell. His suit had been dry-cleaned, he wore a tie; that same day he was seated alongside Miss Kirschner, learning to play the piano.

‘Did the grey canary recognise him? It clung to Miss Kirschner, and seemed to glare at him! Canaries love the various rhythms of music, she told him, who was supposed to be an expert on canaries. Even Bach, she smiled. She played the beginning of a fugue, and Sackler followed his bird as it tore around the room, and returned to the shoulder of Miss Kirschner.

‘Sackler soon liked the sound of her strong accent, and her earnestness with all things musical, so he couldn't help staring when she broke into a child-like gaiety.

‘It took two months of piano lessons before the bird landed on his shoulder. By then he had mastered the scales and with terrible clumsiness was attempting simple melodies. His teacher had deep, deep reserves of patience.'

Still in her state of half-undress, Ellen felt a dreamy contentment. It was always like this under a tree listening to stories. She realised she was smiling.

‘In that time,' he continued, ‘the canary-breeder had an almost daily view of the perfect paleness of Miss Kirschner's arms.' He lifted Ellen's elbow. ‘In all his days he had never seen such skin, so fine and smooth her entire arms blended into the ivory keys. He couldn't take his eyes off her bare arms. One small bite,' he cleared his throat, ‘would have left a permanent mark.'

‘I'm listening,' said Ellen.

‘By now the canary sometimes chose his shoulder, other times hers. Miss Kirschner tried to encourage the bird to nibble her pupil's ear. It was time he made a decision. After the lessons now she served small cakes soaked in honey on blue plates, and enquired after his health. On days she wore a high embroidered blouse or a special brooch she demanded his opinion. More and more Sackler felt the attraction of habit, of merely dropping in, to be there, never mind the lessons.

‘Still, he only had to glance down at Miss Kirschner's alabaster skin, and back to the frisky male bird, for his resolve—his reason for being there—to return.

‘And so on a Sunday evening, when she left the room, talking as she went, he lifted the canary from his shoulder. He put it struggling in his coat pocket, and let himself out.

‘As he passed the window the brightly lit room with the piano was still empty. He kept his hand in his pocket wrapped around the bird. That way he hurried home.

‘Upstairs he returned the canary to its cage. For some time then he lay on his bed. He went back over the night he had first looked into the pianist's room, saw the bird flying about like a moth, noticed her narrow waist. She too lived alone. He wondered what she was doing just then. If it was bewildering for her, it had been bewildering for him as well. With the bird safely back in its cage he could consider which of the females downstairs were most suitable to mate with the male. Clearly he had been doing something wrong; it hadn't worked. Downstairs the chirping of the different canaries sounded curiously muted after Miss Kirschner's piano-playing.

‘Next morning, waking early, Clem Sackler removed the dressing-gown he'd always draped at night over the cage. On the metal floor lay the grey male on its side, dead.'

Ellen walked up and down.

‘Where did you hear that? What an awful story I feel sorry for someone like that. I think you've made it up.' Ellen stopped in front of him. ‘Is it true?'

Here he could look at her closely. He began wandering among the many different birthmarks and beauty spots. As for Ellen, her questions seemed to direct him towards her state of dress. For a moment, without looking down, Ellen wasn't sure whether she was being buttoned or unbuttoned.

Came his voice, ‘When the breeder of canaries knocked on Miss Kirschner's door he had dandruff on his shoulders. She had a squint in one eye—something like that. And she had the excruciating taste in furnishings usually found with musicians. It's a mystery how an attraction can spring up in one person for another. Who can say why? It would be amazing, except it happens all the time. A person's voice, say a man's voice, heard in the dark or behind a door is sometimes enough. But it must be a combination of things. What do you think?'

‘Just voice isn't enough, I don't believe.'

‘There must be cases where the attraction is not deliberate. It just sort of happens,' he proposed. ‘It can't be explained—a real mystery. There's no logic to it,' he added. It was enough for him to shake his head.

‘Logic?' She almost wanted to laugh.

‘I mean the person is not given a choice in the matter.'

In and out went the conversation, and the light and shade slanted between the trees. Normally he would have gone long ago. Clearly he wanted to stay. Frowning again, he was looking away from her.

And you don't know whether your stories are true or not?' She waited, not thinking of anything else.

So it was left in that intimate, unresolved state, which too can be seen as something of a mystery.

• 27 •
Diversicolor

IN A
small town out west of Sydney a Greek owned a café in the main street. It was divided down the middle into booths with fixed tables, a glass dish on the tables holding the slices of white bread. The walls had been painted the colour of the sea, and near the cappuccino machine a photograph torn from a magazine showed a white monastery perched on a barren cliff.

The Greek's wife did the cooking out the back, his daughter waited on the tables, and he sat all day behind the cash register, keeping his eye on things.

This daughter wore her black hair long, and blouses with a low neckline—sometimes it was a T-shirt. She never wore a dress or a skirt. She seemed discontented. She scarcely said a word.

The Greek had moved his family inland, as far from the sea as possible. This was to prevent his daughter being seen in a bathing costume. It was rumoured that a part of her body was disfigured by a wine-dark stain, though no one—certainly none of the hoons who sat around every night in the café—had seen such a mark with their own eyes.

There was never much going on in town. The few young men who remained spent the most vital years of their lives talking about cars and hazarding guesses about the waitress, only to clam up and grin when she came to their table. If one of them was lucky enough to take her to the pictures or for a drive to the next town her father wanted her home by 11 p.m., and she herself never allowed anyone to see what lay underneath her blouse and jeans. She'd grown up with these young men. She knew only too well the way they thought and talked, and how their hair would always be combed and look the same.

One morning a man no one had seen before sat in one of the booths and ordered a breakfast.

He had big ears and a small head. He wore a tie. To occupy himself he spent a good ten minutes trying to balance the menu on the lid of the bread dish.

This man took one look at the long-haired waitress and began taking breakfast there every morning, and gave the same elaborate instructions on how to turn the eggs, thinking it might amuse her, which she ignored.

He was staying at the hotel. He had always been a talker. He could talk about any subject you cared to name. He especially liked introducing himself to a woman, and going from there. He found that his incredible ugliness wasn't a handicap. In fact, it may have helped. He was a good listener. Even when he was young he was ‘as cunning as fifty crows'. He had started out selling cough-cures door to door, then it was vacuum cleaners, and Singer sewing machines. On the side he was on commission for a manufacturer of flagpoles, who'd recently diversified into stepladders—difficult things to move in large numbers. He always looked hungry. The usual laws of disappointment apply more to a travelling salesman than to most other men.

He'd been attracted to the sullenness of the waitress, and when he asked around and heard she had something on her body so zealously guarded no man had managed to report its details he decided he would not leave town until he had seen it for himself.

With this in mind he took all his meals at the Greek's. At night he made sure he was the last to leave, even if it meant ordering another coffee. But he soon found the technique which had given him such success across dozens of country towns—namely, outrageous flattery and obviously absurd exaggeration, and the same old jokes, while fixing his eyes on the woman in question—was getting him nowhere. The waitress showed no interest. If anything, she became downright suspicious, hostile even.

After a week of rejection he decided to give himself one more night; he couldn't stay in this dump forever. The decision came as easily as ordering another toast. He left his suitcase on the bed and set out for the café. In the dark a woman in a black shawl appeared in front of him. She was an old woman he hadn't seen before. ‘It's not the end of the world,' she seemed to be saying, grabbing at his sleeve. She had forgotten to put in her teeth. Taking his hand she rubbed it with her fingers, and pointed. ‘Become an upright citizen, all ears.'

At least that's how it sounded—either a riddle or a scornful screech. As he turned away with a good-natured laugh he tripped over and grazed his knee.

It was the waitress with her customary tired look who noticed. She actually spoke, ‘What have you been doing?'

And looking down he found splinters all over his hands.

After that he noticed the Greek and his daughter glancing at him. Unexpectedly the father nodded and smiled. But it was too late. The man had already decided what to do. Without trying to win her over on that last night he finished eating and didn't even order a coffee. He waited outside for the place to close. There wasn't anybody around. When her bedroom light came on he went behind the café.

Carefully he climbed the picket fence. He felt like whistling a little tune. Why hadn't anyone else done this before? There was a loquat tree, a fowl yard, bits of wood. At the louvred window he stood on tiptoe.

In her room the young waitress was stepping out of the last brief piece of clothing. Casually she turned. He almost gasped at the bulging strength of her nakedness; the rich tangle of black below the hips.

To see more he stretched: and there he saw it on her legs, a dark stain, as if she was up to her knees in ink.

At that moment she faced the window. Although she didn't cry out, he stepped back; or so he thought. Something solid met him from behind. He couldn't move. There was no point in struggling. He could still see into the room and the waitress's pale body. His arms disappeared into his sides. And he felt himself merge into something altogether hard and straight; unusually tall. Foolishly, he realised he should be getting back to his home in Sydney. His head became cold. He then began to hear voices.

From the waitress's muscular legs the stain was transferred across the short distance of chicken wire, bottles and tins, lengths of useful timber, etc., over the grey splintered fence to the base of the new telegraph pole, Karri, which would stand in all weathers with a clear view of the Greek waitress in her room, regularly naked.

She of course lived happily ever after, sometimes enjoying the company of men.

• 28 •
Decipiens

TO THIS
day examples continue of a man coming across a woman undressed who is simply unable to avert, let alone shut, his eyes. Very common within the species. At any given moment it happens somewhere in the world. Accidental? More than likely an essential deep-seated mechanism is at work here; and as the eyes possess the unprotected body, a secondary mechanism is activated which can produce unexpected consequences, on occasions, retribution.

• 29 •
Neglecta

TWO DAYS
had passed: and no sign of him. To Ellen the encyclopaedic landscape took on a completely blank and sullen appearance.

Nothing much moved, at least nothing out of the ordinary; no figure seen coming towards her.

On the third, winds and slanting rain came from the east and whiplashed the eucalypts into helpless shrubs, a panorama of dented reputations, great trees shivering and flinching in feminine distress, some split or uprooted, while a small paddock of pale brown grass was combed into a vast mat, the sort of orange-haired mat found outside certain hairdressing salons in Sydney.