Or.
Either, Or.
She could never find the choices. Even when Lester came by, there was no alternative. Things had gone so far, so much had not been said, the smouldering silence of the house was not something that could be chosen any longer. Besides, he made her laugh the way Bluey had. He was a character, a dag, and pretty soon she loved him.
Oriel went downstairs to where Lester slept. He snored like a teachest being dragged across an iron roof. There was no malice in that man, you had to give him that. She still loved him, the Randolph Scott look of him. Oh yes, yes, there was a Hell, there were Hells abounding, and if there wasn’t a Heaven then there was this, the sleeping, the helpless, those that were your own. She was a sinner, she knew, and proud, and angry at God to the point of hatred, but she knew that she’d made a fortress for her own and for whoever sought shelter there, and that it was good, worthy, and priceless.
Which gave her an idea.
Beryl.
Ted Shoots Through
Ted Pickles shoots through. He takes nothing with him but a comb and all his hormones. His mother weeps and puts a bottle of muscat through an upstairs window. Girls in tight sweaters and heels come by and Dolly screams at them.
Chub doesn’t notice.
Rose doesn’t care.
Sam doesn’t say.
And Then Comes Autumn, and Behind it, Winter
And then comes autumn, and behind it, winter when everything happens without anyone expecting it.
Beryl Lee moves in. Oriel senses that Hat will be gone soon and she’ll be shorthanded, so she offers Beryl a job. There is no shouting, no refusal. Oriel moves her into Quick’s room, moves Fish downstairs with Lester. Beryl mutters Hail Marys at all hours and it sounds like termites. She tears down Quick’s horrid magazine pictures, but at night they come back through the walls and dance.
Some nights Dolly wakes to the strangest hum in her ear. Rain comes with winter.
A postcard comes from Quick. I’m alright, it says, Love Quick. The postmark is smudgy. The picture on the card is of Wave Rock, that grey curling wall like a petrified lava breaker. The Lambs stare at it and keep their thoughts to themselves.
Lester adds up his age one evening and is surprised how old he is. I’m not young, he thinks. My whole life isn’t ahead of me. He buys a camera off a Balt at the growers’ market to make a record of things.
Chub Pickles announces he wants to be a jockey. At sixteen he weighs fourteen stone already. He likes to eat pork fat before it’s cooked, and he often casts a hungry eye at the pig across the fence.
The pig grumbles and shits irritably.
Geoffrey Birch pops the question and Hat goes spare.
The house sighs in the night but no one lets themselves listen. Except Fish.
The Man Who Came Knocking
Sam watched the flesh grow back onto his daughter. It was something to see, truly something. She looked like Ingrid Bergman with her woollen suit and that little cocked hat. It was the shadow coming good on him. When you were losing races like he was, with a kind of awesome genius for it, when you handled money all day, watched it go out by the bale smelling like schoolbooks and then had all weekend to distribute your own, magnanimously, to every bookie and crook on the track, you knew you had to be truly gifted with bad luck. Lately he’d surrendered to the notion that his would be an unlucky life, unlucky in epic proportions, and that any turn of good fortune would be a bolt from the blue. Expect bad luck, was his new creed, and now and then you’ll be surprised. It saved him from a lot of disappointment, and when he saw things like Rose these days, he went as silly as a two bob watch.
Things were quiet and uneventful in a losing way that winter. And then some big, hairy bastard came knocking. Sam thought it was a bookie’s man come to collect a debt, one of those minor outstandings he had brooding here and there. He stood there inside the flyscreen door and watched the way the fella’s gut rolled like a floundering zeppelin across his belt. The man who came knocking had a blue singlet on and wiry black hair growing down from his back along his arms and hands. Sam wondered if maybe it was the union but he couldn’t recall the last union man he’d seen who looked like a worker. He felt the rush of wind. The screen door snapped back in his face and he sat abruptly to watch the blood pour into his lap.
My daughter’s up the duff, Pickles, and your boy’s gettin married. Orright?
Widge wum? Sam said, pinching off his nose.
I’ve only got one.
Boy, boy. Widge boy are we talkid about?
Ted, Todd, whoever.
You bedder get the righd wum.
Sam felt himself rising by the lapels. The flywire was floating free of the door.
Don’t play funny buggers with me, mate. Don’t try comin the raw prawn here an now, orright? I’m not askin you any questions an I’m not makin requests here, get my drift, you cop my wallop?
That’s wod id was. I’ll lie down now.
Next door Sam heard thumping. He’d have a word about it tomorrow. It was eight o’clock at night already and still that Lester was thumping about. Or maybe it was his own headache starting up.
Sam crashed against the coat-rack and it toppled to the floor with him. Doors started opening and heads appeared. Even the thumping stopped.
You’re comprehendin me import here, I take it?
Well, he was from somebody’s union, talking like that. Sam saw the Lamb door open and bring forth Lester Lamb with his bloody meat cleaver.
Shite! the man who’d come knocking said. Let’s go easy in this particular vicinity. Shite!
Sam’s brain bubbled into life: He’s a mad bastard — be careful. Look at this, for Chrissake! Sam held up his stump and the man’s eyes grew in his face.
You just tell me where you live, add I’ll be roud wid my boy. We’ll sord it out.
But the man who’d come knocking had already backed through the hole in the screen door and was shuffling back across the verandah in his workboots. A wind was blowing. It seemed to sweep him away into the night.
He a friend of yours, Sam? Lester asked.
No, but you are, sport. Take a week’s free rent from me.
Pardon?
What would you’ve done with that hacker there? I mean if you were hard put.
I’m choppin ham bones, Lester said. For soup. If I was hard put for what? It’s cheaper than a bone saw.
Sam guffawed. Must be me with the brain damage.
The door’ll need fixin, said Lester.
Yep. I reckon so. Listen, can I borrer that cleaver sometime?
Course. What you cuttin?
Thinkin about what them Jews do. You know. Bar miss fart, whatever it is.
Circumcision? Lester went yellow. You?
No, not me, cobber. My eldest. And I tell ya, me hand’ll be none too steady. He’ll be sittin down to piss.
Lester wiped the blade on his apron.
Don’t have children, mate. Whatever you do.
No, Lester said, turning to leave. What?
The Big Country