Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) (16 page)

— 25 —

MR OHNO'S LETTERS

M
r Ohno's letters are tiny. They fit perfectly into their miniature envelopes of folded paper with no gum or glue. ‘Not At This Address' is scrawled on the front of each envelope in Robert's handwriting.

I open the first envelope, releasing the hand-pressed notches and tabs. I half expect one of Mr Ohno's paper cranes to unbend itself from flatness and fly out, or perhaps another erotic postcard, but in each envelope there is just one small letter. The writing starts in English but then moves into Japanese script. Some of the letters and envelopes have a tiny drawing: a cup, a shoe, a tree with long weeping leaves.

Deer Mrs Jean
,

Each rising sun I think you. Mrs Jean face like litl nut. I think you when galas walk on the rowd. I can nevr stopping. I for always you. Sad for you, sad for snow. Help me. Mrs Jean in the sand.

Ples send dodoes and bells.

Ohno san

Deer Mrs Jean,

I make hats for army men. My fingrs are short now. No good for chikens. I think about you in the sand. Why you get of in the sand? Mrs Jean with hairs so sof. Are you died in the sand? Help me Mrs Jean. I am not dangerows to this cuntry. I for always you Mrs Jean. Ples send dodoes and bells.

Ohno san

Deer Mrs Jean,

You nevr make writing with me? I am so sad. I have now man who makes sounds. Mr Glebber from Austria a singing teacher. Like you Mrs Jean? He make for me a shamisen from fruit box. I ask him to make writing for me. Ples send dodoes and bells.

Ohno san

Then a longer letter in an ordinary, cheap grey envelope.

Internment Camp 1
Tatura, Victoria
The South East of Australia

Dear Mrs Jean,

Mr Ohno, a fellow prisoner and Asiatic, has asked me to write to you. He is friendless here (excepting myself). He speaks English quite passably (he is saying he is a professor of chickens) but his composition is poor. Mr Ohno is convinced that you are able to assist him in some way. He tells me that you met on a train? and asks you make a composition to the government to request his release. He says he is only here because of the chickens and that he has no interest in politics or war. I play chess with him every day and we make hats for the soldiers. On the weekends we play golf with the Italians.

Mr Ohno asked me to send you this drawing. He says it is a blessing for Hari-Kuyo – an Asiatic concert for broken needles. The monks sing a special mass for all of the needles broken during the year. The unfortunate needles are placed in a cake of Tovu (I think he means icing?) so they have a safe place to rest. This will soothe them after their days of hard service. Mr Ohno wishes me to say that the needle must be taken care of. In the hands of a skilled dressmaker a needle can fly. He says you are a needle of great strength and harmony.

I hope this is not offensive and that it makes sense to you. Finally, Mr Ohno asks you to please send photographs and news.

I am saying a little of my situation as well, which is dire. I am the Conductor of the world famous Vienna Mozart Boys' Choir, which due to world events, has been caught on this enemy island. My boys are in good care in Melbourne but I am stuck in this wasteland. It is an appalling venue. Frozen cold in winter and even more terrible in summer – droughts, dust storms, brain boiling heat and swarms of poisonous black bumblebees. There is no coffee and I am having to wear ill-cut clothes. I have set up a choir amongst the men. The Italian prisoners can harmonise, but the guards are of poor type.

I request you to send the following:

1. Three large books of musical notation paper (5 line stave).

2. A winding phonograph with all Mozart recordings available to you.

3. Any mass or sacred music by Gluck, Salieri, Haydn or Schubert set for a men's choir.

4. A necktie.

5. Marzipan.

With Appreciation,

Herr Georg Glebber
Conductor-in-Exile

I read and re-read the letters through the night. Always listening for the car, always ready to put them away, but Robert doesn't come home. At dawn I fold them in a scrap of satin from one of Doris's dresses and put them in a drawer of the sewing machine and try to sleep.

— 26 —

AT THE COMMERCIAL

L
ola Sprake makes Robert a rum and cloves. He was never big on liquor, has hardly been into the bar these past years. A man without much value, in Lola's opinion – neither a drinker nor busy with his pockets. Mr Plattfuss offers Lola a Ladies' Beer for helping him to remove the dartboard but she doesn't drink while working, except for a cordial to wet the lips.

All the usual suspects are in, as well as a few just for the talk. Some older men – veterans, in their Sunday suits – pull a couple of tables together and sit in their own private cloud of smoke and talk near the door. Stan Hercules is propped at the bar with his camera and notebook laid out in front of him. This is the closest a small-town newspaperman will ever get to being a war correspondent and he's relishing it. Mr Plattfuss takes his position by the projector. Hercules taps his glass with a pencil: ‘Quieten up there, men, the show's about to start.'

Mr Plattfuss takes a swig from his Ballarat Bitter and clears his throat. He switches on the projector and a wedge of yellow light shines on the side wall. He takes a piece of paper from his pocket and starts to read: ‘This nation of three million square miles contains approximately seven million people. There is no doubt that each of those seven million Australians love their country.'

‘Hear, hear,' the bar responds in unison. A few men stamp their feet and whistle.

Mr Plattfuss continues: ‘If this country is good enough to have, it is good enough to hold. To hold it we need defence. But it is a weak excuse indeed for an eligible man to say he will stay here and defend us rather than sign up. One look at all the devastation and destruction in England will show the calamitous absurdity of such a thought.

‘Since Nazism first commenced its assault on civilisation Australia has devoted many millions of pounds to the building of war material and munitions. We hear the word sacrifice when people talk of this war. Is it a sacrifice or is it a privilege to share in the service of one's country, a country in which personal freedom is given the greatest possible latitude?'

Mr Plattfuss takes a deep swig of his bitter. The men watch as he replaces the glass neatly on its beer mat and turns back to his notes.

‘I hear you ask, what will
you
get out of this war? Well, the modern soldier is a man of science. The days of hewing away with a sword or bayonet through the ranks of the enemy are gone. This war will be won by machines. By men who can match their pluck with their skill.

‘The army will give you expensive, valuable training for free. Each unit requires specialised knowledge which can only be obtained through a rigorous course of scientific study. Am I the right man for this skilful work? I hear you ask. Yes, is the reply. If you can drive a car you can manoeuvre a tank, if you can sail a boat you can command a battleship, if you can fly a kite you can bellyroll a bomber.'

The men cheer. Mr Plattfuss waits until the noise dies down before continuing.

‘The Forces will take you away from dull routine to life in the open air, association with clean-living, disciplined and fit young men in a fellowship of immortal comradeship. I ask all of the men here tonight, whatever your age and fitness, to visit the One-In, All-In Train tomorrow and think seriously about your future. Thank you and good evening.'

Mr Plattfuss downs the rest of his bitter during the applause and is quickly presented with another. The men ask to see the slides again and he flicks backwards and forwards leaving the last slide – an aerial torpedo – shimmering on the wall of the pub.

Robert has three more rum and cloves and then some beer from the jug of a man he doesn't know. He listens to Mr Plattfuss complain about the selling off of his prize cows and the difficulties of working with people rather than animals.

It's getting late, the pub talk is getting louder. Men loosen or remove their ties, they slouch at the bar or sit back to front on chairs or lean on each other. There are hoots and cheers as bets and contests are won and lost. They challenge each other to scull a pot or roll a beer mat furthest along the floor. Mr Plattfuss is no longer around but Robert doesn't remember him leaving. The man who keeps filling Robert's glass looks familiar although Robert can't quite place him. He is unused to so much beer – he is full up with liquid, sloshing about in himself.

‘Do I know you?' he asks the plain looking man, and waits head cocked, mouth open, for the reply.

‘You could say so, Mr Pettergree. You could say you know me.' The man looks tired, worn out before his time. He grimaces, seems to be deciding something.

‘I'm just another mug farmer, that's me. You must know a truckload of 'em.'

Robert thinks about this for a minute. ‘Is it something to do with me? Have I misled you at some time?' he asks, but he slurs his words and the ‘misled' comes out as ‘missiled' which makes him laugh.

The man's anger rises suddenly. He spits at Robert, ‘Funny? You think it's funny? You humiliate me in front of everyone, you cause me to lose my crop, my mortgage, my insurance, and you think it's funny?' The man rubs the knuckles on his right hand. ‘Strewth, who do you think you are, Pettergree, the bloody oracle?'

Robert shifts in his seat. ‘Ah, I think I can place you . . . Les . . . red land at Towaninnie. Les Noy. My wife said you'd been to visit. I think it was a while ago . . .' Robert trails off trying to think exactly what Noy had brought and if he should be thanked.

Noy's face is reddening and getting blotchy with it.

‘Outside.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Outside, man, now.' He kicks out at the barstool as he stands. It looks more childish than menacing.

Robert scans the bar for a familiar face. Most of the older men have left. He wishes that Ern McKettering were there, leaning against the wall in his white cricket boots. He stands unsteadily and heads for the door. Noy has twisted the shoulder of his jacket into a tight handle. He pushes Robert firmly from behind. It looks almost friendly to anyone watching – anyone not sober, that is. Robert is marched through the front door, along the footpath and around the back of the hotel. A fire flickers in a 44-gallon drum amongst the outhouses and stacks of empty beer barrels and rubbish bins. A small group of men stand around the drum drinking from bottles in brown paper bags. Noy shoves Robert towards the stack of barrels.

‘You're cock-eyed, man. You go around doling out advice – do this, do that – and it's just stuff you've read in books, for chrissakes. Let me tell you, Pettergree, anyone can read a book, a bloody nipper can read a book. Where's your bloody experience?'

Noy advances on Robert and jabs him in the chest as he speaks. Robert pushes his hand aside – not out of anger. Just to stop him touching his ribs. The drink has changed Robert's centre of balance; his head feels so light, barely there – all of him seems to be lined up behind his sharp sternum. Noy is circling him with his fists up, waiting for something, a defence, or the first jab.

Robert forces himself to think. ‘Did you plant the superior variety, Mr Noy?' He's aware of how ridiculous this sounds and how the circle of men around the fire has dissolved and formed again – around him and Noy. ‘Did you use the right additives?'

‘Strewth.' Noy swings a punch at Robert's head but it just misses. ‘Come on, put 'em up, put 'em up. You're not a farmer's bootlace, Pettergree. You're not a farmer's fucking backside.'

Robert crosses his arms over his chest. He loses his balance and stumbles sideways onto an empty barrel. His voice is barely more than a whisper. ‘Do you have a wife, Mr Noy? I think . . . a man as a single unit of production . . . it isn't viable.' Tears wash across his face. His voice is caught somewhere deep in his throat. ‘A wife. To provide for a wife is essential . . .'

Noy slaps his fists against his sides in frustration. You can't hit a man when he's down, especially not if he's down
and
crying like a child. The circle of men shuffles back a few steps – it's over. Noy feels strangely responsible for Robert. He brought him out here and now he's slumped in the dirt with his head in his hands making everyone uncomfortable.

‘Get up. Come on, get up.'

Robert doesn't move. Noy tries to pull him up by his collar but he's a dead weight.

A dark haired man with a pretty pair of false teeth steps forward. ‘Leave it, mate. You'll rip his bloody clothes off.'

The man introduces himself to Les Noy as Neville Frogley, a labourer who likes a spot of fishing and who did some work here a while back during the sand drift. Frogley drags Robert to his feet and holds him steady under the arms.

‘You see, young Leslie, there's better things can be done with 'im. He's a regular Mr Magic he is. We'll be making a quid or two out of him tonight. Our Mr Pettergree has a special talent, and as we know, it's not for the growin' of wheat.'

Robert tries to protest. He tells them that he doesn't do the tasting anymore. That he only did it for Lillian, his mother, who had things hard in the old country, that's he's dedicated his life to science . . . But the men just laugh and drag him further off into the darkness.

— 27 —

A NIGHT OF SOIL

N
eville Frogley props Robert up on a sugar gum stump on the outskirts of town. Les Noy keeps the beer coming. They charge a pound a bet. It crosses Frogley's mind that advanced drunkenness may reduce Robert's ability. It doesn't.

Robert tastes white soil from the shores of Lake Tyrrell, black soil from Horsham, red soil from Wyche-proof, soil laced with pepper (stating correctly that it is white pepper not black), soil mixed with kalsomine, soil moistened with kerosene, soil mixed with shit.

He can barely hold himself up. Neville Frogley feeds the soil through Robert's lips with his fingers then leans in to catch the slurry, mumbled verdict.

Robert's mind flicks backwards – his mother's red hair, Uncle Will and his pigeons, years of lonely evenings in the library, the honey car, starting the tractor on a cold morning, the first harvest, Jean watering the house plants in her cotton slip, Jean pale and weak in hospital asking him to open the curtains and let in the Mallee sky . . .

He is aware enough to recognise some of the men that stand around him. He is aware enough to see his humiliation clearly. A scientist – a failed scientist – performing tricks like a circus freak. There is no going back, he thinks to himself. There is no way to recover from this.

Neville Frogley makes six pounds four shillings and threepence. He gives Les Noy half and disappears just as the magpies start warbling and the first light is spreading softly through the trees.

Noy waves the money in front of Robert. ‘How much do you want then, mate – for services rendered?' Robert stares into his face for a second then splatters vomit across his shoes.

Noy looks around at the remains of the fire and the empty beer bottles and Robert slumped sideways on the tree stump. ‘Strewth. Why do I always get left holding the baby?'

Robert comes home not long after dawn. I hear him opening and closing the drawers on the sewing machine. I pull the coverlet around me and go to see what he's up to.

‘Where's the tape measure?'

He looks rough. His suit is crumpled and dusty, as if he's been out in a soil storm. He takes off the coat and then his shirt. The white cotton is flecked with fine red soil, giving it a rosy hue.

‘The tape measure?'

‘Bottom drawer.' I know what he's doing. The minimum AIF chest measurement is thirty-two inches with two inches for expansion. A pigeon chest distorts the chest but it doesn't increase it. The outward swell at the sternum is more than offset by the flattening of the ribs. Front on it might not be noticeable, but the tape measure doesn't lie.

He struggles to get the tape around his back.

‘Can you help me?'

I take the two ends and slide it up – across his nipples. He smells of beer and soil and vomit. My hands brush his upper arms where the firm muscle puckers and folds into the softness of his armpits.

‘It isn't going to work. It's just thirty, and barely that.'

‘Maybe they'll have a different tape?'

‘Last time I heard there is only
one
way of measuring.'

Robert twists to pull his shirt back over his shoulders. ‘I can't see why it matters so much. I'm as fit as the next man.'

‘Perhaps you need a certain width for a decent target. Perhaps it's an international rule of war and the Huns have the same requirement. Just to make it fair, of course.'

‘You're being ridiculous, Jean.'

‘No. I'm being honest.'

We both look down. All of the drawers on the sewing machine cabinet are open. Robert stands dully, tired. Then he breathes in sharply through his mouth, leans down and takes the little parcel of letters from the second drawer. He holds them in the palm of his hand and sorts through them with slow concentration, as though looking for something misfiled.

‘Who gave you these?'

I snatch the letters off him and hold them in front of me.

‘I saw your handwriting on the envelopes. I'm the one that should be angry here.'

‘I didn't read them,' he says casually.

‘You lied to me. You prevented me from helping a friend. Ohno has been sent to prison, Robert, and he has nobody.'

He starts to do up his buttons. His mouth is held tight with pride but his face is hurt and loose around it.

‘Your heart was always elsewhere.'

‘My heart? My heart? How can you talk about my heart?' I put the heels of my hands on his chest and push him backwards, his thigh catches on the edge of the sewing machine. He winces and rubs at it. He looks surprised. Confused.

‘My heart has always been here for you. Everything was about love – can't you see that? Every experiment, every sample, every hopeless loaf of bread, it was all about love, Robert. My love for you. And what did you give me? Useless rules. Where is the heart in your useless rules? The rules don't mean anything, Robert. They just get in the way of you seeing things how they really are. They get in the way of the truth.'

The sun is rising. It streams in through the open kitchen door refracting a long blade of light across the floor between us. We stare at each other across the kitchen, across the blade of light. Robert seems tired and weak. Exhausted. One of his shoulders droops low, his arm hanging slackly from it so he seems to be listing or struggling against a head wind. I take his slack arm, walk him to the door and stand behind him. The sunlight is bright and glittery and he puts out his hand to shade his eyes.

‘What do you see, Robert? Tell me what you see.'

We stand in silence for a minute. I put my arms around him from behind and knot my fingers together across his chest. His back blots out my view but I can smell the day as it starts to unfold. The aroma of the soil baking on a low, strong heat, the dry wheat, the nose-twitching sting of the peppercorn tree. I lean on Robert and nudge him forward. I want us to move out from the frame of the door into the day together. He shakes his head. Then he unlaces my fingers from across his chest and shrugs me off.

‘Robert?' I reach out to him again, try to hold him to me. I want him to feel my body through my nightdress. I want to push against him so that there are no spaces between us, just layers of skin and flesh and muscle and bone. I want him to feel me as I am.

I hear him swallow and feel him hardening through his trousers, but then he pushes me aside and lurches through the door.

‘It's too late, Jean. It's too late now.