Homesickness (43 page)

Garry belched.

‘Listen, Sheila. Are you having a good time?'

She stopped pulling the eiderdown.

‘I see interesting sights and customs; I like people. I think everything can be interesting.'

‘Fuck!' Garry leaned forward, ‘What sort of angle is that?' A perplexed solemnity entered his face, and held. ‘I feel we're the odd ones out.' He was breathing heavily, looking at her. ‘We're the dark horses, you and I. They know fuck-all about us.'

Someone coughed.

‘I had never thought…' Sheila started.

Garry nodded significantly. Think about it.'

He sat up and raised his chin like a rooster: ‘And you know the other dark horse?'

‘Who?'

‘Old Gerald…'

‘I think that's unkind. He's very nice.'

She had hardly spoken to Gerald but knew his way of trailing, of holding back.

Garry laughed, slapping his knee. ‘We understand each other, you and I. We're in this together.'

Sheila frowned as he kept nodding his head.

‘Please don't smoke now. I won't get to sleep. These narrow cubbyholes…'

‘Fair enough, fair enough.'

‘Some of us are trying to sleep'—voice next door; Gerald's. Others too lay awake, storing each others' secrets.

Sheila whispered to Garry. ‘You'd better go.'

Sitting up, the white surface of one of her breasts appeared, a partial eclipse of the moon.

Lurching towards her, Garry changed his mind in midair.

‘To sleep!' he shouted instead. ‘To sleep!' Struggling to his feet he swayed: shooting his arms out horizontally, he tried to hold. His sunglasses struck the dressing-table, scattering tinted shards over Sheila's little handkerchiefs and postcards; and he fell against the jerry-built partitions, enough to punch in the lower panel.

‘For goodness sake,' Mrs Cathcart called out. ‘Doug? What's going on?'

He could sleep through an earthquake, the end of the world.

‘For Christ's sake,' Garry argued, but muffled. Most of his head and shoulders were in the next room.

‘You could be hurt!'

‘Give us a hand, Sheila. Fuck!'

Gerald had switched on the light. Someone came to Sheila's door.

‘Is everything all right?'

‘You're a pack of dull bastards!' Garry shouted. ‘Watch it, watch it.'

Kaddok had arrived with his camera and flash.

‘It's all right,' said Gerald in his dressing-gown. Bending down he tried to fit back the partition.

‘I think he's unhappy,' said Sheila trying to help.

‘Probably,' said Gerald. ‘I can't imagine why. I'll get him to his room.'

It began raining slightly and then steadily, as if the locals were throwing stones on the roof. To Sheila, as she relaxed, it was like it was back home.

This museum stood with its back to a wall as if it had been squeezed into the town. It was the tail of a broken church or a small cathedral (which?) renowned for its Dutch bell. In 1943 the nave had been blasted to smithereens and the streets showered with slate and parables in stained glass.

The Australians were talking loudly, lounging by the wall. The sunlight made them squint. A wife had to pull a husband back from a reversing vegetable truck. Beetroots were under tarpaulins like soldiers. The local people passing took no notice of them.

The keeper arrived swinging a tan spleuchan bulging with change. Pear-shaped, he looked like a priest in civvies; of course they had to pay.

There were no turnstiles, no divisions inside, no corridors. So the museum echoed.

Any movement on the formerly sacred floor was translated into sharp clatter. Any noise in this hall could only be theirs. They remained in the middle rubbing shoulders as they had so often before, a group.

‘Oy!' It multiplied something terrible.

‘For goodness sake.'

Even in the dark some liked to express themselves.

Some are strict. Others remain quiet but fidget. There was a blind man.

A fluorescent tube lit up and ran in a line towards them, igniting a second parallel row, a third, and a fourth. Several strategically placed searchlights (war surplus) were the last to come on; when it rains, it pours. The hall was rectangular, short and bare. This didn't stop them radiating in all directions.

‘It says museum in the book, definitely.'

They soon returned to the centre.

‘He charged us. Where is the bastard?'

‘They must be renovating.'

The walls and the beamed ceilings were white.

‘It could be a Wind Museum; something invisible like that.'

An Electric Light Museum?

There is one in The Netherlands.

The harsh unnatural light threw perfect shadows on the white, and because they expected or demanded more, they shifted about swinging their arms, sometimes pausing, followed by their shadows. A certain worldliness showed in the way they sauntered. Their remarks, isolated laughter, their cracks and expectations instantly showed on the wall; and magnified or isolated here were the Lantern Jaws of some. The apparition of a quiet one was characteristically weighed down on one side by the foreign phrases in his left pocket, although he had his back to the wall like the rest. The breasts of women, young and old, suggested experiences and future possibilities. Some shadows had already joined at the elbow, or merged into one with two arms, two heads but four legs. Optimism and years, gentleness, intolerance could be confirmed here by shape, posture and movement. Not everyone had noticed. They were burdened with equipment, notably the straight angles of the manufactured bag, large and small, with handles, the arm held horizontal for that purpose; impedimenta of nomads. Strange how women have been made to walk on tiptoe. Those binoculars showed as an irruption of the man's lower intestine. There was a beard; possibly a wise man. The shadows pointed back to them.

They'd returned to the centre again.

One had his feet planted apart, arms dangling at his sides, and one leg vibrating like a high-jumper about to begin his run. There was no hurry, there never was, and yet impatience showed in the foot, arm and jaw movements, and a scratching of the side of the neck, now increasing.

As so often happens someone away from the centre called out and they went over, still talking, a reflex action.

Near the entrance, which is also the exit, words had been found along the wall, possibly a work abandoned by a muralist. By watching, by contemplating, they could fill in and fit the details. Gradually, standing quietly, they began to see themselves. Possibilities included the past and the near future: it was possible to consider a sense of place, of their shape and long time. Strange sensation then. The words were being read aloud by one, and they followed remaining squashed together before disintegrating: shoulder-blades, ear, pelvis, heart, movement, elbow, nose, eyes, air, rib cage, bladder, cigarette, trees, thorax, shoes, penis, shadow, postcards, memory, mountain.