The Vintage and the Gleaning (17 page)

Charlotte keeps going over to the cabinet and looking at the porcelain cats.

Whose are these? she asks.

Florrie's, I say. I used to give them to her birthdays.

Charlotte crouches down to look into the cabinet, her hands on her knees.

You're a good man, Smithy, she says.

I didn't always remember, I say.

Charlotte opens the cabinet and starts taking the cats out, laying them across the green felt on the top. They are white with gold paws and gold around the eyes, sitting and stretching and lying and standing with their tails in the air. And I notice that their painted eyes are like Charlotte's painted eyes and today her face is somehow like a cat's face, something about it like a cat, her face perfect and proud and a cat's face never shows nothing and it has a pride and a strength because of it, because you can never tell what a cat is thinking.

Charlotte arranges and rearranges the cats. It is like a child playing. She puts them away again.

I wish you could have known Brett when he was younger, she says and stops.

God, listen to me, I'm like a one-track record.

Well you got to think these things through, don't you, I say. Better now than never.

You don't mind? she asks.

I'm here, aren't I? I say.

Charlotte is standing looking out the window, shielding her eyes.

Some days I find myself sitting at home trying to make myself remember, reminding myself what he used to be like. I just don't know whether it's there anymore. I honestly don't know.

A breeze stirs the leaves and twigs rap gently on the guttering. Charlotte looks up, listening to the scrape of metal. The breeze dies and crows call.

It's so strange, she says. It seems like it was such a short time ago, but really it was half a lifetime. Half of my life. Even so, it feels more real than things do now. It's like I've been asleep all these years, like nothing's changed, like I'm still back then and still the same, me and Brett and everything. And it's like I want to wake up but I can't. Now, I mean.

She listens for the breeze again but there is only the high sound of insects and sun.

Brett's always telling me I'm living in the past, she says. And I say, well at least it's better than living in the present. Better than living in the present with you.

But it's all over now, isn't it? I say.

Charlotte looks out the window, blinking. She rubs her eyes, a silhouette lost in the streaming sun.

Charlotte walks up and down the room.

Everything's so serious, isn't it, she says. So serious and miserable and boring. I mean, God forbid I actually ever have any fun, ever enjoy myself once in a while.

I look down at my jeans, sitting heavy on my legs. I can feel the bones through them and what's left of my muscles, shrunk and loose and smaller than what they once were, and I think of the skin gone white and powdery, pinched and folded, the thick purple lines like welts across my legs, and my arms too, where the muscles have wasted and the skin hangs. I try to remember when all that started to happen but I can't remember.

Well, you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas, Charlotte says.

Charlotte keeps pacing the room. She is restless and says so herself. I ask her if she wants to get some fresh air.

I wait while she gets dressed. It is nearly noon before we leave. We walk into town.

The sun is strong and hot and the streets are empty. We don't go in by the railway track and I realise that yesterday I didn't go in by the railway track either. Flies swarm in shady places. We pass houses.

Charlotte is wearing mustard-coloured slacks, tight like riding pants, a white singlet. She has made herself up again, even more made up than before, her lips red and her hair the colour of syrup in the midday light. Walking beside her I realise how tall she is. She is taller than me.

Starting down the hill to the curve in the street and the railway bridge, we pass the high concrete wall of the old convent and girls' primary school. The buildings are overgrown with English ivy and wisteria, coiled tightly around green copper pipes to the high terracotta roofs and reaching out over the eaves and the walls and the footpath. Where the wall has cracked and fallen I look through the dark mass of ivy to hopscotch squares on the asphalt playground, the paint faded and peeling, rusted netball hoops.

The church is just across the road, built of orange brick with a concrete saint out front on the concrete paving, small cypress trees and recently laid buffalo grass around it, well watered, thick, green and mowed. Behind the church the land falls to sparse sloping paddocks, a few sheep, lone trees, and dried out dams piled with swollen carcasses, the hides festering in dark and riddled patches, the sweet awful smell of death faint in the still hot air. And flat land and vines to the horizon.

We cut through the Rotary Club park, past the war memorial and start up Main Street, Prescott's caryard, the hardware shop, crumbling gold rush terraces, the whitewashed front of The Imperial with its iron lacework balcony and Parker's Workwear with rows of elastic-sided boots in the window, hanging wool jackets and jumpers, khaki pants, oilskins, rabbitfelt hats. Outside the post office, a eucalypt in bloom, sprays of pink on the new foliage, masses of hard, bare gumnuts behind. We go past the barber's shop and museum with its single chair of chrome and blond vinyl, the glass cases of rusted mining tools and pans, old photos and newspapers, spearheads and digging sticks, bayonets, clay pipes, mortar shells, a nugget. Joe McLaren is asleep behind the counter, his black cigaretteholder still stuck between his teeth, the cigarette dead and brown.

At the petrol station, two roan guard dogs lie chained on the concrete among crates of soft-drink bottles, their tongues out, brows twitching. They open their eyes and lift their heads to watch us pass. We are alone on the street. The buildings cast no shadows.

I stop outside the newsagent's to look at the headlines in their caged metal stands. Dot Slater is watching us from inside, eating Lions Club mints. I wave to her but she looks away. We stop outside Poachers.

You feel like a drink? I ask Charlotte.

God no, she says.

How about an ice-cream or something, I say. Hot day. Ice-cream, fizzy drink, something like that?

Charlotte is looking at the footpath.

I don't want to go into any of those places, she says.

Well, I'll go in, I don't mind, I say. You can wait outside.

We go over to the milk bar and takeaway.

You mind waiting outside? I ask.

Charlotte shrugs.

Where have you been hiding yourself then Smithy? asks Chris Johnson.

The ceiling fan is going inside the shop but it does nothing except move the air. Heat comes from the griddle and the vat of oil, the charcoal rotisserie under lights. Glen Johnson is wearing a singlet. He is a hairy man with long sideburns. Behind him there is a chalkboard with a list of things and prices. Old Big M and Chiko Roll posters are along the walls, girls in tiny bright bikinis. A video game.

I go over to the freezer and pick out an ice-cream for Charlotte.

Not a superstitious man then, ay Smithy, says Glen Johnson when I take the ice-cream to the counter.

What's that? I say.

Well, George Alister, he says. You must have heard about George Alister.

Yeah, that's right, isn't it, I say. I forgot about that. You here when it happened? I ask him.

I certainly was, he says. Happened right out there.

He nods towards the footpath where Charlotte is standing. She is standing with her arms folded and hunched over, staring at the ground, occasionally glancing up and down the street. She looks different seeing her through the window.

Like a begonia in an onion patch, says Chris Johnson. He is grinning at me.

What's that? I say.

Like a begonia in an onion patch, he says. You not know that saying?

Yeah, I know it, I say. I pay him and leave.

You all right? I ask Charlotte, handing her the ice-cream.

Can we just get off this street, she says.

I look back into the shop. Chris Johnson is watching us, still grinning. He winks at me.

Me and Charlotte go to the municipal gardens and I start walking along the path.

No, it's too hot, says Charlotte.

We sit on the grass under one of the big gums by the footpath.

I mean you'd think they'd at least plant some trees along it, says Charlotte, pointing at the path. It circles the thin grass. There are electric barbecues and children's swings and scrub and ironbarks at the far end.

I mean, who wants to go for a walk in this sun? says Charlotte. I mean, honestly.

She hasn't opened the ice-cream.

But that's typical of this town, isn't it, she says. They can't do anything properly. Everything's crap. And God forbid you have anything nice, nice clothes, anything. Because that's flash, isn't it. You wear anything nice and they call it flash and it's like an insult. You know, they have this nasty way of saying it. Flash. Isn't that flash? Aren't you looking flash? God forbid you have anything that's not utter crap, anything nice, anything flash. It's all so bloody petty, everyone around here. I'm sick of it.

She looks across the gardens drenched in full light, the grass gone pale and russet, studded with crab grass, piebald with worn patches of earth, clay and dust. The ironbarks are thickcrusted and furrowed, black as though scorched, burnt by the summer, the scrub brittle and spindly. The sky is an endless, unchanging blue.

God I hate this town, says Charlotte. I hate it so much.

You going to eat that? I ask.

I can't, says Charlotte. It's too hot. It's too hot for anything. I'm sorry Smithy. Do you want it?

She holds out the unopened ice-cream. I shake my head. Charlotte stands up.

Well, let's get back before it melts, she says. This was a bad idea. I'm sorry Smithy. It's my fault.

We walk back to the house and I put the ice-cream in the freezer.

Charlotte is sitting silent on the couch.

You got something on your mind? I ask. You want to talk about it?

No, I'm fine, says Charlotte.

Is it about Brett? I ask.

No, she says. It's not Brett. For once. It's not about Brett at all.

In the distance the school bell rings and the shouts of children. Patterns of light move slowly across the couch and the chairs and the carpet, creeping over surfaces, meeting, melding. Dust shows up on the coffee table. Heat hazes off the roof tiles. The bell rings again and the noise rises and is gone.

Charlotte sits, tracing unseen patterns on the bathrobe. Her hair has come loose, falling in places.

Cars and utes begin to pass, early knockoff from the abattoir, and I recognise the voices of men walking by. They have a jovial bark about them. Their work is over for the day and it is a Thursday, after all, payday, and on a Thursday men cannot help but start already, in a life measured in weekends. The room is cool despite the day.

I am standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of lemonade. From far off I can hear the clatter of hooves and the groan of iron-rimmed wheels on the bitumen. It comes closer, the hooves and the squeaking wheels and I go to the window to watch the Clydesdales and the carriage come along the road.

Lort Dory's son is at the reins and bearded men and welldressed women are sitting up top, holding glasses of white wine and talking, looking over the houses to the old gold mines which Lort Dory's son is pointing out to them. As the carriage rattles past they fall against each other and spill their wine and laugh.

The Clydesdales glisten with sweat and snort and shake their manes as a cloud of flies hovers and settles on them. One of the men looks down and sees me at the window. He holds up his glass and I wave and then all of them are waving to me, smiling and calling out. Lort Dory's son looks over too and he grins and shakes his head.

A boy with a schoolbag is walking along the footpath on the other side of the street. He holds up a finger at the carriage and yells something I don't hear. The faces of the tourists drop and Lort Dory's son turns and glares at the boy. And the carriage goes but the boy stays standing there with his flushed and angry face and his finger held up, yelling after them and still holding up his finger and still angry and yelling even after they are long gone.

Friday, Spit doesn't show.

When me and Roy arrive we see Wallace alone out on the vines.

What's bloody Wallace up to? says Roy, rolling a cigarette.

I get out and walk up the row. Wallace is swinging a mattock and the thud sounds across the quiet of the morning.

You got some clumping? I ask him.

Yeah, he says.

He swings the mattock over his shoulder and brings it down into the clump. The vine shakes and the blade sticks in the wood. Wallace twists it around, trying to lever it off. I watch the vine.

Nah, you're going to crack it, I say.

Wallace swears and bends over to pull out the blade. He puts the mattock down next to the open tar tin and takes off his hat, wiping his forehead.

You hear what happened last night? he asks me.

No, I say.

Wallace takes off his glasses and blows on them, flicking woodchips off the lenses.

Everyone's talking about it, he says.

He blows on his glasses again and wipes them on his singlet. We stand there looking at the clump.

What happened? I ask.

Someone smashed the cop shop window, says Wallace. Put a pig's head through it.

Jeez, I say.

Yeah, says Wallace, bloody pig's head.

He picks up the mattock and swings it. The blade sticks again and Wallace swears, pulling it out.

Copper's ropeable, he says.

I can imagine, I say.

Bloody pig's head through the glass, says Wallace. Gone right through. Whole thing come down.

He kicks the clump and the vine quivers.

Of course he knows who done it, says Wallace.