He called out, ‘Hey!’ so I walked over.
The dust from the Naumkeg machine had given Tom Seddon a cough. The blowing system of the Modern Shoe Company was not efficient. It only drew away part of the dust. The remainder floated around his machine.
An inflated pad covered with emery paper revolved at terrific speed before him. He held the sole of a shoe against it. It grated and vibrated.
A large galvanised funnel gaped over the spinning pad. Emery and leather dust flew from the shoe and was sucked into the blower’s mouth. A dull roar came from the cavity. Behind it a large tube like a snake stretched along the wall and out into a collector standing in the yard.
Dust that escaped the uprush of air floated around Tom’s head. His hair was sprinkled with dust. It clung to the edges of his nostrils and to his lips.
He placed the shoe on the rack and hurriedly rubbed his hands on his hips.
‘I brought him home last night.’
‘Did you!’ I replied. ‘Was he as ill as you thought?’
‘He’s crook all right. We got up there about seven o’clock. It’s right in the bush. The ambulance blokes reckoned we’d never make it.’
‘Had he met with an accident?’ I asked. ‘The telegram didn’t say much.’
He placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes as if there was gravity in what he was about to say.
‘He’s gone cranky,’ he whispered. ‘Mad. . . . He’s as mad as a snake.’
He wet his lips. His face took on an expression of bewilderment. ‘It’s not in the family. It’s . . .’ His lips fumbled. His eyes were desperate hands that clung. ‘How is it? . . . What? . . . I dunno. . . . He’s only eighteen. . . . He’s only a kid. His poor mother . . . I dunno. . . .’
‘How do you mean, “cranky”?’ I asked. ‘Was he delirious?’
‘No! No!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘He’s just plain cranky.’
He glanced round the factory. He moved his face nearer to mine and whispered with conviction, ‘It’s them bloody books that done it. The books and the bush and . . . and . . . He’s so young . . . bad habits, see . . . bad habits. . . . When we was comin’ home he says, “You oughta told me about it when I was young, dad.” See. He’s not mad all the time. He’s sensible sometimes. And he says that just lookin’ at me like . . . in the ambulance and the blokes drivin’ . . . and me sittin’ there. . . . “You oughta told me about it when I was young, dad.” . . . Just that. . . .’
I moved helplessly then said, ‘Poor chap.’
Tom coughed. He drew a handkerchief across his mouth, gathering the spittle into its folds.
‘Did he know you when you got there?’ I asked.
‘Yes. The farmer chap he was workin’ for met us at the gate. He said he sent us a telegram as soon as he saw the way Ted was goin’. Ted didn’t sleep in the house with them. He had a hut away across the paddock. We walked over in the dark. You could hear him singin’ a mile off.
‘The farmer chap told us when we were goin’ over. He said he looked into the cowshed one day and Ted was kneelin’ down holdin’ two dogs by their collars. He was holdin’ them apart, see. One was a hell of a fighter and savage like; the other was a quiet dog. Ted was sayin’ to the wild one, “Now you must learn selfcontrol. Til get you like this dog in time. Don’t you go pickin’fights.” The farmer said he knew he was cranky, then.’
‘What happened when you got to the hut?’
‘One of the ambulance blokes knocked. Ted came to the door and said, “Who the hell are you?” The ambulance bloke said, “Your old man’s out here.” “You’re a bloody liar,” Ted said. Then he came out of the hut and saw me and he said, “God! it is the old man,” and he shook hands and said, “What the hell you doin’ up here, Dad?” and I asked him was he sick and he said said, “Sick as a dog, Dad. Sick as a dog.” Then he grabbed me by the arm and says, frightened like, “I get visions. I see things. I see things at night, Dad. By God, I do!”
‘So we got him to the ambulance.’
Tom’s arms hung heavily by his side as if he were tired.
‘Did he make any fuss about leaving?’ I asked.
‘No, he just came quiet. But he kept pickin’ the ambulance blokes comin’ home. He says once, “Are we on the right road?” and when one of the chaps said, “Yes,” he said, “Excuse me, you’re a bloody liar.” They didn’t like it. One of them said, “He’s not so mad,” and Ted went off the handle then and said, ‘I’ll slap you down, son. I’ll fix you. I’ll kill you.” I said, “You’ll kill no one,” and he says, quietly like, “Yes, that’s right. I won’t.”’
‘You got a doctor, I suppose?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ sighed Tom. ‘When we got home I didn’t know what to do. I went in first. His mother’s a good woman. She was knitting in front of the fire. They were all up. They waited up for us. I said to Mary, “Now don’t be alarmed,” but she jumped up and dropped her knitting and looked at me and didn’t speak, and the girls there, frightened. . . .
‘And then she said, “Tell me. What’s wrong with him? Tell me, quick,” and I said, “He’s just a bit delirious. Don’t take any notice.” Then Ted came in and danced a jig and us all round him lookin’, and he kept singin’ “Ta ra a boomdeay”. His mother cried. She is a good woman.’
His head dropped. He looked at his thick, calloused fingers and the hairs on the back of his hands, grey with leather dust.
‘The doctor said he’d have to have a lot of baths.’
‘Cold baths, I suppose,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Cold baths are too invigorating, he says. They are to be very hot. We got to weaken him, the doctor says.’
‘That’s strange, but I suppose he will know what he is doing.’
‘Look,’ said Tom self-consciously, ‘I was telling the wife about you. You know about people and that sort of thing. Come out one night, will you? You could quieten him down. He frightens them now. I told the wife. Could you come out and have a talk with him. We haven’t got much of a home. . . .’
‘Of course I’ll come out,’ I said. ‘To-morrow night? Will that suit you?’
‘That’ll do fine.’
I climbed the steps on to the veranda and knocked at the door. The life that had breathed from the house was suddenly stilled. Then the noise of moving chairs and the patter of bare feet on linoleum.
The door opened. I looked down on a little boy, the whiteness of whose ragged shirt was slashed by the leather bands of old braces. Their hold on his trousers was insecure and depended on the strained necks of three buttons.
‘Is your father in?’ I asked.
Against the lighted doorway of a room at the end of a passage Tom appeared carrying a baby.
‘Is that you, Mr McCormack? Come in. Here—’ He handed the baby to a little girl behind him. He strode down the passage and behind him the doorway filled with the black shapes of other children.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Look out for the step. Run inside, Jim. Now do what I tell you. Look out you don’t trip over the mat, Mr McCormack. I’m always telling Mum to shift it.’
I entered and stood waiting.
‘Go right through. They’re all here. We’re glad you came. Are you there, Mum? Here’s Mr McCormack.’
A stout woman pushed aside the children and waited at the entrance to the room. She wiped her hands on her apron. I shook her damp hand and smiled at her. She stood aside for me to enter and I saw a blue dress—unbelievably blue and beautiful—a rumpled heap of silk in the middle of a clothless table. An electric sewing machine crouched behind it, and before the machine, a thin, tired girl who looked at me a little self-consciously. Other dresses lay heaped in a basket at her feet.
Beside the girl sat a young man. His thickly knotted tie formed a half-circle from his neck to the V of his striped, navy-blue vest. His oiled, wavy hair was brushed straight back. Above the delicate tongue that swept along a cigarette paper’s gummed edge his hazel eyes surveyed me with soft friendliness.
An old woman sat before the fire.
‘This is my mother, Mr McCormack—Mrs Rodgers.’
I clasped a blue-veined hand and looked into a face broken with crevices like the dried bed of a swamp. Her eyes, like two remaining pools, looked thankfully upon me as if I were blessing her by my presence.
I held her hand and said, ‘You look young to be the grandmother of so many children.’
‘Dear me, yes. Dear me.’ She looked around at them. ‘They’re all my grandchildren except Mick here, and he goes with Annie.’
‘How are you, Mick?’ I nodded at the youth with the tie who held his hand out across the table. I took it, then held my hand towards the girl who shook it gravely.
‘And that’s Ted over there,’ said Tom.
A tall, well-built youth was sitting in the corner behind the grandmother’s chair. He was looking at me with the interest of a child at a circus, his lips apart. His sad face was dark-ringed beneath his tired eyes. His cheeks were hollow. He rose and came round to me. His people were silent and still.
He took my hand and said, ‘I know you, don’t I? No, I don’t know you. You’re a friend of the old man’s. How are you?’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘You’re bald,’ he said looking at my head.
There was a embarrassed silence so I laughed and said, ‘Yes, I’ve been that way for twenty years.’
Ted returned to his seat and sat watching me. Annie continued her sewing. The machine whirred.
‘What did you think of the fight last night?’ asked Mick.
‘Good,’ said Ted.
‘Shut up. You weren’t there,’ said Mick.
‘No. I saw it in a vision,’ Ted said.
I discussed fighting. Mick was a boxer. Occasionally Ted made irrelevant interjections in a loud voice.
The children were sent to bed.
‘Ted’s got photos of all the fighters in his room,’ said Mick.
‘Take Mr McCormack in and show them to him, Ted,’ said the father. ‘I’ll get your hot bath ready.’
‘I don’t want no hot bath,’ said Ted rising. ‘Come with me.’
I followed him into a room opening off the passage. A single bed was against the wall. Above the bed hung a large coloured picture of Christ. His heart was exposed, surrounded by thorns. Drops of blood clung to his body. He was pointing to a hole in his hand from which blood also flowed. The face was characterless and insipid.
Ted sat on the bed. I pulled a chair from against the wall and sat opposite him. He looked vaguely round the room. He moved his finger through the air. ‘It’s winning. Yes, it’s winning.’
‘Who’s winning?’ I asked.
He looked at me as if he had not seen me before. He leant towards me and said, pointing to the picture of Christ, ‘See that bloke there. You think he’s a pansy because he’s got curly hair.’
I looked at the picture and said, ‘He’s all right.’
‘He watches me.’
‘That’s nothing. Don’t take any notice of him.’
‘No.’ He spoke thoughtfully. He raised his head and looked round the room like an animal in a cage.
‘I’ve been up in the bush,’ he said.
‘I like the bush.’
‘They had pigs up there.’
He turned to me and said earnestly, ‘They fed them on pollard. Now I had a scheme.’ He tapped the palm of his hand with a finger. ‘Those pigs were getting too much nourishment. I put water with their pollard instead of milk. They got like racers. They were healthy and used to rip round the yard.’
‘I’d like to have seen those pigs,’ I said.
‘I know things. I’ve got knowledge. That’s only one of the things I thought of.’
He suddenly changed his tone. ‘Can you fight?’ He thrust his head towards me.
I smiled. ‘No,’ I said.
‘Look, I’ll go you. What do you thinl of politics?’
‘What do you?’
‘Look, are you giving me lip?’
‘No.’
‘I think you’re windy,’ Ted went on. ‘You never want to be scared of anyone. A chap came at me up in the bush. I was going to have a swipe at him, but he was too big. But you don’t want to show ’em that you’re windy. I knew a little cove up there. When I say, “Sit down or I’ll crack you,” he sits down straight away.’
He put his head back and began laughing. His laughter was silent and shook his big body. He rocked and laughed.
I watched him. ‘What are you laughing at?’ I asked at length.
‘You know old Bonner, the chap I worked for?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s a bloody fool.’
He kept on laughing. I grinned and then began laughing with him. He placed his hand on my shoulder. We looked into each other’s eyes and laughed together.
I’m rats, I thought.
The father walked in. ‘What are you two laughing at?’
‘Sit down, Tom,’ I said. ‘Ted’s just been telling me about the bloke he worked for. You needn’t worry over Ted. He’s all right.’
‘I’ve mastered it now,’ said Ted defiantly.
‘Of course you have,’ I said.
‘He gets crook at nights sometimes,’ said Tom.
‘I don’t believe in them visions any longer,’ said Ted. ‘It’s only a headache I’ve got, that’s all.’
‘That’s good,’ said Tom. ‘He has to have a bath every night,’ he said to me. ‘He has to lie in it.’
‘Can I have a medium cold one to-night?’ asked Ted.
‘No,’ said Tom decidedly. ‘Don’t make a fuss to-night. Jack has just come home.’
‘Jack can go to hell,’ said Ted rising. ‘I’m not going to have a bath.’
‘It’s always the same,’ Tom said to me. ‘We got to tip him in the bloody bath. I’ll have to get Jack. Jack!’ he called.
Ted stood against the wall breathing deeply.
A man of about twenty-three walked in. He was thick-set and resembled his father. Tom introduced us.
‘Jack, you’re a bastard. I like you and I don’t like you,’ cried Ted.
‘That’s all right,’ said Jack. ‘You come and have your bath.’
‘You go to hell.’
‘You get on one side of him, Dad.’
The two men moved towards the youth. He shrank closer to the wall, his face expressing revulsion at the thought of being touched. He drew a breath, expelled it with sudden despair as they closed with him, then struggled furiously, bracing his legs and lowering his chin upon his chest.
The father and elder son clung determinedly to his arms, the father striving to twist the one he clutched, up behind Ted’s back; Jack seeking a wrist-lock.
Ted gasped and swore. He whirled savagely. The father swung outwards and collided with the end of the bed. Ted jerked his arm free and, turning, sought to tear himself away from his brother who had flung both arms around his waist.
‘I’ll kill this son of yours,’ Ted gasped to the father. He raised a fist for a rabbit-killing blow on the back of Jack’s neck. The father sprang forward and wrapped his strong fingers round the youth’s throat, bearing him backwards so that the three crashed on the bed. Ted struggled desperately, but the father clung to his hold and Ted’s struggles grew weaker.
Jack clapped a wrist-lock on his brother’s weakening arm.
‘What about it? Don’t choke him, Dad. I’ve got him now. Let up. . . .’
Tom drew back. Ted lay gasping on the bed, his eyes closed.
‘Jesus!’
‘Now will you have your bath?’ asked Jack, increasing the pressure on Ted’s wrist.
‘You’re in the best position now,’ panted Ted, ‘but not for always. I’ll have my bath.’
Still gripping his wrist, Jack lifted him to a sitting position. Ted sat with his head drooping forward, making faint sounds of distress. He raised his head at last.
‘I’ll fight you anywhere, Jack—in the ring, in the back yard, down the beach.’
‘Next week,’ said Jack. ‘Come on now.’
Ted rose. Mick was standing at the door.
‘Look at that dope,’ said Ted. ‘Why didn’t you hop into the old man?’
‘He’d of belted me,’ said Mick.
‘You’re only sissified, that’s all,’ Ted said.
‘Like hell,’ said Mick.
‘That’s right,’ Ted said vaguely, his mind suddenly swinging away.
‘Come on,’ said Jack.
He followed us quietly, through the kitchen, across the little back yard, through a wash-house smelling of suds and washed clothes. In a lean-to at the rear of the wash-house a galvanised bath against the wall was half-full of steaming water.
Ted began to undress. Mick, who had accompanied us, began to roll a cigarette. Jack and I sat on a wooden box Tom had dragged from the corner.
Tom stirred the water with his hand.
‘It’s got to be as hot as he can stand it,’ he explained to me.
‘Who had me by the throat?’ Ted asked.
‘I dunno. Who did?’ replied Mick.
‘Garn, you dreamt it!’ Jack put in.
‘I dreamt nothin’. I was about that far off unconscious.’ Ted held up his hand with the finger and thumb slightly apart. ‘Who ever it was, was pretty strong—the strongest man who ever held me.’
‘Hurry up,’ said Tom. ‘The water’s getting cold.’
‘Like hell it is,’ Ted said.
He lowered himself slowly into the water, his head thrown back, his face twisted. He sat a moment without moving, holding his breath.
‘Let’s go over and have some tea,’ said Tom. ‘Come on, Mr McCormack. Ted has to lie there for half an hour.’
We all walked back to the house. Ted commenced to sing from his bath:
‘My baby has goo-goo eyes . . .’
In the kitchen the mother was pouring tea. She looked up as I entered.
‘How do you think he is, Mr McCormack?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Much better than I thought,’ I replied cheerfully. ‘He’s only strange part of the time. He’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.’
‘There, what did I tell you, Mum,’ said Tom. ‘It’s only an attack.’
‘The doctor says he thinks it would be a good idea if we sent him to Royal Park Hospital for a week or two.’
‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘You do that, Tom. He’ll get the best attention there.’
‘Lots of people in the rats go there,’ said Mick. ‘They come out cured.’
‘You oughta go there, Mick,’ said Annie from behind the blue dress.
‘Annie does piece work sewing at night,’ explained the mother.
‘I’ll go and get Ted,’ said Tom, later.
He returned leading him by the hand, like a child. An overcoat was wrapped around him.
‘I’ll die. I’m dying,’ said Ted weakly. ‘I’ve got no strength left, I’m weak as a dog.’
Mick rose and walked round to help him.
‘I’m only a tea-leaf, Mick, that’s all. ‘Member when we used to pinch fruit off the barrers? We’re just a couple of tea-leafs, that’s all.’
‘I’ll go and sit on the bed with you,’ said Mick.
‘Leave him awhile,’ said Tom. ‘Talking excites him. Hop in now, Ted.’ He led him into his bedroom.
When he came back, he said, ‘He’s knocked off talking now, and is starting to twitch. Where’s those capsule things?’
His wife handed him a little bottle. ‘They make him sleep,’ she explained.
‘Two, isn’t it?’ asked Tom, holding the bottle up to the light.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I want to see that bald bloke,’ Ted called from the bedroom.
The parents, confused, looked at me quickly.
‘Give me the capsules,’ I said smiling. ‘I’ll take them into him.’
I walked into the bedroom. ‘You’ve got to take two of these,’ I said.
Ted placed the two capsules on the palm of his hand.
‘They’re like little torpedoes going down,’ he said.
‘What about water?’ I asked.
‘I can swallow them without water.’
‘Away you go then.’
He flung them into his mouth, swallowing them rapidly.
‘These people think I’m mad,’ he said, jerking his head towards the door.
‘No one thinks you’re mad,’ I said.
‘I’m mastering it,’ he said, lying down.
‘Good man.’
He closed his eyes and began breathing deeply.
I crept out.
Two months later I was passing Tom’s machine when he stopped me.
‘He’s right now. They tell me he can come out on Monday. Mick’s going to get him.’
‘I’ll go too,’ I said.
‘That’s good,’ said Tom. ‘I’d like you to meet him now he’s right. It’ll be fair to him.’
So I picked up Mick on the Monday night and we drove to the Royal Park Hospital.
‘I won’t be long,’ said Mick, alighting.
I smoked. Beyond the gates through which Mick had passed, the buildings crouched in a restless darkness. Sometimes there were sounds from within their walls, then a more pregnant silence.
They emerged suddenly. Ted carried a bag.
I leaned out of the car. ‘Whato!’ I cried. ‘Give me your bag, Ted. Hop in.’
‘Wait till I get some fresh air into my stomach,’ said Ted, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m glad to get out of that joint, by God I am!’
‘Come on,’ said Mick.
‘Hell!’ said Ted. ‘I feel good.’
‘Like a couple of rounds?’ asked Mick, his foot on the step.
‘Go on, hop in,’ said Ted, putting his hand on Mick’s shoulder. ‘I want to talk. I’ve gone rusty from misuse.’
‘Like hell, you have,’ said Mick. ‘You’re always talking.’
‘Let’s all talk,’ I said.
‘I was lucky to get out of that joint without a hiding,’ said Ted, looking back as the car moved away.
‘Pity you didn’t get one,’ said Mick. ‘It’d’ve done you good.’
Ted laughed, enjoying himself.
‘There was a cove used to come there to see somebody,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t only well-built or anything like that.’ Ted was ironical. ‘I was crook, see, and all for scrap. One day this chap chips me and I let him have one. He had a tart in tow—a nice piece—and when I crowned this bird she got the breeze up, and no bloody wonder. He got up and made a pass at me. I tonked him one where he hears. He bashed me on the molars and then slipped me one in the guts. I sat down . . . Christ, did I sit down! The warders came then and ran him out. His good sort told them off. Did she go crook! . . . strike me! But, by God! that chap could scrap.’
‘I met a bloke like that once,’ said Mick. ‘A big joker. He chipped a judy I was with. Me cobbers were near and I whistled them up. We all took a crack at him and he cleaned the lot of us up.’
‘Let’s eat,’ I said. ‘We’ll finish our talk in the cafe.’
‘I’m broke,’ said Mick. ‘I gave a bloke a couple of bob to put on Gay Mariner to-day, and he took the crash, the bastard.’
‘I’ve got enough for the lot of us,’ I said.
‘Good on you,’ said Ted. ‘Let’s have a feed, then. I’m sick of eating with loonies, poor buggers.’