In the bank my work seems to be deteriorating. If not for Frank’s support I would be in Watkins’ office every second day.
Frank leans over me.
Jack, he says.
Yes, Frank.
You see that form there, on top of the stack?
Yes.
That’s a deposit.
Funny man.
So why did you just enter it as a withdrawal?
Oh shit. Did I?
Yes. Do you think you could do me a favour, just a small one.
Sure. What is it?
Just balance one day a week. That would be a big help.
He’s right. I’ve lost concentration. All day I think of May and Margaret, the one I have and the one I want. The whore and the Madonna, no, she’s not, May, she’s not a whore, but Margaret is a Madonna.
Watkins is standing over me.
Yes, I say.
My office, Muir, says Watkins. If you wouldn’t mind.
I follow him, imitating his angular gait. I see Bill Foley suppress a laugh. Haines sneers.
Watkins sits and I remain standing.
Your work is deteriorating, Muir.
Is that so, I say.
Yes. It might then be timely to remind you that you already occupy one of the lowest positions in the bank and that the only other low position is already occupied.
Is that so.
I know you think you are funny, Muir, but funny doesn’t help you maintain a position in The Colonial Bank of Australia, Australia’s first and finest bank.
Is that ... all you have to say, Mr Watkins?
Know that you have been warned, Muir.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate the warning.
I lie. What I really want to do is drag the racist bastard outside in the street, remove all his clothes, tie him to a tree, douse him with honey and wait for the ants. I don’t. After dark I go to May’s house.
When I get home I sleep in short stints. Something is wrong with my dreaming. I can fly but have great difficulty maintaining direction. I wake up from two dreams after I crash into trees. I turn my light on and read until it’s time to get up for work.
I am in Byrne Brothers buying a pair of underpants. There is not a great range but when it comes to underpants, I’m practical. I look for Bonds. I can’t find them. There’s another brand. I am thinking about buying them when I look up and see May. She is looking at me.
May, I yell, hello.
She smiles and turns her head.
I walk up to her.
May, what are you buying?
I want to put my arms around her and if kissing was what we did I would kiss her, but it isn’t so I don’t. I still want to. Outside, in the light of the day and in the big open spaces of Byrne Brothers shopping market, she looks great. Her perfect figure is not disguised by her simple dress. Her hands are soft and feminine and I take one in my hand. She pulls it away.
Jack, not here, she says.
No.
When I get back to the bank I realise I forgot to buy underpants.
Haines is a piece of shit. His mouth rests in a permanent sneer and nasty stuff comes out of it. Watkins is a racist prick. All the bank johnnies are shits. Except Foley and Franky. And Prem. But the rest, all shits. Why are they shits? Because they shit me. All right maybe not pure shits, like Haines, but sometimes they are so close I can’t tell the difference and sometimes they are so far from Haines that I almost want to tell them about the life I am living alongside them but I never do because they are boring and their lives are lived around the Jungle Bar, the Moroki Club, or the bank mess where their faces are often stuck in car manuals, bank statements or letters from home. Franky is okay. When I arrived he knew stuff I didn’t but now I seem to know more than him, about sex, at least. The bank johnnies aren’t really living here, just saving money for that car, that house, maybe a horse, a plane, who knows, but whatever it is it’s back in Australia. They don’t mix with the locals, the whites or blacks. If a local doesn’t have a bank account with us, they don’t exist.
I look across at Franky. His machine seems bigger than ever.
Franky, I say.
Yes, Jack. What can I do for you?
How long are we going to live like this?
I don’t know about you, Jacky boy, but I’ve only got three months to go and then I’m out of here.
I look down at May. She looks up at me.
May.
Yes, Jack.
You’re beautiful.
She laughs.
Your breasts are perfect, I say. They fit your body nicely. Your legs are strong and have well formed calves. Your waist is delightful, your arms have muscles, but it is your eyes that reveal your soul.
May shakes her head.
May, I want you to marry me. Marry me, May.
We both laugh.
I’m serious.
No, Jack. You must not marry me.
I love you, May.
She turns her face away. Then back.
Jack, you must marry a missas.
A what?
A missas, a white woman.
I roll on my side. She thinks I should marry a white woman? All this lovemaking, for what? For nothing, meaningless, just a romp in her single bed in her little shack on the side of the hill, right next door to the Lutheran Church. She thinks I should return to my own kind, my skin group, and she to hers. I have a lump in me, a thing that has been growing ever since I arrived in the highlands, it feels like a huge potato and it is lodged in my chest. My body heats up, my face fills with red. I look at my pink, freckly, blotchy skin. I hate it. I hate my kind, my race, my family. I hate Australia. And I hate myself. Not for the first time, but this time it isn’t about sin, or Jesus and God, or the others, the bullies, the teachers, the parents, the older brother, this time is about me, the me I have become, the only me I know but a me that I am sure is not the real me. The me I have become is a drunken, random fucking machine that fucks anything that moves and it is the way it is because of my white colonial skin, my pink blotchiness. May allows me in because she pities me. Or can she see the other me, the real me, the me in pain, the sick and demented me that seems to have lost his way, or never found a way? Maybe I’m going troppo. They say it happens up here. The lump in my chest wants to break out and splash its pus on anything near it, poison it, drown it in its thick, sick, yellowness.
My body shakes and takes quick shallow breaths. I can’t let May see me cry. I roll back on top of her and thrust my lips at hers, but they never meet. May too has never let me kiss her, never let my lips touch hers, let my tongue in her mouth, our faces have never met full on, pressed into each other, sucked each other. May has only ever allowed cheek to cheek facial contact.
May doesn’t have any salt in her little house. She has sugar and tea and a bowl of fruit and vegetables I haven’t learnt the names of yet.
I bury my face in her exquisite shoulder and push my lizard into her.
Oh, May.
She lets me in and I push as hard and as far as I can in an effort to reach a point too far, so far in returning will be impossible, but once inside her loveliness my sad and filthy whore fucking body finds new strength, new life, and begins moves it has learnt well. It doesn’t take long, it never does, and when it all arrives in one sudden burst and keeps on arriving I keep on thrusting and laugh and cry and push my face into the pillow so May can’t see it.