The Choke Read online

‘Not in this house!’

  ‘Are you ashamed? Is that what it is? You’re ashamed of me?’

  ‘You’re dead right, Rita. I am ashamed!’

  ‘That’s what you’re ashamed of? After what you did!’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that in my house!’

  ‘You’re worried about the way I talk? This house has more to worry about than the way I talk!’

  ‘Shut up, Rita!’ Pop was shaking.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about what’s natural, Dad! Until you can bring Mum back from the dead!’

  Pop spluttered as if Rita had made the pathways of his words crisscross and tangle; he didn’t know which one to choose. ‘Get out of here! You’re a bloody monster! Shame on you.’

  ‘Fuck you, Dad. You’re the monster!’

  ‘Get out of my house!’

  ‘I’m leaving!’ Aunty Rita took her bag off the table and went down the hall to the front door, her boots loud against the floorboards. I heard the front door open and then she came back.

  Dad hadn’t left yet. He said calmly, as if the fight hadn’t happened, ‘Forgotten something?’

  ‘Fuck off, Ray,’ said Aunty Rita, grabbing her keys from the table.

  ‘Take it easy, Rita,’ said Dad.

  Aunty Rita stopped. Her hair was dark and swept back like his, and her eyes were the same black, but just behind them was the light that came from the hospital, the light she gave to the patients. She was his big sister; she seemed to loom over him, as if she was the one who was taller. She wasn’t scared of him. She said, ‘Pop’s little man. Little Ray. Little bed-wetting Ray.’ Dad didn’t speak. He shrank. It was the only time I had seen him small, the way he was when he stood beside Lizzy’s hospital bed in 1952, thirteen years old, not much older than Kirk. He was losing something he needed, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  I followed Aunty Rita down the hall towards the front door. Pop called out, ‘Leave her, Justine.’

  I kept following. The dancing train clung to my chest, as if it was afraid it would fall. ‘Aunty Rita,’ I said.

  She turned and saw me. She kneeled down in the doorway, pulling back tears. She took my hands and kissed them. ‘Justine, it was so good to meet you. I’m so sorry.’

  Then she got up and left.

  Aunty Rita wouldn’t be scared of the patients. She would see the handcuffs, she would read the signs, and say, Are they necessary? Pinpricks of electrical light would come through her eyes. When she used the pads she would say, It won’t hurt, I promise.

  Aunty Rita saw what happened the time Pop exploded and Lizzy was in the house. Ray and Rita both saw it—they were holding hands when it happened—but Ray only opened his eyes some of the way, to shield himself. Aunty Rita let herself see it all. Aunty Rita wanted to be with Pop, to talk to him and be his friend and tell him about the hospital and the pads and drink his tea and see his chooks. She wanted to—but she had seen too much. Like John Wayne as Rooster in True Grit, she had seen the killing.

  But why did Pop say she was unnatural? Why should Pop be ashamed?

  It didn’t matter how loud the grown-ups shouted, they never gave names to things.

  I moved away from the back-house and crossed to the chook run. I stood at the wire and listened for sounds from inside. I heard rustling. I breathed in the smell of straw and feathers and Isa Brown. ‘Hey, girls,’ I whispered. ‘Hey there. Hey, ladies, hey there, here I am, it’s Justine.’ The chooks were quiet. I wanted to go inside but Pop didn’t like me to wake them. ‘Dad’s coming home soon, girls,’ I said. Cockyboy clucked a warning. I left the run and went back into the house.

  I could still hear Pop from the bedroom. If it wasn’t for Sandy. Hungry? Christ! I went into the living room and stopped at the photo. There was Dad, Rita, Pop and Lizzy standing together outside the house the day Pop bought his Three. The line of dirt that marked the fibro was there even then, encircling the house. Dad wasn’t much older than me. There was a small flower in Lizzy’s hair. I touched her face and her dress. Lizzy was buried in the cemetery. She got pneumonia; it clogged her lungs. They took her to the hospital. One day, after Dad and Pop had drunk all the beers, Ray shouted, Rita’s fucken right. It wasn’t the pneumonia, you cunt.

  I didn’t know what to do next. I looked at the photo again; Pop, Lizzy, Dad and Rita all together. But I didn’t know what to do after that. What was there to do?

  10.

  In the middle of the night I was woken by the sound of an engine. I looked out of the window and saw Dad’s truck stopping out the front. I watched as Dad opened his door and climbed out of the driver’s seat. He was tall, his hair shining black in the moonlight, his legs long, his shoulders wide. He was the reason the Worlleys left me alone; they never knew when he was coming home. It could be now, it could be tomorrow, it could be Christmas—there was no warning. I stayed at the side of my window in the dark and watched my dad pulling out his bag. He stopped to look up at the stars. He was as tall and strong as Thomas Dunson. Every time you turn around, expect to see me, I whispered at the glass. I’m gonna kill ya.

  Dad mustered in Queensland. He worked at sawmills. He went to the city. He went to Sydney. He could rope cattle. He could get them into the crush, and bring them to their knees. He could fix his own truck. He could shoot. When Pop wasn’t home he talked on the telephone. He said, How many? How much? He said, When, mate? and What time? and Shouldn’t be a problem. He said, I’ll do it. He’d laugh close to the telephone. No fucken problem at all. Then he came into the kitchen, drank milk from the bottle, spat in the sink and didn’t talk. Soon he would leave and do his jobs and help his friends and let out his secrets. Then, when everything was done and he was empty with nothing to spend, he came back to Pop’s Three—to Kirk and Steve and me. We were where he came to have a rest.

  I heard him come into the house and go to the kitchen. After a while I heard the back door slam. I lay down in my bed and closed my eyes. My wooden truck-ship and my scissors were waiting for me. I cut more layers; I put my bedroom higher and higher. I made the path going up smooth for Michael and his crutches. I cut out a holder for the crutches so they didn’t slide. We looked down and saw the forest beneath us—the leaves on the trees swirling in the wind. I kept cutting until the truck-ship reached the clouds where everything was soft and white but still I couldn’t sleep.

  In the morning, before Dad woke up, I followed Pop out the front to look at Dad’s truck. Pop lifted the bonnet. He leaned in and muttered under his breath. He ran his hand over the body, feeling for the damage he couldn’t see. I looked at the doors for new scratches and at the tyres for nails. I put my hand on the treads to see how smooth they were. I ran my hand around the front and looked at the bumper. The truck knew the story of where my dad had been; it was only the truck that could tell it.

  Pop got the fire going, and Relle dropped Kirk and Steve at the house. Pop cleaned the barbecue with steel wool. A cool wind moved the branches on the trees and shook the leaves. The fire crackled as the flames jumped. The chooks turned to look at the back-house door, then at Pop, then at Cockyboy on the edge of their circle. When when when would Dad wake up?

  Kirk put rocks on the fence posts and we took turns knocking them down with our stones. When Pop wasn’t looking Kirk shot a stone at Cockyboy. Cockyboy jumped into the air and squawked.

  Pop said, ‘What are you up to?’

  Kirk said, ‘Nothing, Pop.’

  ‘What time did he get home?’ Kirk asked me.

  ‘I don’t know. Some time in the night.’

  ‘Were you awake?’

  ‘No.’

  Kirk threw another stone. ‘This time he’s going to teach me how to shoot.’

  Steve took his knife from his pocket and said, ‘Wonder if he’ll want this back.’

  Kirk said, ‘It wasn’t him that gave it to you. It was Mum.’

  ‘It used to be Dad’s.’

  ‘Bullshit, it was never Dad’s.’

  Steve closed
his mouth tight. The knife was the only thing he didn’t have to share with Kirk.

  There were spuds and corn boiling in Pop’s billy on the fire. The sausages and chops were on ice in the esky. Pop had cold beers in the laundry. Everything was quiet, as if a movie was about to begin on the television. The branches, the birds, the fire and Pop, Kirk, Steve and me were waiting for it to start.

  At last the back-house door opened and there was Dad.

  He stood tall in his jeans with no top on and the belt in its loops undone. My tongue sped up in out in out of the hole, lips shut tight. Kirk threw another stone. ‘Got it,’ he said, as if he hadn’t noticed Dad standing on the back-house step. Once, just after Dad and Relle had a fight, Dad turned to Kirk and said, The worst of both of us rolled into one, you little bastard.

  Steve looked at Dad, then he threw a stone too.

  Pop stopped scouring the barbecue. ‘G’day, Ray,’ he said.

  Ray nodded and said, ‘Dad.’ He yawned and stretched his arms to the sky. I saw dark pockets of hair spreading open underneath. His shoulders were strung with muscle, and there was a line of hair down his stomach, leading to his jeans hanging loose around his hips. Shadows of stubble crossed his cheeks and chin. ‘You’ve grown,’ he said to me. ‘Going to give your old man a kiss?’ I walked across the yard and Dad bent down to me. I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek. He smelled of sweat and sleep and ash. I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t want him to see the hole.

  He looked past me, at Kirk and Steve. ‘G’day, boys.’

  Kirk threw another stone. Steve waited.

  Dad said, ‘You fellas are getting big. I better do what I’m told around here.’

  Kirk stood as straight as he could. He said, ‘Danny’s uncle is going to teach me how to shoot.’

  ‘Good on him,’ Dad said.

  Kirk seemed to go smaller. ‘When he gets back from Gympie.’

  Dad came down the back-house steps and went to Pop’s fire. He sat on a camp chair and said, ‘Got a beer?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Pop, and walked across the yard into the laundry. He kept his beers in an esky beside the washing machine. Soon he came out carrying two cans.

  Kirk said, ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you?’ said Pop. ‘Go and get the bread and the plates.’

  Kirk grumbled and went into the kitchen.

  ‘Help him, Justine,’ said Pop. I got up and followed Kirk.

  In the kitchen Kirk picked up a pile of plates. He said, ‘When I learn to shoot you’ll be my first target.’

  I looked through the kitchen window and saw Dad throw a piece of wood on Pop’s fire. ‘You’ll never learn how to shoot,’ I said. I picked up the knives and forks.

  ‘My first target.’ Kirk pointed his finger at me as if it was a gun.

  ‘If you could shoot,’ I said.

  When we came back out into the yard we heard Dad say to Steve, ‘What are you up to?’

  Steve kept his eyes on a small stone in his hands. ‘Nothing,’ he said. When I looked at Steve it was as if there was a ditch all around him too wide to jump. If you shone a torch into it, you’d never see the bottom. Steve couldn’t get across by himself; it was only Dad who could help him. Every time Dad went away—to Bathurst or Sydney or the Territory or Melbourne or Cairns—the ditch around Steve deepened and grew darker.

  I remember the first time I saw it. Steve was seven and Dad was just home, just through the door. He’d been away a long time and Steve ran to Dad, and shouted, I’ve grown. Look at the mark on Pop’s wall, Dad. Look! and he pointed to the mark. His face was so light, his smile so wide, his cheeks pink. See how tall see, see! and he put his arms around Dad’s legs. I watched as Dad set him back. You got your mother’s height, poor bastard, he said, and laughed. He turned away from Steve and I saw the ground split open around him.

  Dad said, ‘How old are you now? Started high school yet?’

  Steve said, ‘Eleven. Fifth class.’

  ‘Want an arm wrestle?’ Dad said.

  Steve looked up from his hands. ‘Yeah!’ He sat in a chair next to Dad and Dad pulled over the card table.

  ‘Arm up,’ said Dad.

  Steve put his arm up against Dad’s. Steve’s was thin and white, and Dad’s was strong with dark hair.

  Pop got up from his chair and put his hand over theirs. ‘On the count of three,’ he said. ‘One…two…three!’

  Steve tried as hard as he could to press Dad’s hand down onto the table. He strained and pushed and his face turned red.

  ‘Go, Steve, go!’ said Kirk.

  Pop said, ‘Go, Steve! Go, mate!’

  Cockyboy squawked from the fence.

  ‘Push, Steve, push! Go! Go!’ we shouted.

  Dad’s hand was at the bottom, hovering just above the table, as Steve tried and tried, then Kirk put his hand on Steve’s and now it was two of them against Dad.

  Pop said, ‘You help too, Justine!’

  I put my hand on top of Kirk’s. Now it was me and Kirk and Steve against Dad, trying and trying to get his hand down, pushing as hard as we could.

  Pop shouted, ‘Go, kids! Go, kids!’

  Then, as Dad’s hand was about to hit the table, just the smallest distance to go, too small to see, Dad flipped us. He pressed us all to the table. He leaned back, hands in the air.

  Pop said, ‘You almost got him! You were this close!’ He held up his fingers in a pinch.

  But Dad beat us; even with all three of us together, it was Dad who won.

  Pop put the sausages on the barbecue and Dad fixed the stereo in his back-house so it played guitar music into the yard. When you’re with me, baby, there’s nobody else, when you’re with me…Pop and Dad drank beers and we threw stones and hung around them. Kirk pretended to shoot the fence posts. Pchoo pchoo! He blew smoke from the top of his fingers. Dad held his two fingers up and pointed them at Missy and Lady and Madame and all of them as they pecked and clucked. Bang bang bang. Kirk and Steve never took their eyes off Ray; they spoke the way he spoke, they sat and ate and stood and leaned and laughed the same way.

  Dad said to me, ‘How’s my girl?’ There were empty beer cans at his feet. He said, ‘Come here.’ I went to him and he said, ‘You’re getting big. Still skinny. Pop feeding you? Pop, you feeding this kid?’

  Pop said, ‘Where do you think all the eggs go?’ He took a sip of his beer.

  ‘Hey, Jussie,’ he said, ‘still hanging with that Dawnie?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How’s Dawnie’s mum?’

  Pop frowned at him.

  ‘What?’ Dad raised his eyebrows at Pop. Dawn’s mother wore high heels every day, as if her feet under the heels had long spikes that needed hollow shoes. The shoes made a tap-tap-tap sound when she walked along the street. ‘She okay?’ Dad asked. ‘What’s her name? It’s Julie, isn’t it? Or Julianne? How is she?’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘Dawn still your friend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Dad, nodding. ‘Nice.’

  Pop frowned at Dad again, then passed him another beer. Dad nodded his head to the music, moving his lips to the words. I’ll be there, baby, until the end of time, if you’re gonna look so sweet, so sweet…Pop and Dad rolled cigarettes and Kirk said, ‘Can I have one?’

  ‘You can smoke White Ox after you’ve been to war,’ said Pop. Dad snorted. ‘And not before.’ Pop lit his cigarette. ‘It’ll be the only thing to get you through.’

  Kirk picked up Pop’s tobacco pouch and looked at the ox that stood under the bow. ‘I can’t go to war unless I learn how to shoot.’

  ‘Got Danny’s uncle for that, haven’t you?’ said Dad. You could never tell what my dad was going to say. There were no clues. Every word he spoke was a surprise. I kept my eyes on him, trying to guess.

  ‘Not if you show me first,’ said Kirk.

  ‘Sixteen you can learn,’ said Pop. ‘Give me back my tobacco. I’ll show you myself. The Mauser is the best tea
cher.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Dad. ‘The bloody Mauser. It’s a relic. You still got the pistols?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Pop, his White Ox glowing hot. I saw them in each other, Pop and my dad, the way they held the White Ox between their finger and thumb, the way they took in the smoke, the crack of their voices, their eyes narrowing when the smoke went down. Pop was the first call across the hill and Dad was the echo.

  ‘I think you do. And I think they’re rusting in the bloody cupboard. You should let us take them out, Pop. Give them some fresh air. Have a talk to ’em, let ’em know the war’s over.’

  Kirk looked excited. ‘Yeah, Pop. They need fresh air.’

  ‘Forget about my guns,’ said Pop. ‘They stay where they are. Sixteen, Kirk.’

  Kirk whined. ‘Danny’s uncle is going to show me and Danny with a rifle.’

  ‘Danny’s uncle…’ said Pop, shaking his head. He crushed his cigarette butt under his boot. ‘Pass me the snags.’

  When Dad was home Pop’s Three was charged, as if Aunty Rita had put her electrical pads to the roof and pulled the lever. Kirk and Steve never wanted to leave. If Relle hadn’t made them go home they would have hung around the yard all day, waiting for Dad to see them or speak to them or shoot the air with a pistol and say, Bullseye, boys.

  11.

  When Dad was home I took a long time to fall asleep. I turned and turned and cut the air above my head until it fell to the floor in messy slivers. On Saturday night, instead of trying to sleep, I got out of bed and went into the kitchen. I could hear Dad and Pop talking outside. I stood beside the back door and saw them in the yard, sitting by the fire. The flames jumped high, lighting up the yard in orange.

  Dad’s and Pop’s voices fell from loud to soft, then rose again. I sat on the step, hidden by the shadows. The cold from the step came through my balloon pyjamas.

  Aunty Rita sent the pyjamas to me two years ago. Pop was lying in bed with gut trouble and the radio playing. Why land a man on the bloody moon? Bloody Yanks. The bloody moon! I heard him tell the radio. I walked out of the front door. Every time I saw a daisy-head I bent to pull off the petals. I kept going up Pop’s drive, bending and picking and pulling off the petals, singing as I went. I know the colours in the rainbow, I know them very well, I’d say. So if any colour is missing, I’d know it right away. Sabine was teaching us. I’d know it right away! There was nobody on the trail, nobody near the Three, nobody anywhere. I came to the letter box at the top of the road. The letter box was Pop’s business. He didn’t like me going near it. After it rains look up to the sky, There might be a rainbow way up high, I sang. I saw something wrapped in brown paper peeking from the box. I pulled it out and headed back to the house. Pop was in the kitchen making tea. I said, Look, Pop, and held out the parcel. You leave my letter box alone, Justine. That’s not your business. Pop took the parcel, turning it over in his hands. He read the name on the back. Rita Lee. He muttered words I couldn’t hear and tore open the paper. He lifted out the balloon pyjamas. Coloured balloons floated over the arms and legs, the chest and back. I said, ‘Pop, are they for me?’ He said, ‘Go near my letter box again and there’ll be trouble.’ Then he gave me the pyjamas.