to get the feel of it, what with his lonelysick wakefulness and the rumble and quake of the house going on all night like the bellyaches of a sleeping whale.
Down the back when he’s building the chookhouse, Quick finds a pile of newspapers and magazines someone’s tied up and thrown over the fence. Now and then he opens a paper and sees a blinded prisoner of war or a crying baby or some poor fleeing reffo running with a mattress across his back, and he’ll tear it out with care, take it up to his private room and pin it to the flaky wall to remind himself that he is alive, he is lucky, he is still healthy, and his brother is not. When he works on his spelling assignments he looks up and sees the gallery of the miserable; it grows all the time and they look down at him, Quick Lamb the Survivor, and he knows he deserves their scourging stares.
Now and then Fish comes into his room and looks about, wide-eyed and humming. Quick stiffs up with guilt, with sadness but sometimes he’ll touch his ruined brother just to hear his musical giggle. It’s the same giggle. It’s still Fish Lamb, his brother.
Fair dinkum, Quick Lamb hates himself.
But at night those cripples, the reffos, the starving weeping wounded on his walls wait till Quick is asleep and then they dance in their ragged borders, buckle paper and sag on their pins as they throw themselves into a weird joyous tumult over his bed. They never make a sound and he always sleeps through, but it happens all the same—men throw off their mattresses and soldiers tear away bandages and the dead rise out of the ground, inheriting the lonely quiet of the room until near morning, when they’re exhausted by happiness and freedom, and they resume their places for the dawn so that Quick Lamb might trap them again with his sorrow.
Props
Lester was closing up the shop amidst the long verandah shadows when a blackfella appeared on the step. It took him by surprise. He turned from the bolted shutters and the man was there. He was tall and thin, the colour of a burnt kettle, and he had a shoulderload of long dry branches.
Wanna buy props, Mister?
Oh. Oh. Props.
The black man’s hair stood like a deserted beehive. His feet were bare. His toes splayed on the ground like he was as much bird as he was man.
Gooduns. Not too much. Cut em meself.
Wait a minute, I’ll ask the missus. Lester turned and went to go in, but stopped. Listen, you might’s well come through yerself. She’ll be out the back. No use standin about out here.
The man hesitated.
Can leave the props just inside the door here, if you like.
The black man nodded. He unshouldered the sticks and stepped inside. Lester saw his eyes suddenly widen. The whites were porcelain and they seemed to vibrate. Something clicked in the man’s throat. Lester, stunned, watched him hold his pink palms out like a man with his hands against a window. He went back carefully, as if moving back in his own footsteps, his eyes roving about all the time from wall to ceiling to floor, and as soon as he was back over the threshold he turned and ran. Lester watched him go with his heart punching. The house grew quiet around him.
The props stayed just inside the door for two days until Oriel seized them and shoved her washing lines up with them.
The Lamb Girls
The time it took to fold a lace hanky, that’s all it took for Hat Lamb and Elaine Lamb and Red Lamb to know that they liked the city better than the farm. Cloudstreet was like somewhere out of the movies. All of them loved the staircase; they’d never even imagined a place with landings and banisters before. Hat liked sliding down with her skirt up around her ears, but Elaine wouldn’t contemplate that kind of activity, even though she was Hat’s twin. Elaine imagined sweeping down with hoops in her skirt and a bustle, to a cologne-smelling beau with his hat in his hand. Red, who was only twelve, just liked to spit from the landing and hit the sad little cactus in the
Down the back when he’s building the chookhouse, Quick finds a pile of newspapers and magazines someone’s tied up and thrown over the fence. Now and then he opens a paper and sees a blinded prisoner of war or a crying baby or some poor fleeing reffo running with a mattress across his back, and he’ll tear it out with care, take it up to his private room and pin it to the flaky wall to remind himself that he is alive, he is lucky, he is still healthy, and his brother is not. When he works on his spelling assignments he looks up and sees the gallery of the miserable; it grows all the time and they look down at him, Quick Lamb the Survivor, and he knows he deserves their scourging stares.
Now and then Fish comes into his room and looks about, wide-eyed and humming. Quick stiffs up with guilt, with sadness but sometimes he’ll touch his ruined brother just to hear his musical giggle. It’s the same giggle. It’s still Fish Lamb, his brother.
Fair dinkum, Quick Lamb hates himself.
But at night those cripples, the reffos, the starving weeping wounded on his walls wait till Quick is asleep and then they dance in their ragged borders, buckle paper and sag on their pins as they throw themselves into a weird joyous tumult over his bed. They never make a sound and he always sleeps through, but it happens all the same—men throw off their mattresses and soldiers tear away bandages and the dead rise out of the ground, inheriting the lonely quiet of the room until near morning, when they’re exhausted by happiness and freedom, and they resume their places for the dawn so that Quick Lamb might trap them again with his sorrow.
Props
Lester was closing up the shop amidst the long verandah shadows when a blackfella appeared on the step. It took him by surprise. He turned from the bolted shutters and the man was there. He was tall and thin, the colour of a burnt kettle, and he had a shoulderload of long dry branches.
Wanna buy props, Mister?
Oh. Oh. Props.
The black man’s hair stood like a deserted beehive. His feet were bare. His toes splayed on the ground like he was as much bird as he was man.
Gooduns. Not too much. Cut em meself.
Wait a minute, I’ll ask the missus. Lester turned and went to go in, but stopped. Listen, you might’s well come through yerself. She’ll be out the back. No use standin about out here.
The man hesitated.
Can leave the props just inside the door here, if you like.
The black man nodded. He unshouldered the sticks and stepped inside. Lester saw his eyes suddenly widen. The whites were porcelain and they seemed to vibrate. Something clicked in the man’s throat. Lester, stunned, watched him hold his pink palms out like a man with his hands against a window. He went back carefully, as if moving back in his own footsteps, his eyes roving about all the time from wall to ceiling to floor, and as soon as he was back over the threshold he turned and ran. Lester watched him go with his heart punching. The house grew quiet around him.
The props stayed just inside the door for two days until Oriel seized them and shoved her washing lines up with them.
The Lamb Girls
The time it took to fold a lace hanky, that’s all it took for Hat Lamb and Elaine Lamb and Red Lamb to know that they liked the city better than the farm. Cloudstreet was like somewhere out of the movies. All of them loved the staircase; they’d never even imagined a place with landings and banisters before. Hat liked sliding down with her skirt up around her ears, but Elaine wouldn’t contemplate that kind of activity, even though she was Hat’s twin. Elaine imagined sweeping down with hoops in her skirt and a bustle, to a cologne-smelling beau with his hat in his hand. Red, who was only twelve, just liked to spit from the landing and hit the sad little cactus in the
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