Illywhacker

"Five years we were together, Mr Badgery, and I have drawn on that time ever since. It has sustained me. Not just you – don't look so smug – the life. The life was a life. When I visit my father his house is depressing, full of death and dying, and I read the letters. You could build a country from the towns and streets that I described, even a good country, a happy one. I was alive."

"So you want to be a dancer again."

"Don't be a smart alec," she said, but she was not shouting any more and there was sadness in her voice. She rubbed the foot with which she had kicked the brick.

"Well, what do you want?"

Her shoulders slumped, not much, perhaps no more than a quarter of an inch, but it was a definite movement and Mr Lo must have observed it too because he stopped staring at us and went back to his game of imaginary baseball and my daughter-in-law -standing powder-puff in hand at her doorway – winked at me.

And even I, with sweat in my eyes, could see that Goldstein did not know. She had what she always had, I thought – a yearning, and that was fine, but I would not be blamed for it. It was the same misunderstanding that had plagued me all my life. All I ever wanted was a fire and slippers. But the women never saw, or if they did, they looked the other way.

"We are going to die," said Goldstein, moving closer, speaking softly.

"So?"

"So you are out of one prison, and making another one."

"And what would you suggest?"

She was close to me now, so close I could smell the Ipana toothpaste on her breath. "I'd rather have leeches on my legs. I'd rather be damp and freezing in the fog in Dorrigo."

"You'd rather have nails through your hands," I said.

"Shut up," she yelled. I thought she was going to strike me, or spit, but she turned to walk away.

Emma, Hissao, and Mr Lo were all staring at her from their separate corners.

"Pets," she shouted. "Fools."

She turned back towards me and brushed past on her way to the stairs.

As she ran down the stairs there was a small sound, a dzzzzt, a fine fast jagged noise like electricity passing from one surface to another.

A fine crack appeared in the southern wall and then the 'dzzzzt' shot across the ceiling. I ignored it. I knocked out some more bricks to give it something worth cracking over.

50

There is always someone who will get in a panic about a crack. Next morning the Chinaman revealed himself to be the person who would take that part. He dragged me out of the nasty bathroom (all blue laminate and aluminium edging) to show me what I already knew. You will understand, I trust, that I was irritable about a number of things and when Mr Lo drew my attention to the crack, I misunderstood his character. He spoke to me about Rowe Street Joyce but I did not inquire about who she was. A crack is a threatening thing to a layman, but to someone like me it is an architectural instruction, more precise in its message than any draftsman's pencil.

I thanked Mr Lo and went back to the bathroom and washed the soap off my face.

As I walked out to find my son, Mr Lo was already playing baseball and Emma was putting new curlers in her hair. I could see a light shining inside Goldstein's latticed apartment, but I did not enter. I went downstairs to find my son in his office. I did not tell him about the crack, only that I would need cash for more materials. He took it well. He showed me a regent bower-bird he had hatched from an egg. I watched him feed it with an eye-dropper and he was as tender with it as he was when he combed the wet hair of his sullen boys.

Charles did not become alarmed till later, when the fellows from Jordan Brothers' had their block and tackle fixed to the steel roof-trusses. He emerged from his office with an egg sandwich in his hand just as that big RSJ slowly lifted from his shop floor. An RSJ, in case you are not familiar with the term, is a steel beam, a rolled-steel joist, and in this case it was fifteen feet long, one foot deep and four inches wide. It weighed a ton.

I can understand why Charles might wish to get the customers out of the shop. But it was quite unnecessary for him to evict the staff as well. If he had not lined them up in Pitt Street in their uniforms, the newspaper would never have been alerted and the whole operation could have been done quickly and safely.

I am not saying it is his fault. I am saying it was unfortunate. The photographers wanted a pic of Charles riding the beam and so the whole thing, which was nearly in place, had to be lowered down to the ground for him to stand on. Then they wanted a photograph with me on it beside him. Then Charles wanted to tell them about the best pet shop in the world and the point is that it all took time.