ALBY’S VOICE
It’s her aunt’s 90th birthday party, in a private function room in a flash hotel overlooking the sea, platters of exotic finger food rotating in and out, stuff that’s way too spicy for the more mature stomachs, especially being so much later in the evening than their normal five o’clock feeding time. There’s not many even game to chance the oysters, but Lottie’s the oldest aunt, and wants to do it in style. It’ll be the last gathering of what’s left of the clan and they all know it.
There’s an assortment of first cousins who’ve slipped in and out of Kate’s, and each other’s, lives in passing for a lifetime (except for the two who no-one mentions but the rumour is they’re living together somewhere down south of Perth), there’s all the spouses, standing about doing their best to remember names and faces, and trying to fit into passing conversations. And there’s Kate’s last three aunts. And there’s Alby.
Alby, married to the youngest of the three aunts, is now - from the older generation - the only man standing. But only just.
To Kate’s mind, Alby is the last of the true blue knockabout Aussie blokes, from that other time, when men said ‘Strewth’ and ‘Blimey’ and kept chooks in the back yard. And Alby was the genuine what-you-see-is-what-you-get type, no pretensions, never hurt anyone, paid his bills, worked hard, fathered their boys as best he could, then sold their dirt-block farm down south in their middle years, and bought a shop over on the west coast, but had a bit left over. So he taught himself how to play the stock market.
Alby always did well in his own small way, and any time they ran into each other he liked to tell Kate about how it was going. But he never bragged, never mentioned amounts, gave any emphasis that was needed with nods and side winks, and always managed to drop into the conversation that he’d never go on the aged pension when it was their time, like it was his credo, said he didn’t believe in charity. But that’s Alby for you.
Alby and Kate are each other’s favourites. Always have been.
< >
Kate is five.
She’s at her grandma’s house.
It’s just before Christmas and a grownup boy has come around to take Kate’s Auntie Sally out dancing and he says to Kate hey aren’t YOU a cutie then. He’s not very big but he sort of sparkles like he’s full of electricity and he jokes all the time and stirs up Kate’s grandma a bit and dances with Kate’s aunt right there in the lounge. The dance is called the jitterbug and there’s lots of arms and legs flying and Kate’s grandma isn’t sure about this jumpy boy but Kate’s grandpa thinks he’s great.
He’s sitting with a glass of beer in his hand and Kate stands next to him and he asks Kate would she like him to tell her a Christmas story and Kate nods and waits. He says well, it was Christmas eve, and Mary and Joseph were in a stable, waiting for the baby to arrive, and there was sheep and donkeys standing about, and suddenly there was a bright light, streaming in, and it was the angel of the lord, and the angel came down - and buggered off with the Christmas turkey!
Everyone laughs so Kate laughs too and the boy has a grin-look all over his face and he wags his head a bit and winks.
When they’re going he says seeya later to everyone and Kate’s grandma says don’t you two be late and he says we’ll be on the last tram f’sure. Then he says probably, and he’s giving her that same grin-look. He leans over Kate and says down to her what’s the chance of a kiss goodbye then and Kate isn’t sure but her grandpa is smiling so she makes her lips into a kiss but the boy says hey, y’ gotta close yr eyes when you kiss a guy y’know, so Kate closes her eyes and she gets a quick peck and then they’re out the door and for a second the house suddenly feels like it’s gone empty.
< >
Kate’s surprised how much older he looks since she saw him last. He’d have to be in his mid eighties now, but has become terribly small, and gaunt, ears and nose seemingly too big for his face. The cancer that years ago took his voice away is moving on through him, into his lungs, so that breathing alone takes up all his effort, and now it’s inexorably consuming what’s left, which is only his sense of humour and his wiry willpower.
She watches him, as he wanders about the room giving out quick smiles and nods, a little man isolated by his loss of speech and hearing, and the only part of him still larger than life are his hands, hanging knuckled and chapped on the ends of his arms.
But Alby is Sally’s eyes, the only part of him still working well, and after more than sixty years of battling life together, now he’s simply hanging on for her, one day at a time, knows that when he goes she’ll have to go into care. It’s about the only power he now has over life.
But Kate knows there was a time when Alby had hold of life by the scruff of the neck, was one of the few heroes in her life.
< >
Kate is fifteen.
She’s waiting at the station.
She’s come down on the overnight train to stay with her aunt and uncle on their farm for two weeks, but it’s been a few years since she’s seen them and she feels a little uncertain.
Alby swings into the station yard in his beat-up old buckboard, the one he built himself, the back half anyway, and parks it by the platform. He takes one look at her and lights up and says in a loud voice Geez when did YOU turn into such a beauty? You’re gunna stir up the boys at the dance, eh? I’ll have to have a few words with a couple of them before then, and he’s grinning like life’s one big joke as Kate tries not to blush.
The ‘homestead’ is not much more than a shack, made out of bits of everything, and plonked down in a clearing in the scrub, about ten miles out of town. Alby and his ancient steel-wheeled tractor are carving a farm out of the wilderness for Sally and their three young boys.
Sally took one look at it on their honeymoon and said she was taking her suitcase and her fat belly back home to the city and Alby could visit her there, and he laughs as he tells it to Kate and adds that he’s done a lot to the old place since then to make it more comfortable, and it’s like he knows the joke is on him and on life. But the lavatory is still way down by the back fence and there’s three dead snakes hanging over the top wire. That’s your auntie’s handiwork he laughs when he sees Kate looking at them.
The Soldiers Memorial Hall is made of limestone, bits of scrub around, tin roof, wooden floor as slick as grease, small stage, supper room attached like an afterthought. It’s one of hundreds the same at the edge of every small country town from coast to coast. The local dance is held in it every other Saturday night during summer, and true to his word Kate and Alby and Sally and their boys are barely out of the buckboard and Alby bales up four young studs standing near the door with leery grins on their faces and nudging each other as they check out the likely talent as it arrives.
They all look like they’d be footy stars and a worry to parents of daughters and they light up when they spot Kate. Alby is about two inches shorter and a good stone lighter than any of them but he fronts them with Kate gently held by the arm and says this here’s me niece Kate, and the lads’ eyes are all over her like she’s fresh meat and Kate just wants to die.
Alby pokes one of them in the chest, like he’s picked him out especially, and says YOU watch out for her tonight Mike, okay? or I’ll be round t’see ya tomorra, right? and Mike can’t nod fast enough and says yep, yep, right Alby, no worries mate and all the leery grins are gone. Alby pokes him one more time and says you spread the word orright, and Kate just knows her face must be looking like a boiled beetroot as they go inside.
The band is a piano and a fiddle and an accordian and a saxophone, and Alby plays the drums. Once they get warmed up they make a pretty respectable noise and the place is soon jumping and coats are off and ties are loose and there’s a steady procession in and out to the keg that’s back in the scrub, far enough away as to not compromise the local sergeant, who’s emcee and plays the sax.
Kate gets every dance, sometimes two of them standing there, self-conscious and elbowing each other, but mostly it’s Mike, like he thinks he’s had Alby’s stamp of approval, hands a bit damp, shirt sleeves turned up, smells of cigarettes and beer. He asks her the usual stuff, where does she live in the city, how long will she be here. Does she have a boyfriend. They all ask that. And as they dance he flicks quick looks at the stage, and Alby always seems to be watching and it’s like the boys don’t know quite where to put their hands.
Straight after the supper break the band opens with a Quickstep & Swing to “Golden Wedding”, a highlight of each dance night someone says. It gives Alby the chance to do his specialty piece with the drum solo, and everyone’s waiting for it. Kate thinks it’s just brilliant, and as he gets to the part in the middle when the rest of the band leaves off and steps away, on the floor they all stop dancing as he throws himself into it, the crowd clapping the rhythm, whistling, egging him on, and he goes mental, sticks and sweat flying like he wants to smash everything in sight. Complete hero. Everyone cheers the roof off when he’s done so you can hardly hear the band take up the finish, and Alby’s face looks like someone just plugged him into a live power socket.
He gives his sticks to a mate after that and he gets Sally up for the next dance, another Swing number from the war, and the two of them dive straight into the jitterbug, go mad like you see the American soldiers do it at the pictures, and when they’re done Sally’s flapping he face with her hankie as Alby sees her back to her seat and then disappears in the direction of the scrub and the keg.
< >
Kate is standing at the big picture window, turns down the passing prawns-on-a-stick, sips on her glass of lemonade. She’s watching the sunset, out over the water, now a mighty ball of orange behind long streaky clouds across the horizon. One of the young girls has an ipad and is moving about on the outside deck, trying to get a shot that doesn’t have the esplanade lamp-post in it.
Alby is suddenly there, beside Kate, hands behind his back, and he’s nodding at the sun setting. But there’s no words. Not any more. Kate doesn’t say anything either, but they both know what’s being said.
< >
Kate is fifty-five.
She’s in a back yard in the northern suburbs.
It’s a Christmas barbie for the clan, yet another pulling together of the family scatterings, drawn in from their far corners of the country one more time, uncles aunts kids grandkids cousins and assorted spouses and friends, overflowing the patio and lawn with catchup talk and kid noises and barbecue smells.
It’s Alby’s first gathering since he had his cancer op, and Kate has steeled herself for how she might find him, his larynx gone and maybe his self-confidence with it.
It was always hard to shut him up before, but if anything now he’s talking even more. It’s like he’s realised, for him at least, that so much of ‘Self’ comes out of your mouth, that voice ties people together, that words express life, so he taught himself how to talk through the hole in the front of his throat before he even left the hospital, all done in raspy gulps and burps of words and always a laugh in it somewhere.
He pats the deck chair and Kate sits alongside of him, and he’s straight out of the blocks, tells her ah the bloody op wasn’t much, tells her he’s off the fags, tells her about the guy in the next bed who had the same thing done the same day, caught him out in the hospital grounds smoking through the hole in his neck! And he laughs and chokes and laughs some more, gulping and gasping as he wrestles out a tumble of words. Then he says he’s going to drive around town while he’s down here, until he finds a random breath-test station so he can see the copper’s face when he says he’ll have to stick the breathalyser direct into his throat! and he’s laughing and hacking all over again.
Then he says I got a pressie for ya and he rummages behind in a box and hands it to her. Kate unwraps it and it’s a turned and polished wooden nibbles platter, with a raised centre section for dips, a plain, solid, simple piece of craftsmanship, and he says offhand I been practisin’ a bitta woodturnin’, it’s nothin’ special, thought ya might like it. Kate loves it. Somehow its simple elegance is all Alby, and she thanks him for it, just as Sally leans over and she’s smiling and says no-one else got one of course, you’re his favourite, and Alby jumps in and tries to bluster away his wife and his self-consciousness but it turns into a coughing fit and he’s gasping and the net cloth thing over the hole in his throat is flapping like it’s alive.
< >
When it’s time, Kate says they’re heading off, thanks her cousin for organising it all, and her aunt for the invite, then does the rounds, makes the obligatory going-now small talk in passing with everyone in turn.
But she leaves Alby till last, and they look at each other for a second, and she puts her arms around him and it feels as though there’s just bones under the neat sports jacket.
He holds onto her like he doesn’t know how to let go.
There’s no words, no voices.
But it doesn’t matter. Not now. It’s all been said.
© T. R. Edmonds 2016
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