ON THE TRAM
[from “The House In Gondwanaland”]
Allan Pryor pedalled his bike along Fosters Road, and on down the Main Northeast Road past the OG corner, with the shallow vale of the Torrens panning away slowly over his left shoulder, and beyond that the timeworn scarp of the Adelaide Hills that formed the city's eastern horizon.
It was either the second or the fourth Saturday morning of the month, it didn't matter which, because he slogged this out on both of them, on up the long steady grind past the Gaza oval, the horse paddocks, the Bennett memorial gardens at Ways Road. And his legs would be aching every one of them too, by the time he arrived at the tram terminus outside The Hampstead, and stowed his bike in the pub yard among the empty beer crates.
The publican let him leave his bike there on the strength of the schooner Allan always shouted himself when he got back, and because the publican wasn't a bad bloke, lost an eye at Tobruk, but probably saw the world fairer than most. Besides, who'd pinch the bike – it'd be someone a damn-sight harder up than Allan Pryor that needed a mangle that old and that tough to push.
Allan stepped into the drop centre of the near-empty tram, where what morning breeze there was drifted in through the open sides and waffled around. It was hot and sticky, and he could already smell his own sweat. He took off his hat and put it on the seat, wiped his forehead.
A young mum clambered in, rounding up two clattery boys as she went, toddler on her hip, wrestling the pusher one-handed. Allan jumped up, beating the half-hearted connie to her by yards and helped her stow the pusher, sat down again as she dashed off a smile that was probably meant to say thanks, but more likely said I'm really sicka this shit. Sicka bein a mum, sicka draggin kids around, sicka penny-pinchin, sicka me useless old man. She settled at the opposite corner, lit a cigarette, and shafted smoke up into the warm air. The baby wrestled around, set itself to grizzle as the two boys rattled about trying every seat.
An old couple crossed the road and confronted the step. He had fine red and blue veins in his cheeks, skin thin as ricepaper, a plaster on his neck the size of half a sandwich. She had bent fingers, knuckles like walnuts, the calf of one leg bandaged. They helped each other up, swapping walking sticks back and forth to get best grips on the handrail, then shuffled into the non-smokers at the front, with the padded seats, and sat close to each other as though the tram was crowded.
Allan wondered what Dot and him would look like at seventy-five or eighty. He couldn't quickly find a picture of that, but mulled his thoughts around for a while, looking for it. He wondered if the first war, the old couple's war, had been a fracturing point for them, broke some bones that were reset a different way, maybe for the better, maybe for the worst.
He wondered then if him and Dot would get closer as they got older, prop each other up like some do, or get further apart like some do. Still, we've made it this far against the odds. Besides, everyone goes on changing, just a lottery if you change in the same-enough direction or not. He tried to imagine what it'd be like to be on his own now, but couldn't find the picture of that either, it just felt like an empty space.
The air compressor cut in, doing a grung grung grung underneath him, and he was back in the tram, waiting to go and beg building materials, fight a thousand other blokes for a few more lumps of wood.
He leant on his knees, snuck another look at the young mum, sexy once he bet, but paying for it now. Is this even vaguely like what she was chasing when she was eighteen? The baby started yowling in earnest. She jiggled it impatiently, looking at Allan, trying to smile. Her eyes were asking ‘Am I still pretty then?’, the way some women do. Like some women need to. His man-juices should've said yeah love, give you one any day, and his higher parts should've said hell yes, you are, and your old man's a mug f'not seein it, and left it at that. But right then he couldn't find anything, either sexual or gracious, as though he didn't have enough capacity left in his head for anything more complicated than timber and corrugated iron.
He turned away, stared out the open doorway, eyes drifting to the distant line of the hills. Tinted images of the Owen Stanleys, of Rouna Falls, of Eriama at the start of the day, these fell sideways into his thoughts, unasked. There were warm mists hanging, swirling in slow-motion like ghosts that'd never be still. There were humus smells, rotting, musky smells, and forest noises, all suspended together in the fuggy air. He made himself hear only the distant call of a bird, a canopy dweller, making two clear, sharp, penetrating sounds. Like single rifle shots.
His stomach tightened and he pulled himself back, gave one of the young boys half a smile and a wink as he flopped onto the seat opposite before getting reeled in again by his mum, with a Thomas! siddown over here! stop botherin... and she left the rest unsaid, like an opening to conversation, but Allan only stared back out the doorway, at the posh old-money houses of Walkerville. Streets paved with affluence.
He wondered what it'd be like, being ‘affluent’, not have to scrabble around every day on the scrag-end of the queue. He tried to feel all socialist about it but that wouldn't come either, truth’d be, he liked Adelaide, just the way it was. Save for the current lumber and galvo drought, this place suited him, this notion of home he'd carried in his head, right through the worst of it. It might've been the world's longest thinnest town, squeezed out between its parallel buffers of hills and sea, but he liked to think of it more as being tall and easy, like a country girl down for the weekend, stretched out and laying languid on the beach, barefoot and skirt up over her knees thinking no-one was looking, but her best straw hat still on. Something like that. Not a bad looking sheila either, going longer and slimmer as she got older. Strong boned and energetic. Could be hard headed, obstinate, bloodymindedly old-fashioned, narrow, finickety, prone to loving you with too many strings attached – but yeah, still a bloody decent town. My town. That's what Allan Pryor was thinking.
He smiled to himself. He was a happy enough man. He could still hear gunfire sometimes, but he knew he was steadily bringing his heart back home.
© T. R. Edmonds 2016
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