The Book of Emmett Read online

  Louisa felt the reality of life. Father dead and here she was ageing fast, almost visibly, but she spoke sharply to herself about getting a grip. She’d hated her father and now she was getting weepy in front of strangers. Still, she argued, at times the old man could be okay. Sinking into the comfort of memory, she remembered the red children’s encyclopaedias he bought for them and how he’d seen something special in the story of the ugly duckling and said sometimes there’s a little ugly ducking in each of us. And later there was the time he’d won the double and given her money so she could lay-by the black dress covered with small flowers. The dress she wore when she got married.

  The taxi driver, whose name according to a curling card sticking up on the dashboard was Hussein, had noticed her sniffling in the rear-vision mirror and put his foot down as if there were an emergency. Soon enough the paddocks were gone and Melbourne could well have been any of ten Australian cities, anonymous and closed up against the heat.

  In Footscray, after Louisa leaned over to pay, the driver said in stumbling English, ‘Please Miss, I hope you will be well,’ and looked away tactfully. Didn’t seem much, but she was felled by him and couldn’t speak. Kindness always made her feel guilty; she doubted she deserved it. To explain it she harboured the strange thought that Hussein and the airport official might have been angels.

  Still, seeing herself through Hussein’s eyes, she realised she must look a sight so she smoothed her clothes, pushed her hair back and got ready for all that was coming. She mumbled thanks and gave him a mighty tip which made her feel exposed as a fool and then watched his cab move into the distance, a small bright piece of disappearing kindness. Then under the verandah next to the overflowing rubbish bin out the front of her mother’s shop, she stood like a dolt. She was just getting her bearings.

  That Anne still lives in the shop even though it’s long been closed is an outward sign of her inner stubbornness. She sold all the stock but the shop itself was harder to shift. The idea of renting it and living upstairs was inconceivable. Anne likes her privacy. So, because she couldn’t stand the thought of renting it to strangers, she decided to use the shop as a lounge room; the old display dummies in their skew-whiff wigs stand around in the background looking into the distance like family ghosts, their wrists forever at right angles.

  It wasn’t too long before the door burst open and Peter was dragging her inside. In the cool dark of the old shop her brothers and sister held out arms as though they were harbours and Louisa sailed right in; even the warmth of their hands on her back was comfort itself. So much had happened so fast.

  Sadly though, she didn’t wait long enough before she told them about the airport officer and the lost bags. The reticent girl was long gone, these days Louisa was a blurter. ‘It was his accent that finished me off. I missed it so much, it was so good to hear one of us again.’

  Pete and Jessie nodded; they understood. But Rob narrowed his eyes ever so slightly and said brusquely, ‘For God’s sake Louisa, you’ve only been gone a couple of days.’ Blabbing about Emmett to strangers in airports was not on. And neither was whingeing.

  Louisa read the message from Rob but it was too late, she was fully committed. She ploughed on, ‘Well, he reminded me of Dad,’ she allowed herself to say and knew this was worse than lame, that she was revealing, even in this sideways fashion, that there might be more than just hate at work here.

  The agreement between Rob and Louisa was being stretched but she was too tired to get into it. He’d always forgive her anyway. Always. She rubbed her raw eyes. The lack of sleep made them hot and it seemed all her history was crushed behind them. Time she went to bed.

  The funeral was the next day. Rob said he’d drive her home. Gingerly, as though she were fragile cargo, she loaded herself into his ute, her legs moving heavily. Nothing was real and she was absorbing everything. He tried to ruffle her dirty hair but it stayed resolutely flat. They drove in a comfortable kind of silence.

  ‘I’m glad you came back for the big day,’ he said as the car slid through the streets. When they stopped, she put her hand on his shoulder, didn’t want to let go. Tried a smile. ‘See you tomorrow mate,’ she said and stepped into the hot air.

  From the front porch she watched the ute disappear and then, in slow motion, she let herself into the house, heading to the bedroom thinking, I have been awake for a thousand days. Didn’t change, just lay down on the bed and pulled the bedspread up, glad her children were still at their father’s.

  ***

  Next morning, she’d driven to Gilberts in a state between sleeping and waking, hot-faced, gripping the steering wheel hard and driving with so much caution that she was beeped twice. But today she didn’t even notice the impatient headshaking of other drivers. The world was surreal this morning, the city tender from the weight of the heat and the sky the colour of roses.

  As usual Louisa hadn’t really looked in the mirror, just a glance to check that she didn’t have toothpaste trailing from her mouth. She wasn’t in the mood to be fussing with make-up, it was too damned hot and tears were expected. And anyway, she’d already had one miracle that morning.

  Her white linen shirt had been hanging clean and ironed in the wardrobe and finding it had been such an enormous relief that it had felt like a gift. Small things, she muttered to herself as she forced on her good grey trousers and sucked in her stomach hoping the seams would hold. Though it was so damn hot, she’d have to wear the black shoes, she had no sandals apart from thongs. The endless little negotiations with the tyranny of everyday things.

  Louisa had spoken to her kids at their father John Keele’s house. No, they didn’t want to come and though at heart she was disappointed and a sense of loneliness swam up around her, she didn’t let it show, she just agreed with the kids that it would be for the best. Louisa never pushed things with them.

  There was no suggestion that John would come, even though he had known and even liked Emmett. Ah people, she thought, when you get down to it, who really needs them? And how like mum that sounds, she realised and smiled.

  ***

  So when that morning at Gilberts she looks up to see her former husband, John Keele, for the first time in nearly a year leaning blithely on a car in the blanched sunlight, she feels assaulted by the shock of him. He’s wearing a grey jacket and his hair is long and fair and, unfortunately, he looks pretty good. ‘Hi,’ they say to each other smiling tightly. ‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ she says. He shrugs and looks down Geelong Road, following a swaying semi.

  Striding away from him she catches her heel on something and stumbles slightly. Jessie reaches out and grabs her sister to steady her. Louisa gestures towards John, and Jessie nods and says, ‘I’ve already spoken to him, vile toad.’ Jessie loved John as a child but when he left Louisa, she hated him. Loyalty is simple for Jess, though this wasn’t always so. ‘Don’t even think about him,’ she says fiercely and pats Louisa’s shoulder. ‘This is about getting rid of Dad, not him. His turn will come. All the bastards will go down in the end.’ She smiles, grimly, Louisa thinks. They hold hands briefly. This is not what they usually do.

  Louisa finds herself wondering what John’s thinking and whether any of his poems have been published. Jessie grabs her arm harder than she means to. ‘Louisa, this is not the day for ex-husbands,’ she says firmly, looking her right in the eye. ‘This is the day for burying fathers. Come on. We’re doing it for Mum.’

  Soon enough Peter is striding towards them, tall, dark and shining in his ironed white shirt, a shield against the heat. And almost immediately on seeing him, there’s a release in Louisa. Here is Daniel’s twin and while Danny is lost to them, Peter holds them together. Though they don’t talk about it, they all believe he’s the best of the family. Lou holds onto him as though he were a tree. ‘Shoosh now,’ he says, assuming all these tears are about Emmett. ‘Shoosh Lou. It was the right time for him to go.’ Jessie pats little circles on her back and the wind lifts her hair like a wing.
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br />   In the moment of being held by Peter there in the yard at Gilberts, Louisa understands this as the purest relationship she will ever have. Brothers and sisters want nothing from you. They know who you are and they love you anyway. These are the ones who know and in the war against Emmett, they’d been in the trenches with her.

  Jessie scans the yard like a sentry. Rob and Anne watch while Peter and Louisa head inside Gilberts, then they follow. Inside, the dull light swallows them and Emmett’s coffin dominates the room. Native flowers are splayed across the dark wood. Red waratahs so perfect they might be plastic lay upon gum leaves shaped like long tears. But no shiny metal gleams on Emmett’s coffin because while Louisa was flying home it was decided that such folderols would be a waste of money and the one thing the Browns do not waste is money.

  The family moves to the front of the big room and relatives and friends and old codgers who wouldn’t miss a funeral for quids drift into the seats behind them. Rob walks to the wooden podium and slides a sheet of paper out of his breast pocket, unfolds it and somewhat reluctantly it seems, takes off his sunglasses.

  He clears his throat tentatively and then in a calm voice says, ‘Thank you for coming here today on this very warm day, it’s much appreciated by all of us.’ He pauses, smoothes out the folds in his sheet of paper. Clears his throat again and pushes off into the deep.

  ‘In all the world Emmett really only had us four kids and Mum. He had two old uncles who were basically his parents but they died a while ago. He never knew his father and his mother put him into the orphanages when he was young. He did have a half-brother, Jimmy, and a couple of half-sisters, but they were fostered out and there wasn’t much contact there.

  ‘Emmett kept diaries on and off for most of his life. A few are still kicking around. I want to read something to you from one of Emmett’s diaries, this one from February 25, 1974. Emmett was aged forty-two when he wrote, “When I die, I don’t want any mealy-mouthed, psalm-singing hypocrite talking bullshit about me. I just want my mob and I want them to cry for me. Cry for me, but not too much and, please, I ask you all now to forgive me for doing some of the wrong things I did. Remember me and laugh about the funny times. Laugh about me. Laugh at me. Doesn’t matter. Remember, I was nothing but a drunken old bum.’”

  Rob looks up into the little room and sees the small crowd of mostly dark heads looking down.

  ‘We are Emmett’s mob and we are here to say goodbye. Emmett was a tough father and we had our problems, to be honest there were many problems. The best I can say is that I remember him clearly. Emmett was a teacher, always a teacher. He taught me how to cut an apple. He taught me how to bowl a cricket ball. He taught me how to make compost and he taught me a lot of things I would rather not have known.’

  Rob is gripping the podium and holding on to his place in the flow of his sentences with one hand. He’s not sure there’s anything more to say. Emmett loved music so each of the kids has chosen a song for him. Sinatra singing ‘The Summer Wind’ begins and somehow the music brings Emmett to life. Tears start again.

  As the music sways through the hot room, Rob walks stiffly from the podium and sits down next to Jessie, bowing his head to listen with the rest of them. Jessie puts a hand on his arm. He’s folded his speech and grasps it like he might want to hit someone with it. The music has got to him. He angrily dashes away a tear with the back of his hand.

  By the time it’s Louisa’s turn to speak, she’s beetroot-faced and it’s becoming clear that she slept on one side all night because that side of her hair still prefers to be up. Louisa is known to be a truly terrible public speaker and the Browns are bracing themselves for her speech. They’ve seen it all before at weddings and even at small family birthday parties. Things begin almost normally and then with unnerving speed the speech veers off. Stretches of anxious silence arise in the audience, sympathetic murmuring and sometimes even clucks can be heard.

  She once explained the terror to Peter. ‘When people look at me all at once I feel like I’m disappearing. Like I’m being eaten.’ He thought about this and put both hands behind his head. ‘Think of the sea Louie, the sea doesn’t panic. Sometimes you remind me of the sea.’ And Louisa said, ‘Yeah, vast and all encompassing,’ and laughed dolefully, swiftly dodging the compliment.

  In most speeches, after a few words her eyes spring leaks and soon enough she’s actually crying, and not even at the sad parts. Today, the people at the funeral duly wonder when the tears will begin.

  Louisa has written something and is damned if she isn’t going to read the thing. She’s the eldest after all, and she feels the magnitude of this. She launches into her speech with an uneven, ‘Hello, I am Louisa, eldest of Emmett’s children,’ then bizarrely qualifies with, ‘though Rob is only a year younger, so there’s not much in it.’

  She takes a deep breath and ominously feels a sob rising like a big bird stretching its wings within her and the words stall. The audience thinks, and so soon and sighs a fateful sigh. With effort, she wrestles the sob down and after a pause begins again.

  ‘We spend a lot of time talking about Emmett in the Brown household and much about him will always be inexplicable because he towered over us. He was a giant and giants, you’ll agree, are unusual creatures.’ She doesn’t look up but holds the paper in front of her as if it were a screen between herself and the audience and she reads fast to beat the tears. ‘He encouraged my love of words and that’s how I ended up in my first career in journalism, so I’ll give him that. When Dad was in a good mood he’d wander around, making a cup of tea checking on his “System” stats and sometimes saying “branch” again and again because he loved the bloody sound of it. When I asked him once why he kept saying “branch” he said he “liked the song the word made in the air”.

  ‘And he wanted us to love words too. When Rob and I were kids he got us to define words. We tried so hard to get them right.’ Here her voice rocks unevenly and tears slip from her eyes. She tries to push them back in but it doesn’t work, so she clears her throat, takes a sip of water and ploughs on. ‘He taught us to spit properly, none of that dribbling. He said, “If you’re going to spit, make it straight and fast.” We are all excellent spitters,’ she says to an unexpected wave of laughter which she reads through, head down, galloping like a riding school pony in sight of the home gate.

  ‘And he taught the boys to shake hands like men. He said, “Look people straight in the eye and then one shake and release – hand fully into the palm, none of this fingertip bullshit.”’ Again laughter falls softly about her and startles her, making her look up so she loses her place and for a moment the thudding of her heart is all there is. She finds the place again and races on.

  ‘He told me reading was the best way to understand the world, no bloody doubts about that. He believed writing was the greatest art form. Though he thought dancing was an art too and that Rudolf Nureyev was as great an artist as the footballer Alex Jesaulenko. He loved anything written by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tolkein, by Henry Lawson, or by his beloved Banjo Paterson, and his favourite music was by Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

  ‘He was a man who loved to feel things strongly. I want you to hear this simple little song by Cat Stevens because I remember listening to it by the old radiogram in the front room one day when Dad walked in and I thought he’d yell at me and tell me to get out, but he said the music was nice. This is ‘The Wind’ by Cat Stevens. Also the other choice, the 1812 Overture, would probably take up a bit too much time.’

  When she comes back to the wooden seat, Anne clasps Louisa’s hand in her own knotty hands. Louisa knows this is clearly the worst speech she’s ever given but by now it doesn’t even matter. There is a wrenching going on within her. Some kind of old pain is finding its way out right there in the little chapel at Gilberts and while she’s shuddering with grief, she is also honestly beyond caring. That her children won’t see it is the only thing that matters.

  Beside her Jessie is sobbing steadily, her shou
lders rocking. The tissues in her hand are a mesh of snot and tears. She barely raises her head. Peter doesn’t want to speak. Says he can’t think of anything that hasn’t been said. The odd tear slides down his face as he sits with an arm around Jess.

  Outside the hot north wind pounds the ragged little funeral parlour and whips under the overpass. The palm tree out the front stoops before the wind and sheds papery fronds that curl on the hot concrete. Eva Cassidy is singing ‘Fields of Gold’ as Louisa and Rob and Peter and Jessie carry Emmett’s coffin down the length of the chapel, and the music gives them strength.