Death in Brunswick Read online

  Mick was near retirement. He had worked at the cemetery for twenty years. Dave, who had never worked anywhere more than eight or nine months, found this extraordinary. The old man was a devoutly religious Hungarian Catholic and was often shocked by Dave’s irreverence, and, being a 1956 expatriate, even more shocked by Dave’s politics—but they got on very well. Dave was fond of him and Mick relied on Dave’s muscles to do the work the old man could no longer get through. He wore a faded pair of pinstriped suit pants and a khaki shirt. Rain or shine, a waterproof hat sat on his bald head. White stubble covered his sunken cheeks.

  ‘Easy, this one, Dave. Five foot nine only.’

  He flexed his knees repeatedly like a decrepit policeman and he indicated a rusty iron probe lying nearby. This was pushed into family plots till it met the resistance of the previously buried coffin. It was marked off in feet and inches.

  Dave grunted, looking at the modest grave and the low tombstone. ‘Maria Di Marco D: 1954. Ora Pro Nobis’. A heap of marble chips and clay lay on a green plastic groundsheet draped over the next slab. The hole was about knee deep, carefully trimmed into a neat coffin shape.

  ‘Jesus, Mick, it’s a bit narrow, old mate.’

  Dave stepped in, grabbing his pick and hefting it easily. He stretched and looked round.

  ‘What a great day! No wonder you’ve been here, what is it? A hundred years?’

  ‘You wait till winter comes, boy. Not so good then!’

  ‘Vait till Vinterre! Go on, you old Dracula, fuck off and get some lunch. And bring back some props. This digging looks a bit soft.’

  ‘Yes, Dave, I do that. You a good boy, but you fucking red.’

  Mick had caught sight of the faded hammer and sickle tattooed on Dave’s shoulder.

  ‘Go on, you silly old bugger, and if you see Bluey, tell him to lay off the piss. The boss’ll be around sometime this arvo to check out this hole.’

  Mick shuffled off and Dave knew that he wouldn’t see him for a couple of hours. The ancient Magyar had some hiding place over near the Jewish section where he went and read Hungarian newspapers in peace.

  *

  Dave dug out the damp clay, working easily and getting into the slow pick and shovel rhythm.

  Funny how it gets wetter as you go down. There must be underground springs up here on the hill. No wonder they didn’t last long, buried in this—what’s clay? Acid or alkaline?

  He couldn’t remember. In his time at the cemetery he had not actually seen any corpses, but he had found bones, pitted and brittle. Old Mick reckoned that the coffins lasted longer than the bodies.

  It was getting hotter. He took off his T-shirt; there was thick grey hair growing on his back. He was a little bored—he wished he had brought a radio. The only sounds he could hear were the birds and the soft breeze whispering around his ears. He dug on, occasionally looking up. Once, with delight, he saw a flight of rosellas flash brilliantly in and out through the trees.

  An hour and a half passed. He was waist deep. The clay was getting very wet now and he had difficulty keeping the coffin shape. Where was Mick with the props? He hoped the old man hadn’t gone to sleep.

  He was gazing across the graves in a mindless daze when he heard a heavy tread behind him. He turned with difficulty in the narrow hole. It was Bruce, the Trust foreman, a big middle-aged man—an ex-gravedigger. He wore a plastic anorak in the hot sun and a collar and tie to show his exalted position. Dave grunted a surly greeting.

  ‘How’s it goin’, Dave, gettin’ there? That looks a bit sloppy. You need some props, mate.’

  ‘Yeah. Mick’s just gone to get them.’

  ‘That’s right, Dave. Ah, listen, Dave…You know you’re not supposed to have your shirt off. It’s Trust regs.’

  The foreman looked away embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! There’s no funerals today. No one’s going to swoon at the sight of my gorgeous body!’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Dave. I didn’t make the rules. But listen talking about regs…um…Bluey just let me in and he’s definitely pissed. Now you know I don’t want to arsehole him, so have a word to him, will you. I mean, even the union won’t cop that.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, OK,’ Dave muttered. ‘Anything else? I have to finish this by five.’

  ‘Yeah, can you come in tomorrow at eleven to fill her in?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Beauty! Overtime after twelve. Turning his back, he started work again.

  The foreman coughed.

  ‘Just one more thing.’

  ‘Yeah, what? For Christ’s sake!’

  ‘Dave, we need a new leading hand. You know the Kiwi from St Kilda? Well, he’s done his back. He’ll be off for Christ knows how long. How about it? You’d have to work full-time but.’

  ‘What! Be fucked, boss, driving round telling other poor cunts what to do and they all hate you, for what? An extra ten bucks a week? Jesus! Piss off.’

  ‘Oh, all right! Just thought I’d ask.’ Annoyed, the foreman turned away. ‘You better go and wake Mick up,’ he said, and trudged off.

  Dave shook his head and started digging again.

  Better not tell June about that! She’d have me running the whole show in a year! Leading Hand! What a con.

  Soon Mick returned, pushing a barrow piled with short planks and screw props. He grunted as he dropped the handles.

  ‘I think I see boss. What you tell him?’

  ‘Now don’t worry, Mick. I told him you just left to get the props.’

  Still, Dave knew they were onto the poor old bugger. He wouldn’t have put it past them to sack him to save on superannuation. He looked at the old man. He stood there, stooped, his eyes gummed with sleep.

  Ah, why can’t they…?

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry, Mick, just put the props in and I’ll have a spell.’

  The afternoon passed peacefully. By four, the grave was at Dave’s eye level. He was going carefully now. He shoved the probe down. At six inches it met a slight resistance. There was a wooden thud.

  ‘Hey, Mick, nearly there, mate, you better do the rest. I’m too heavy.’

  He heaved himself out with one push of his big arms. Mick got into the hole, groaning, and scraped away at the remaining clay, throwing it out with practised flicks of his shovel, keeping his feet carefully at each side of the narrow grave shaft.

  ‘Yeah, you too heavy for this job, Dave. You might put your foot in something you don’t want!’ The old man sniggered—a dank, heavy odour rose. ‘You smell that? That old body water, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, Mick, get on with it.’

  Soon Mick’s shovel scraped the top of the coffin. He cleared it carefully. It was black and split. Mick prised at a crack. He could see wet, tattered, greyish cloth.

  ‘Not much left of this one, I don’t think. You want to see? Just be bones.’

  ‘Get out of there, you old ghoul. I thought you had some respect for the dead.’ He helped the old man out. ‘You think we better take the props out, Mick?’

  ‘No, might rain tonight. We just cover up box.’

  They threw a thin layer of gravel over the coffin and packed up the tools.

  They started to walk slowly back down the hill.

  ‘You take the tools back to the shed and then you better go and hide for an hour, Mick. I’ll go and have a word to Bluey.’

  Mick took the barrow and bore off to the left, towards the shed built in the pretty leafy section where the Chinese were buried. There, a tiny lacquer red temple gleamed through dwarf willows. In it was a stone where devout Orientals burnt fake money for their relatives’ use on the other side. Dave’s workmates thought the custom barbarous and funny, but Dave, seeing the extravagance of European funerals, wasn’t so sure. He often wondered what a Chinese-Australian heaven was like. Great dim sims no doubt. What an odd interesting place the cemetery was. Bugger June—I’ll stay here as long as I can.

  *

  He trod back toward the front gate, plodding down and up the hills.
He was a little weary. You need a fucking motorbike in this place. His limp was worse. He stopped for a while and massaged his knee. The weather had changed suddenly in the Melbourne way; it was becoming cloudy. The breeze had become chill; it whined around his ears, thin and bitter. Nearby a fallen-down bluestone chapel, commemorating a long-forgotten pioneer, loomed against the grey sky. Beyond was the Jewish section. I bet that’s where old Mick hangs out like a cobwebby old Transylvanian bat! He trudged on, smiling.

  He heard a radio and, coming round a great old vault, came upon two groundsmen. They were pulling up weeds in a desultory way and listening to the races. They were all that was left of the twelve gardeners that had worked here in the fifties. The decline and fall of a graveyard.

  ‘Hi ya, Clarrie! Hi, Arthur!’

  ‘How ya goin’, Dave? Finished, have ya? Coming down the pub after?’

  ‘No, I can’t…Well yeah, all right, just for a couple.’

  ‘Jeez, that was easy mate! OK, we’ll see you down the shed at five. You seen Bluey? He’s pissed out of his mind.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dave, frowning. ‘I’m going up there now. He better not be on a bender—we’ve got a funeral tomorrow. See you after.’ And he walked on.

  Soon he was threading his way through the small area of low sandstone vaults behind the caretaker’s cottage. Bluey came around the corner and stood swaying against the back wall, pissing onto a marble slab. The yellow stream flowed over ‘In Loving Memory of Councillor Joseph O’Donnell. Mayor of Essendon 1933–1935. Died 1941. RIP’.

  The caretaker was clutching a bottle of rum.

  ‘Jesus! Bluey, get inside before someone sees you. The boss is right on to you.’

  ‘Ah, fuck ’em all anyway, the pox-ridden cunts. Let ’em arse me. I’ve had this fuckin’ place.’

  ‘Well, put your dick away at least. Ah, Blue, what are we going to do with you? You know we’ve got a funeral tomorrow. You’ll be ratshit. Here, come on.’

  Dave took him by the arm and steered him round the corner and into the cottage.

  ‘Here, Blue, come and lie down.’

  He supported the caretaker into his bedroom. Dirty clothes and empty cans littered the floor, grey sheets were twisted on a camp bed and there was a sharp feral odour. Bluey threw off Dave’s arm and glared at him, his eyes unfocused.

  ‘Fuck you, Dave. Who are you pushing round? Here six months and he’s the gun, the fuckin’ gun grave-digger. Piss off and leave me alone.’

  ‘Now look here, Blue, where’s your spare set of keys? You’re fucked, mate. I’ll have to lock up tonight and open up in the morning.’

  Bluey slumped onto his bed.

  ‘Ah, I do feel crook,’ he groaned. ‘Yeah, all right. Good old Dave, you’re a fuckin’ beauty, just like somebody’s mum. Where’s me other keys? In the drawer in the office. Where’s me Tom Thumb?’

  Dave picked up the bottle.

  ‘There you go. Hang on, give me a go.’ Dave took a swig. ‘Jesus! Bluey, that would kill a dog!’

  ‘Great stuff it is, good for ya.’

  Bluey drank deeply, retched and fell back, his eyes closed and his mouth open. Dave hesitated. He’ll chunder in his sleep and choke—silly old cunt. Fuck him anyway.

  *

  Dave got the set of keys and walked down to the shed to sign off. The two groundsmen were there already and he could see Mick slowly approaching, past the Chinese temple.

  ‘Here he is!’ shouted Clarrie, ‘The hardest worker in the graveyard game. His productivity astounds me. He digs like a mole!’

  ‘An old mole,’ put in Arthur.

  Clarrie and Arthur were in high spirits, it being Friday.

  ‘Where did ya hide today, Mick? In the ladies dunny? Pullin’ your old dong. I tell you, Dave, he’s a fuckin’ old desperate!’

  ‘You fuck off,’ said Mick. ‘I do plenty work, you wait till you get old.’

  ‘Old as you! Jesus, I hope they put me down…’

  Dave cut in.

  ‘You coming to the pub, Mick?’

  ‘No, no,’ cried Clarrie. ‘Last time he molested the barmaid. He’s a fuckin’ terror, I told you!’

  ‘Shut up, Clarrie. You coming, Mick?’

  ‘No, no thank you, Dave, you good boy, not like this shit.’

  ‘Now, now, Mick. Don’t take any notice of them. What’s the time? Ten to five. Right! Good enough. I’m fucking off now, I don’t know about you guys.’

  They signed off and walked up to the cottage.

  ‘Hang on boys, I’ll just have a look at Bluey.’

  Dave went in to the office. He heard loud, rattling snores. Looking into the bedroom he saw the ginger-haired sot lying flat on the floor, his mouth open. There was an overpowering stink of rum and vomit.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, escaping into the open air. ‘Bluey’s right out of it. Go on, I’ll lock up.’

  They went through the gate and Dave fetched his car, drove it out and locked the gates.

  ‘Get in, I’ll drive you down the pub. Sure you won’t come, Mick?’

  ‘No, Dave, no. Bluey really drunk, huh? Silly man.’

  ‘Can’t stand a man who can’t control himself,’ said Arthur, virtuously. ‘That Bluey’ll bring us all undone.’

  ‘You no talk,’ said Mick, ‘you drink all the time, lunchtime, smoko, you bad as him!’

  ‘Ah, piss off, you silly old cunt.’

  Mick, not answering, mounted his old bike and pedalled away with dignity, an ancient Gladstone bag balanced on the handlebars, his knees stuck out at right angles.

  ‘Why don’t you lay off him,’ said Dave, annoyed. ‘He’s all right, the poor old bugger.’

  ‘Ahh!’ said Clarrie, ‘He’s a fuckin’ old know-all. Always whingeing, fuckin’ reffo. Still at least he’s not a slope. St Kilda’s all slopes now, except the leadin’ hand and he’s some sort of boong. Come on, let’s have a beer. Me tongue’s hangin’ out!’

  *

  The pub was not too crowded. The drink-driving laws had largely stopped the after-work swill. They sat down in a quiet corner and drank the first pots in silence. Dave bought the first round.

  ‘This’ll be it for me,’ he said. “I got to get home and feed the kids. The wife’ll go crook if I’m late.’

  ‘That woman’s got you by the balls,’ said Clarrie. ‘If my missus said fuckin’ boo to me after the pub she’d get the biggest backhander you ever saw.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Dave grunted.

  Jesus, imagine hitting June! She’d belt me back and then be off to a woman’s refuge like a rocket. Could I hit her? No, Jesus! I suppose I’m not really working class, not like these blokes anyway.

  ‘What was wrong with the boss today, Dave? He’s a bit shitty on you. You been revolting again, you fuckin’ commo.’ Clarrie winked at Arthur.

  ‘Ahh! Fuck him,’ said Dave. ‘He wants me to go for leading hand and work full-time. I told him to stick it.’

  ‘Jesus, Dave, I wish he’d fuckin’ ask me. I been there five years and I’m still a Grade Two. What’s wrong with you, Dave, is you got no ambition. He went to fuckin’ uni, you know, Arthur.’

  ‘Yeah, is that right? What was you doin’, Dave?’

  ‘Medicine,’ said Dave shortly. ‘I dropped out halfway.’

  ‘You must have been fuckin’ mad. Jesus, you’d be on what? Five hundred a week now, silly bugger.’

  ‘Listen, Dave,’ said Clarrie, ‘you want to take that leading hand job, otherwise we’ll probably get some wog.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I got to go now,’ said Dave, standing abruptly. ‘See you Tuesday.’

  ‘All right Dave. See you, mate.’

  Dave left. He sat in his car for a while waiting for the traffic to ease. How he hated them talking like that! Their racism, their brutality, sickened him sometimes. They were like stupid dinosaurs. Was that his beloved working class? No, they weren’t all like that. Anyway, whatever I chose, I’m happy anyway.

  He started the car with an angry twist
of the key and drove home.

  *

  The boys greeted him with enthusiasm.

  ‘Hey, Dad! Did you bury many stiffs today?’

  ‘One or two. You fed the rabbits yet? Come on, it’s nearly teatime. Where’s your mum?’

  June was in the bathroom, washing the baby. He kissed her.

  ‘You did go to the pub, Dave. Jesus!’

  ‘Ah, now babe, I got home early, didn’t I? What’s for tea?’

  ‘You’ll have to heat it up. It’s wholemeal spinach flan.’

  ‘Jesus! Will the kids cop that?’

  ‘They better,’ she said, swirling the water vigorously round the baby. ‘They’ve been driving me mad today with that video. Why did you ever buy it?’

  ‘Junie, what would you do if I gave you a backhander?’

  ‘What! Now stop your silly jokes, Dave. Go and start tea. I’m late.’

  Dave went into the kitchen. The flan was on a bench. It looked like a green-brown cowpat. Still, it could be worse. At one stage June had made them eat brown rice and seaweed till the boys rebelled. Dave used to take them on secret trips to McDonald’s. He still felt a little guilty about that.

  He put the loathsome object in the oven and filled a pot with potatoes. Surreptitiously he tipped in two tablespoons of salt. June caught him.

  ‘Dave! You change that water straight away. I don’t want you dying of high blood pressure and leaving me to bring up three boys on my own.’

  Dave changed the water.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’ve put a bottle in the fridge. Give Leon a feed at seven and don’t let the boys stay up late.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Junie. See you soon.’

  She bustled out.

  After tea, Dave slumped into his favourite armchair and read the paper—the Age—fucking capitalist press. He was always meaning to cancel it. The baby lay on his chest sucking its bottle in a sleepy way. The boys were playing their video games again, but with the sound muted. The stereo played softly—Paul Desmond.

  The baby finished its bottle.

  ‘Hey, kids, take this to the kitchen and bring me a beer. Good boys.’

  He drank from the can, occasionally giving the baby a sip. He was tired and his leg ached. Soon he fell into a light doze. The baby slept, its soft head under his chin. The boys were reading quietly: battle comics, strictly forbidden. Dave woke sometimes, savouring the peace.