Erlich
Something has finally snapped in Erlich. I always thought it would but I
didn't think it would happen quite yet. He is still strong. That much is clear.
He can swing up between the metal struts of the scaffolding effortlessly, his
arms taut, the muscles hard. He has a tattoo on his right arm, a blue snake
with a hooded head, red eyes and a forked tongue. It is predictable.
Erlich's house is high and straight-sided, made of slats of timber, over-
lapping neatly. Someone painted it years ago and jammed the brush into the
hollow under each plank. A thick lip of paint has run and stuck, halfway
down each board. It is like the frill on a pair of fancy knickers.
You can hear the sea from Erlich's place. He bought the house, he says, for
the sound. It is soothing and disturbing. Like the heavy breathing of his
brothers, six of them in a dog's box in Cumberland Street. I can't stand it
when Erlich tells me things like this. The details are dull and boring. I don't
even think they are true.
Bugger off, Erlich. The words bobble behind my clenched teeth. But I
haven't got the heart and anyway, sometimes I enjoy being taken in. It
makes me laugh the way he cocks his head on one side like a canary, narrows
his eyes and grins. Calculating but friendly. This is a complex game. He may
not understand the rules. But I do. Sometimes I think I know too much for
my age. It is a bit daunting. It cuts out all sorts of possibilities.
Erlich is unorthodox in his manner of dressing. He wears shorts in all
weathers. The torque of his hairy brown calf is appealing. Mrs Fitzsimmons
thinks so too. I've seen her standing there for ages, looking up at him as he
swings out on the scaffolding. She is so obvious. I hate people like that. They
try too hard. They let you in on what they need. I wonder what he thinks,
Erlich, when he looks down at her, with her cod mouth opening and closing,
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her eyes floating up like dumplings to the top of her head. I'd rather die than
let him know I was that hungry.
Erlich's is a no nonsense sort of house. The windows are tiny and there aren't
enough of them. He doesn't approve of trees or shrubs or flowers or trellises
or pergolas or window boxes or garden seats or bird baths. He likes grass.
He cuts it every Sunday in perfectly straight bands like the pinstripes in his
suit. The one he keeps for funerals.
'Why have you got all that scaffolding up on the house, Erlich?'Whenever
I ask, he nods and looks up at the clouds swelling like greasy puffballs over
the fire station next door. He rubs a finger down the crease beside his nose
and sniffs or spits onto the crazy paving leached with yellow lichen that runs
around his house. 'Oh, I dunno,' he says. 'I guess I find it elevating.' He is
pulling my leg.
Erlich is far from stupid. But he wastes time playing games. You can always
tell by the way he leans on certain words. 'I like to see,' he says. 'overthings.
And around' He inflates the words till they pop out of his red mouth like
balloons and float all over St Kilda. He is asking to be taken down a peg or
two. I fold my arms across my chest and stare. 'Take that look off your face
this minute.' That's my mother for you. 'Whatever's got into you lately?
You've suddenly become as bold as brass!' But I haven't. I've been working
on it for ages.
I ask Erlich about the paint. I ask him all the time. 'What about the paint?'
'What about it?' he says and laughs. 'Have you got it yet?' 'No.' 'Why not?'
'Because it's not the right time.' 'When will it be the right time' 'When it
is.' I wonder how long I can continue to wish him well.
Erlich can't afford the scaffolding. It's money down the drain. 'How much is it costing you, the scaffolding?' 'Oh, quite a bit.' 'I bet. A thousand. A thousand a month. I bet it's at least a thousand a month.' Erlich shakes his head as if there's a moth caught in his grey pony tail. 'Maybe. Maybe not.' 'How can you afford that? Come on. How can you afford a thousand a month?' He cocks his head sideways and gives that birdy grin again. 'I've given up smoking!'
page 92Erlich sits up in the scaffolding for hours. He sits there, staring out over the
Southern cemetery, the last place where you can be buried in clay. But only
if you already have a plot. Or a deadhead who doesn't mind you sharing.
The new cemetery is away down the coast, on sand. 'Flat,' says Erlich. 'With
no view.' He has already made other arrangements.
Erlich keeps an eye on the sea and the sandhills across Marine Parade. There
is a little island off the coast. Waves break and swirl around it, join up, then
surge to shatter on the long, curved beach, so long it's got two names. St
Clair is the wealthy end, St Kilda is ours, Erlich's and mine. I often walk
from one beach to the other, dragging my toes in the wholemealy sand,
stepping precisely over the glassy edges of the sea's net. I like the white
fractures and the gulls yowling like cats. If you stand on a crack, you'll marry
a rat and you'd better believe it.
Erlich sits up in the scaffolding at night. You can see him hunched like a wet
shag against the metal poles in his black duffle coat and bare feet. He watches
the stars, the lights of the hill houses reflected in the water, the ghostly rims
in the dark where the waves smash down like a ton of bricks. He seems to
grow in the dark. Nearly as big as the hills.
Erlich says he used to be a priest. That's not impossible. The way he holds
a cigarette, delicately between his first finger and thumb, the other fingers
extended out like a fan. The way he used to, that is. And Erlich is shy when
it comes to women. And curious. I've seen the way he watches Mrs.
Fitzsimmons, stroking her with his eyes. High up on the scaffolding but
softly running his eyes over her. He never looks at me like that. He thinks
I'm his mate. Or just a bloody nuisance, a sandfly fizzing around and
making him itch. But that's OK.
One night Erlich was naked on the scaffolding, standing up there, facing the
sea. His penis flung out as he turned to look back at the city. I saw this. I was
hiding under the hedge. I held my hand between my legs and squeezed hard.
This is a secret.
There is a woman who sits on the beach some days. She wears denim
knickerbockers with a grubby fur trim round the calf. She has orange hair
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tied up under her scarf. She carries all her stuff with her in a couple of plastic
bags. 'I feel so scattered!' she yelled at me the only time I got within range.
'I need to be earthed!' So!' I yelled back, 'So! Go stick your finger in a light
socket!' Silly bitch! What else does she expect!
Erlich has a gull. It wobbles up beside him on the scaffolding, balancing on
one red leg. The other is folded up like an umbrella against its white chest.
It shrieks. It lowers its neck between its shoulder blades and sticks its red
tongue up into his face. It shakes out its wings like dusters. Erlich puts a crust
of bread between his teeth. They tussle over it.
There are more and more purple shadows in the soil. I pick some. The
darkness dribbles away and away through my fingers. My mother shouts
from the kitchen. She wants to know what I am doing. 'I am turning this
shitty wilderness into a garden!' 'Good girl!' she shouts back. 'Go for it! But
for heaven's sake use a spade. You'll ruin your hands.' She is taut and
optimistic. She understands nothing.
I will plant some sweet peas. I will plant nothing. It is the granules I like and
the ripe damp smell of rotting leaves. Humus. Humble. Lying on. Lying in.
I am small and dark like Sappho. I hold myself in. I have made a tiny
puncture in the earth's tight, round skin. 'Like all young girls,' says the
doctor, 'she is in love with herself. She will grow out of it very soon.'
There is a hole. The soil piles up on all four sides of it in little pyramids.
'What are you doing?'shouts Erlich from the scaffolding. He can see a little
through the web of the ngaio tree. 'What are you up to, little ferret?' 'I am
digging in.' 'Ah!' He lets me get on with my work.
I can fit now inside the hole with my legs pulled up in a V, my knees bracing
my chin. It is almost comfortable. There is such uniformity of grains and
colorations in the smooth earth wall and tiny particularities also. It is
essential to concentrate finally on just one thing. It is quite clear from here
that Erlich is taking up more and more room.
Erlich is expanding. He stretches from rung to rung on the scaffolding. He
hangs there, between his tensed shoulders. He rocks between his arms, from
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side to side, in a set rhythm. His head lolls. His eyes are fixed on the whale
body of the biggest hill. The flagpole has gone but it doesn't seem to worry
him. He sings 'Walaaaaa! Walaaaaaa! Walaaaaaa!' over and over again. He
is losing his grip.
Erlich has seen me in the hole. He shouts out. I cannot hear what he is saying. The words are heavy and slow, they break up like waves, they lose their shape before they get to me. I hear them hiss and shush as they spin out and round in a net. But he won't trap me so easily. I cover my ears with my hands. I close my eyes. I am singing also, inside my own head.