Plumbum by David Foster

Author:David Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ligature Pty Limited
Published: 2021-11-09T02:39:00+00:00

11

In 1955, General Cariappa, recently retired commander-in-chief of the Indian army, en route from Canberra to Melbourne by car, was so distressed by the condition of the Gundagai war memorial that he ordered his driver to stop the car, got out and weeded it personally. The Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa have bhavans in Katherine, Melbourne and Bourke; but Pete, ignorant perhaps of the work that remains to be done at home, decides to commit the rest of his life helping the homeless poor of this village. Now that Satya’s gone, he’ll need a job if he wants to eat.

It’s not a happy rhythm section sitting on the stairs. The death of little Satya has affected them all. At one stroke, it has put paid to Pete’s optimism, tightened Rollo’s money belt—there, but for the grace of Mammon, went he—and convinced Felix, who blames himself entirely, that he has much work still to do on his body.

‘If only I could have gotten through, you guys, that kid need never have died. It’s not enough to dance, Pete; you got to be able to stomp!’

The past is over and done: Pete has no wish to discuss it. As soon as his name plate is finished, he’ll be off.

‘You know how this place got so overcrowded, Felix?’ says Rollo. ‘Misplaced charity. You see, most of these street people are East Bengalis, which is to say East Pakistanis, which is to say Bangladeshis. Every time there’s genocide, or a tidal wave, or a coup, or a famine, which is what they get when they don’t get a flood, in they pour. All they have to export is jute, for which there is limited world demand. You’ve got to be cruel to be kind, Felix, that’s the lesson to be learned here. Only Pete doesn’t see it that way, right, Pete?’

Rollo is practically begging for an admission from Pete that Satya is better off dead. He hones in from all angles. Well, Pete won’t give him the satisfaction: let him live with his conscience.

‘Yeah, you’re right, man. If I hadda fuckin’ ploughed through that crowd, just cut my way through, that kid might have got to the doctor in time.’

At last: the carpenter with the name plate.

‘Hey, what’s this, Pete?’

‘Mind your own business.’

They sneak a look as Pete is having his hair shaved off at the barber’s under the tree. He’s borrowed the money from Mookerjee. He’ll repay it.

Dr Pieter Schwartzmann, MB, BS (Sydney), FAILed. That’s Fellow of the Australian Institute of Heavy Metal Medicine, psychology a specialty. Health through a Positive Social Attitude.

‘You can’t do this, Pete,’ says Rollo.

‘Felix, you say there’s a hole in the wall where I can pick up a stethoscope? Take me there, please.’

‘Sure, Pete.’ Felix’s attitude to Pete has changed already. More respectful.

The barber, mistaking Pete’s gesture of grief as an expression of conversion to the Jain faith, has left the small Jain topknot.

Pete doesn’t seem to care. An unconscious gesture of hope, maybe? A sign that

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