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Chapter 7: The Simple Gift
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Simple Gift, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Riches and Poverty
Redemption
Love and Family
Rules and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Old Bill and this town. Every day, Old Bill now wakes up early and eats a proper breakfast before taking long walks. Sometimes he goes to the river with Billy to wash and swim; other times he walks through town looking at the houses, shops, parks, and people going about their lives. Sometimes, even, people nod and smile and say hello as if Old Bill is one of them instead of “an old drunk.” And every day, he walks back to his train car planning the next day’s walk, and where he will go to keep from thinking about getting drunk.
Even when Old Bill and Billy don’t physically share breakfast, this poem implies, the good of that relationship continues to bear fruit for Old Bill. Breakfast with Billy has become the springboard into other mentally and physically healthy habits like drinking less and taking long walks. On these walks, Old Billy shows increasing interest in the houses, which are linked with ideas about safety and family—two things he’s lived for too long without.
Themes
Nothing’s easy. Old Bill complains to Billy that whenever his walks take him past a pub, his hands start shaking with desire to get drunk. Billy reminds him that nothing is easy and suggests that he just stop walking by pubs. Old Bill agrees that nothing is easy.
Billy’s reminder about the difficulty of life affirms Old Bill’s humanity (life is hard for everyone sometimes) and marks his progress toward redemption—since he keeps going despite the difficulties.
Themes
Closing in. One day in town, two police officers stop Billy and ask him a lot of questions. They clearly suspect he’s a runaway or a truant from school and they don’t buy his story that he’s 18 and just staying with a friend in Bendarat while on his way out west. The older police officer gives Billy the card of a local welfare officer and says he’ll be waiting for Billy there at 4:00 the following afternoon. If Billy doesn’t show up and the officer never sees him again, he'll know that Billy has moved on like he said. But if Billy doesn’t show and the officer finds him in town again, he will have more questions, and he will want answers. Billy agrees and flees back to his train car where it feels like the walls are closing in on him.
Since arriving in Bendarat, Billy’s life has been peaceful and easy, especially compared to living with his dad. His encounter with the police shatters the illusion that his itinerant, unhoused lifestyle is permanently sustainable, however. The police officer has a force more like Billy’s dad than his friends (Ernie, Old Bill, Irene, Caitlin)—he sees Billy as a potential problem to be solved rather than a human being with inherent dignity and the right to determine his own path in life.
Themes
Old Bill’s long walk. The same day, Old Bill walks past Jessie’s old school. Since he saw it last, it has a new coat of paint and a new library. He watches the children playing at recess. One little girl starts to climb a tree in the playground and Old Bill is just about to say something to her when a teacher calls her back down to the ground. His hands start to shake, and he must walk home with care, scrupulously avoiding routes that take him past any pubs.
Just as Billy’s life in Bendarat begins to destabilize, Old Bill gathers the courage to begin facing his own trauma. The school’s facelift reminds Old Bill of the passage of time and suggests to readers that time has the ability to cover over—if not eradicate—the traumas and heartbreaks of the past. Seeing a child in the tree sends Old Bill into a panic, reminding him of how much emotional work remains for his healing—yet his decision to avoid the pubs shows that he’s on the right path.
Themes
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Early, or late. Early the next morning, Billy carries breakfast and coffee to Old Bill only to find his friend awake and shaving. They sit together over breakfast in the sunshine and Billy tells Old Bill about the police and the welfare officer. Billy doesn’t know what to do. He thinks that moving on is the only answer, but he doesn’t want to leave the first place he’s ever felt at home. And he doesn’t want to leave Caitlin.
Something has shifted for Old Bill after he confronts Jessie’s school—he’s no longer sleeping in and neglecting his appearance. But just as his world seems to be approaching some tenuous equilibrium, with the companionship of Billy and Caitlin to bolster his sense of humanity, he and Billy receive a harsh reminder that no matter how much freedom they have, sometimes unaccountable things happen in life.
Themes
Home. Old Bill promises to help Billy out of his bind. Then he leaves his young friend in the Freight Yard to go on a long walk around the familiar streets and through the suburbs of Bendarat, with their neatly painted and landscaped houses.
Notably, while Old Bill walks and tries to work out how to help Billy, he looks at the houses along his route. His attention to the details of yards and buildings hints that the answer lies in a house.
Themes
So obvious. Old Bill walks for hours until he finds himself on Wellington Road across from his house—from Jessie’s house. He wishes he could have a drink to help him make up his mind, but he knows that Billy doesn’t have much time. The solution is so simple, and so obvious—but so painful it makes Old Bill tremble.
Unsurprisingly, given his attention to the houses on his route and his desire to help Billy, Old Bill winds up staring at his own house. Yet, with his own trauma not fully resolved, Old Bill feels torn between helping Billy—who has become almost a surrogate son—and holding space for the ghost of his daughter Jessie.
Themes
To help people. Looking at his house, Old Bill remembers the time when an eight-year-old Jessie rescued an injured parrot. They wrapped it in a soft towel and put it in a box. She nursed the bird for two days, keeping it warm and feeding it sugar syrup, until it recovered enough to fly away. As she watched it flutter up and perch in the trees, she turned to Old Bill and told him that she wanted to be a vet when she grew up so that she could care for other animals and “help people.”
Old Bill’s memories give readers a glimpse into Jessie’s character. She seems to have shared Billy’s generous, caring nature. The connection she makes between healing animals and helping people isn’t immediately obvious—but it does suggest her concern for the welfare of all living creatures. Thus, through this memory, she encourages Old Bill to find purpose in making good on the legacy she wanted to have in the world.
Themes
Peace. Old Bill unlatches the gate and lets himself into the overgrown backyard. A pair of swallows are nesting in the rafters of the verandah. Before retrieving the lawnmower from the shed and addressing the knee-high grass, Old Bill sits and enjoys the sunlight filtering through the tree branches onto the peaceful verandah and watching the swallows swoop in to feed their babies. When he feels ready, he gets to work.
Old Bill’s avoidance of the house throughout most of the book suggests that visiting it causes him intense pain. Earlier he told Billy he visits only long enough to remember and then runs away to drink enough to forget. Yet, sitting in the yard, he feels an overwhelming sense of peace. Deciding to allow the house to fulfil its role (providing stability, shelter, and companionship for its residents) redeems the house and brings Old Bill peace.
Themes
The neighbors. The next-door neighbors don’t know Old Bill, and they come over to introduce themselves and chat. He tells them he owns the house but lives elsewhere and that a family friend (Billy) will move in soon to take care of it. The house, Old Bill explains, is too big for an old man like him. Finally satisfied by his answers, the neighbors eventually wander off.
The fact that the neighbors don’t recognize Old Bill suggests how long it’s been since he visited the house. This offers a tantalizing possibility that the house—and by extension, Old Bill himself—has the potential to find release from the traumas of the past.
Themes
War. During History class, Caitlin looks out the window and sees Billy across the road, looking despondent. She longs to run to him, embrace him and go back to the train car with him. She wants to embrace the hippy slogan and make love not war, and she feels like a prisoner of war sitting inside and learning about the Vietnam War while Billy sits in the park needing her.
In this poem, Caitlin’s history lesson becomes tangled with her ruminations on Billy after she sees him sitting across the street. She’s starting to determine the direction of her own life and differentiating herself from her parents. Billy has comparatively more freedom in this moment. But his encounter with the police and welfare officers suggests that there are some limits on all individual freedom.
Themes
Not moving. All morning, Billy sits outside of Bendarat Grammar School, wishing for Caitlin to walk out of the gates so they can run away together to a place where no nosy welfare officers ask you uncomfortable questions plastered over with a thin show of friendliness. He waits to hear Old Bill’s plan, too, but he guesses that Old Bill will just give Billy whatever money he has left from the cannery and put him on a train to elsewhere like he’s a bad cowboy being run out of town by the sheriff.
The last time Billy found his life unlivable, he ran away. He could exempt himself from the normal rules of society—at least in part—because he didn’t have love or stability to hold him in place. In contrast, even though he faces danger again in this moment, his love for Caitlin ties him to Bendarat regardless of the consequences.
Themes
Old Bill’s suit and tie. Before meeting up with Billy again, Old Bill stops at the Salvation Army store and buys a clean shirt, pants, and tie. He stuffs his old clothes into a plastic bag and walks out looking like a businessman.
In part, Old Bill buys a suit and tie to make himself look official enough to convince the welfare office of his plan. But more importantly, this marks an important turning point for him on his path toward redemption. He cares enough for Billy to care for himself again.
Themes
Near. Old Bill walks quickly—mowing the lawn, buying the new outfit, and getting the electric service reestablished to the house took longer than he expected. By the time he rounds a corner and sees Billy, he’s exhausted. But, catching sight of the forlorn teenager, a sense of pride—something he hasn’t felt in years—reinvigorates Old Bill.
In this moment, Old Bill becomes a full father figure for Billy. Despite the teenager’s maturity and resourcefulness, he’s learning that he can’t make it through life entirely on his own. Fortunately, just as he realizes this, Old Bill is ready to support him.
Themes
All that knowledge. Once upon a time, Old Bill dressed in suits and ties and worked in the city as a lawyer. He made a lot of money. But all his knowledge and training couldn’t stop Jessie from falling out of the tree and dying, couldn’t stop his wife from dying, and didn’t stop him from drinking to forget his past life. But today he’s using his old knowledge to help Billy assert his legal rights and to make sure he has a safe place to stay.
In an earlier poem, Billy read Lord of the Flies and concluded that the only way to live life is to exempt himself from the rules of society and live according to his own inner compass. Similarly, Old Bill’s former life shows that following the rules doesn’t keep a person safe from catastrophe. Yet, his descent into wildness and forsaking human connection failed to assuage his pain, too. Only in finding each other and forging their strong friendship can Billy and Old Bill mutually find redemption, belonging, and safety.
Themes
Old and young. Old Bill offers to buy Billy coffee to show his gratitude for all the breakfasts Billy has shared. Billy comes along reluctantly—he wants to wait for Caitlin to get out of school so he can tell her about his predicament. In the coffee shop, Old Bill notices the first signs of defeat in Billy’s eyes and feels certain that he made the right decision. He tells Billy his plan all at once.
Notably, Old Bill’s ploy to get Billy away from the school so he can share his plan plays on the sharing of food that initiated and cemented the relationship between the two men over the course of many weeks. Food brings people together, and sharing it—especially giving it to another—conveys an enduring sense of care and compassion.
Themes
Old Bill’s plan. Old Bill’s plan is to tell the welfare officer that Billy lives at the house on Wellington Road mostly alone. Old Bill is a family friend helping him out as Billy makes his escape from a dangerous alcoholic father and figures out whether he wants to go back to school or find a job. He and Billy will talk nonstop and not let the welfare officer get a word or a question in edgewise. Afterward, they’ll go straight to the house so Billy can start his new life.
While Old Bill carefully avoids actually usurping the role of Billy’s father—in his cover story, Billy still escaped from an abusive dad—at this point in the novel he has become a surrogate father figure to the teenager. Telling the welfare officer about how he keeps an eye on Billy adds an official aura to the relationship the two have developed.
Themes
Billy. Billy holds the keys to the house in his hands as he listens to Old Bill reiterate the plan, trying to convince himself and Billy that it will work. Billy feels hopeful that it will work, but he also feels incredibly sad because he knows that Old Bill is giving him more than just a place to stay, and he worries that taking the gift will leave Old Bill with nothing left to hold on to.
While Caitlin and Billy offered Old Bill the “simple” gift of companionship and humanization, the house becomes a much more complicated gift. It’s the only way that Billy can keep his freedom, but his desire to live his own life doesn’t overpower his concern for Old Bill, demonstrating just how deep and mutual that relationship has become.
Themes
Caitlin. Caitlin rushes out of the building after school, but Billy has left the park. She goes to the train car, but he isn’t there either. She knows something is wrong. She walks home, making plans to return to the train car after her shift that night with apple pies and coffee so she can listen about Billy’s problem.
Caitlin knows that something bad has happened, even if she doesn’t know what. Importantly, to address the problem, she reverts to the initial—and most common—symbol of relationships and mutuality in the book: a shared meal.
Themes
Liars. Luckily, the police office doesn’t stick around after making sure that Billy shows up for his appointment with the welfare officer. The welfare officer asks a lot of questions, but Old Bill is a great liar. He convinces the officer that Billy is 18, that he lives in a normal house with a responsible adult, and that he’s getting his life in order. The welfare officer shakes Billy’s hand and wishes him luck. But Billy knows he doesn’t need it—he’s already as lucky as can be. In the bright sunshine outside, Billy asks Old Bill how he got so good at lying, and Old Bill says he used to do it for a living.
Although Billy wants to live his life outside the rules, by remaining in Bendarat and forging relationships with Old Bill, Caitlin, and even Irene Thompson, he remains tethered to the world of the rule-makers. In other words, he values relationships with others more than his absolute freedom. Though poor in worldly possessions, Billy is rich in what matters: love, friendship, and luck. By helping Billy out in this way, Old Bill redeems the house he’s left empty for too long. He also reclaims the education and training (as a lawyer) that he abandoned after his personal traumas.
Themes
