The Simple Gift Quotes

I love this place.
I love the flow of cold clear water
over the rocks
and the wattles on the bank
and the lizards sunbaking,
heads up, listening,
and the birds,
hundreds of them,
silver-eyes and currawongs,
kookaburras laughing
at us kids swinging on the rope
and dropping into the bracing flow.
I spent half my school days here
reading books I’d stolen
from Megalong Bookshop
with old Tom Whitton
thinking I’m his best customer
buying one book
with three others shoved up my jumper.
I failed every Year 10 subject
except English.
I can read.
I can dream.
I know about the world.
I learnt all I need to know
in books on the banks
of Westfield Creek,
my favourite classroom.

‘Hey kid,
get outta there.
You’ll freeze to death.
That’ll teach you
to hitch a ride with National Rail.
No free rides with this government, son.
Just kidding.
I hate the bloody government.
Get your bag
and come back to the guard’s van.
There’s a heater that works,
and some coffee.[’]

[…] I settle down
with a book about these kids
stranded on a deserted island
and some try to live right
but the others go feral
and it’s a good book
and I’m there, on the island
gorging on tropical fruit,
trying to decide
whose side I’m on.
And then it hits me.
I’m on neither.
I’d go off alone,
because you can’t trust
those who want to break the rules
and you certainly can’t trust
those who make the rules,
so you do the only thing possible,
you avoid the rules.
That’s me,
on the deserted island
of a soft lounge
in Bendarat Library.

I finished the book
nodded goodbye to Irene
and walked out
into the late afternoon cloud
and a slight drizzle.
No sleeping in the park tonight.
Two options:
a church
or a railway station.
Churches are too spooky and cold.
I walk to the station.
Men in suits, like tired penguins,
wait for the bus
and throw furtive glances
at the woman on the seat
reading a magazine.
She ignores them.

I don’t need to work at McDonald’s.
Dad would rather I didn’t.
He buys me anything I want.
But Mum and I have a deal.
Whatever I earn, she doubles
and banks for me,
for university in two years.
Dad says why bother.
Dad is too rich for his own good.
It was his idea I go to
Bendarat Grammar School
instead of Bendarat High School
where all my old friends went.
[…]
And I can’t wait for university
so I can leave home
and that’s why I work at McDonald’s
and mop floors.

And yes I’ve been out with boys
‘on dates’
but mostly with Petra and Kate
and a whole gang together,
not alone.
And I’ve done some things,
you know,
at parties with boys,
just mild stuff really.
So I’m normal,
a normal seventeen year old.
I think about boys
but only in a general way
like not a boy I know
or anything
but just some good-looking guy
and me
and what we’d do
if we had the chance.
Pure fantasy really.
Nothing wrong with that,
but nothing real about it either.

His grey beard was stained with smoke,
his hair long and swept back,
his face lined but
when you looked closer
he wasn’t that old,
forty-five, maybe fifty.
He got up to go to bed
to sleep off his sorrow
or so he said.
As he left he turned
and said,
‘Welcome to the Bendarat Hilton,
I’ve been here since March 2nd, 1994.
May your stay be as long,
if you wish it.’
Then he stumbled off,
an old man
before his time,
sleeping in a carriage,
and I shivered
as the sun came up.

I slept badly.
I dreamt of myself
as an old man
in a pub, at the bar,
watching the races on TV
with my smokes and my plans
for winning $5 on the grey horse
running second last.
All night
I could hear Old Bill
snoring, coughing,
swearing in his sleep.
He made more noise
than the wind
whistling through the freight yard.
I lay in bed
listening
afraid to fall asleep
and dream again
of myself
getting old
long before my time.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
by anything anymore.
The kid must be fifteen,
or sixteen at the most,
and here he is,
living in the Bendarat Hilton
with a bag of clothes
and some smokes
to give away
to a bum like me.
And when he gave me
those smokes
I almost cried,
a kid like that
with nothing
giving stuff away.
But I took them
and I sat in my carriage
smoking
and trying to place
the past five years
and my memory
flickered and grew dim
like the cigarette
and I stopped remembering […]

I stuffed the notes
into my jacket pocket
and walked into town.
I thought of what to do
with all this money—
a big meal at a restaurant,
some clothes,
a new sleeping bag,
a radio for the long nights,
and then I realized
how Old Bill felt—
with nothing
you’re rich.
You’ve got no decisions,
no choice,
and no worry.
Here I am walking
in the sunshine of another day
buying the world
and worrying over choices
I didn’t have to make a week ago.
I wanted to spend the money
quickly
so I could go back to nothing,
go back to being rich
and penniless again.

Because when I was
twelve years old
and my dad chased me
out of the house
with a strap,
I’d hidden in the neighbor’s
chook shed, waiting for night
when I could climb
through my bedroom window
and sleep,
hoping Dad wouldn’t wake angry.
After an hour,
our neighbor came out
and placed a bowl of soup
and some bread
on a tin
outside the chook shed door.
She left me dinner
and walked away.
I ate my fill
and waited till late.
A few weeks later
that neighbor moved away
and I never thanked her,
and that’s why I help Old Bill,
for no reason
other than he needs it.

It’s simple, really.
I have more clothes
than I’ll ever wear.
I have a TV and a CD player
in my room
which has its own bathroom
which is always a mess
full of make-up and lip gloss
and moisturizer and special soaps.
I have a large desk with a computer
and next month,
when I turn eighteen,
my own bloody car.
And I’m not a spoilt brat OK,
but I am spoilt,
spoilt to boredom,
and I’m smart enough
to realise that none of this
means anything
except my parents are rich
and think I want this stuff
or need this stuff
and I know what I really need
and it’s not in my bedroom.
And it’s not able to be bought
in any damn store.

But look at me.
Kids fall out of trees
all the time.
They sprain their ankle,
or get the wind knocked out of them,
but my Jessie,
my sweet lovely Jessie,
fell
and I fell with her
and I’ve been falling
ever since.

And this pub,
this beer, these clothes,
this is where I landed.

He gives me advice
on how to live cheap,
and how to jump trains
late at night,
and how to find out
which trains are going where,
and which trains have friendly guards.
He encourages me to travel,
to leave here
and ride the freights.
He makes it seem so special,
so romantic,
and I ask him
why he doesn’t do it,
you know,
if it’s so special,
and he tells me
about his Jessie
and his wife
and the house he visits
when too much drink
has made him forget
because without his ghosts
he’s afraid he’ll have nothing to live for.
And at that moment I know
I am listening to
the saddest man in the world.

I’ve got the weekend off.
No McDonald’s,
no schoolwork,
and thankfully no parents—
Mum has a conference interstate,
with Dad going along
‘for the golf’.
It only took three days
of arguing to convince
Mum and Dad that, at seventeen,
I can be trusted on my own,
even though I can’t.
And what is trust, anyway?
No, I won’t burn the house down.
No, I won’t drink all the wine.
No, I won’t have a huge drug party.
But
yes, I will invite Billy over
and yes, I will enjoy myself
in this house,
this big, ugly, five-bedroom
million dollar brick box
that we live in.

I sat through Maths
and Science
and English
trying to understand why I ran
and all I can think
is that seeing Billy
with that old hobo
made me think of Billy
as a hobo
and I was ashamed,
ashamed of myself
for thinking that.
Hadn’t I known how Billy lived?
Hadn’t I seen him
stealing food,
and hadn’t I seen where he sleeps?
By lunchtime
I decided
I was a complete fool
and maybe I was more spoilt
than I thought,
maybe there was something
of my parents in me,
whether I liked it or not.
And I walked through the school gates,
and I walked slowly and deliberately
back to the railway tracks,
determined not to run away again.

I almost laughed
when they arrived.
The two neatest hobos
I’d ever seen,
with their hair combed,
slicked back,
and their faces rubbed shiny clean.
Old Bill called me ‘Miss’
and offered me a box of chocolates
he’d brought
and he looked around the house
as though he were visiting the moon.
Billy saw the wine,
already open,
and he poured three glasses
passed them around
and as we raised our glasses
Billy said,
‘To the richest house in Bendarat’
and we laughed.
My cooking even smelt good […]

Billy returned an hour later
and came to my carriage.
We sat opposite, talking.
I heard the bottles clink
in his bag
and said,
‘Come on, then,
let’s have them.’
But when he brought out
the ginger beer
I swore
and laughed
and swore some more,
but really
you’ve got to admire the kid.
So I drank the stuff
and we sat up late
talking
and I slept
better than I had in a long time
so maybe
just maybe
I’ll work on less beer
for a while.
For the kid’s sake.

I go to the river with Billy
and we swim and wash,
or sometimes
I walk the streets
looking at the houses
and the corner shops
and the parks with trees
and fountains,
and young couples kissing,
and old men reading newspapers,
and ladies walking dogs,
and sometimes
these people nod and say hello
as though I’m one of them
and not an old drunk.
I nod back,
even talk about the weather on occasions,
and I walk back to my carriage
planning
where I’ll go tomorrow,
where I’ll walk in my town
where I’ll go to stop
thinking about the drink.

Jessie and I stood on the verandah,
Jessie holding the bird gently.
She opened her hands
and it sat on her palms
looking at her
then it turned and flew
high into the wattle
where it perched.
Jessie waved
and the bird flew away.

I thought of Jessie
helping that bird
and how, after it left,
Jessie turned to me
and said that
when she grew up
she wanted to be a vet,
she wanted to heal animals
and to help people.

I wasn’t always a hobo.
I worked in town.
I dressed neatly in suit and tie.
I understood the law.
I earned a lot of money
knowing stupid rules and regulations
and I’d studied for years
to make sure those rules
were enforced
when someone came to me for help.
But all that knowledge
and all that training
couldn’t stop a young
beautiful child from
falling out of a tree,
or a wife from driving
a car too drunk to care.
All that knowledge
couldn’t stop a man
from drinking to forget
to forget the life
with the suit and tie
in his office in town.
But today
the knowledge
that hasn’t been used
in five years
could come up
with a solution
to where a sixteen-year-old boy
could live,
and what his legal rights were,
so all that knowledge
is finally worth something,
finally.

I arrive at Billy’s
and he’s in the kitchen
scrubbing the floor.
He’s already done the bathroom.
I vacuum the lounge
and the main bedroom—
it’s only dust
that’s gathered lonely in the corners
and on the curtains.
Billy and I work all morning.
We eat lunch under the fir trees
and look at the house.
We don’t say much.
We lie on the blanket
and hold each other.
Billy has his arms around me
and his eyes turned
towards the white timber house.

Caitlin and I lay
in the huge bed
with the moon
a perfect light
and the trees
long fingers scratching
at the window.
I reached under the bed
and found what I’d hidden
earlier in the night.
I lifted the small case
and I opened the lid
to show Caitlin the
beautiful green emerald ring
I’d bought months earlier
because of the colour of her eyes
because I’d worked all week
in the cannery with my hands stained red
and because
I couldn’t spend all that money
on food,
or beer,
or myself.

Last night,
unable to sleep
[…]
I got dressed, closed the door gently,
and walked the streets,
and as the Town Hall clock
tolled midnight
I stood on the railway platform
looking across at the carriages,
my home for these past months.
I knew Old Bill was asleep
like most of Bendarat.
I made a silent vow
to visit my carriage,
once a week,
to sit and read, alone, on the leather seat,
with the sounds and smells
of the hobo life close by,
to never forget this home
by the railroad tracks.

Today he ate three helpings
and drank the thermos
and on his last cup
he told me of his plan
to head north, taking his time.
And he said,
‘Don’t worry about the house
and its ghosts,
I’m taking them with me,
they need a holiday,
and so do I.’
I didn’t know what to say,
so I sat there
looking at the freight train
shunting carriages in the distance
across the tracks
where
months ago
an old man
dropped his beer
and sat down to cry.
I said to Old Bill,
‘I love the house,’
and I left it at that.