Dear Michael re the story The Last Page

Melbourne,October ‘08

Dear Michael, herewith the story I told you about. The first story I ever won a prize with and had published – in the Mercury Newspaper 1956, I think. I polished it a little but in the main it remains the same. The prize helped when I got back from Canada flat broke. There it was waiting for me all alone in my depleted bank account.

In retro, I do declare the story is not too bad at all. I note that even back then I took a stab at writing about things I didn’t really know. And in this case the main thing I tidied up in the story was the hospital experience – the morphine bit particularly. I know about it now, I only guessed then. I haven’t been shot of course, but with cops and robbers and cowboys and all that stuff it’s easy to imagine. Besides, not many people have been shot in the stomach twice and lived to tell the tale, so there are but few to correct me.

Which brings me to one of the problems I see with today’s stories. The number of times I’ve given up reading a story because it didn’t engage me – well, who wants to know about someone dad, mum, granny who made her own soap, or school, or I or me and my love affairs and disappointments, blah, blah, blah. Self-centered, first person mediocrity in a short story; even when written in the third person I can still see the writer behind the story. As far as I’m concerned these are the subject matter for the novel where they can be explored fully in a more emotional context. As far as the short story goes it seems like everyone has misinterpreted the meaning of ‘write about what you know.’ I mean it was OK for Hemingway but most of us have dull lives and what we know is dull, unless we bring our imaginations to bear and ask ourselves: What if?

Consider the Bronte sisters. Most of their work was dragged out of their vivid imaginations. Remember that story I wrote about the grandfather who stole a train so his grandson could experience what he experienced in his own youth. Well, I was writing about what I know but I interpret the meaning of that advice quite differently than seems the general consensus. I know what it’s like being a boy. I know what it’s like getting old and feeling a bit useless. I know what it’s like to fish in a river like old Gramp did. I know about frustration and being a bit pissed. I know that some rivers are getting polluted. I know what a country pub’s like. I know how to drive a car and also a train because of my experience with the C.P.R. in Canada. I know how a train’s whistle sounds in the distance, especially in the night. So very atmospheric, a sadness and longing and sometimes loneliness – many things, but for the boy, so exciting. That’s what I know. The rest, the storyline, was dragged out of my imagination. It didn’t exist until I made it so and what authenticated the story was my experience. What more can I say? Hope you enjoy it. 

PS there is another story about that time I’ll send you. Seeing I was so fond of William Saroyan I couldn’t help spoofing him. I had heard, and I’m sure it’s true, that copying the style of an author you admire is a very good way of learning how a writer solves the problems of the trade, as it is with any trade. Anyway, I’ll send it on later when I’ve polished it a little. I think it had promise.

THE LAST PAGE

The impact was simultaneous with the shattering roar - the bullet thumping into his chest, and then another flash, another roar and a thump lower down and an orange fireball swept down from the ceiling and exploded in his eyes. His knees buckled under him and someone hit him in the face with a floral carpet. The last thing he heard was a muffled scream in the air above him and the dark rushed in…

            Slowly, as if it wasn’t sure of its intention, a light flickered and flickered again – a white light, first blinding then subsiding and finally separating into two white masks peering down at him. The masks told him to lie still and not to move. One mask told him her name was Veronica and the other mask was called Jim. He told them he had a bellyache and began to swear. Jim said just relax we’re going to operate. Veronica told him to count to twenty.  He began counting and after ten he forgot what came next…

            He lay on his back feeling the starchiness of the white sheets under and over him. Two blank walls looked sideways at him. The wall in front had two windows in the middle. It could have been a huge bespectacled old man watching him.

            “How do we feel,” a voice asked. It was the ward nurse. Her dress was blue. He felt irritated; it should have been white. She was heavily built; she had a square face and a thin mouth.

            “I don’t know how you feel,” he said. “But I feel fuckin’ awful.”

    Her tight mouth became even tighter. “No need for that, she said. She pointed out the small device attached to his arm. “That is your morphine pain regulator, press the button on the end if the pain becomes unbearable. There’s water there too, but sip, don’t take it too quickly. Now, is there anything else you want?”

            More of a groan than a statement, he said, “I want to go back to the day before yesterday.”

            “Seriously, I mean.”

            “Pull back the curtains,” he said. “I’d like that.”

“There’s nothing out there. It’s after ten o’clock. It’s pitch dark.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “There’s always something to look at.”

The nurse went to the window and pulled back the curtains and then she turned and stared at him with disapproval. “See,” she said, “Dark, like I said.” She came back and sat on a plastic chair by his bed and opened up a book.

It was still raining. He could see a few lights through the wet glass. Streetlights? Or lonely stars in a black sky? Yes, he thought, there’s always something to see or imagine. He turned back to the nurse, “What’s the book about?”

The nurse looked embarrassed. “It’s about an Australian girl on a working holiday in Italy.”

“Who meets a boy, no doubt.”

“A man - yes.”

“A cliché plot, you mean?”

“You shouldn’t be talking. You should save your strength. You’re very ill.”

“D’you reckon the book’s got a happy ending?” He was dragging the words out. He hated silence. Too many unwanted thoughts crept into silence.

“How do I know how it’s going to end?”

“Probably a happy ending. Isn’t that what they’re all about - a happy ending? A girl a boy and love? The few I read were full of that kind of bullshit. They made me spew. The world’s a sick oyster.”

The nurse didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” he said. “This one might be different. Do me a favour; read the end.”

She looked across at him with suspicion. “That’s silly.”

“Come on,” he said, “Just the last page.”

 The nurse turned the pages over slowly until she reached the final page. She moved her lips - silently reading it through.

“Read it aloud,” he said softly. “Read it for me.”

She began to read in a flat nasal monotone. He watched her lips as she read but didn’t hear the words.

Why was she so plain? Why not a pretty nurse like they had on the soapies? Someone he could fall in love with. A nurse who would sponge his brow – sponge him all over - be kind and not judge him with frowns and narrow looks. Not like this one with her mean-looking lips. Suddenly he began to dislike her for being so unrelentingly plain. Then he began to hate himself for being shot up and feeling ill and useless; lying in bed on a wet night so far from all the things he’d hoped for. Where was the sun? The laughter? Where was his best girl?

Whistling a tuneless tune, walking down the street with a bunch of bright yellow flowers - daffs or marigolds? Whistling Genevieve.

Where had the summer, his youth, his friends all gone? What happened to yesterday?

The nurse closed the book. “Did you like it?” she said.

“It was beautiful, truly beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it,” she said. “Now, if there’s nothing more that you want, I’ll go back to the beginning.”

“What’s the point,” he said, “You know the ending, that’s all you need to read. Every writer is at his or her best in the last page. Everything neat, all tidied up – happy! What more do you want?”

“Well, if you don’t mind I’ll try and stagger through it. I have to sit here for another three hours and I have to find something to do.”

He gave her a half-hearted wink and forced out a grin. “There’s always something that boy and girl could do.”

She looked at him, her eyes half closed. “Now I don’t want any funny stuff from you Mr Smart Aleck. I know all about you.”

He smiled wistfully, “Ah, yes, my reputation is tarnished I have to admit, but there was a time long ago when I believed it was a perfect world. I was in love, you see, just like in your book.

The nurse watched him warily with narrow, unblinking eyes. He closed his own eyes, frowning as if recalling and the huskiness in his throat adding authenticity to the tone of his telling. “Ah, she was so beautiful, her eyes shining acorns, her hair golden, full of soft curls it was. I adored her and when she looked at me my heart melted. Yes, I guess I was hopelessly in love.”

He paused and screwed his face and closed his eyes against the sharp pain in his lower stomach. He pressed the button on the top of the drug regulator. Only when the pain subsided did he open his eyes again. She was staring at him and her large square face was full of expectancy. Her thin unpainted lips drawn tight. Damn her, he thought, why is she so plain?

Then he said: “She was killed in an accident. A truck hit her and she was killed.”

The nurse blinked twice. He was pleased to see a look of anguish creeping over her foolish-looking face. “How utterly ghastly,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“So am I,” he said, “She was the best little bitch I ever had.”

She didn’t react like he thought. She was staring at the white wall. Her flat, white face giving nothing away.

“She was a terrier,” the man said and started to laugh softly. Then deep down in his guts he felt the pain beginning to burn again. A slight stirrings in his intestines. Then he felt as if some part of him had turned over. An acid taste was trickling down his throat and he began to cough with hard retching movements of his chest.

He pressed the button on the device again and closed his eyes until the warm surge swept away the pain. He could get used to morphine - such a pleasant feeling – like lying on a bed of feathers. A peacefulness he’d never really felt before. How ironic, he’d sold drugs but had never really indulged himself. It was easy money and there was always a steady cliental. A rather weak-willed lot, his clientele, he always thought. But now, perhaps like him, they were alleviating their pain - seeking their own peace. Maybe he was wrong about that? Wrong about a lot of things.

All he could see of the city where he’d spent most of his life were a few distant lights twinkling mistily on a far hill. He wanted to be there. He needed to stand on that hill and the fact he couldn’t filled him with an almost unbearable loneliness. He began to realize how much his life meant to him. How the city was part of him and how he part of it.

Down, down, down, and the flames rose higher…

The door opened and two men came in. One was overweight and the other over tall. For a moment they stood at the door looking at him. They both looked uncomfortable in the clean whiteness of the room. A small semi-circle of water dripped soundlessly from the bottoms of their shiny wet mackintoshes.

“Hullo Sommers,” said the tall one. “We’re police officers. We’d like to talk to you.” They showed their badges that were too far away from him to see.

“You surprise me,” the man in the bed grunted.” I thought you were giant  golliwogs.”

The nurse rose to go.

“Sit down,” the man in the bed said. “I might take another turn for the worse.”

She looked at the policemen. The tall one nodded towards her chair so she sat down again.

“We want you to give us a statement, Sommers.”

“Sure, why not.”

The fat policeman took out a notebook and a fountain pen.

The man in the bed gazed reflectively out of the darkened window. “It was a burglar,” he said,

He saw their faces harden and felt their dislike for him fill the room.

“Look,” said the fat cop, “We know all about you and your phony deals. We know how most of your so-called clients end up. We know about the lives you’re ruined with your sordid little rackets. You must have lots of enemies. Was it someone trying to get even? Why not tell us? It can’t hurt you now.”

“Now that I’m terminal you mean?”

“I don’t mean that,” The fat cop said flatly. The two policemen shifted restlessly and looked at each other. The fat one shrugged his shoulders drew in his breath and for a moment it looked like he might spit at the floor.

God damn them, he thought, why can’t they leave him alone. He began to feel sorry for himself. He realized the cops were right, he had no friends - only enemies. He thought that maybe he should tell them the truth. But then he remembered the girl - her trembling hand – her despair. So young – so off the rails ...

Sweet eighteen, red hair in the porch-light, receiving a bunch of red carnations ... a piano playing on a warm summer’s night ... a ride on a bicycle along a country lane ... skinny-dipping the river.  Sweet Genevieve, long, long ago…  sweet, sweet, murder …

“Do you want a statement, or don’t you?”

“Shoot,” said the tall policeman said and looked around for a laugh.

The nurse frowned and looked out the darkened window. The fat policeman was gazing noncommittally at the white ceiling.

The man in bed took a deep breath. “Monday night - it was raining. I just got back from dinner. I was alone. I took out my door key when I saw it was already unlatched, so I crept in. At first I couldn’t see or hear anything, then I noticed a torch light flicker in the room I use as an office. I threw open the door and there was this guy going through my desk. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he threw his torch at me, so I hit him and he went down. The next minute he was back on his feet and waving this gun under my nose. I made a grab for it and he fired – twice. That’s all - you know the rest.”

“We don’t know anything, except that you’re a liar,” the fat cop said.

“You cops are too cynical.”

“Who in their right mind would rob you at that time?”

Pain coming again. He was forcing the words through bloodless lips, “Yeah, you’re right … it was strange.”

“How was this burglar dressed,” asked the tall policeman. “What did he look like?”

“I don’t know, bugger it. He had a stocking over his head. He was about average height. I didn’t notice much, I was too busy bleeding.”

“The man cleaning the lobby said he only saw one stranger - a woman. Quite young – she had red hair.”

“It must be a lonely job he’s got.”

“He said the girl was acting strangely,” the fat policemen said.

“They all do, believe me.” The man in bed tried to smile in a way that he knew annoyed them. But it didn’t come off. It came out more of a grimace. He pressed the button on the self-administrating painkiller. But the pressure wasn’t there. It was all that he was allowed. Any more and it might kill him the doctor had told him earlier. Well, how was that for irony? What a Goddamn farce!

Pain building again. Bugger it, he thought, he just wanted to get it over with. I want it all to stop. Everything.

The nurse who had been a spectator during the whole interview suddenly stood up. She faced the two policemen. “He said he didn’t know. Just give him a break. I’m going to call the doctor if you don’t leave him alone.”

The tall policeman shrugged his shoulders. He stared at the nurse for a moment. “You know.” he said, “I can’t make up my mind whether he’s a hypocrite or not. What d’you reckon nurse.”

The nurse looked at him blankly. “It’s not for me to say, is it?”

The cop smiled. “No, me either. Though I wish I was religious sometimes. I wish I believed in Heaven and Hell and all that sort of thing. Some blokes need to get their comeuppance somewhere.”

The man in the bed gave the nurse a wry grin. “We wouldn’t want to go down below would we nurse, there’re too many crooked cops down there.”

The overweight cop ripped the sheet out of his pad. “Your statement,” he said. He screwed it into a ball and tossed it into the stainless steel rubbish container. “More hospital waste,” he said.

When the two policemen had left the nurse sat down again. “Was it true what you told them?”

“My, you are a curious one. Of course it wasn’t. I was shot up by a midget Indian Rajah with horn-rimmed specs - I stole one of his concubines once and he never forgave me.”

The nurse said, “Oh, you’re impossible. I don’t know how you can be so flippant?”

“Why not?”

“You know – you’re ill.”

The man in the bed felt the pain coming again. He felt like someone was ratcheting up a red-hot band around his lower back. He couldn’t help groaning aloud. “I’m not ill – I’m dying and my morph has run dry. How about some more?”

“You know what the doctor said.”

He groaned. “Fuckin’ doctors and their hypocritical oath. I wonder what he’ll do when his time comes?”

“That’s enough of that,” the nurse said. “All those things you used to do. I read about it in the papers. You should be ashamed of yourself and all you can do is swear and carry on.”

He snorted. “Sure, I got away with a lot and I got blamed for a lot I didn’t do. Some call it procuring but I prefer protection. It’s the way of the world. Some men can be worst bastards than me and their expertise is in shifting the blame. Take my old man for instance - he blamed me for everything…me and my mum…just for living mostly. He’ll be happy now.”

The nurse’s expression softened. “Do you want me to ask the doctor for more morphine?”

He found it hard to even shake his head now, and even the pain seemed somehow justified. The nurse was gazing down on him. She had such a look of concern on her face he was shamed. How very strange, she thought him a creep, she’d made that plain, but now – it was almost as if she cared for him. He thought that he could even see her blinking back tears.

He said, “I’m sorry, truly sorry.” And the more he thought about it the more sorry he became. “I’m sorry for me and I’m sorry for my mother, who I should have looked after those years ago when I was too busy looking after myself. I’m sorry for those strangers who offered me a smile and I didn’t respond. I’m sorry for the friends I pissed off and for all those girls… and for you. Mostly for you nurse who’s stuck here on a rainy night when you could be somewhere else. You’re quite beautiful … I hadn’t noticed … you remind me of someone … someone long ago.”

And then he was further surprised to see her actually smiling down at him. A smile, empty of malice, or anticipation, or greed, or calculation - just a smile as smiles should always be. He tried to lift his hand in salutation but all his strength had dissipated and this time the pain came in searing rushes, driving everything before it, every thought, every feeling being swept away. There was a bell buzzing, buzz buzz buzz. Jarring! Then, inexplicably, it faded and he felt an amazing lightness and relief, like he had escaped from something. The sound of soft music filled the room and he listened with wonder. Genevieve. Someone was singing about her. Genevieve. Ah Genevieve, the girl he never met, the town he never saw, the house he never lived in … how it might have been?

Now he was walking from his bed across the mirrored floor, his image foot to foot through the wall and into the wide world. He was floating through space. Below him the streets were black, the building shapeless. He was drifting in the lightness of peace…hovering. He felt the air cool on his face and he smelt the fragrance of spring – of roses and jasmine – and he rose up, swirling, becoming unattached, until, like cigarette smoke in the breeze, he was gone… 

Me speaking this time: When I get better I’m going to buy a van and go ferae naturae on a tropical beach.