Free Cloudstreet by Tim Winton Page A

is damaged, can a shrink fix it?
    No. He might help hysteria, trauma and so on. You could think about a specialized home for him …
    Oriel picked Fish up in a swoop. There’s no home as specialized as mine, Mister!
    Lestah! Lestah!
    Mrs Lamb, sit down.
    Come on, Lester.
    Fish, asked the quack, where do you want to go?
    The water, the water!
    Oriel crashed through the waiting room like a fullback.
    Fast! said Fish. Fast!
    VE
    While they slept, Sam Pickles nursing his tingling stump, Oriel Lamb snoring beneath her eyepatches, the house stumps grinding beneath them, the wallshadows flitting and dancing and swirling up a musty smell in the darkness, the war ended in Europe.
    Before dawn, word was out at the Metro Markets where Lester heard it, dropped what he was doing and drove home, punishing the old Chev across tramlines and through stop signs until he throttled it, smoking and steaming, into Cloud Street. He went through the door like a stormtrooper.
    Victory in Europe!
    And the wireless was on somewhere.
    Unconditional surrender!
    VE Day.
    Lester barrelled into the kids’ room. No school today! VE Day.
    What? said Red, always snaky when woken.
    VE Day!
    Violet Eggleston? What’s she done, that dag?
    Who?
    What?
    The war. The Krauts are out.
    Oh.
    What about the Japs? said Quick from the hallway.
    The Japs are still in.
    We’ll get em, said Quick.
    Anyway. Hitler’s dead.
    Hitler didn’t bomb Darwin, said Quick.
    Tokyo’ll go, said Red.
    Gawd, said Lester, what a mob of glumbums.
    Wait’ll Violet Eggleston finds out, said Red, she’ll think it’s for her.
    The kids climbed back into their beds. Next door the Pickleses were laughing. Well, thought Lester, that’s that then.
    A Fish Forgets
    Fish hears the winter rain hissing on the tin roof. When lightning flashes he sees the fruit trees without leaves down there in the yard. On still nights, cold nights, clear frosty nights, he hears the river a long way off across the rooftops and treecrowns. That’s something he does remember. But he forgets so much. He doesn’t remember being a real flamin character. He’s forgotten all his old ways, how people loved him, people’s names, his daily jobs. Before, he’d likely as not tie your shoelaces together while you weren’t noticing, but nowadays he can’t even get his own shoes on, let alone lace them. School learning has evaporated in his head, horseriding, stone-skipping, fartlighting, limericks, stars, directions, weather, rabbit trapping, beetle racing. From the outside, those are the things you can tell about him. Mostly, he just forgets to grow up. Already Lon is thinking of Fish as the baby of the family.
    He knows Quick, Lester, Lon, Hat, Elaine and Red, but he can’t seem to place Oriel. Either that or he sees her and ignores her. He just looks through her like she’s not there, like she’s never been there.
    It’s like Fish is stuck somewhere. Not the way all the living are stuck in time and space; he’s in another stuckness altogether. Like he’s half in and half out. You can only imagine and still fail to grab at how it must be. Even the dead fail to know and that’s what hurts the most. You have to make it up and have faith for that imagining.
    Fish is still strong and beautiful. That Rose next door sees it. She watches him. Mostly Fish is quiet. He talks, but not much. He likes to stand around in the yard and see birds. He likes the way things move in the wind. Wind excites him. When he feels breeze on his face he smiles and says, Yes. Winter days now, he stands out in the westerly that blows down the tracks from the sea and it closes his eyes with its force.
    Hello, wind!
    He loves to sing. He knows ‘The Old Rugged Cross’, ‘Blessed Assurance’, ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’, whole strings of them. Lester brings out the accordion some nights after tea and Fish moans along. Music seems to make him feel good. Music and spinning things.
    Knife never lies! he yells as Lester spins the