The Pages by Murray Bail Read Free Book Online

sandals and ankle boots, so reproducing the craftsman’s atmosphere, not much different from the Middle Ages – one bloke still held tacks between his lips, as he cut leather and hammered. Others there on Darlinghurst Road had tired expressions as they cut pizzas into bleeding triangles which drooped over plates, day and night, like Dali watches. Bottle shops, money-changers, the fluorescent optimism of the all-night newsagent. Strip joints – ‘nite spots’, they’re advertised as – had a door opening onto stairs going up to nowhere, to darkness and pounding repetitious music, a spruiker or two on the footpath pointing up the stairs. To kill time or just being polite they listened half-heartedly to tarts bitching about the other girls. A stripper in a short coat looking cold and hungry running across the street to her next venue. Opposite the fountain, a butcher sold basic cuts and Australian sausages, unaware of the shifting demographics; Wesley noticed the way this gangling slack-lipped countryman sat down to his lunch at the back of the shop, tucking into two freshly fried lamb chops with liver, no vegetables. Pawnshops are drawn to the intersections, variety in all its messiness, no more surprising than the banks in there too, adopting a patient, resigned air, at least architecturally.
    Street people spotted Wesley as a yokel, not only for his red ears and premature crow’s feet, and the tan boots – only missing item being the hat – but also his wide-open gaze of one who had never before seen at close quarters eye-sliding men and women, jittery, and yet matter-of-fact types, flaunting themselves to make a quid – and the wear and tear it takes out on the eye, mouth, skin and sympathies in general. In the first week his wallet had gone. But this was a man earlier on Bayswater Road who saw a twenty-dollar note on the footpath and kept walking. Even back then he could hardly be bothered bending down – or seen to be stooping for anything.
    At night he was a large slow fish with bulging eyes passing through the channels, changing mind, turning back, taking in and digesting the many different movements between people, and the people themselves, their expressions, temptations. In fact, the world had turned its details in his direction; every little thing seemed to wait in bright, clear light for his inspection. Edge of building, one eye bigger than the other, pigeons unafraid of that fat woman. He felt like squatting down to examine the very small and ordinary. Early in the morning, streets were watered and along the gutters flowed bus tickets, dry leaves, dead matches and toothpicks, cigarette butts, torn notes, trimmings from fingernails, hair – all manner of leftovers, discarded things. And as he kept seeing each day something fresh on the street, he felt he was gaining experience, or at least complexity, even though it was only observation.
    To have her boy within reach his mother had a telephone installed in his apartment. And it became more or less established Thursday nights were set aside for her, his mother. If other people were invited she’d phone and suggest he wear a necktie; otherwise, it would be pasta or Thai takeaway from trays, not saying much. A daughter might have been better, but Mrs Antill and Lindsey didn’t get on.
    Early on she enquired, ‘What did you do last night?’
    â€˜I went to a brothel, on Darlinghurst Road.’
    â€˜Oh, that’s nice. What was she like?’
    â€˜Blonde.’
    â€˜I suppose she would have a nice figure.’
    â€˜I think all she wanted was for me to make her laugh.’
    As for what his mother did all day in the city in amongst its verticals and congesting horizontals he could only wonder. To hear her women friends, she was incredibly, determinedly active, and – news to him – a bridge player at state championship level.
    Whenever his father turned up he stayed at the Australia