Developing a Way with Words

Each of the sevenparagraphs in the story illustrates the break-up—the dissolution—of a marriage through its effect on the divorcing couple's swimming pool. Using words from the story, complete the following chart. (The first para­graph has been done as an example.) Then answer the three questions based on the chart.

Analysis by Paragraph

Time period covered Description of Pool

"The summer the "their swimming pool

Turners got their divorce" had neither master nor mistress"

(Now do the same for paragraphs 2-7.)

1. What time span does the story cover?

2. In which paragraphs is the pool described as a living thing? (The literary term for this is "personification.")

3. In which paragraph is the pool described as being pleasant? In which paragraphs is it described as being unpleasant or potentially dangerous?

UNIT 4

Murray Bail

THE SILENCE

 

Joe Tapp, small-eyed, hawk-nosed, squatted like an Aborigine, Arab or Red Indian.

His trousers were grey bags tucked in his boots. Like an over­weight jockey. Only, he wore a fine white singlet, a grey hat tilted back. Between his fingers a cigarette rolled. He licked paper and lit it. He let smoke wander from his nose, through the hairs of his ears and head.

He was alone. His camp was a spot on a huge landscape. The sun hovered above. Its heat cracking the ground white. Killing plants and grass, making trees black skeletons - good for firewood. Rabbit traps lay tangled, the tent, the tall white freezer, the petrol drums and garbage - all were scattered. Funny place for a camp. But Joe had been getting rabbits there, in the desert, for more than a year. They were burrowed in the sandhills. They came out at night.

Joe was doing nothing in the middle of the day. Flies rested on the back of his singlet. Briefly he looked at two ants before squash­ing them. He inspected the mess on the hot ground. He kept squatting in the sun. In the afternoon, far away, he heard the sound.

It could have been a fly. It was that sort of sound. Far away. Like a tiny airplane on a summer's night. Only this thing was labour­ing: changing gears. Joe knew it was the truck. He had been listening all dayfor it.

Up stood Joe. Boots squealing above the whine of the truck. He climbed on a petrol drum. To the right the truck was making a dust storm against the sky.

He squatted down again. Nodding his head. Waiting for the man to arrive. He heard the truck bouncing up to him. Changing down a gear. The mudguards rattled in his ear - when it suddenly swung across his vision. A red truck with worn lyres and a spotted windscreen. The camp, silent a few seconds ago, was now thick with noise. Two boots thudded the ground. A door slammed. Norm Treloar strode across, sunglasses bouncing on his nose. He had a friendly face. Wet sweat all down his back.

' How'd you be?' he asked Joe.

' Not bad.'

Joe realized Treloar talked too much. And he was startled by his own voice. It had jumped across the air.

' Got much?' Treloar asked him.

' About three hundred pair maybe.'

‘Uh-huh.'

Joe shifted his weight on his feet and wondered what else to say.

Nothing.

They started throwing the shining rabbit carcasses from the freezer on to the truck. The frozen bodies clunked on to the tray They filled the truck in half an hour.

'Well, sport! Give us a cuppa and I'll be off. I'll have to get to Kelpowie before they melt! Just got time for one cuppa.'

Treloar drank two cups. He gulped and slurped, and talked about the last race meeting. In the end he climbed back into the truck.

'Well! Must be off sport! Be seeing you in a fortnight. You got your juice didn't you? And your grub? Hey, and get us more than three hundred pair next time, will yuh?'

Grinned.

Joe in singlet, boots, nodded. The truck engine roared and vibrated the camp. Throbbing Joe's ears. It moved away. He lis­tened to the engine moaning away, threading through the salt-bush. Till far away the noise died on the air. His hairy ears echoed a while. The sky and the ground waited for Joe to move.

His day started early. Out of the sleeping bag, the tent, before the light. A crackling, tree-smelling fire. The billy bubbling as the sun came up. That was the life. Orange shadows spread through the camp and colored the sky.

He went through the sandhills in a leather coat. Over his shoulder, an old wheatbag. He walked among the sandhills parting jaws of traps, twisting necks of rabbits, dropping them into the bag. The bag grew heavy on his shoulder. He dropped the bag back at camp. Went out with another, filled three. Dropped them all back at camp. Flies buzzed. He trod back to the sandhills and set the traps again. He was hot when he finished. Off came his shirt. He wiped his neck, arms, and face. Off came his boots. Black with thick leather laces. He emptied them of sand. On went the billy to the fire. It pleasantly bubbled. Black tea was poured. Drunk down. The sun burned holier. On went his boots again. He lay back. Relaxed. Picked up the newspaper Norm Treloar had left. He dropped it in the fire. Lit a cigarette.

Those bags of rabbits sat in the sun. Those flies crawled all over the outside. Joe dragged the bags past his tent. Joe did the three bags of rabbits. He threw good meal into the freezer. He wiped his knife. After that there was nothing to do. He poked round the camp.

Then night arrived. Joe built up the fire. He was inside his sleeping bag early. His leather coat his pillow. He slept soundly. Usually snoring, sometimes grunting.

Norm Treloar arrived a fortnight later. As usual. Joe heard the truck miles away. He wondered what Treloar would talk about next. Of course, he'd say 'How'd you be?' Always did. What could you do about that? Nothing.

Treloar came in expecting him to talk. How'd you be? How'd you be? How'd you be? Treloar always talked. Any minute. The truck was very close. Rowdy it was, it was deafening Joe.

It stopped.

' How'd you be?' asked Treloar.

Joe had been waiting for it. But the voice took him by surprise. It seemed to float in the air a second, before tearing into Joe. And the words, strange, didn't seem to match the moving mouth.

Joe looked at Treloar. Watched him talk.

' How many you get this time?' asked Treloar.

Joe didn't know what to say. He wanted to test his voice first. Started with some words inside his mouth. He opened his mouth.

' Three hundred?' Treloar suggested.

Joe nodded.

' ‘Say,' said Treloar, 'did you get that rain last week?’

Joe shook his head.

The silence made Treloar look past the truck to the dust. The scenery was dead flat.

' Yeah, is pretty dry.'

Joe kept watching him talk.

' Yeah, it sure is dry,' Treloar repeated.

Now Joe wanted to load the truck. He didn't want Treloar's voice coming across at him. He wanted him to get moving. Sitting there, he found himself staring at the ground. That was better than looking at Treloar's eyes watching him. He became nervous that Treloar might ask another question and force him to use his voice. There was a strain. Joe felt the whole thing, the voices on the air, strange.

Again Treloar broke the silence. He cleared his throat. Un­crossed his boots, scrape, and stood upwards.

' Let's loadup, eh?'

Joe helped the man, carefully.

After that, the voice leapt across to Joe.

'Look after yourself, sport. I'm off. Be seeing you in a fortnight.'

His engine sent solid waves into the air into Joe. The intruder departed. Joe began to relax. The air was left all for him. Nothing to confuse his ears.

He moved into another fortnight of trapping. Setting traps, the fire, falling asleep and waking, clearing the traps, skinning, eating. One day he chopped seven dead trees into firewood. Mostly though, after his morning's work, he did nothing. He could squat in the silence for hours, and like it. Like an Aborigine. He could plan new places for traps. Thought for a while about kangaroo meat. He remembered seeing some dingoes near his traps.

This was interrupted. He was squatting in the sun when it happened. In his white singlet and hat. Lips slightly cracked, motionless. His hands brown, carelessly dirty with black mottles and cut fingers. That was Joe- He was touching his nose when he heard the truck.

This time he jumped up. Maybe two miles away the truck was sending up a cloud. He could see it over there. It was Treloar coming. Joe had to think. He was coming for the rabbits. Alright. But there was that noisy talk — useless. As the noise came closer Joe decided. He ran through the camp. Opened the door of the freezer. In singlet and hat. The bow-legged trousers. He glanced back and ran into the sandhills. He crouched behind a bush where the camp lay just below.

The truck was close. No tracks. It was weaving methodically. Its dust tunnelled out all the way back. It broke into the camp, and revved up.

Joe saw the door slam, heard the footsteps floating faintly up­wards. Treloar was walking through the camp ready to say, How'd you be? He had to look in the tent. Look in the freezer. Joe could see him scratch his head. Treloar waited a few minutes, still look­ing. He strode back to the truck and pressed the shrill endless horn that travelled over the dunes and past Joe's impatient head. Treloar still waited. Sat on the steel bumper-bar and smoked a cigarette. He then moved in and out of camp, looking for some­thing. He waited some more. Then stared intently at the sandhills.

In the end Treloar started loading the meat into the truck. He finished the job. And drove away.

The stretched-out land waited for the truck. When it was gone, dust remained, suspended. The silence closed in again. Joe clam­bered down the hill. His camp with its familiar still objects was back to normal. Now the desert-clear air was turning cold. It was time to set the traps in the sandhills. Joe had already decided about the sandhills. He was going to hide whenever he heard what's-his-name coming. He couldn't stand being near the talking man.

Joe decided.

 

Glossary

Aborigine the earliest inhabitants of Australia.

singlet a vest or sleeveless garment usually worn under a shirt.

sport a friendly term, often used sarcastically, when addressing another man.

cuppa (sl) a cup of tea.

Kelpowie a small settlement in the interior of Australia.

to be off to leave.

juice (sl) petrol.

grub (sl) food.

saltbush a low bush that grows in the desert-like interior of Australia.

billy a metal container used for boiling tea.

he poked round he searched for, busied himself inspecting things.

rowdy noisy.

dingoes wild dogs of Australia.

mottles marks or spots on the skin.

bumper-bar protective (metal) bar at the front and back of a vehicle.

 

QUESTIONS

1 What does the title “silence” symbolise? What do you normally associate silence with?

2 Describe Treloar as fully as you can.

 

3 'He could squat in the silence for hours, and like it.' What is it that Joe Tapp particularly dislikes?

 

4 Speculate on the psycological architypes of both. Make up a comparative analysis. Complete the table:

 

 

Characteristics of Treloar	Characteristics of Joe Trapp
1.	1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.

 

4 In what ways do you think this is a particularly Australian story? In what ways could it have happened anywhere?

 

5 What effects does the author achieve by his description of the landscape?

 

6 How important are the natural surroundings in the story?

 

7 Describe the kind of countryside you particularly like.

 

8 What particular stylistic features do you notice in the writing of this story? How do these affect our perception of the characters? Due to what peculiarities this story can be referred to an adant-gard one?

 

9 Imagine that you wished to continue the story for a further few paragraphs. How would you continue it?

 

10 Identify the type(s) of each figure of speech/syntactical or lexical expressive means in the following examples:

a) The sun hovered above. Its heat cracking the ground white. Killing plants and grass, making trees black skeletons - good for firewood.

 

b) Rabbit traps lay tangled, the tent, the tall white freezer, the petrol drums and garbage - all were scattered.

 

c) Funny place for a camp.

 

d) Far away. Like a tiny airplane on a summer's night.

 

e) Up stood Joe. Boots squealing above the whine of the truck.

 

f) Flies buzzed. Off came his shirt. He wiped his neck, arms, and face. Off came his boots. Black with thick leather laces. On went the billy to the fire. It pleasantly bubbled. Black tea was poured. Drunk down. On went his boots again. He lay back. Relaxed. Lit a cigarette.

 

g) Those bags of rabbits sat in the sun.

 

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