Illywhacker by Peter Carey

said, scratching his balls, “if I was going to consider making a purchase at all,” he paused, “of a Ford.”
    “It’s a useful machine,” I said, “and very reliable.”
    Now we were back at the radiator and Stu was nodding his head towards the car. It took me a moment to realize that my customer wanted to see the contents of the engine compartment.
    “Show us its innards,” he said.
    “I think you’d be making a mistake,” I said, “to skimp on the lessons.” But I did what he asked me and opened it up.
    He looked over the engine like a man checking something as familiar as the contents of his own suitcase: toothbrush, trousers, two shirts, etc. It was O’Hagen’s weakness that he could not stand to make a fool of himself so he tried to give the impression that he knew what was what with a motor and was suspicious that some vital part might be missing.
    When he let me know he was satisfied I closed the compartment.
    “All right,” he said. He took in his belt a notch and jutted his chin. “Start her up.”
    The sun emerged from a keyhole in the clouds and bathed the weathered whiskered face. Goog and Goose came out on to the veranda where they stood, silently, side by side, staring at the gleaming car whose radiator was suddenly full of golden light.
    By 1919 the Ford had a starter motor. No crank was needed. I simply turned it on and the engine caught first time.
    “Hop in,” I said.
    O’Hagen shook his head and plunged his hands deep into his pockets.
    “No,” he said, “I want to watch it go.”
    I did as I was commanded. I drove around the house, passed in front of the imprisoned dog, and heard, above the noise of the engine, the clumping boots of Goose and Goog as they ran from one side of the house to the other.
    I was a ballerina on a show pony. It seemed a damn fool way to make a living.

23
    Goog was wide awake. He lay amongst his bundle of grey blankets and listened to the noise of drinking. The drinking was a new thing. He didn’t know what to do about it. Goose was no help. Goose was asleep and nothing would wake him. Goose had slept all last night while their father chopped up dinner plates outside the window. It was Goog who had put their weepingfather to bed. It was Goog who lay sleepless while his father vomited in the kitchen sink.
    He could hear the voices clearly and if he sat up he could see, through a chink in the shrunken wallboards, his father pouring sweet wine from a demijohn into Herbert Badgery’s glass.
    “To life,” Stu O’Hagen said.
    “To life,” said Herbert Badgery.
    “I’m not a drinking man,” Stu said, “but by God it warms you.”
    There was a pause. Stu traced unstable patterns in the spilt wine on the oilcloth.
    “I never liked the idea of lessons,” he said. “I never took a lesson in anything.”
    “You’ve done well.”
    Stu tilted back in his chair and surveyed the room. He picked up the kerosene light and held it above his head.
    “I built it myself. I was working for a real estate agent, selling blocks of land in Melbourne. I was doing well. They wanted to promote me. But I had it in my head I wanted to make something myself. You could say I had tickets on myself, but I wanted to
make
something, not just sell things. So I bought this land and I didn’t know a sheep’s head from its arse.”
    “You’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
    We drank. I made appreciative smacking noises with my lips which were sweet and sticky with the wine.
    “Lessons were something I had no time for. No one gave me a lesson. But look at it.”
    “It’s a fine house.”
    “It’s a shamozzle,” Stu said firmly.
    “Come on, man….”
    “It’ll fall over.”
    “No.”
    “You haven’t been here in a southerly. You wouldn’t know. You haven’t lain here like I have listening to the damn thing moving in the wind.” He stood up and carried the lantern across to the outside wall. The studs showed on the inside, the outside was clad with rough-nailed