the roar of existence Books by Chester Eagle Hail and Farewell! An evocation of Gippsland (non-fiction, 1971) Who could love the nightingale? (novel, 1974) Four faces, wobbly mirror (novel, 1976) At the window (novella, 1984) The garden gate (novel, 1984) Mapping the paddocks (non-fiction, 1985) Play together, dark blue twenty (non-fiction, 1986) House of trees (reissue of Hail and Farewell! 1987) Victoria Challis (novel, 1991) House of music (stories, 1996) Wainwrights’ mountain (novel, 1997) Waking into dream (novel, 1998) didgeridoo (stories, 1999) Janus (travel pieces, 2001) The Centre & other essays (essays, 2002) Love in the Age of Wings & other operas (librettos, 2003) Melba: an Australian city (essays, 2004) The Wainwright Operas (librettos, 2005) Oztralia (essays, 2005) Cloud of knowing (novel, 2006) Benedictus (essays, 2006) Central Station Sydney & other operas (librettos, 2006) The Sun King & other operas (librettos, 2007) The Well in the Shadow (literary essays, 2008) All the Way to Z (memoir/essay, 2009) This Enchanted World & other operas (librettos, 2009) Running The Race (novel, 2010) A Mob Of Galahs & other operas (librettos, 2011) The Pilgrims (novel, 2012) Swinging Doors (novel, 2013) the roar of existence (novel, 2015) (See also mini-mags over the next page.) If you would like to know more about the books listed above or to download any of them for yourself, FREE OF CHARGE, visit www.trojanpress.com.au With these prospects and impressions, Grace Marian Thrale, forty- three years old, stood silent in a hotel doorway in her worn blue coat and looked at the cars and the stars, with the roar of existence in her ears. And like any great poet or tragic sovereign of antiquity, cried on her Creator and wondered how long she must remain on such an earth.* a novel of sorts Chester Eagle *from The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, 1980 the roar of existence is published by Chester Eagle, 23 Langs Road Ivanhoe 3079 Australia, operating as Trojan Press. Phone is 61 3 9497 1018 and email address is [email protected] Trojan Press wishes to acknowledge that the title of this book derives from a passage in The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, 1980. Copyright is held by Chester Eagle. First published electronically in 2015. DTP by Karen Wilson. Mini-mags Escape (story, 2004) Hallucination before departure (memoir, 2006) Mozart (memoir, 2007) Travers (memoir, 2007) The Saints In Glory (story, 1991/2009) Keep Going! (memoir, 2008) So Bitter Was My Heart (memoir, 2008) Who? (memoir, 2008) At Baldy’s Feet (memoir, 2008) Othello’s Rage (memoir, 2009) One Small Step (memoir, 2011) Castle Hill (memoir, 2011) Chartres (memoir, 2011) The Plains (memoir, 2011) Four Last Songs (memoir, 2011) The Camera Sees (memoir, 2011) Freedom … (reflection, 2011) Men in White (reflection, 2011) An Airline Suite (story, 1989/2013) Cooper’s Creek (reflection, 2013) An Opera Suite (story, 1990/2013) A Short History of Australia (reflection, 2014) Gippsland’s First Great Book (essay, 2015) Emily at Preston (memoir, 2009/2015) These fields are mine! (reflection, 2015) Contents Summer 1 Autumn 89 Winter 180 Spring 271 Summer 364 Summer They’d leased a house overlooking the ocean. Mighty dunes lay to the north and south, flanking the outcrop on which their building stood, with its many rooms, its car spaces underneath, its socially central kitchen, and its living room almost as long as the building, glass walls and doors giving onto a balcony, and thence the sea. We shall call the man Jack and his partner Olivia, and we come upon them as he answers her question about visitors: ‘Can’t give you any numbers. I think I just invited everyone in sight. Everyone who asked me what we were doing over the break. I told them where we were. Are.’ She sensed problems and he saw it in her face. ‘We’ve got enough food for an army …’ he saw that he needed to go on ‘… and more than enough pots and pans and casseroles, and that bread-making thing. Shouldn’t be any bother. Besides, they’ll bring food of their own, for sure. We did, so some of them will. And …’ He was irrepressible. The world outside looked wonderful. ‘… there’s always the pub.’ The Albion was famous for its meals, so that finished the matter. ‘Eh?’ Mention of the hotel had softened her. ‘Catch as catch can,’ she said. ‘Is that our policy?’ All he did was grin. He felt he was on top. ‘Here’s someone now!’ A car swept up the slope. All the doors opened at once, as if creation had sent four overlords to take charge. ‘The Brambles!’ Olivia called. ‘Hi there! Welcome!’ Out stepped Les and Lorna and … Olivia could never remember the childrens’ names: a boy and a girl, anyway, one of each, a proper family. It was what she was hoping for herself, when her time came. Jack told the arrivals to put their things on the side verandah. ‘You get first choice of rooms. That’s what comes of getting here first. How fast were you doing on the way down?’ ‘I stuck to the limit most of the time,’ Les told him. ‘We saw three police cars between here and Geelong.’ ‘Three? They were out looking for you!’ ‘Sure were! Makes a man drive carefully. What’s this about a choice?’ 1 Jack explained that he’d asked so many people to visit that if they all turned up at once there wouldn’t be enough rooms, so he was hoping … This stirred Les to call his family: ‘Come on Lorna! Terry! May! We’re picking a room to sleep in!’ Terry said he’d like to have his bed on the balcony so he could go to sleep with the sound of waves in his ears. His father wasn’t having that. ‘Maybe on a hot night it’d be okay, but the weather’s pretty changeable down here. Five minutes of a cold southerly and you’d be in bed with us!’ He meant himself and Lorna and this, the idea of a ‘big’ boy needing to sleep with his parents, was an embarrassment; the boy didn’t want it known that sleeping with his parents was a thing he still liked, occasionally at least. The Furlinghettis were next to arrive, advancing on the beach because, having found the house empty, that was where everyone must be. Maria carried the baby and Carlo held the hand of their girl, Angelica, who told Olivia that it was her first time by the sea, and she admitted to being a little scared. Olivia invited her to make a sand castle and they had a great time, until Angelica told the no-longer stranger that she didn’t feel scared any more, so they went to the water and paddled, edging out until the water came up to Angelica’s knees. ‘You’re not scared,’ Olivia told the girl, ‘so next time we’ll go in a bit further and see how you like that!’ Maria needed to feed the baby and said she preferred to do it at the house, or at least in the car where she’d left their things, so the party left the ocean as the tide was coming in, something they confessed they didn’t understand very well – ‘It’s something to do with the moon’ – and went back to the house. There they saw the Furlinghettis’ car, an ancient Hispano-Suiza. Jack wanted to know if they’d come all the way from Melbourne in that, and of course they had, though Carlo admitted that the very last slope, the run up to the house, had tested the venerable machine. ‘Good job the house was where it was because another fifty metres and I think she might have conked out. But she made it.’ And he patted the car that he loved. ‘Now she’s having a rest.’ Maria pointed out to the gathering, ‘He thinks his car’s a lady. I ought to be jealous but it’s not going to have a baby, or I don’t think it can!’ She sat in the seat next to the driver’s seat, the centre of all attention, to feed her 2 little one, with an admirable certainty that a woman’s body beat any machine. Olivia, thinking it her duty to support the feeding mother, slipped along the pencil-thin car. ‘All these seats! It’s a car for the extended family!’ and Maria, without lessening her absorption in her child, said, ‘Except when it rains. The thing’s supposed to have a roof but it’s such a problem getting it up, we mostly leave it in the garage,’ and when Olivia asked if that was where the roof was now, Maria nodded, laughing loudly. ‘We’ve taken a gamble. No rain either way, and a sheltered spot to store the car while we’re here.’ She studied her host. ‘If that’s okay?’ ‘Plenty of room under the house. Plenty of everything. Jack and I were talking about food a while ago. Plenty of it!’ ‘And wine? Have you got plenty of that? Mind you, I’m not supposed to be drinking while I’m feeding George.’ She smiled. ‘He’s christened Giorgio, but I call him in the Aussie way. He can change when he goes to Italy.’ ‘Do you want to bring him up Italian?’ Olivia was interested. Maria shook her head. ‘Here’s good enough for me. It’ll be good enough for him. If it’s not, he’ll just have to find somewhere else!’ The woman with no children considered the woman with two.