Cloudstreet: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Riding on the wave of positive energy brought about by the nationwide celebrations, Sam Pickles heads out to seek his fortune, feeling that luck will surely be on his side this time. He disappears from Cloudstreet for a couple of days. This begins to worry Rose, who doesn’t like the idea of being stuck with her angry mother for much longer. But one day after school, Rose comes home to find her father sitting at the bottom of the stairs and grinning. He tells her that he’s gotten a job at the mint; he gambled with a union boss and put the boss in so much debt that the man had to give Sam a job. Sam tells Rose and Dolly about the job over dinner, and Rose finds it easier to imagine loving her father and living happily here.

For the next few months, Sam makes frequent visits to the racetrack and bets on a horse named Blackbutt, who seems to almost always win or at least place highly. Sam often comes home with his pockets full of money, the Pickles family is excited at this change of fortune, and Sam even buys gifts for his children like it’s an early Christmas. Even Dolly warms up to him, though she still often sits alone in the dark after they have sex. Sam also wins a pet bird named Stan in a bet. Stan can say a few phrases in his ridiculous screeching voice, which both annoys and entertains the residents of Cloudstreet and their neighbors.

Meanwhile, Quick Lamb continues to struggle with his gloomy misery, which he always seems to pick up from people around him like radar. Despite the war being over, he still finds news clippings describing unfortunate people and he keeps putting pictures of them up on his wall. He even feels sorry for the poor kids he knows at school, such as Wogga McBride and his little brother Darren. They only pretend to eat sandwiches at lunch, possibly to avoid the embarrassment of everyone knowing they don’t really have any food. Quick watches them and offers them some of his own food when he can, though he keeps his distance and doesn’t quite become friends with the two of them.

Quick continues to watch the McBride boys and speculate about what their lives must be like. He rarely sees them laugh until he watches them from a distance one evening as they run and play with a dog by the train tracks. Quick finds himself wanting to join in their fun as he enjoys the sound of their laughter, but the sight quickly becomes a nightmare as a train approaches and Wogga McBride stumbles into the speeding engine. The train crushes him before their eyes, and screaming fills the air. Panicked men emerge from the train as Darren McBride screams in openmouthed horror. Quick rushes home, climbs under the covers of his bed, and tries to hold his ears shut. Fish watches him, uncomprehending.

Quick becomes withdrawn and despondent, hardly ever wanting to get out of bed after what he saw. His father Lester often sits on the edge of his bed and tries to ask him about what’s bothering him, to no avail. Eventually, Lester finds out what might be the matter. One day, he brings in a newspaper clipping about Wogga McBride’s gruesome death, and he tells Quick that the funeral is tomorrow. He tells Quick to attend despite Quick’s protests, and Lester angrily reminds Quick that the two of them owe Fish a debt for letting him almost drown. Fish has been worried about Quick’s behavior lately, and Lester insists that Quick owes Fish some happiness. Showing up to the funeral would be a sign that Quick is willing to get out of his room and start living again. That night, Quick awakens to see the newspaper images fly off the walls and dance over his bed. Terrified, he runs into Fish and Lon’s room and sleeps in Fish’s bed.

Oriel wakes up the next morning to find that Lester has gotten up before her and left the house early, which seems very unusual. She lets her mind wander to the subject of men in general, and then to her father. She thinks about the bushfire that destroyed her childhood home and killed her mother and sisters, leaving only Oriel and her father alive. She remembers how she practically had to nurse his mental health herself, as the tragedy very nearly broke him. Oriel worked and fought hard to rebuild their lives and save her own father from fading away. She knows that Lester must be doing something he’s not supposed to this morning, but she decides to wait for him. She doesn’t have the patience to deal with men today.

During the previous night, Sam had reached out to Lester as the two of them stood on their respective sides of the backyard. They talked to each other somewhat awkwardly at first, but soon became friendly with each other. Their conversation led them to the subject of luck, and Sam insisted that he was on a winning streak, offering to show Lester what he means. Rose hears them leave as they walk towards the truck at dawn. She knows that whatever her father is doing is bound to be foolish, but she goes back to bed and resolves not to tell on him.

Sam and Lester go to the racetrack, where they enjoy themselves and become closer friends. At first, Lester has misgivings about the idea of drinking and gambling, and he feels guilty about putting so much of his family’s money at risk. He feels almost like a thief. But Sam eventually gets him to loosen up, explaining how the two of them will bet on the horse Blackbutt and insisting that the Shifty Shadow will see them through. He explains that he believes in luck much more than God or any man-made institutions, as luck gives a man what he wants, which is what he really needs. The two of them get drunk and Lester finds himself beyond thrilled as he watches the close race unfold. He lets go of his cares and feels as though anything is possible here. Sure enough, Blackbutt wins the race.

Tension slowly builds back at Cloudstreet, where Oriel shoos Quick out of bed and downstairs. Fish is delighted to finally see Quick out of his room, but Quick keeps himself busy as he wonders where his father is. The day wears on and Lester doesn’t return; Oriel grows more and more tense. Meanwhile, Rose tries unsuccessfully to fetch her mother from the pub where she’s been drinking. But Dolly would much rather stay and get more drunk than go with her daughter. Rose is left to sit outside and seethe as she waits, hating Dolly and her own life more every moment. The bar patrons make Rose uncomfortable, and she wanders angrily to King’s Park to wait this out and bring her mother home later.

Cloudstreet is quiet when Sam and Lester finally return that night. Rose has already brought home Dolly, who’s asleep on the bed. Rose shoots an angry glare at her father as he enters, and he sheepishly draws himself a bath. On the Lamb side of the house, Lester shows everyone his prize money at the quiet kitchen table, but Oriel quickly tells him to put it in the till, as “money has no place at the dinner table.” Despite the tension that’s been building in the house all day, no one shouts or erupts in anger, and the day’s unusual events are put to bed silently.

The next morning, Quick notices that Lester is in a cheerful mood. Lester tells the family that they should all come with him to relax for a day on the beach at Fremantle, as he’s eager to use yesterday’s windfall to have a fun day out. Oriel agrees to come along with everyone else, despite her quietly judgmental attitude about the whole business. The Lambs ride out to the riverside to enjoy themselves, and Quick feels relieved that his father is in a better mood now. They spend the day at the beach as planned, though Oriel is still dubious about Lester’s gambling and newfound friendship with Sam.

That afternoon, Lester buys a boat on impulse. It isn’t long before everyone realizes that the boat is far too big to fit in the bed of their truck. Lester suggests that Quick should row it all the way up the river to bring it home, and Oriel simply walks to truck and climbs in, slamming the door behind her. All of the children balk at Lester’s idea, but Quick finds himself wanting to defend his father from the disbelieving look Hattie is giving him. Quick agrees to row the boat home on the condition that Fish comes with him, and Lester reluctantly agrees. The two boys set off down the river in the afternoon sun, passing by wharfs and under bridges. Quick is secretly afraid of being out here practically on his own, but Fish is delighted simply to watch the river.

Back at Cloudstreet, Oriel angrily washes dishes in the kitchen and almost contemplates murder, furious with Lester for all the foolish decisions he’s made in the past couple of days. Nervously, Lester begins to sing a tune behind her, only for her to turn around and throw a gravy boat at him in a moment of fury. Lester has the wind knocked out of him as he falls to the floor, and Oriel asks him if her life has really been that useless. Still winded, Lester is unable to reply, but his struggling doesn’t give Oriel the satisfaction she was hoping for. Quick continues rowing up the river as the sun sets, starting to seriously doubt if the two of them can make it. Quick and Fish start to share the rowing to conserve Quick’s energy.

Lester drives out in the truck in the early evening to look for Quick and Fish, but to no avail. He looks out into the dark water and figures that they could be anywhere, out there in the night with no idea which direction to go. He curses himself and cries on the sand by the river, knowing that this is all his fault and promising to stop gambling and no longer be such a fool. He revisits the memory of Fish almost drowning beneath the net on that awful night, and he wishes he had learned his lesson about rivers. He feels panic rising in him, hoping desperately that the river won’t take two of his sons this time.

Out on the river in the middle of the night, an exhausted Quick stops rowing as Fish lies curled up at his feet. They start singing to keep themselves awake, and it isn’t long before Fish stands up and laughs madly holding out his arms and staring out of the boat gleefully. When Quick looks over the side of the boat, he sees that the river is full of stars. It’s not just reflecting the stars above; it looks as though the boat is drifting through outer space. Quick can’t feel any water below them and knows this must be a dream, despite him feeling very much awake. Fish refers to the sky as the water, still seeming overjoyed.

The two of them continue floating through this strange sea of stars for a while until they suddenly find themselves on the dark river again, just like before. Fish starts sobbing, disappointed that “the water” is gone. Quick holds his brother and once again feels despair over the once-clever Fish now acting like such a child. They drift off to sleep. Lester finds them at dawn, with the boat having run aground in the shallows at Nedlands. He’s overjoyed to find them, hardly able to speak as he lets out a cry of relief and dances on the sand. When they come home singing in the truck later that morning, Oriel feels as though they’re foreigners, related to her by blood but lost to her forever. But she still holds them close, relieved that they’re all safe.

On Guy Fawkes night, Oriel invites Dolly and the rest of the Pickles family to join the Lambs in their half of the backyard to celebrate with them. Everyone enjoys themselves as they light crackers and socialize with each other, regardless of which family they come from. Rose feels especially happy as she gets along with the Lamb children and enjoys the cheerful noise of it all. But when Lester sets fire to their Guy Fawkes effigy made of flourbags, Fish starts crying and tells him not to “burn the man.” Everyone laughs at first, but as the effigy burns and falls apart, Fish cries louder and more sincerely. Oriel takes Fish inside and the party becomes awkwardly silent.

Quick drags the crying Fish up the stairs, feeling pretty miserable himself. He keeps telling Fish that it’s not a real man they’re burning, but this doesn’t do anything to calm Fish down. Oriel tells Quick to leave him be, but Quick senses none of the usual conviction in her voice. Quick brings Fish into the musty, windowless room and lets him sit at the piano. Quick leaves Fish to pound on the keys and sees his mother crying on the landing with her head against the banister. The subdued party continues for a bit before everyone heads to bed. Everyone can hear the middle C key from the piano pounding all through the night, but no one speaks of it.

Over the holidays, Rose keeps things on her desk organized despite having no school, and imagines what it’s like to have her own house to maintain. She feels that she’s already almost a fully grown woman, especially as she’s taught herself to cook for herself and her brothers—Dolly is always too drunk to cook and Sam often gets home from work late. Rose and her brothers play around a bit, but she still looks down on them and thinks it’s inevitable that they act like fools, as they’re only boys. Sam begins losing at the racetrack again, Dolly continues to be absent from the house, and Rose is discouraged by the family’s luck seeming to take a downturn.

Drunk and exhausted, Dolly walks along the railway tracks one night and wishes she could fall asleep on the rails and sleep as the whole mess of a world disappears around her. She once again flashes back to memories of her childhood, and her father who wasn’t really her father. She pictures one of her sisters wearing an engagement ring, and Dolly remembers hating her. She wonders why she didn’t spit in her eye when she had the chance, and she passes out. Rose finds her soon after and takes her home, where Dolly vomits for hours and Oriel tries to help. After Dolly finally passes out again, Oriel decides to thoroughly clean the entire Pickles side of the house. Rose is furious and ashamed when she finds everything cleaned up by someone else’s mother.

Life at Cloudstreet seems to speed up to a feverish pace as summer arrives, and several things happen in quick succession just before Christmas. The girls are all coming of age, and even Ted has his first kiss on the beach. Hattie becomes the marbles champion of the neighborhood, and Red still proudly considers herself the tomboy of the family. As he comes back home from a successful fishing trip, Quick notices that Rose might have feelings for Fish. Oriel buys a tent and keeps a closer eye on the family’s finances. Sam wins a pig in a pub raffle and donates it to the Lambs to express his thanks for them helping his wife, but Dolly herself decides never to speak to Oriel again.

One day, Fish is left alone with the new pig in the backyard. The pig talks to Fish and he understands it, hearing it ask him to spray it with a hose and create a mud puddle for it to roll around in. Fish giggles and grants the pig’s request, and when Lester comes outside to stop Fish from wasting water, he also hears the pig speak. Unlike Fish, Lester can’t understand the creature, but it still sounds like it’s talking, almost speaking in tongues. He fetches Oriel and tells her that the pig talks. It fails to do so in her presence, and she resolves to get rid of the pig, as she doesn’t want a gambling prize on her property. Lester insists that they keep it, since Fish has grown attached to it, but Oriel remains steadfast.

On a tip from Sam, Lester buys a horse with the intention of setting up a delivery cart for the shop. He imagines himself riding around the neighborhood selling and delivering the family’s wares, more excited by the social possibilities than the business side of things. But not long after he loads up the cart with food and rides off, the horse goes wild and rushes down the streets at an incredible speed. Lester tumbles out of the cart and follows the trail of fallen food that the out-of-control cart has left in its wake. When he finds the horse and cart at last, he sells them and sheepishly gives the whole thing up.

When Lester returns home, he finds Oriel silently setting up her tent in the Lamb half of the backyard. Quick lets him know that she isn’t happy, but that the pig has somehow gotten away with staying in the yard for the time being. On New Year’s Day of 1949, Oriel Lamb moves furniture and other essentials into the tent, where she’s decided to start sleeping every night from now on. Everyone in the neighborhood watches her move out to the tent and speculates about why she’s doing it. Oriel wonders why herself. She isn’t sure if it’s because Fish has forgotten her, because of the house’s claustrophobia, or some other reason. But one way or another, Oriel feels like the house itself doesn’t want her living inside it.