by Alexa Aella
Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Life is a Parallel Universe
Alexa Aella
Smashwords Edition
copyright 2014.
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Life is a parallel universe
Chapter 1.
It was early morning and the sun’s heat was a live and growing thing: competing for space and air. On this day, early in the morning of February 3, 1980, three girls would start their very first day at school. Girls who had never met before but whose lives would be lived in a parallel universe of time.
As we gaze down benevolently upon these girls, whom you shall soon meet, we will see them leaving their beds, eating breakfast and brushing their teeth; things which are done every day all over the country and indeed throughout the luckier parts of the world.
Turn your eyes toward the two story brick veneer home of Lisa White, as her mother’s car leaves the stencilcrete driveway: a screech of expensive tyres. Look closely and you can see the pooling, dark eyes of the cleaning lady, Maria, watching the pair disappear into the haze of heat, from behind the Harmony blinds; the current fashionable pink shade, of course. Maria turns away to begin her little paid job cleaning the house. This place must shine by the time Mrs Shona White and her daughter, Lisa return in the afternoon. Shona perfumed and primped from her day at the beauty parlour; hair dyed a shade of blonde never seen in nature. And Lisa: how will she be after her first day at “big” school? We will have to wait and see.
Lisa adjusts the straps of her pink school bag, decorated with fake, shiny diamonds and hearts. A bag, bought after much research by her mother. It is the latest and most desirable, ‘must have’ school bag. Lisa flicks her ash blonde hair away from her face and blinks her rather pallid blue eyes. She is not beautiful; her nose is too long and her eyes have a sharpness to them which is unnerving. She doesn’t know this, however. And that is what is important.
We watch Lisa listen carefully, to the top forty songs being played on the most popular radio station in town and see her relax for a moment against the soft, brown leather in the top of the range Holden Commodore: complete with matching electric, blue spoiler. The perfect car for a Newcastle princess. For a moment, through the glass, there appears to be two Lisa’s. But it is just a trick of the eye.
In 1980, Newcastle, the one in the Australian state of New South Wales, is still a town. It is still known for its industry, its coal and its steel. And, yet, there are those who would snub their nose at such a place. But, you would go a long way to find a spot more beautiful. There is a luxury of beaches here and the remnants of a once prosperous almost stately town. The earthquake that will shake the town’s core and foundations is a few years away yet. But, now, let us swivel the eye toward another house, a more ordinary one this time.
Wheat Bix for breakfast: same as every morning. Then, the freshly pressed tartan uniform is planted over a head of hair the colour of a wet tea bag. Black, polished shoes: hard and unforgiving are pushed on pliable feet. Sue Brown is ready for her first school day. Ever. Dad and Mum rush into the family room and the TV is switched off. Thrumming silence. It’s as if the life of the house goes with NBN. Aromas of instant coffee and Ajax fill the void.
‘No more Romper Room for you’ says Mum –that is Mrs Brown - with mock sternness. ‘You are a big girl now’. Sue smiles, not sure what her mother means, but she knows that parents are always right. She is a good girl.
Photos are taken. Sue poses, her face like a peach, next to her brother, Ian. He is only two, but he has that same submitting stare as his sister. The same brown cow-like eyes. Mum slips the Tupperware lunch box into the beige Kmart school bag. The doorbell shrills and Stephanie Strauss, a primary student from next-door appears to escort Sue to school. Sue marches across the expanse of dust coloured carpet and waves at her mum and brother ‘love you’ they all sing mechanically. Did you check as I did for a wind-up key on her back?
The suburb of Adamstown Heights is dominated by a great monolith; a building of great proportions and immense magnetic power. This building appears to possess some type of supernatural ability to pull huge hordes of people inside its mouth. People, dizzy with the need to buy stuff to decorate the houses they do not own and eager to shovel more food into bloated bodies, packed inside petrochemical clothing: like sausage skins. I see you look away now, but don’t, we will turn our eyes elsewhere. But we must come back to the shopping centre soon. We must.
Next to this mercantile marvel, snakes a long and busy road. A road which snarls and barks with grinding gears, squealing tyres and roaring exhausts day and night. But mostly day.
In a little decaying timber house, set not too far back from this cacophony of sound, lives our last suburban heroine. Beatrice Snellgrove. Come on now! Turn your eyes back, give her a chance. Do not be too hasty to dismiss anyone. Most people deserve a chance.
Beatrice Snellgrove prepares her own simple breakfast and washes her cup and plate in the metal sink. Nobody else is at home here, because Keith Snellgrove, Beatrice’s father has left for work. Her mother and younger sister left two years ago. Beatrice is not sure why they left or why she was left behind. Always left behind she thinks. This is a kind of mantra. She slips her dusty canvas bag (found amongst her father’s fishing stuff) off the plastic peg, which is stuck to the faux-wood panelling of the kitchen; the kitchen, which is really a tacked-on little cupboard, to a house which is essentially one long room. Beatrice throws into her bag a margarine sandwich, made the night before and glances over her shoulder, back into the boiling heat rising and pulsating upwards toward the metal roof. She swallows hard and gets on her way. Look! You can see her: a carmine haired creature, scuttling across in front of the barely retrained and panting traffic. Hurry girl! Don’t be late for the bell.
That first week of school passes rather well. The teacher was kind. A person who sought to share knowledge and ideas with her students. Within reason, of course. You can’t allow the little ones to think too much. Not in the suburbs. But, then, the real teacher arrives. I see your eyes light up and show interest. What excitement do you anticipate?
Mrs Plodd was young with a tumble of dark curls, which momentarily beckon the eye. Eyes do not linger long on these tresses, as they are soon called toward the astonishing hemline of an orange mini-skirt and teetering black heels. Mrs Plodd smiles and her students look stunned.
Lisa is pleased by the fashionable personage before her. Those brown, leather sandaled teachers disgust her. Sue, seeing the smile on Lisa’s face, is also impressed by this pretty pedagogue. Beatrice, however, sees cruel reflections from eyes hiding under green eyeshadow. She suddenly realises: ‘I am trapped here and I will not be free for many years’. She moans aloud and Mrs Plodd pounces.
And, so, begins Beatrice’s career; standing outside classrooms in disgrace, and later, graduating on to picking up wet and stinking rubbish at lunch time. But, it is not really Beatrice, who interests the callous Mrs Plodd. She reserves her special treatment for a meek and petrified half Aboriginal girl named Terry and the class genius, Richard, whose mothe
r outrageously taught him to read and do maths before he even started school. Don’t worry, Mrs Plodd will knock his mother’s learning out of him. She will shape him up and put him in line with the other children. Mrs Plodd sniffs loudly; there is nothing she hates more than those who get above themselves.
But look! It is 9.30 on a Wednesday morning and Mrs Plodd is busy telling Richard what a stupid boy he is and how much he annoys her. Richard is looking stoic, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up along the bridge of his nose and waiting for the weather patterns to change: for the tempest of temper to pass. He recognises Mrs Plodd as a creature of mercurial moods.
But, suddenly, Richard’s mother enters the classroom’s open door. Mrs Plodd hardly misses a beat; she pats Richard affectionately atop his head: soft as an egg.
‘Richard is one of my favourite students’ she says, smiling: baring teeth. Richard looks resigned; he knows that the eye of the hurricane will return with the going of his mother.
Eyes look upon the same scenes and see differently. Some see nothing at all.
Beatrice absorbs injustice like a sponge: you can see her eyes turning yellow. Terry fears she soon will be the scapegoat and tries to become smaller, hoping no one will notice her at all. Sometimes, she just closes her eyes and tries to disappear. Lisa looks bored. She is gazing out the window at nothing and thinking about going roller skating on the weekend. Sue is thinking about the chocolate biscuits in her morning tea today; she can offer them to Lisa. Lisa will like me more than anyone else, she thinks. And, it is glee she feels.
The school playground is a huge field of soft, green grass, where butterflies dance jigs, shaded by ghost gums. Look across the way and there are yet more lush sports fields.
Turn you gaze over that bucolic scene for a moment and I am sure you will think, as do those folks driving by, what a lovely place to send your children. But, such a place is populated by people and even small people have their pecking orders and politics. Here, like most places, the boys assume domination: the girls fit into the peripheral bits; bits, where Lisa and other Queen Bees are the hegemons. They flock together, immediately recognising each other. What is it that they see? Can you see it? The others try to get a foothold in some clan or find a friend of fellow feeling. This can be a desperate business. Some eyes weep.
Not for Lisa though. She is drowning in the smiles of others and overwhelmed by courtiers who wish to be her special friend for the day. Virtually overnight, almost every girl tries to buy or turn their school bag into an imitation of Lisa’s pink, diamanted accoutrement. They’ll never do it. She tells them often enough ‘Mum ordered mine from America’. America: the modern day oracle and sage.
In the brick veneer house on Madison Drive, the White Family sit down to dinner under the Luxaflex gazebo; standing as self-important as the Acropolis, next to the in-ground Sparkle Pool. Mr White, all chest and skinny legs, handles the tongs with aplomb, as he cooks the sausages on the outdoor Turbo BBQ. He surveys his domain; his rayon button up shirt becomes that bit tighter. He strokes his scanty moustache with one hand ‘I’ve done well’ he thinks to himself. ‘Not bad for a boy who left school at 15 and took on a trade’. Years later, Bob White could possibly be called a ‘cashed up bogan’, but not yet. ‘I pulled myself up by me bootstraps’ he thinks proudly.
Mr White has undoubtedly made a success of his concreting business, but he is a man whose thoughts are mostly cliché and aphorism. Still, he is proud of himself and who he is. His eyes sweep about him thinking ‘I have all this: a good wife and beautiful daughter’ and his eyes slide quickly away into the distance as he thinks about his pretty young secretary: her puff of white hair, smelling of bubble gum and Norsca deodorant. He even thinks ‘my little bit on the side’. And he smiles secretly into the haze of sizzling sausage fumes as they voyage out into space.
The Browns take tea in front of the TV. Watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’. Plates are carefully placed on special trays and plastic tumblers of green cordial have bespoke holders. The Browns are proud of these TV dinner holders, made by the ‘head of the family.’ the gormless Mr Todd Brown. After watching ‘Cop Shop’, the family retires to bed and one by one, pull chenille bedspreads, smelling of Rinso detergent up to their chins. They dream of trips to Disneyland and buying a caravan. For a skimpy moment, they can almost smell the aroma of fish and chips next to the sea.
Sue thinks about seeing Lisa the next day, hoping that one of Lisa’s friends will be away sick. Maybe Lisa will let me sit next to her for once. The family drift off to sleep; a slow side into the land of suburban dreams.
They don’t notice the whistle slicing through the night, signalling another shift at BHP. They don’t know that, on the other side of the world, John Lennon has been assassinated by a lone gunman who hears the words in his head ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’ Sue does think, however, just before sleep claims her: my first year of school is almost over.
Next to the highway in the dilapidated timber house smelling of canned tuna and mildew, Beatrice reads ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ under the musty fug of her bed covers. Small pieces of tissue are crammed into her ears to drown out the sound of her father getting drunk with the woman he picked up at the Belair Hotel. They are laughing uproariously about something…. Or nothing. But Beatrice is retreating from this world and being absorbed into a land of dwarfs. She is seeing the magic eye of the lamppost and thinking of the glorious power of the White Queen. Beatrice will never entirely return to Earth again.
Chapter 2.
In December 1986, Lisa, Sue and Beatrice were preparing for their school ‘Farewell’. Their days of primary school would soon be over. Tables would be set up on Thursday evening, in one of the demountable classrooms. Paper plates would display sausage rolls, tiny meat pies and bowls of chips: chicken and plain, and perhaps some spiced chicken wings. Ethnic foods had recently begun to take off.
For some months, all of the year six and year five students were herded down to the quadrangle to practice dancing two times each week. Beatrice hated this enforced dancing practice with a passion. As she had hated it the year before. The year five students, by tradition, were dragooned into attending the Farewell, to ensure that there would be plenty of dancing partners.
Dancing practice took place on Monday and Tuesday afternoons after lunch. Generally, the boys had to select the girls. Things were pretty fixed in those days.
Beatrice would feel the pressure in her guts begin building from early in the morning and by lunchtime, she would be hiding out in the green carpeted library, hoping that she would be forgotten or that magic really existed in the world, which could carry her away from this place. She would stare into the pages of a Tolkien book; she would draw the fragrance of the paper into her lungs and will her body to travel to another place. But all she would ever see in her mind was the Eye of Sauron.
Gaze down if you will, upon these almost adolescents, doing the ‘Hokey Pokey’ and other corny, gyrating moves. Can you see Lisa pointing at one lucky young buck from the gaggle of boys who rush toward her? Can you see Sue? Dancing again with Scott Smith. Beatrice is close to the shady area, trying not to be seen and Terry has had to team up with that boy who has seizures and funny eyes; supposedly, his father shook him when he was a baby. As usual, another left behind person will be shoved in Beatrice’s direction and she will be forced to dance. She will hate every moment of it. Later, she will lose herself in a pinball machine which lives outside the shopping centre. Until she is roughly shoved aside by some high school kids. She goes home to a silent, empty house.
Awards and trophies would be given out sometime during the week at a ‘Special Assembly’. Our heroines can have no expectations on this front and so we shall not bother to recount this glorious day. Some years later, however, awards will be given out at many schools for outstanding achievements in mundane mediocrity. But that time has not yet come.
The evening of the Farewell arrives. Lisa is not at school that day: the beauty parlour w
as where she was at, surrounded by chemical smells and promises of alchemy. Later, she slips into her soft dress of white, splashed with pink and purple roses. With hair frizzed and teased and face painted.
Later, the photographer arrives at her home and Lisa poses in front of a mobile background of Monte Carlo, surrounded by the chlorine fragrance of the Sparkle pool and the fresh fertilizer plonked on the azaleas. Those photos are still in the lounge room at Madison Drive, all these years later. If you look carefully at some of the photos, you will notice the Luxaflex gazebo chopping a Monte Carlo yacht in half.
The Brown family were on a budget. Money was tight. So out came the Butterick patterns to make Sue a suitable dress; something that she could wear again to a family wedding in the following month and church on Sunday.
A length of fabric was found in the remnant pile at David Jones and two pretty flower shaped buttons were bought to fasten the frock at the back. Mrs Brown always called her dresses ‘frocks’. Dad takes the photo of Sue on the front, thoroughly weeded lawn. You will notice the luxurious Aspidistra in a white concrete pot next to Sue in the photo. Have a look sometime: it’s still in the same place today.
