by Alison Booth
Zidra cringed. Pushing the sweet into one cheek with her tongue, she managed to say, ‘Not a mummy or a daddy. I’ll probably drive a truck rather than teach the piano.’ Even she was surprised by this choice. What she really wanted was to have adventures and roam the world, and return to Mama from time to time when she felt like a rest.
Mr Bates laughed, before strolling on. Zidra stood up and idly kicked one foot against the kerb. One by one people came out of the post office, but not her mother. To amuse herself, she read the advertisements stuck to the window. Most of them were dull but there was one for puppies who were looking for a good home. Although her home was a good one for puppies, her mother would think otherwise. Peering between the advertisements, she saw that the queue had now gone and her mother was talking to Mrs Blunkett. Mrs Blunkett had curly white hair and so many freckles that she looked orange. She was nodding vigorously and holding the white card over which her mother had worked so hard the night before to find the right words to describe her skills as a piano teacher.
The piano tuner had come that morning, all the way from Bega, to fix the piano. ‘It no longer plays plinkety-plunkety but plays as it is meant to sound,’ Mama had said in an overexcited way to the piano tuner. Immediately she’d dashed off a short piece that involved much movement up and down the keyboard. The piano tuner had clapped when she’d finished. ‘I was showing off a little,’ Mama admitted later. ‘But one does not know to whom the tuner will relay the information about my prowess. Mighty trees from little acorns grow. We must never forget that, my darling little Zidra.’
Zidra took the rainbow ball out of her mouth and inspected it. It was whitish-grey with swirls of colour. After putting it back in her mouth, she wiped her sticky fingers on her skirt. When she was a little girl she used to wipe her sticky fingers on her hair. Mama often reminded her of this, sometimes in public.
At first her mother had been on her best behaviour when they’d visited the school the day before. The mistress, Miss Neville, was almost as thin as Mama and a bit taller. She was wearing a light grey suit with a long skirt. A pretty pink-and-blue patterned scarf was tucked into the neck of her white blouse in the same way that Papa used to wear his cravat for special occasions. This had upset Zidra, for she tried not to think too much of her father, it made her sad. Before she’d had time to recover, Miss Neville had made her recite the six times table. Zidra had been unable to continue beyond six times three is eighteen. ‘She’s a little behind for a nine-year-old,’ Miss Neville had said.
‘Ees it not enough that her Papa has died but that she must be insulted too?’ Zidra’s mother had said, her English lapsing as it sometimes did under stress. Zidra had blushed for them both.
Miss Neville had looked out of the window while making a minor adjustment to her cravat. ‘I didn’t mean to cause offence,’ she said. ‘But I do believe in being direct.’
After a moment, Mama said, ‘Offence has not been taken. I too favour directness. You will find that Zidra ees very advanced at ze reading. In Eenglish and in Latvian.’
Although Miss Neville had made no comment about the Latvian, she’d offered Zidra a book from the shelves behind her, Alice in Wonderland. Zidra had opened it and read several paragraphs aloud, glad of the opportunity to prove herself. ‘Very good indeed,’ Miss Neville said. ‘Although perhaps read with a little too much expression. We Australians are given to understatement. You will not find us an emotional lot, Mrs Talivaldis.’
Zidra had turned these words over like sweets in her mouth, while committing them to memory. Later she’d repeated them to her mother in Miss Neville’s carrying but slightly husky voice. Mama had laughed and hugged her, and that more than made up for her failure with the six times table.
Now Zidra peered through the post office window again. Mrs Blunkett was gluing Mama’s advertisement to the window. Seeing Zidra, she smiled and Zidra grinned back. After crunching up what remained of the rainbow ball, she swallowed the pieces and wiped her lips on her forearm just as her mother came out into the street, followed by Mrs Blunkett. In her pocket Zidra could feel the reassuring shape of the second sweet.
‘What a lovely little girl you have,’ Mrs Blunkett said to Mama.
‘Thank you,’ Mama said, smiling. ‘Sometimes she’s an angel and sometimes she is not quite so angelic.’
Mrs Blunkett laughed and went back inside. Zidra’s attention was now distracted by a bleached-looking sea urchin shell that someone had left lying on the footpath. She kicked it and watched it bounce down the hill almost as far as their front gate. That had to mean good luck.
Another Saturday night. By the time George Cadwallader had finished his bath and put on clean pyjamas, Eileen was in bed. She wore a resigned expression and the floral nightdress she’d bought recently to replace that worn-out old thing she’d had for years. After climbing in next to her, he put a hand tentatively on her right breast. He could never get over the miracle that on Saturday nights he was allowed to do this. Then to unbutton the front of her nightdress and put his lips to her nipples, nuzzling them one by one as if he were a hungry baby. Soon he was permitted to slip between her great warm thighs and slide right into her. And feel, for just a few minutes, that he might be wanted.
Tonight he felt her shudder beneath him, as if he’d brought her some pleasure at last. But then she said, ‘Get off me, George, you’re squashing my chest.’
He rolled onto his side and she wiped between her legs with the yellow and brown striped towel that she slipped over the bottom sheet each Saturday night in readiness for her martyrdom. When she’d finished, she gave the towel to George. This was his cue to get out of bed and put the towel in the wicker laundry basket that was kept in the corner of their bedroom. It had to be pushed right to the very bottom, under the clothes that had been accumulating all week ready for the Monday wash. Afterwards, he got a face washer from the linen cupboard in the hall and took it into the bathroom. The water had to run for a minute or so before it was hot enough. Then the face washer had to be soaked, squeezed and carried back into the bedroom. When Eileen had finished wiping herself clean of all trace of him, he took the washer back into the bathroom and rinsed it under hot running water; rinsed it until all smell of him had gone. Then he hung it on the pipe underneath the washbasin to dry. By morning it would have vanished, whipped away by Eileen to be stowed somewhere until wash day.
When this cleansing was over, George turned off the light and climbed into bed next to Eileen. ‘I love you,’ he said, distinctly if a little awkwardly, as he had done every Saturday evening of their married life.
‘Goodnight, George,’ she said, as she had done over these past six hundred Saturdays.
He felt faintly disappointed. Perhaps he had imagined that her shudder represented pleasure, but even if it had, he shouldn’t have expected that she might be able to say more. That she might be able to say, ‘I love you.’
Late the following Monday, George and his assistant – known locally as The Boy, although he was pushing thirty – completed their daily rites, whereby the afternoon was transformed into evening and The Boy allowed to go home. The meat was put away in the cold room, the slabs and chopping boards were washed down, and the floor was swept and scrubbed. The Boy sprinkled fresh sawdust over it and was blessed by a smile from his employer, together with a nice piece of tripe.
Now George was alone. After locking up the till, he peered out the shopfront window. The top of the window displayed the large hand-painted cow that he’d commissioned from an itinerant artist a few years ago. Eileen hadn’t been happy with that cow. It wasn’t normal, she’d said. Too fat, and besides, why waste good money on decoration when he had four mouths to feed? Jim and Andy were always hungry and growing too, and their lounge-room furniture was so shabby she was ashamed to bring anyone home. Why waste good money on a painting for his shopfront window when people would buy his meat anyway? They didn’t need any inducement. He was the only butcher, after all, and she would have preferred
it anyhow if he’d had a nice clean white collar job.
He’d guessed what she’d really meant; that she regretted marrying him instead of that spotty young bank clerk she’d been going with before she met him, before they’d quite literally bumped into one another at the Royal Agricultural Show, in front of the piles of vegetables, the marrows and pumpkins and whatever, arranged as the coat of arms of New South Wales.
It had been love at first sight, at least as far as he was concerned. He had loved her large arms and that slightly bovine face, which had so distracted him that he hadn’t noticed the shelf of her hips. They jutted out so far that he had been physically knocked sideways. Then he had looked down at her solid thighs, clad in a flowered blue and yellow dress of some light fabric, although it was April and the weather getting cooler. It had made his mouth water just looking at her standing in her summery dress in front of the piles of vegetables at the Easter Show. Meat and two veg, that’s what he liked then, but especially the meat.
George still loved his meat and sausages, and still loved his wife’s flesh too, although he was only allowed to handle it once a week. That cow on the shopfront reminded him of her; it had always reminded him of her. It was a portrait of her, though he would never tell her that. Perhaps she was right, it just wasn’t normal.
George said to Eileen, ‘The Boy’s getting a bit restless.’ This was his way of preparing her for the decision he’d made that afternoon.
‘The sooner he starts secondary school the better. October already, so he’s only got another four months.’ Eileen pulled the baking tin out of the oven. She picked up a fork and used it to prod the leg of lamb rather more viciously than seemed warranted.
‘No, not our Jim. The Boy.’ George couldn’t resist a smile at the sight of the pink juices oozing out of the leg of lamb. Prime meat, that; no doubt about it.
‘Oh, you mean The Boy. Silly name. What’s he done now?’
‘Wants a pay rise. Said he’s indispensable.’
‘He’s only just finished his apprenticeship.’
‘That was nine years ago, Eileen, and he is pretty well indispensable.’
‘He’d have to travel a long way to get a better boss than you.’
George might have smiled at this rare compliment if he didn’t suspect that some criticism must follow. Perhaps it would be slower than usual: Eileen was momentarily distracted by the task of turning over the vegetables. She was a marvellous cook; George couldn’t fault the orderly way in which she arranged the overturned potatoes and pumpkin pieces. After returning the baking tray to the oven, she wiped her hands on her striped apron and sat down at the kitchen table opposite George. The vee of her neckline exhibited that tantalising cleavage. He longed to touch her; he longed to lay his head on her bosom and hear her say, ‘You’re a good boss, George, and a good husband too. Give The Boy his raise, I know you think he deserves it, and you couldn’t get a better helper. It doesn’t matter to me if we delay by a year or two the purchase of that new lounge suite.’
Instead she said, ‘You’re a good boss, George. Too good, you’re too easily exploited.’ She didn’t look at him while she spoke, but into the distance, as if looking into the future, and a bleak future it seemed to be too. ‘People take advantage of you, George. You’ve got to be tougher.’
Looking again at her lovely bosom, George felt a deep resentment. She wouldn’t treat him kindly, although he’d always treated her as a princess; she wouldn’t sanction the small salary rise that he knew he must pay The Boy if he wasn’t to lose him. She was being short-sighted rather than far-sighted and he wouldn’t put up with it. He’d take her advice in one respect though. He would be tough, but with her rather than with The Boy.
‘If The Boy goes I won’t be able to run my business,’ he said. ‘I’m going to pay him more because I want to keep him and because he deserves it.’ He articulated his words more clearly than usual but the tone in which they were spoken was as gentle as always. ‘I’m running the business and I’m going to run it my way.’
After getting up from his chair, he pushed open the fly-screen door slowly, as if inviting her to say, ‘Shut the door, George, you’re letting in the flies.’ For a moment he hesitated. Then he let the door slam shut before descending the steps from the back verandah and limping across to the wood pile.
He’d done it. He’d stood up to Eileen. Later he’d have to pay for this; he had in the past on those rare occasions when he’d dug his heels in. At least The Boy would be kept happy. At least Cadwallader’s Quality Meats would be able to carry on as before. The Boy deserved a raise, George had absolutely no doubt about that. He sat down on the chopping block and smoked a cigarette while watching the chickens scratching around in their yard.
After a while he pulled out of his pocket the little book about the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere that he’d carried with him everywhere since the war. Once the Japs had bombed Darwin, the army no longer cared about the gammy leg he’d got pranging a motorbike at seventeen. They’d sent him to the Northern Territory where he’d found that being a mess orderly suited him. He didn’t mind the heat and his genial nature meant he was well liked. He’d taken to gazing at the stars on the nights he could get away from the camp, limping off into the spinifex, away from the racket of the generators and the dim yellow lights. There he would find some quiet spot and gaze heavenwards. He’d carried on doing this even after the war had ended, even after he’d been demobbed. The celestial hemisphere was how he referred to it. Only to himself, of course; he would have been laughed at if he’d ever mentioned anything so grand to anyone else.
He smoothed down the tattered cover of the book with his big hands before opening it carefully. Soon he’d need to put a new jacket on it; perhaps in plastic next time. Although he knew its contents off by heart, and could tell anyone who cared to listen all about the constellations, looking at it was almost a religious experience. With great concentration he flicked through its pages.
Some minutes later, he closed the volume. He felt calmer now, as he always did after contemplating the stars, whether on paper or in the sky. The kitchen was empty when he returned to the house. Eileen was sitting in the lounge room ostentatiously turning the pages of The Women’s Weekly. For a moment he stood in the doorway. Then the telephone in the hallway stuttered into life.
‘You answer it, George,’ Eileen said, ‘instead of holding up the doorway. I’m sure it won’t collapse if you let go.’
He picked up the receiver. It was Pat Neville. Once the exchange of pleasantries was over, she said, ‘I’d really like to enter your son Jim for the scholarship exam at Stambroke College.’
‘That’s good news.’ George spoke deliberately slowly. He didn’t know quite what to think and needed a moment or two to absorb what she’d said. ‘Where is it?’
‘In Vaucluse, in Sydney. My brother’s a teacher there and Jim could stay with him and his wife in Rushcutters Bay while he sat the exam. So the only expense would be getting him there and back. He’s a really bright lad, the best I’ve ever taught and I think he’d have a very good chance. The exam’s in early November.’
A glow of pride seemed to start in George’s toes and travel slowly up to his chest, where it began to swell and threatened to lift him off the floor. ‘Very good of you to think of it,’ he said. He almost added that he’d have to talk to the missus but then thought better of it. Eileen wasn’t going to be allowed to spoil this moment. He’d present it to her as a done deed.
After hanging up, he went into the lounge room and sat down.
‘You’re not resting your head on the back of the sofa, are you? The covers have just been cleaned and I don’t want any more greasy hair marks.’
George, bolstered up by his news, wasn’t going to let this remark get to him, and anyway he knew that it was in retaliation for the incident with The Boy. There’d be another three or four put-downs at least before Eileen would feel she was even. For a moment he said nothing, savouring the
words that Miss Neville had spoken.
Eventually curiosity got the better of her. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘Jim’s school teacher.’
‘Miss Neville?’
‘Yes. She wants him to sit for a scholarship exam in Sydney.’
‘We don’t want any extra expense, George. He wouldn’t get it and it would cost a lot to send him to Sydney and back, and to find somewhere for him to stay.’
‘It’s at Stambroke College, in the Eastern Suburbs.’ Carefully watching Eileen’s face, George was gratified to see that she was impressed. ‘And she said Jim could stay with her brother’s family, so there wouldn’t be any expense.’
‘Apart from getting there and back.’
‘That’s not much. It was very good of Miss Neville to think of organising all this.’
‘Well, it would reflect well on her if he got in,’ Eileen said. ‘She’s not doing it just for his benefit, or ours, you can be sure of that.’
‘We’ve got a bright boy there. A boy to be proud of. Two boys to be proud of. You’ve done well with them, Eileen.’ He could afford to be generous and, anyway, he meant it.
‘They’re good boys, George, especially Andy. I don’t know where Jim gets his brains from, because it’s certainly not from you or me, although he does look like you more and more as he gets older.’
George knew this wasn’t intended as a compliment, but it seemed unwise to say anything else at this stage. He picked up the newspaper and opened it at the sporting pages, but he just looked at the lines of print and couldn’t focus on them. It was Jim he was thinking of, Jim who would achieve all those things that he had been unable to, Jim who would get away from a mother who – George now admitted it to himself – found her older son as irritating as she found George. On no account would Eileen be able to stop Jim sitting for the exam. George grimaced at the newspaper. Of course he wanted Andy to do well too, but Andy didn’t have Jim’s abilities.
