by Alison Booth
He nodded.
‘I’ll lie on the couch and rest my ankle while I listen.’ Slipping off her shoes, she stretched out on the dark green brocade chaise longue. Philip found a cushion for her to lean against and she smiled at him. He seemed tense again. Probably worried that she wouldn’t like his music. He sat at the piano and played through a few bars before beginning to sing in a clear steady voice.
Night after night after night after night,
Once the house master has turned off the light,
Boys from the year ahead
Start to climb out of bed.
Philip Chapman’s the one they seek.
It happens at least once a week.
Down the toilet they stick his head
After that they pee on his bed.
Now son Philip wants to be dead
Keep him here at Woodlands instead.
Horrified, Ilona sat up and patted the sofa next to her. ‘Does that really happen to you, Philip?’
Nodding, he sat down beside her.
‘I understand the song, Philip. It’s for your parents.’
‘M-m-mummy.’
The song was a clever way of getting Judy’s attention, communicating verbally without the clutter of the stuttering. Although there was writing too, of course. Perhaps he should write out the song as a poem.
Gently she began to ask questions but soon stopped because he was crying too much. She took his thin body in her arms and held him close, while rocking him to and fro. Staying on at Stambroke was madness for such a sensitive boy. People in institutions didn’t tolerate differences, but it was tolerance that allowed talent to flourish. Boarding wasn’t for everyone. Ilona looked at the delicate planes of his face, still pale in spite of the intensity of his grief. Although unblemished, he was not unscarred. Tenderly she began to suggest what he might write in a letter to his parents that could accompany the poem. Smiling at her now, he appeared almost like the boy she’d known before he’d been sent away.
But this might not be enough, she knew. After kissing Philip goodbye, she knocked at the door of the breakfast room. Judy was curled up in the only armchair and waved Ilona to one of the chairs arranged around the table.
‘I need to talk to you about Philip.’
‘Terribly talented, isn’t he? We’re so lucky Stambroke arranged lessons at the Conservatorium. We’d never be able to get someone locally as good as that. Oh, sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to cause offence. You’ve been absolutely marvellous to Philip over the years, and it’s thanks to you that he’s got as far as he has.’
‘Thank you. No offence taken. He’s a gifted boy, and there’s nothing more I can teach him.’
‘But there’s something you wanted?’
‘Yes. Philip seems very unhappy and –’
‘Unhappy?’ Judy snapped, before Ilona could finish speaking. ‘He’s delighted to be home again, I can tell you. He was badgering us for days to leave the Hotel Australia and get home to Woodlands. He adores it here. I would have preferred to stay on in Sydney for a bit longer, but we came home earlier just for his sake. We are martyrs to his happiness.’
‘I was going to say that he’s very unhappy at Stambroke College, not at Woodlands.’ Although Ilona had guessed that this conversation wouldn’t be easy, it was turning out to be even more difficult than she’d imagined. She continued. ‘It’s clear he’s being bullied there and for a boy with his sensitive soul it must be quite dreadful for him. Also his stutter cannot make it easy for him to defend himself.’
Judy made a face. ‘Oh, I see, that’s what you’re worried about.’ It was unclear what irritated her more, the sensitive soul or the stuttering; or perhaps it was simply Ilona’s tactlessness in drawing her attention to both. ‘His father did tell me he was teased a bit last term, the poor darling. But that’s life for you, Ilona. You have to be trained to withstand the hard knocks of this world, Jack says, and there’s no better place for that than at a boys’ school. Although of course my heart bleeds for poor Philip, I simply cannot get Jack to change his mind. He went there himself, you see.’
Ilona wondered if Judy had even tried. She put about the story that she adored her son, but the adoration didn’t extend to spending much time with him. It was far more conducive to her social life to have him at Stambroke College, giving her an excuse to spend time in Sydney. ‘I think it’s doing him real psychological damage.’
‘Nonsense, darling. It’s character building, surely you can see that. Anyway, and I know you’ll forgive me being so outspoken, I really don’t think it’s any of your business, do you? I don’t tell you how to bring up Zidra, nor should you tell us how to educate Philip. I invited you here not only because we simply love to see you and Peter, such dear friends both of you, but also because I know how much Philip adores you. But I certainly don’t want to be lectured by you. Philip just experienced a bit of teasing last term, a bit of good-natured fun. And next year, all will have been forgotten.’
At this moment she looked out of the window, distracted by the car that was now pulling up in front of the house. Her relief was obvious. ‘Oh, here are the first of our guests arriving for the weekend. Was that all you wanted to tell me, darling?’
Ilona could hardly trust herself to speak, so angry did she feel at this diminution of poor Philip’s anguish. ‘Perhaps you will listen though, when he tells you himself.’
‘Of course, Ilona. I always listen,’ Judy said, standing up so that Ilona felt compelled to do the same. ‘I really must go now, darling, and welcome our guests,’ Judy continued. ‘They telephoned only last night to say they’d be arriving early. It was so good of you to make time to come and see us this morning in your busy routine. Dear Philip does appreciate your visits hugely. You must come again soon. No hard feelings, I promise you. I know you mean well.’
There was to be no occasion to speak to Jack Chapman alone. He and Peter were already talking to the guests, a smart-looking middle-aged couple.
Although Ilona told Peter about what had happened on the way home in the car, he had no further advice to offer her, only his reassurance that she’d done the best she could. ‘In a way, Judy is right,’ he added afterwards. ‘He’s their child, and they make decisions about him.’
‘I thought they mightn’t know about what’s been happening to him, yet clearly they do.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything more that we can do. But that’s a terrific idea of yours to invite him to come and stay with us for a few days.’
My heart bleeds for poor Philip. Maybe Judy had meant those silver words that slid so easily off her tongue, although Ilona doubted that she meant them for more than a few minutes. Ilona felt she’d failed in making Judy see the harm that Stambroke was doing to her son. A bit of good-natured fun might be all right for a boy of robust disposition but not for Philip.
Perhaps the boy’s poem would melt Judy’s heart, Ilona thought, as she navigated the car around the hairpin bends before Jingera. Surely a mother couldn’t fail to be moved by it.
Chapter 13
If you had to choose a single moment to capture the essence of a summer morning, this would be it, Jim decided. The sky was an enamelled blue, cicadas thrummed against the distant pounding of the surf, and he could smell the scent of newly mown grass and feel the warm sun on his skin. Sauntering up the hill towards the town square, he saw Zidra’s mother in front of the war memorial. Even though she’d been Mrs Vincent for years now, he still thought of her as The Talivaldis. That was the name he’d come up with when she and Zidra had first arrived in Jingera: the Spotted or Herbaceous Talivaldis, the sort of name you’d find in a book of exotic birds. That suited her better than plain old Mrs Vincent, he thought.
Wearing a purple dress with orange flowers printed on it, she was now gazing intently at the names inscribed on the obelisk.
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‘Hello, Mrs Vincent,’ he called.
‘Good morning, Jim,’ she said, straightening up. ‘Come and look at all the names here – five Peabody boys killed in the First World War. The entire male side of that family must have been wiped out. Have you ever met a Peabody from this area?’
‘Never.’ Jim looked at the names engraved in gold lettering on the polished grey granite. He hadn’t noticed before that there were so many Peabody deaths although he’d often read the long list of names on the sides of the obelisk, the casualties from two world wars. Had recognised most of them too – the Beatties and the McGraths and the Kirbys and the Leighs – families who still lived locally.
After blowing her nose loudly, The Talivaldis returned the handkerchief to the pocket of her skirt. Her fair hair, loosely pinned up at the back of her head, was escaping from its constraints and falling in wisps around her face.
‘How’s your foot?’ he asked.
She held it out for his inspection. There was a dark greenish-yellow mark around the outside of her bare ankle. For the first time he noticed what shapely legs she had, just like her daughter.
‘The bruise has almost gone,’ she said. ‘Peter said I was lucky not to break it. It kept me out of action for a few days though. I thought twice before I walked anywhere but it’s better now. So tell me, Jim, what are you up to over the holidays?’
‘Just hanging around, mostly. Andy and I are fixing the chook-yard next week. One of my school friends, Eric Hall, is coming to stay for the last week of the holidays.’
‘That will be lovely for you both,’ she said. ‘Is he from Sydney?’
‘No, he’s from a property near Walgett.’ Seeing her blank look, he added, ‘That’s in north-western New South Wales.’
‘Beyond the black stump,’ she said.
He liked the way she pulled out these colloquialisms as if they were some novelty. ‘Out at woop woop,’ he responded.
‘I haven’t heard that one before,’ she said, smiling.
‘Did Zidra come to town with you today?’ Jim avoided looking at The Talivaldis while he asked this.
‘No. She caught the bus into Burford. She’s doing her Christmas shopping.’
I could have gone with her, Jim thought, if she’d bothered to let me know. It seemed he always phoned her, never the other way around. He kicked rather harder than warranted at a pebble on the pavement and stubbed his toe.
It now appeared that The Talivaldis was thinking of something else, for her expression was slightly distracted and her brown eyes looked through him rather than at him. ‘Zidra would have told you about our trip to Wallaga Lake,’ she said.
‘Yes, she told me the day after I got home.’
‘Wallaga Lake is so very beautiful,’ she said, ‘but the Reserve upset me too, and it wasn’t only because we didn’t find the Hunters. In fact, I still haven’t been able to find out where they are. You will phone me, won’t you Jim, if you hear anything about them?’
After he promised, just as he’d promised Zidra, she continued. ‘Afterwards I realised what disturbed me about the place. We read in the newspapers about apartheid in South Africa and we condemn it, or the liberal-minded among us do. Yet we have a similar system operating right here on our doorstep. We just don’t notice it because there are so few Aborigines around, but it’s here all the same.’
‘There are lots of Aborigines at Walgett,’ Jim said. ‘They live in camps. I saw them when I went to stay with the Halls last summer holidays.’ He’d been unprepared to see so many of them and the squalor in which they lived. They were a strong presence – in the shanties by the river, in the streets. But they were an absence too. Absent from certain areas, banned from certain areas – some of the shops, the hotels, even the town swimming pool.
‘Why?’ he’d asked Eric at the time.
‘Don’t know,’ Eric had said. ‘Never really thought about it. Just the way it is, I suppose.’
Just the way it is. But you needed to question the way things were. The Talivaldis was always asking why. That was partly because she was foreign and had a different slant on things but she also had a curious mind. Jim was supposed to be clever but he wasn’t questioning enough. He should work on his critical faculties more. It was no good coming top of everything, pulling out the answers that everyone wanted to hear. He had to learn to do more than that. He had to learn to question everything in order to try to understand it.
At this point, he noticed his mother coming out of the general store next to the post office, with Mrs Llewellyn, the wife of the man who ran the pub. Mrs Llewellyn was large-boned and hearty. Her short grey hair looked as if it could be taken on and off like a beanie. It was rumoured that she used to like a drop or two, and this was why Taffy Llewellyn never let her near the bar. Got to keep the old girl away from temptation, he’d confided to someone not long after they’d first arrived, a secret that had spread rapidly through the town. This didn’t reduce attendance at the Brownies’ group she’d started up though, or so Jim’s mother had reported.
The two women strolled across the square towards Jim and The Talivaldis, still standing by the war memorial. That his mother and The Talivaldis had become quite friendly had at first surprised him. Once she used to call Zidra and her mother the reffos, along with the rest of the town, but she’d forgotten all about that after they’d changed their name to Vincent. He guessed that she was suspicious of anything new, but when it was no longer novel she would incorporate it unquestioningly into the fabric of her everyday life.
After greetings had been exchanged, his mother surprised him further by saying, ‘Would you both like to pop in for a cup of tea? I was about to go home and make some.’
‘Thank you, Eileen. I’d love to.’
‘I’d love to as well, but I’ve got to supervise Taffy supervising the kitchenhand,’ said Mrs Llewellyn with a smile.
Soon after, Mrs Llewellyn returned to the hotel, while Jim’s mother and The Talivaldis headed off for what The Talivaldis was now referring to as a cuppa. For a moment Jim watched the two of them, Zidra’s mother with her shopping basket and that clashing purple and orange frock, and his mother in her floral dress of muted tones of blue.
Adults alter too; this thought came to him like a revelation. He’d grown up conscious of his own development but with a lack of awareness that his parents were also changing. Only now did it occur to him that they would be maturing just as he was, and that this would continue to happen. He’d observed only the small physical changes in his parents: some new wrinkles, a few more white hairs among the dark, his father’s hair receding. Yet there would also be an evolution in their thinking and in their views of the world, of which he was unaware. Everything was in a state of flux. Not even memories were fixed points.
The crying of two seagulls swooping low overhead interrupted Jim’s reverie. He strolled across to the post office to buy a stamp for his letter and joined the queue of people waiting to be served by Mrs Blunkett. After this he’d go to the library at the front of the church hall that was open two days a week. He’d ordered a book from the Burford library that was supposed to be coming in that morning.
As Jim came out of the post office, he saw Sally Hargreaves walking up the hill from the lagoon. He’d met her a few days ago on the footbridge leading to the beach. He and Andy had been heading to the beach and she and Zidra had already been swimming, but they’d stopped to talk for a few minutes. He’d liked the way she laughed a lot, as if everything he said was funny. He stopped now, and waited for her to catch up. Her dark silky hair fell over her bare shoulders and her sundress was a pale shade of green. She was even prettier than he’d remembered.
‘Hello, Sally.’
‘Hello, Jim.’
After this exchange he could think of nothing more to say and neither, apparently, could she. It had been easy to talk
to her the other day when Zidra and Andy had been present. If only Zidra were here now. Desperately he scoured his mind for a topic.
‘Lovely day,’ he said.
‘Sure is.’
There was another pause, which stretched and stretched. Searching for something to say, he remembered his earlier exchange with The Talivaldis. ‘Come and have a look at this,’ he said. ‘All the Peabody names on the war memorial.’
Conversation flowed without much difficulty after that, although nowhere near as effortlessly as it did with Zidra or her mother. That was only because he’d known them longer. Or perhaps the real reason was that he was too easily distracted by Sally’s looks that, he now decided, were the acme of female beauty.
Only later in the library did he begin to think of the witty anecdotes he might have told her but hadn’t. At that moment he remembered the phrase they’d learnt in French last term, l’esprit d’escalier. The conversation you think of on the way out when the occasion is already behind you.
With several books under his arm, he headed home. The lounge-room door was open and he was surprised to hear that The Talivaldis was still talking to his mother. Stopping outside the door to the bedroom he shared with Andy, he listened for a moment to their conversation. The Talivaldis was describing the system of apartheid in South Africa and was further developing the arguments she’d made to him earlier. So eloquent was she that she might have been giving a lecture. This proselytising was not a side of her character that he’d noticed before.
‘Well, how would you improve things for the Aborigines?’ his mother now asked.
‘Better housing, better education, better integration. That would be a start.’
‘But suppose they don’t want to be integrated?’
‘Ah, their different culture and the different rhythms,’ The Talivaldis mused. ‘And different insights. Can we not learn from that?’
‘Different hygiene too. They’re filthy.’
‘That’s only a few of them and it comes from poverty. And exploitation.’
