‘You’re not supposed to know about that.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘But she’s Dick Dingle’s wife, Mum.’ My voice was a whine.
‘Not about that vulture. I want to tell you about my new friend.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Dezzie.’
‘Your boss?’ Icy needles scraped across my scalp. The food in my stomach threatened to move north. I belched and tasted cheese and chips. ‘You don’t mean boyfriend!’
‘He’s just a special friend at the moment.’
‘But he could become a boyfriend?’
‘Let’s see what happens. He’s a very nice man. You’ll like him.’
‘I doubt it.’ I could just see this Dezzie: hair slicked back, dark sunglasses, white shoes. He’d be hairy and wear his shirts open at the neck with a thick gold chain, the sort of man who addressed women as ‘love’ and played Julio Iglesias on his car cassette player. Mum deserved better. So did I. ‘Why doesn’t he have a wife of his own?’
‘He did.’
‘And?’
‘She died.’
‘That’s suspicious for a start.’
‘Julian, don’t be mean.’ Mum’s face softened. ‘You’ll never guess who I bumped into today at the Wool Board?’
I didn’t answer. My ears were buzzing and I felt carsick.
‘Jimmy Budge! He’s won Wool Cadet of the Year.’
Jimmy’s face rose out of the haze of carsickness and floated before me. It was the beautiful face from the magazine.
‘He asked after you. He says he wants to transfer to the Board in Hobart.’
‘Did you tell him I was working for Dick Dingle’s wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s all right then.’
I stayed in the dinette and thought about Jimmy as Mum cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. The carsickness had been replaced by a more profoundly uncomfortable feeling of doom. Everything was going to the dogs. What could I say to Jimmy if he came to Hobart? I didn’t have a real job or any money and I could hardly give him a guided tour of the city on foot. Knowing Jimmy, he probably drove a tidy little Ford Escort and had the Terrence Fig clothes and hair to go with it. Jimmy Budge was a shooting star.
Mum finished cleaning up and went into the lounge to call Norman. I knew she was talking about me because she shut the sliding doors and turned up the television. I hated it when she did that. It made me feel sidelined, like a kid, or worse, like an adopted kid.
Tyres screeched outside. A car door slammed. Carmel yanked open the fly screen.
‘Aloha.’ I gave her my old Frank Sinatra smile. ‘How’s big sis?’
‘What?’ Carmel threw her cricket cap on the table.
‘Just being friendly.’
‘Don’t bother.’ She opened the fridge and surveyed the contents with a scowl. ‘The fridge has been gutted! Where the hell are the sausages?’
‘How was cricket practice?’
‘And the eggs?’ She looked in the bread bin. ‘There’s no bloody bread.’
‘Mum’s got other things on her mind.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s seeing a fancy man. He wears white shoes and plays Julio Iglesias.’
‘I’m going to the chip shop.’
‘Don’t you care?’
‘About what?’
‘About the interloper. The man’s a danger.’
‘Get a life.’
The fly screen slapped shut. I heard an engine start and the screech of tyres. Carmel would have to find out the hard way. Dezzie was trouble. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, right next to the sausages and cheese. Mum was a fool. We’d worked so hard to get rid of Dad and now she was about to ruin everything by bringing another bastard into our lives. Yes, bastard. That’s what he was, a bastard. I rolled the word around inside my head and smiled. Dad was another bastard. So was John. Bastard one, bastard two, bastard three. Three fucking bastards.
‘Lovely.’ Mum had come in from the lounge. ‘You’re smiling.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Was that Carmel I just heard?’
‘She took off. She obviously wasn’t happy about this Dezzie business.’
‘Julian, it wasn’t your place to tell her.’
‘Someone had to do it.’
‘What am I going to do with you?’
‘Kick me out of the house, probably. I don’t work at the Wool Board like all the other shooting stars.’
‘Where do you get such silly ideas?’ Mum placed a hand on my hair and ruffled it. ‘Your roots are showing.’
‘No they’re not.’ Of course my roots were showing. They were over half the length of my hair.
‘Norm’s been invited to Hobart.’ Mum paused for a reaction but didn’t get one. ‘They’re going to put on a big hair show for apprentice hairstylists and want him to be a judge. The theme of the competition is big hair.’
‘I thought he didn’t like Hobart.’
‘He hasn’t said yes yet.’
Norman had been a phantom for so long it was hard to imagine seeing him in person. My memory of him was vague: a quiet spotty teenager wearing tight shorts and a terry-towelling beach hat. I hated terry towelling. It was the sort of thing bus drivers wore on holiday. I didn’t know Norman and didn’t care if I never saw him again. He could go to hell like the rest of the bastards.
30
I was surprised when Dad called. He was friendly.
‘Trev tells me you’re working for that New Zealand tart.’
‘English.’
‘Is that what she told you? She arrived at the docks years ago on a Kiwi trawler. The old gold-digger started out gutting fish.’ Dad laughed the small heh-heh laugh he used when he knew best.
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’ I struggled to keep my voice neutral. My mind was whirring. Prudence gutting fish?
‘I do when the source is reliable.’
I hated it when Dad pulled rank and pretended to be a real journalist with actual news sources. He was the editor of the sports pages and sat on his bum all day typing or watching television. What was newsworthy about sports? I could hear the tap-tapping of a typewriter in the background. Typical. Dad believed personal calls were a waste of money unless they were done on work time. He coughed, something he always did before an announcement.
‘We’ve just had some disturbing news come in at the Star. It’s about your neighbours, the Finch family. The son’s in hospital with a broken pelvis. They say he’s going to be OK but he’s had a nasty shock. I think he’s about your age.’
‘I don’t know him.’
I knew Peter Finch well enough to cross the street whenever I saw him. He’d once thrown a roasting-hot steak pie at me as I walked past his house. It had splattered against my legs and left red marks for three days. Carmel called him You Big Dumb Dag to his face and shook her fist whenever she saw him. He never tried the meat pie trick on her.
‘He was knocked down today on Echidna Avenue. A car drove on to the footpath and rammed him from behind. They caught the maniac.’
‘Not that joy-rider again?’
‘Nah, it was a middle-aged man this time, a driver for Tip Top Taxis. Pissed out of his mind. It must be the maniac that threw the coconut at the Valiant. Incredible.’
‘The taxi could’ve killed someone. Me.’
‘Thank God it wasn’t Carmel. We can’t let anything ruin her chances for the Tassie team. That girl’s a shooting star.’
‘She takes after you.’
‘I’ve always been a sports enthusiast.’
‘You both love beer.’
‘Look, what I want to say is…I should’ve believed you.’ Dad drew in air. This was obviously difficult for him. ‘Carmel told me some cock-and-bull story about two bloody American sailors and a frozen chicken. It seems stupid now.’
My fingers were tingling when I got off the phone. Dad had more or less admitted he was wron
g and virtually apologised. I couldn’t remember him ever doing anything so reckless. He was always right even when he was wrong. I didn’t feel sorry for Peter Finch. He was a violent bully and known in the street for uprooting shrubs and vandalising letterboxes. There were football-boot dents in the galvanised iron of our letterbox.
I sat still for a moment enjoying the tingle. It was nice to have a virtual apology from Dad. It took the edge off my worries about Mum. My biggest worry was about sharing her with another man. I didn’t even want to share a roast chicken with another man, let alone my mother. I could imagine sitting down to a dinner with the womaniser. Dezzie would take the head of the table and lord it over the fowl with a carving knife while Mum shot me the Family Hold Back signal. I hated the FHB rule. It gave the advantage to the opponent and went against the principle of fair play. Dezzie wouldn’t play by the rules anyway. I imagined him dumping a dry old drumstick on my plate with a sneer and winkling the oysters out of the back of the bird for my mother. He’d then do something showy like go down on a knee and present them to her on the blade of the knife.
I had to get Mum back on my team and the easiest way to do this was by winning her sympathy. I was weighing up hotplate burns against razor-blade cuts when a church flyer arrived in the letterbox. The church was collecting money to support the campaign of Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers in the lead-up to Easter. The starvation of Bobby Sands had stirred sympathy around the world and consolidated support for the Catholic cause in Northern Ireland. Bobby was too young and good-looking to die. He was an inspiration.
Bypassing the toaster, I made for the sink where I filled a large glass with water. From now on, water was the only thing that would pass my lips. It was Bobby and I against the world. I’d waste away along with him and make sure Mum knew that I was doing my bit for the motherland. When she suggested a doctor, I’d shake my head. ‘Don’t worry about little old me. You’ve got Dezzie to think about.’
My hunger strike would’ve been a major success if I hadn’t chosen a seat near the back of the bus I took to work. Across the aisle, a large woman with short mousy hair was eating a scone wrapped in waxed paper. From where I sat, it looked like a cheese and parsley scone, by far the best scone in the Tucker Box Book of Classic Aussie Recipes. The woman noticed me looking and swallowed hard.
‘Do you mind! I’m trying to eat!’ She glared at me and wiped her mouth fiercely with a handkerchief. ‘Get your own sustenance.’
‘Go ahead, enjoy yourself. I’m only thinking of poor old Bobby Sands. He probably weighs less than one of your legs.’
‘Claptrap. The man’s a murderer. All those IRA terrorists should be lined up and shot.’ The woman gave my overalls a sharp, nasty look and nodded her chins for emphasis.
‘And you’d pull the trigger, I take it.’ I felt the pride of the Irish grip my chest. Bobby smiled at me benignly from his prison hospital bed.
‘I’d do my citizen’s duty.’
‘You’re a Protestant, then.’
‘I do not discuss religion with yobs on buses, thank you very much.’ The woman turned away and brushed scone crumbs off her skirt.
‘If I’m a yob then you must be a yob caller.’
‘A what?’
‘Yob caller.’
‘Rude! I’m glad I don’t have a son like you.’
‘And I’m glad I don’t have a mother like you. I’d hate to be a bastard.’
The woman blew out her cheeks and gave the bus cord a hard yank. Clenching the scone to her chest like a weapon, she stormed up to the driver to complain about me loudly. When the bus stopped, the driver turned in his seat and pointed a sausage finger at me.
‘You, out! I’ll have no filthy language on the bus. I have nice ladies on board.’
‘But she called me a yob first.’
‘Out!’
It wasn’t fair. The woman had started it but there was no arguing with the bus drivers of Hobart. I got off outside Cobber’s supermarket boiling with rage and frustration. The next bus wouldn’t arrive for half an hour. I’d be late for work and Prudence was going to be furious.
I pressed my forehead against the supermarket window and surveyed the display of Easter cheer. My mouth watered. In the centre of the display of marshmallow eggs and chocolate rabbits sat a glorious football-sized chocolate egg wrapped in gold foil. Its packaging promised: ‘A delicious jumbo shell of milk chocolate with a novelty and prize token inside! A Fijian holiday could be yours!’
I thought of Bobby and made my move. The Easter egg would be a reward at the end of the hunger strike, a symbol of good like a dashboard statuette of the Virgin Mary. The egg cost everything I had but I felt like a player when I walked out of Cobber’s with the football of chocolate under my arm. It was the best I’d felt in a long time.
I set out for Battery Point on foot with the comforting smell of cocoa butter and sugar wafting up from the crook of my arm. My hand strayed to the foil and lifted an edge. I ran a fingernail across the surface and put it in my mouth. It tasted of happiness, of the birthdays and Christmases I’d spent together with my mother. Scratching deeper, I created a hole and shook out a tiny hula doll on a suction cup. I put my hand inside the chocolate shell but found no prize token. Typical.
The feelings of anger and frustration returned. Hunger gnawed at me as I crossed the road to Sidney Merle Memorial Park and sat down on a park bench. I thought of my mother and Dezzie as I angrily broke off a piece of the football and stuffed it in my mouth. The next hunk was for the woman on the bus. The bus driver, Prudence and Solange took care of the rest. In less than two minutes, I’d demolished the football and was left feeling carsick and miserable. As I squinted into the shrubbery of the park, I decided Bobby Sands could go it alone.
I jumped off the bench and made for the centre of the park. The light was on inside the Ladies but the doorway to the Gents was dim. I soon discovered why. Someone had removed the light bulb. Inside it was pitch dark. My feet squelched on the damp floor as I felt my way along the rough concrete wall. My chest was tight. I reached the hardboard of a cubicle and stopped. The sound of someone breathing became audible. The breather coughed. ‘Over here, mate.’
Prudence was waiting for me on the terrace with her arms rigid at her sides. I’d forgotten all about the Operatic Society. The monthly luncheon was a major event for the small elite club of Hobart that Prudence liked to call ‘society’. She’d dressed for the occasion in a powder-blue chiffon frock and matching turban.
‘Where have you been?’ Her face was mauve but the knuckles gripping the handle of her handbag were bone-china white. ‘I’ve had to prepare Solange’s meal myself.’
‘The bus I was on knocked down a lady.’ I walked up to Prudence with a new swagger. ‘She was probably about your age.’
‘That’s no reason for you to be late for work!’
‘She was stuck under the bus, in agony, screaming.’
‘Yours is a responsible position.’
‘I had to help the bus driver. Citizen’s duty and all that. We tried to lift the wheel off her.’ I pointed to the grime on the knees of my overalls. ‘Road dirt.’
Prudence screwed up her nose.
‘I didn’t give the lady the kiss of life but old Lips Corkle was ready.’ I puckered my lips.
‘I’ve heard enough, thank you.’
‘I’m no expert but I reckon she’d broken her pelvis.’
‘Enough! There’s George now.’ Prudence silenced me as a red Jaguar rounded the driveway. ‘Give the flowerbeds a good spray. Something has completely devastated the nasturtiums.’
Prudence had to duck her extended head under the Jaguar’s doorframe to get into the car. I bent down as I shut the door.
‘Mrs Jipper, that hat puts the Taj Mahal to shame. Bravo!’
Prudence nodded sternly as the car moved off. She looked ridiculous sitting next to the very stiff but normal-looking George. The large powder-blue turban made her head look twice the size of h
is.
The Jaguar had just pulled out of the driveway when I heard something that made the hair on my arms stand to attention. It was a loud trucker’s horn, the horn my sister had recently installed on the Hubs ute to startle road hogs. The cheers of raucous girls reached my ears even before the ute nosed into the driveway. Three of them were crowded into the front and another eight were squeezed in the back waving beer bottles. They cheered again as Carmel ran the ute up on to the grass and over the denuded flowerbed.
I watched in horror as they burst out of the cab and leaped off the back. I began walking backward, trying to form a barrier against the human tide advancing on the house.
‘Hi, girls. What’s up?’ I held up my hands in gentle protest.
‘We’ve just won the bloody Tickworth Cup, you dingbat.’ Carmel led another cheer. ‘We’ve come to cool off in your pool. Dad and Trevor have drained theirs while they put in a deck.’
‘It’s not my pool.’ It was never wise to say ‘no’ directly to Carmel. ‘Isn’t it too cold for swimming?’
‘Not if you’re hot-blooded.’ Carmel winked at Debra Fig and tossed a beer bottle into the azaleas.
‘There’s Prudence to consider.’
‘We just saw her leave with a John. She had a blue onion on her head.’ Carmel turned to her team-mates and waved them forward. ‘Take the plunge, girls. We’ll join you after we’ve had a look round.’
‘I don’t think…’ My heart sank as Carmel and Debra gripped me under the arms and propelled me toward the back of the house. ‘You can’t go inside. There’s a violent dog.’
‘Can’t be as bad as the dogs on the Devonport team.’ Carmel winked at Debra again.
‘This one’s a highly dangerous Afghan.’ I pointed to Solange through the glass panel of the back door. ‘A killer, trained to go for the vulnerable bits.’
‘That’s not a dog. That’s a pussycat.’ Carmel opened the door and grabbed Solange by the collar, giving the dog a rough rub behind the ears.
To my surprise, Solange didn’t growl or try to bite. Instead the dog quietly followed my sister into the kitchen and sat docilely as she replaced the water in its bowl with the contents of Debra’s Tickworth lager bottle. Solange lapped at the beer greedily.
Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar Page 23
