by Joy Dettman
‘About what?’
‘A girl.’
‘Is she a killer on the tennis court?’
‘She has a lot of kids.’
They won their doubles match, which assuaged a little of Cara’s disappointment at her singles loss. She held the trophies on the drive home, and he didn’t drive straight home, but the wind on her face felt good and today she didn’t tell him to slow down.
‘I need a partner for Roger’s engagement party,’ he said.
She knew Gerry had been invited to a university mate’s party, hadn’t been aware that the mate was the son of the yacht owner, or that Gerry planned to ask Cathy to go with him.
‘We left in a hurry. I brought next to nothing with me.’
‘What happened to the red?’
‘It’s in Sydney – with a split in its seam.’
‘Most cat burglars dress for the job,’ he said.
‘I’ve got a leather catsuit on layby.’
He was easy to talk to. Maybe because of today, because of the trophies on her lap.
‘Have you got a licence to drive over here?’
‘I’m going home soon,’ he said.
‘What part of England is home?’
‘What parts do you know?’
‘Dickens’s London.’
‘We’ve got a property forty miles from London.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘After the engagement party. You won’t change your mind about it?’
‘I could be anywhere by then.’
‘You still haven’t heard where they’re sending you?’
‘Cathy has. She’s got a new school out this side of Melbourne. My letter is probably in Sydney and Mum and Dad are too scared to tell me I got Traralgon.’
‘What’s wrong with Traralgon?’
‘If they try to send me there, I’ll stow away on the first flight out of Melbourne.’
‘Choose a flight going to England and I’ll give you a bed,’ he said, and he turned the car around and drove her home.
*
In late January, she moved to a boarding house in Windsor, only a couple of tram stops from Armadale Primary School where her teaching career would begin. It was no Amberley, but the room was her own and comfortable enough.
A nightmare day, her first day in the classroom – flung to the lions with no whip to keep them off her throat, disapproving strangers eyeing her in the staffroom, knowing she had no right to be there. And no relief when she got out of the place. Strange women at the boarding house, sixteen-year-old kids, still close enough to the schoolroom to snigger when she said, ‘I’m a teacher.’
Cathy had been given a position out the other side of Melbourne, at a brand-new school, in a brand-new suburb Cara had never heard of. She drove across town on the second Wednesday night and Cara almost howled with relief, might have hugged her if Cathy’s hands hadn’t been full.
‘I told Morrie you changed your mind about Roger and Anne’s engagement party, on Saturday. Gran fixed up my black dress for you.’
‘It would just about do for a tennis skirt.’
‘Not any more.’
The black frock had undergone a radical change. A three-inch strip of white fabric had been attached to its hem, a white silk rose stitched to its shoulder.
‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘Yeah, I’m jealous actually – except it comes halfway to my ankles now.’
Gwen had sent down a pair of black and white daisy earrings with black centres, perfect for that dress, and Cara wanted to wear them, and that dress. For the remainder of the week every time she felt like howling and running from the lions, she thought of Saturday.
‘Nothing to wear,’ Morrie greeted her on the Saturday. His eyes said more.
*
She’d expected the party to be at a private house. It was at a reception centre, with tables and dance floor and a hundred or more guests. She and Morrie were directed to a rear table, Gerry and Cathy to Roger’s; Morrie and partner, late inclusions, were seated with a young couple, two middle-aged aunts, three juveniles and an elderly uncle.
It was painful. Cara’s nine-year-old brats started looking good. She answered questions, couldn’t think of any of her own, and the entree smoked salmon she felt obligated to taste. Had she been at home, she would have spat it. Had she known where to find the ladies’ room, she would have spat it. Swallowed it, and wanted a glass of the juvenile’s lemonade to wash the taste from her mouth but the waiter had poured wine into her glass so she washed away the taste with wine.
The band was playing. Morrie asked her to dance. No one else was on the dance floor.
‘No thanks,’ she said, and emptied her glass, which tasted like grown-up lemonade.
The waiter came again, so she emptied her glass again, and the night changed. She spoke to the young couple, walked with the girl to the ladies’ room, and when she returned and Morrie asked her to dance, she wanted to dance. It was a tango. She danced it as she’d been taught to at her dancing classes, and didn’t care who was watching.
He held her hand when he walked her back to their table and she clung to it, uncertain she’d find the right table without him.
‘How do you know Roger?’
‘Through Gerry,’ he said.
‘How do you know Gerry?’
‘He took on the job as locum when our local doctor broke his leg. My aunt called him in to do a caesarean on her dog.’
‘He’s a doctor, not a vet.’
‘Same only different,’ he said, then told her he’d played midwife while Gerry operated on the kitchen table. ‘We dragged out nine pups of unknown parentage.’
‘Did they live?’
‘Eight of them did.’
‘And the mother?’
‘She survived.’
‘Did she name the father?’
And he laughed, tossed back his head and laughed. Marion was the comedian. She could make people laugh, not Cara. Poor Marion, banished to Seymour. Poor Penny somewhere up in the whoop-whoops, and Michelle, who had wanted the whoop-whoops, had landed Doncaster.
Sometime between the main meal and sweets, he told her he’d done a couple of years of medicine before he’d realised he had an aversion to dead bodies.
‘Weren’t you supposed to keep them alive?’ she said.
His laugh was infectious, and as she had with Pete, she got the giggles, and the aunts at the table probably thought they were laughing at the old uncle, who was nodding off on his chair, so they had to dance again, and when they returned to the table, their wine glasses had been filled. There’s only one thing to do with a full glass.
‘How are you enjoying your nine year olds?’ he asked.
‘They say that if you get caught smoking pot on school premises they’ll sack you. Know where I can get some?’ Someone at the college had suggested pot or getting pregnant as the only ways to get out of the bond. She almost told him that Marion had threatened to get pregnant, but managed to guide her tongue in a different direction.
‘How much is the fare to England?’
‘Boat or plane?’
‘Chinese junk will do,’ she said.
She wasn’t Cara Norris, daughter of a retired high-school principal, not that night. She wasn’t Miss Norris, schoolmarm, either; maybe she was Jenny’s daughter.
It was late, she was miming her backhand when she knocked her glass and spilt the last of her wine. The waiter had run out of bottles, and Gerry and Cathy were ready to go.
‘You’re drunk,’ Cathy accused.
‘Party pooper,’ Cara said.
She talked too much on the walk across the car park, and clung tight to Morrie’s hand. Didn’t have a clue where the car was, and the bitumen beneath her feet was moving anyway.
‘How many drinks did she have?’ Cathy asked.
‘Half a one less than I would have,’ Cara said. Morrie knew what she meant.
They drove her back to the boarding house and parked opposite. Morrie walked he
r across the road.
The boarding house door was locked at night, but she had two keys in her purse. Morrie dug them out, he found the keyhole, opened the door.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to get you into the shrubbery again.’
‘There’s plenty around.’
She should have thanked him for the evening, wished him a safe flight home, said goodnight and tried to find her room. Didn’t want that night to end, to take off Cathy’s dress and Gwen’s earrings and wake up as Miss Norris-by-default, so she leaned against the doorjamb, waiting for the obligatory goodnight kiss.
‘Cathy’s right, you know. You’re drunk,’ he said.
‘Party pooper,’ she repeated.
He offered the obligatory kiss, and when he was done, she asked him if he please had a hanky. But his mouth came back for more and it didn’t feel obligatory, and because she had to do something with her arms, they did their share of holding. He eased her away but her arms still needed to hold on.
‘I’m too young for this,’ he said.
‘You’ll be thousands of miles away next Tuesday.’
‘True,’ he said.
They broke apart when they heard a gentle beep-beep from the street.
‘Sleep tight,’ he said.
‘Have a good flight,’ she said.
Couldn’t be bothered finding the bathroom to brush her teeth. Crawled into bed in her petticoat and Gwen’s earrings, only realising she was still wearing them when one fell off and stuck into her face. A sleepy hand retrieved it, removed the other one, slid them beneath her pillow, then something happened to her head. It died.
GENETICALLY PROGRAMMED
Monk’s old mansion was gutted by fire in February. With two or three local farmers wanting the land but not interested in restoring the house, there were whispers in town, which grew into rumour. Paul Jenner, now in his late sixties, needed more land. He had two sons still living at home and three grandsons. Any one of them could have put a match to Monk’s house. Their own land was three miles east of Monk’s.
There was rumour enough to encourage the constable to take a drive out to Jenner’s land, where the eldest son, the one with the crippled leg who painted river scenes, told him he’d been down at the creek with his easel the afternoon of the fire, and that he’d seen a bunch of kids out there on bikes. He identified two.
‘That pretty dark-headed girl with the Hoopers was one of them, and the youngest Lewis boy. There was another girl. She could have been a Duffy.’
In the late afternoon, the constable knocked on Jenny’s door. ‘I wonder if I could have a quick word with your girl, Mrs Hooper,’ he said.
‘I’ve never been out there,’ Raelene said. ‘Except with Mum and Dad.’
She sounded innocent, but to Jenny, that Dad was a giveaway. Her dad had been Ray, which she made very clear every time Jim opened his mouth.
Watch-dog Jenny these days: stop barking and Raelene was gone. She barked when the constable left.
‘How many times have I told you to stay away from those Lewis boys?’
‘You tell me to stay away from everyone.’
‘I tell you to stay away from the ones who’ll get you into trouble.’
‘You should have stayed away from the Macdonald twins then.’
There were no secrets from Raelene in this town. And no controlling her. Jenny stopped barking to wash dishes, and she turned around and Raelene was out on the street with two of the Lewis boys.
The watch-dog barked.
‘Lay off, will you? I’m not going anywhere.’
She’d been with Florence and Clarrie for a month. They exchanged control of her in the city, Raelene’s welfare dame present. Florence had no hope of controlling her. Three weeks ago, Jim at her side, Jenny had driven that kid down to a juvenile court hearing, and in a month’s time she’d drive her down there again – and she’d had it.
She had to persevere. Granny had – in a different era though, with different problems.
Barking from the doorway not achieving the desired results, watch-dog Jenny walked out to the gate to nip at Raelene’s heels. The Lewis boys got on their bikes and rode.
‘Did they light the fire?’
‘How would I know what they do?’
‘You knew where the key to the house was.’
‘Anyone with half a brain could work that out.’
A week later, Raelene went missing from school, along with one of the teachers’ cars and her chequebook, which she’d left in its glove box.
She didn’t get far. The car ran out of petrol and Raelene was returned to her mother’s care.
And thus Woody Creek wandered into autumn, and to new rumours about Monk’s place.
‘They say a city bloke bought it,’ blokes on street corners said.
‘He’s probably the bugger who struck the match.’
‘Did you hear how much he paid for it?’
‘No, but I can tell you straight that Paul Jenner is as mad as a hornet with hives. He made a damn good offer for that land.’
A ‘must see’ sight, Monk’s blackened, burnt-out hulk, a piece of Woody Creek history reduced to leaning stone walls and freestanding chimneys.
Jen and Jim drove out to sightsee. Trudy between them, holding their hands, they walked around the old mansion, at a distance, then past it to the creek, still flowing on by, undisturbed by man’s minor catastrophes. Wood ducks diving there; a blue heron perched on a stump, nature’s patient fisherman.
Life goes on. Always had, always would.
*
Typing near impossible with the typewriter on her dressing table, Cara’s first purchase, with her own money, was a second- or fifth-hand writing desk with a ton of drawers. She moved her bed, her dressing table before the delivery men carried it in. Why does a piece of furniture look small in the showroom? It was huge, and near immovable. It left barely space enough to walk between it and the foot of her bed, but she could sit on the foot of her bed and type, and she did for hours on end.
Her second purchase was a driving lesson, which might be enough for her to find out if she had a chance of getting a licence. The instructor seemed to think he could teach her, and he had his own clutch and brake. She booked him for Sunday mornings, which cancelled weekends in Ballarat, but with her typewriter in Melbourne and Cathy and Gerry a pair, Ballarat had lost its charm.
Teaching was a temporary state, she told herself when she sat late, drinking coffee she made now on her desk, smoking cigarettes, an ashtray also on her desk, her room smelling of smoke dreams while fingers raced over the keys, her day with the rabble nine year olds all gone away – until tomorrow.
Cathy and Michelle had drawn five year olds in the Education Department’s lottery. Still babies, they had no preconceived ideas of what a teacher should be. Nine year olds had expectations.
Cara’s bunch had her bluffed and they knew it. Bribery didn’t work on them, or not for long. She raised her voice, stamped her foot, slapped books down hard on her table, sent two boys to the headmaster and prayed that he’d call her to his office and give her the sack. Not that she could go home if he did. The builders would start ripping Amberley apart soon.
Marion’s father bought her a car in June. She spent her weekends driving home to her fiancé and family. Cathy headed for Ballarat and Gerry on Friday nights, and didn’t drive back until Monday morning. Michelle’s family owned a farm near Wangaratta. She rode a train home. Cara took driving lessons and typed, ate at night with strangers, breakfasted with strangers.
Eighteen weeks with her driving instructor gained her a licence to drive. No car, no money to buy one, nowhere to park a car if she’d had the money to buy one, and too far to drive home.
She finished typing up her novel in the June holidays, then settled down to read what she’d written, a pencil in hand. And fifty-four pages in, she started using her pencil on every line. The story had no structure. And how could it? It had evolved in disjointed chapters, and its
time line was all over the place.
She bought a pair of scissors and a dispenser of sticky tape, and at night she attacked those pristine pages with scissors, then stuck previously unrelated pages together. She crumpled entire chapters and pitched them. Not the opening chapter. She still liked that one. She liked a few of them, but disliked more. School went back but became a secondary consideration as she attempted to give her novel structure.
September came. The builders had started on the splitting-up of Amberley, but assured by Myrtle that their private rooms would remain untouched until one of the other units was habitable, Cara flew home, her mutilated manuscript in her case, with her sticky tape and scissors.
Found Miss Robertson and Mrs Collins living as Myrtle’s guests in Cara’s bedroom. Found a narrow bed set up for her beside her parents’ double bed.
They had to be kidding.
They saw her expression before she turned her back. She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t. Considered getting on the next plane south. Would have, if not for those two old ladies, more elderly aunts now then lodgers. Couldn’t hurt their feelings. And couldn’t stand ten days of tripping over them either, and would not sleep in her parents’ bedroom.
‘Can we move that bed into the parlour, Daddy?’
She rang the airport from a phone box and changed her departure date. She could stand three nights of tripping over old ladies, of waiting for them to get out of the bathroom, of eating with them, listening to advice on how to control obstreperous children, which may have applied in the era of the cane and strap. Corporal punishment was out of vogue.
Hammering, thump of boots, crash of timber on the upper floor, young males giving her the eye every time she stepped outside. The Windsor boarding house didn’t look utopian, but a damn sight better on her return than it had when she’d left it. And ten minutes after setting foot inside her locked room, she was at her typewriter, bashing those taped-together pages into something more than disjointed words and sticky tape.
Had she been able to keep it up, she might have broken its back before school started again, but by her fifth night home, residents were hammering on her door, demanding she stop the infernal racket. Next year, when she knew where she’d be teaching, she’d find a flat with soundproofed walls.
