Forty-Seventeen

by Frank Moorhouse

  FROM JUNE/

  Gee, I’m interested in your magazine idea …

  Gee, I’m interested in your magazine idea and can’t wait for the first issue. Here you are just eighteen and editor of a magazine even if in an unpaid capacity. I think it will take your mind off drink. I need to buy some self-discipline myself – with cinemascope coming to the little old town I’m gone for sure and will never pass the LC. The Student Prince is the first cinemascope production to hit the town, an omen, although you’re no longer a student, you’re still a prince, well, just. You were a bit of a student prince you know. By the way, John, Peter and Paul made a point of walking out of The Angel who Pawned her Harp last Friday. They said they were making a protest against unintelligent, religious films. I can’t remember anyone ever walking out of a film, can you? Who would know why they walked out? I stayed.

  I don’t know why but it seems such a relief to hear you say what the dangers of the future are for us. Now I am pretty superstitious but as you say we are growing and likely to change mentally and physically and now that we’ve had that kind of discussion it will make us more able to accept it earlier if it happens. I told Mum that I wanted to go to the city for the Telegraph Ball and she laughed and said that it was too close to the exams and said “but what a ball that is”. She said the Telegraph Ball and the Arts Ball were the two most talked about balls in Sydney. I noticed you have put both of these down as ‘musts’ for us next year.

  FROM JULY/

  I don’t offer any condolence …

  I don’t offer any condolence to you about your giving up on the novel or for the collapse of the magazine. You mustn’t think you’re a failure in life. Every time you write something it’s practice for when you’re ready to do something big. For goshsakes you have a lifetime ahead of you. Remember the American girl Jo-Anne from the Red Cross Camp (that seems ages ago)? She writes to say that she’s gone really wild and has dyed her hair green and wears blue fingernail polish and says she’s now a ‘beatnik’. We haven’t any beatniks in the town yet. We’re always the last. I can’t wait to read your essay on hedonism and the reasons why the theory is incorrect and I do understand that hedonism is not only eating and drinking. Depression again today. The thing I envy about boys, especially you, is that you can get drunk at these times. I sure felt like doing the same thing, even though I’ve never been drunk. Is it any wonder I get discontented, though, living here in this old town while you live in Sydney and meet different people every day. Do you still keep a list of all the different sorts of people you’ve met? I’ve a question about the woman you met at a Kings Cross bar at 2.00 a.m. You said, quote and then came the inevitable ‘Have you got a cigarette, pet?’ end quote. Now what is the inevitable thing? You being called ‘pet’ (I’ll call you pet in future) or being asked for a cigarette? Or am I missing something here? I talked to Friedman today and he’s in a bad way. He told me he was going to leave home and drop the LC. You had better talk to him and get out of him what’s wrong at home. I think I know what it is, I’ve felt it myself, you feel insignificant and realise that there is no way you can change the world. I know you were mad at me last weekend when you were home. You want to know why I wouldn’t sit on your lap. I didn’t want us to get over-excited again. Too many bouts of loving and I’m going to find myself scared stiff of you, we come too close, and my nerves can’t take it.

  I had a real nightmare last night …

  I had a real nightmare last night. I kept looking for a little child who belonged to me. Every time I would find her someone would take her off me. All around the town in my dreams there were signs saying to Lane Cove trains (I’ve never been to Lane Cove). The washsheds, toilets and tuckshop at the school had become a railway station which trains were leaving. We assembled to join the train while I searched still for the little girl. At last I found her and we walked up Junction Street until we came to a side street and there was another sign about Lane Cove and I realised that I am to share my joy with you so I went racing up the ramp when a fellow suddenly asked me where I was going. I told him Lane Cove and he said, ‘I only put that sign up to keep people away.’ I started to cry and took my clothes off to keep my little girl warm. I was then left alone. Maybe all your psychology books will tell me what it means. But excuse me telling you but I felt I had to write it all down and tell you. What’s the point of dreams if we can’t understand them?

  I’m sorry I forgot your short stories …

  I’m sorry I forgot your short stories, but it was hard for me to know what to say about them. City Life in Bits and Pieces confused me. Maybe you were trying to put ideas into small parts and then fit them together to make something bigger which you hadn’t planned. But I’m proud that you gave them to me to read but I feel that I have to say the truth or we will lead a life of lies. I did like the other story but somehow you made the boy superior to the girl for no good reason. He ‘went cold’ when the girl stood up and he discovered that her legs were in irons. That got me mad. You know I am a romanticist. And what is the mysterious story you won’t show me? When will I ever ‘be ready’?

  FROM AUGUST/

  Yes, the paper is smaller …

  Yes, the paper is smaller and I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice. I’m awful, but I have so much more work to do. After our telephone call on Friday I never expected to hear from you again. I thought for sure you would quit everything and head for Queensland to be a bum which you’re always threatening to do. I knew you would get drunk too. You didn’t like my last letter because I didn’t write love talk. Well, school news is important to me and I didn’t feel like emotionalising. I do miss you and all that but writing it down doesn’t make me feel any better. I have to have a partner at the Ball and Friedman seems to be a person who wouldn’t worry you. I’m reading The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw and it is about the last war from the German and American points of view. It is a good book but all he talks about is sex, sex, sex. I was all for realism in books until I read this. There are 665 pages and I’m up to page 255 and I can’t really believe that people behave like that. I know you’ll attack me for saying it but that’s how I feel now. You can come home to see me as much as you like but you must understand that I am determined to study and get the LC. I think last year I was a big hindrance to you and that you would have done better. Others say that too.

  Well, you’ve ‘tested’ my emotions …

  Well, you’ve ‘tested’ my emotions with the letter ‘breaking it off’. Friedman has shown me the letter you wrote to him at the same time saying you were going to do this and for him to ‘observe’ me and that you were not in fact breaking it off. I take it he was only to show me the letter if I seemed to care. Well, I do care and are you satisfied? Very clever but don’t try it again. I hope the gymnastics at the communist youth group take your mind off drinking. That’s the good I can see in it. You may be interested in the sports carnival results, Hume first, Oxley second, Sturt third and your old house, Bass, last as usual. But it occurs to me that this must be a million miles away from you. I was stating my views about funerals at tea and I can’t understand what good the words the minister says over the coffin do for the dead person. I said that we should stop having funeral services and the body should just be taken away. Mum said that the service is for the living not for the dead. For once I was at a loss. Friedman has been depressed about world events and asked Connie whether she ever got depressed. Connie thought for a while and then said, ‘Yes, on a wet day when I have to ride my bike to school.’ Friedman was disgusted. I laughed for hours. Do you think there’ll be a war? Mum does. She’s been quoting the Bible a lot about war. I think I could settle it by going straight to the world leaders and asking them to wake up to themselves. I told her that you and I were going to be conscientious objectors and go to gaol together. She agreed with the idea but said she hoped they’d put us in separate cells. I am at the stage where I want to just leave school and get an ordinary job. Why does studying seem so unnatural? Gee,
I’m looking forward to the party with your friends in Sydney during the holidays but I’ve never been to a non-school party you know. Could you find out from Richard’s Jeanette just what I’m supposed to wear? Ask her if matador pants would be OK. Not having any experience of drink except half a glass of wine at the Greek Club I will leave it to your judgement what I drink. I will not have beer unless it is three parts lemonade. I’m just not used to the idea of drinking. I don’t know what’s come over me about people. Once upon a time I could meet anyone and not feel one least bit embarrassed but now when I know that I must be introduced to people I want to run for my life. I feel so scared about life and I don’t know what I can do about it. They showed a marvellous film at Church Fellowship about atom bomb theory and how the power of the atom will help mankind. I have to keep going to Fellowship because of Mum.

  FROM OCTOBER/

  Boy, did the film Picnic bring out some funny feelings …

  Boy, did the film Picnic bring out some funny feelings in me, I can’t explain them exactly, but I became practically uncontrollable when he took his shirt off after it had been ripped, thoughts came to mind which on a bright sunny day I would never dare to think. Dark cinemas and films like Picnic should be banned. I wanted you and me to be where there was only the two of us, somewhere where there was no civilisation and convention. I know you think I’m dominated by the films. It’s funny I can’t stay away from them and when I see something like Picnic I come out of it feeling quieter with things, except about us of course.

  You really are a confidant aren’t you, I wouldn’t dare tell anyone how I feel about things. Thanks for the poems of Ogden Nash. I like him best of all the poets you’ve sent. Friedman, Bobby and Brian and a couple of the other boys are behaving stupidly, skipping sport, buying drink and going up to Big Rock to drink. In their heads they’ve left school already. Stuvac begins on the 31st and there’s the school fête to be organised. Here’s a rhyme for you. Mary had a little clock, she swallowed it, it’s gone, now everywhere that Mary walks, time marches on. I got a reference from Mr L. who says that I am a girl ‘taught to observe the highest ideals with respect to morality and general behaviour’. The kids at school think it’s a classic. I’m not going to ask for a religious reference from Rev. Benson because my heart doesn’t believe it.

  I was in the Dainty-Lingerie shop this morning …

  I was in the Dainty-Lingerie shop this morning returning something (never mind what) and inside there was a woman buying a nightdress and her husband was there giving approval on her selection. It was funny to see a man doing such a thing, but they were over thirty although only recently married. I can’t describe what it was that made me feel funny (I blushed of course). I don’t know whether I want you to choose such personal things for me, part of me says I’d like it too much. The Head has introduced a new ceremony for fifth year – the Passing Out ceremony (you could do that all on your own, sorry, forgive the sarcasm). Next Monday at 9th period we assemble and a rep. from each year will say nice things about us and then Carol and Ron will reply and the fourth years will present us one by one with a present, thereupon we will form a line and walk along the path and officially pass out of the school life. I can see that it is going to be a real tear-jerker. I guessed about the ‘pain’ you were hinting at after your last visit home, I think it’s fair that males suffer that itty bitty pain because their lives are heaven compared with the pains a woman suffers at puberty and then each month and then at motherhood. I think it’s only possible to get trust between two people or a family maybe but never the world. I had a sisterly talk with Nancy and she gave me some helpful information which made me want to get to you as soon as possible. Don’t ask, just wait. I said to Mr L. that there must be an easier way to get a good job than doing the LC and he said that we don’t do the LC to get a job but to be educated and prepare ourselves for the person we marry. He said we should marry at our own educational level because a man and a woman have to talk to each other.

  FROM NOVEMBER/

  When I began to change to womanhood …

  When I began to change to womanhood Mum gave me some books and for the first time I’ve seriously looked at them.

  They argue that sexual relations outside marriage are wrong and they convinced me that sexual relations between us now would ruin our life. We’ll cherish the feelings more once we’re married. You know that it’s around the school that you and I spent the Saturday night together on the train but it’s now said that we ‘spent the night together’. I hear your brother is worried about your family name (not my family’s name). Honestly, would a child I conceived now mean the same as a child we both intended to have? I’m seeing the vocational guidance officer about advertising as a career and will put journalism second. I’m sorry if I was a wet blanket last weekend but it was my period. I believe in free love but only when the whole society believes in free love. When I’m with you and won’t go the whole way I feel I’m wronging you but then I leave you and I’m nearly sick with biliousness due to nerves and the trying time we’ve had. I wish you would show me the story you say I’m ‘not ready for’ or stop referring to it all the time in such a mysterious way. At least I try to be honest with you.

  The boy from the chemist’s asked me out and I said yes to prove that I could go out with someone I didn’t have affection for. I want you to understand my motives. And what is this about you giving up journalism to do a B.Sc.?

  FROM DECEMBER/

  He was nice but nothing came of it …

  He was nice but nothing came of it and it showed me that I love you and no one measures up to you. And he is probably the last boy I will go out with in my life. The relief that the exams are over is something of a let-down. Our end of year party was held in Room 14. The boys had to buy two bottles of soft drink and the girls brought a cake, I brought a plate of pikelets. We had Sam the Gram sitting on a chair playing all Johnny Ray, Frank Sinatra, and the Honey Brothers. All my pikelets got eaten. We jitterbugged until 3.10 and then took the bottles back and bought paddle pops with the refunds. Everyone drew up their chairs and listened to the Small One which finished the afternoon. We hugged each other and left the school for the last time. There were a few tears. Speech night was more tears but with speeches. Gee, it was a funny feeling that came over me when I realised it was the last time I shall see many of the teachers and kids. We are all going separate ways after five years together. It’s really a long time for a group of people to be together. I got The Tree of Man and Somerset Maugham’s Short Stories Volume One. No Steinbeck this year. Friedman didn’t wear a blazer and he had to go up for the softball cup. In his back pocket was Plato, the biggest Penguin ever printed. The Head gave a speech and most of us cried. Today I was cleaning my room getting rid of old school books from five years. I burned everything except some prac. notes that I might need if I have to sit the LC again. The town is dead and now every time I walk by Ted’s milk bar he looks out and smiles at me really wistfully. There are only young kids hanging around there now. The old gang is gone. I have to iron all my clothes that I’m taking with me to Sydney on Friday. I realise that this will be the last letter I ever have to write from the old town to you. It’s become a habit, I think I’m going to miss doing it. I love you very much my darling and I’m very proud that you love me.

  The Story Not Shown

  Tony pushed his half-empty glass across the bar, said, ‘I can’t finish this.’ I drained mine. Tony was not too keen on beer but for a fellow not too keen on beer he swallowed a large enough amount. The barman shouted, ‘Hurry along please’ and we left. I would estimate that we were three-quarters drunk. But it is hard to estimate. I considered myself less drunk than Tony. I know that my mind was criticising some of Tony’s talk although I wasn’t expressing my criticism. I was saying to myself, ‘You’re drunk, Tony, you’re drunk, boy.’ Tony was speaking about his favourite writer, Hemingway. Hemingway said war is a good thing because no writer is experienced without experienc
ing a war. Tony was also saying corny things about journalism like, ‘It’s a tough game we’re in, Ian.’

  We went to a coffee shop. Over coffee Tony told me how a Jew had killed his father. The Jew had thrown a hand grenade during an army exercise. The grenade had bounced off the tree and landed at his father’s feet and exploded.

  He’d told me this before.