by Ilsa Evans
TUESDAY
10.29 am
At Camberwell, a disembodied voice with a heavy accent informs us that our train is no longer taking passengers, despite the extravagant promises it made back in Ringwood. We are directed to exit the train forthwith and board the next one to arrive on the adjoining platform. I, and the hundred other occupants of my carriage, rush to obey The Voice, and promptly jam ourselves between the automatic doors trying to get out. I spend the next five minutes struggling to disengage myself from sudden intimacy with complete strangers. Just as our new train pulls in on the adjoining platform, I manage to fight free. And I realise that I am about to spend the remainder of the journey experiencing a sense of affinity with a sardine that I could happily have lived without.
Twenty-three minutes later I falteringly exit the train at Flinders Street Station a considerably wiser, and certainly more dishevelled, person.
TUESDAY
12.23 pm
‘Over here! We’re over here!’
Dammit, they’ve seen me.
I knew I should have just hung around the Bourke Street Mall, but no, curiosity (and a trifling little bit of guilt) had to bring me up here to see what was going on. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, shopping and having a look at just how much the city of Melbourne has changed since I was last in the vicinity several years ago. And changed it certainly has. Fast-food outlets have bred like voracious locusts along the city streets, and you can barely move without tripping over an enterprising busker or two. A casino is now flamboyantly sprawled along Southbank, the Rialto Tower looks even taller, the city trams more colourful, and the Yarra River a good deal more solidified. But the power of the subconscious is a wondrous thing and, rather than continue my city exploration, I found that my feet were slowly but surely taking me on a course for Parliament House (after I asked directions a couple of times, that is).
Even so, once I reached the vicinity of the demonstration, did I just have a brief peek at the multitude of librarians waving placards near the Parliament steps (which lead to a most attractive, dependable-looking building, by the way, which is a lot more than can be said for the majority of its inmates), and then make a quick getaway? No, of course not. I had to get closer so that I could listen to the inspirational speeches being made on the steps. Even then I had ample opportunity to just loiter around the back, have a bit of a listen and then continue my shopping (I managed to pick up the most gorgeous jumper on the way here, which was admittedly extravagant, but irresistible, and also a Barbie beanie and scarf set for CJ and a galah-shaped chocolate novelty thing for Ben, so obviously shopping for Samantha is now an absolute priority).
But no, instead of doing what I need to, I rashly decide that I simply have to get even closer and find out if I can see anyone I know, maybe even Terry, among the crowd. I must admit I never realised that there were so many librarians in the world, let alone in Victoria. They look surprisingly scary en masse.
‘Over here! Come on, we’d almost given up on you!’
Of course, the object had been to see if I could spot anyone I knew without them actually seeing me. I approach the dozen or so colleagues from my library, miserably aware that I seem to have slipped up on a crucial part of my plan. I can see Barbara, who is the only woman I know who is nearly as tall as Terry (unfortunately, she is also almost as round as she is tall), and next to her is Joanne, whose flaming red hair and matching freckles would make her stand out in any crowd, even if she wasn’t carrying her very own placard. But I cannot see Terry at all, and Terry is not the inconspicuous type. A wave of disappointment hits me. It’s not just that I was really looking forward to talking to her, it’s also that now I shall have to worry all day about where she is and why she was trying to contact me last night. They all start talking at once.
‘About time! Where have you been?’
‘You … you … I rang –’
‘You missed the march!’
‘Lucky beast.’
‘You! I rang – I waited outside your house for twenty … twenty minutes!’
‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s here now.’
‘Yeah, you can suffer with the rest of us.’
‘But I rang … and rang!’
I decide some placating is in order – after all, she did ring yesterday. At least three times if my answering service is any judge. ‘I’m sorry, Joanne, but I don’t remember making any arrangements –’
‘Well, we most certainly frigging well did! Barbara can tell you, can’t you?’
‘She said sorry, Joanne,’ Barbara says soothingly. ‘Besides, mix-ups happen.’
‘Only if you’re not fussed about stuffing other people around.’
‘Hey, you don’t have to be damn rude.’ Thoroughly irritated now, I look away from Joanne, whose face is turning an iridescent puce shade which camouflages her freckles perfectly, and double-check to make sure Terry isn’t here. ‘Listen, Barbara, do you know what’s going on with Terry? Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, it’s rather odd. She wasn’t up for any holidays but we were told yesterday that she’s taken a week off. I thought she would have spoken to you.’
‘What’s in those bags?’ Joanne has pushed around in front of me again and is, incredibly, starting to paw at my shopping bags while making snorting noises reminiscent of an enraged bull. ‘You’ve been shopping! You’re unbelievable! I wait outside your place, I march … for us … for our rights! And you … you’ve been shopping!’
Her voice has risen to a shrill crescendo and people are starting to stare. Barbara puts her hand on Joanne’s shoulder to try to calm her down as I snatch my bags away from her.
‘I have not! It’s my damn lunch!’
‘Bullshit! I don’t believe you! We’ve been marching our feet off while you –’
‘Let go of my bag!’
‘You can just go get –’
‘Joanne!’
‘Shh! Quiet! Here’s the minister!’
With unusually impeccable timing, a rather rotund politician has emerged from the building surrounded by minders and has graciously descended a few steps to a strategically placed microphone. He has that well-fed, sleek look of politicians the world over. A cordon of police has magically appeared and stands between the minister and us. Maybe he finds the sight of librarians en masse surprisingly scary as well. If so, he should meet Joanne.
Edging cautiously away from my colleagues, I strain to see more of the minister’s face and try to register where I have seen him before. Suddenly, I am distracted by the realisation that Joanne has followed me and has actually got one of her hands inside the carrier bag with Ben’s galah-shaped chocolate novelty thing. We immediately engage in a silent but surprisingly fierce scuffle as she endeavours to discover what’s in there and I endeavour for her endeavour to be unsuccessful.
‘Bitch!’ she hisses at me as she waves her placard menacingly. I stare in shock at this excellent impression of a particularly nasty Nazi stormtrooper and conclude that the motivational speeches must have had some strange maddening effect on her. Either that or the traffic was especially bad. Whatever, I am in immediate danger of becoming the first person ever to be maimed during a demonstration of librarians. I curl my lip in her general direction (that should scare her!), clutch my bags tightly to my chest, and scuttle behind the Head of Acquisitions and Cataloguing.
‘Shh! Be quiet!’ Individually, librarians are very good at asking for silence. Collectively, they are definitely a force to be reckoned with.
The minister bows in gracious acknowledgement of the sudden hush and clears his throat noisily. ‘I have come out here today to ask for patience. I appreciate the fact that you are feeling disgruntled but, believe me, I do understand your grievances.’ (At this point, a few disgruntled disbelievers colourfully voice their concerns regarding the minister’s honesty.) ‘Please! Calm down, calm down … there’s no need for abusive language. I must say I expected a bit more from teachers like yourselves, the educators of
our young, the …’
The crowd stares around in confusion while an excited aide runs up to the minister and whispers rapidly in his ear.
Suddenly I realise where I have seen the minister’s face before: he was addressing Samantha’s school on one of their speech nights because he’s the Minister for Education!
‘Teachers? Who’s a teacher?’
‘What’s he talking about?’
‘Who’s he calling young?’
‘This joker’s a half-wit.’
The confused minister is trying to speak again but the noise level of the crowd now makes it impossible for any words to be discernible so he abandons the microphone and, with the aid of the police, begins a strategic retreat. Suddenly the crowd realises what is happening. Pandemonium erupts and everyone goes crazy.
One minute I am surrounded by unhappy but relatively (apart from Joanne) controlled librarians and the next I am struggling to keep my balance as an enraged mob surges around me, screaming abuse as they struggle to reach the Parliament steps. It is impossible to see what has happened to the minister or whether the cordon of police has held its ground, the wall of bodies is too thick and I am too short. I hold on to my bags tightly and move with the crowd, only because I have no choice. The Head of Acquisitions and Cataloguing has transformed himself into a shrieking maniac with bloodlust shining in his eyes who is hellbent on moving onwards and upwards (much like his attitude towards career progression actually). I trip as we reach the bottom step but am kept upright by the solid press around me. Others are not so lucky and I watch in horror as the elderly audiovisual aide from our Boronia branch goes under, still hurling abuse. All around me, people are screaming and banners are waving.
Suddenly I am struck on the crown of my head by a heavy placard. I stagger and look up to see the words ‘I DESERVE MORE!’ looming over me. The placard is heaved backwards and there is Joanne staring balefully at me. My lip-curling obviously did not have the required effect. I realise she is preparing to have another go so I try to lunge out of the way, but she follows. Desperately, I grab the placard as it starts to fall again and we struggle for control. The crowd has started to thin around us as the majority surge up the Parliament steps but the noise level is still deafening.
I can see Joanne’s mouth moving but cannot make out what she is yelling. Somehow I don’t think it’s very nice. My head is thumping. I decide that I’ve had more than enough of this particular maniac, and I’ll teach her not to mess with me. I kick Joanne hard in the kneecap and lurch suddenly sideways, still holding fast and pulling at the placard. Joanne’s mouth forms a large circle as she folds up, grasping her knee with both hands and letting go of the placard. Unfortunately she lets go so suddenly that my momentum continues to carry me backwards, the placard flying up over my shoulder and connecting with something hard behind me. It is wrenched out of my hand and, a split second later, I also connect with the something hard behind me. It turns out to be an injured policeman with extremely colourful language.
He appears to agree that I do, in fact, deserve more.
He arrests me.
TUESDAY
3.25 pm
Charge: assault on a member of the police force.
I have never been arrested before. And it hasn’t ever been one of my burning desires, so I feel no sense of gratified fulfilment or climactic achievement. I came closer to a sense of climactic achievement at Camberwell railway station.
I didn’t realise that the police were such a humorous bunch. They found the whole idea of a demonstration full of violent librarians temporarily out of control to be absolutely hysterical. I didn’t.
I tried to explain to them that in my case it was self-defence but Joanne had vanished and so had my handbag with all my identification. Incidentally, later I discovered that my gorgeous, extravagant new jumper had disappeared as well. All I had left was a chocolate galah which looked like the real thing after it had been run over by a car several times, and a Barbie beanie and scarf set which I’m guessing would be fairly useless for police bribery purposes.
Apparently I, with the other miscreants, will be summonsed to appear before the court sometime early in the new year (knowing my luck it’ll probably be mid-February, neatly sandwiched between all the other forthcoming little calamities). Most of the other arrestees were released at the scene after their details were taken but I had the added humiliation of being taken back to police headquarters (which is incidentally nothing like it is portrayed on television) for my identification to be checked and then verified.
They rang my mother.
TUESDAY
9.23 pm
I am now drunk.
While I am not about to throw away my inhibitions, develop verbal diarrhoea or fall flat on my face, I am nevertheless not what you would call sober, not even if you were drunk. I had my first scotch when I finally arrived home at quarter to six. One of the reasons it took so long was because I had to cancel all my credit cards from the police station, and also replace my now-missing return train ticket. Of course, I managed to cop peak hour on the trip home, which is an experience I heartily recommend to all my sworn enemies. Especially Joanne.
I utilised the time stuck on the train to reflect on the current state of my life. I cannot believe that only yesterday morning I was bemoaning the monotony that was threatening to engulf me and ever since I have been hit with one unmitigated disaster after another. If this new action-packed life is supposed to be making me feel better, it’s failing miserably. I had to stop reflecting on my life halfway through the train journey because I was starting to snuffle – and people were starting to stare.
At least I had the forethought to arrange for Samantha to collect CJ when I realised I was going to be detained (not that I told her why I was being detained, or even used the word ‘detained’), so my three children were all at home safe and sound while I was wrapping up my life of crime. Samantha was even cooking a meal (baked beans on toast) while CJ set the table (3 x knives, 5 x forks, 1 x salt shaker and a vase with a rose from the garden – no stem, just the rose), and Ben fed the livestock in the garage and elsewhere (a process that takes well over an hour). Much to my surprise, someone even remembered to put the garbage bins out. And it’s little things like that that can make me feel so much better. Not just because it saves me the trouble, but because it gives me a little frisson of pleasure, and a great deal of hope for the future, whenever they try being thoughtful. When all is said and done, they are pretty good kids.
So, despite being such a god-awful day, the evening turned out to be quite pleasant. I left the kids to their meal (I seemed to have lost my appetite), and tried to ring Terry but she wasn’t home. I didn’t even bother trying Diane as there is never any point ringing her early in the evening, so I just topped up my scotch, took both telephones off the hook and then sat down to watch the news on television. The idea was to distract myself from personal events with more global ones. Unfortunately, the grey-haired news anchorman was just launching into their lead story titled ‘When Librarians Run Amok’ but I didn’t make the connection until he soberly announced ‘In Melbourne today, a demonstration of librarians ended in a violent rampage which shocked onlookers. Several librarians were arrested and …’ That was when I suddenly realised what he was talking about and, casting a frantic look in the direction of the dinner table, I leapt up and turned the television off.
Then I decided that, rather than run interference on the TV, I would simply take my drink and go outside and watch the sunset. Naturally, within ten minutes or so, I was joined by all three of my offspring. Children have an uncanny knack of sensing and impeding any parental attempts at solitude. In fairness, however, sunset-watching is a favourite pastime for all of us so I just popped CJ up on my lap and made room for Sam and Ben on either side. Unfortunately, the sun had all but disappeared by the time we got ourselves comfortable but the view was still beautiful. The darkening sky was tinged with midnight blue and red streaks filtered through
the rapidly fading light to turn crimson as they neared the horizon. We kept absolutely still as a couple of tardy but incredibly gorgeous rosellas flew down to the pottery bird feeder and proceeded to liberally spray seed around them. After they had flown off in the direction of the National Park, Ben pointed out the various possum nests shadowed in the trees around us and we watched them for signs of any early risers.
However, nothing lasts forever – certainly not the ability of children to sit in relative silence. Before long, Ben and Sam began to discuss the various merits involved in having their father live next door. I declined to take part in the conversation. However, CJ did take part and has now resolved to harass the neighbour on the other side into selling, so that her father can also join our very own dysfunctional version of ‘The Brady Bunch’. This notion did threaten to destroy my equilibrium.
CJ is now fast asleep wearing her Barbie beanie and scarf set (given as an offering to help her get over Hanson’s untimely demise), Ben is closeted in his room with his Nintendo and Samantha has tired of waiting for an extremely important phone call and has flounced off to her room to ‘study’. I have had a shower to wash away the grime of crime, plastered cream on my rapidly growing pimple, poured myself another scotch, and packed away the magazines which were scattered around the house (each casually opened to a page advertising belly-button rings).
I am now wrapped in my faithful old whitish-grey terry-towelling robe, sitting on the telephone stool in the hall and staring at the disconnected phone because I simply must ring both my sister and Terry – but frankly I am terrified that the moment I hang up the phone it will ring, and it will be my newly engaged mother. And there is a pretty good chance that she will be mildly curious as to why she received a phone call from the police this afternoon wanting to confirm my identity.
I am thirty-nine years old and I am still scared of my mother.
