by Joy Dettman
‘How about it? I mean, joining us. We could use a female lead,’ Steve said when the night was over, but she’d shaken her head. He was so much younger, and his guitarist and his drummer were only boys – barely twenty. Then she’d accepted another glass of wine and Bonny had said, ‘Do it,’ so Stella said ‘Yes. Okay then, Steve. I mean, why not?’ And she had another glass of wine to seal the agreement.
A dark door had closed behind her, and now a very fine portal was swinging wide open; Stella, feeling wildly wonderful, ran through it, just to find out what was on the other side.
‘It is not fitting, Daughter, this caterwauling all night with that long-haired lout. This driving all over the country with three males, and unchaperoned. It’s not fitting at all for one in your particular situation, and so soon after your dear mother’s death.’
‘But, Father, I am paid to sing. It’s wonderful to be paid for doing what I enjoy, and to be able to buy what I want. I have few enough talents, and I want to sing. I want to live my own life, earn my own money.’
‘Do I not pay for your needs? You smite me to the heart with this late desire for independence – and will you take those damnable trousers off and turn that damnable recording off? Must it play night and day? Since your dear mother died, I have grown accustomed to a silent house.’
‘I have to learn the song before Saturday,’ she’d said to him, but the borrowed tape-recorder moved into her room and she kept the volume low. It was her first rebellion, and too long placed on hold.
Three months passed before she stopped gallivanting around with the band to concentrate her energy on the church choir – a small enough sacrifice if it might buy her the rest of the week.
Through the long years of precious Angel’s illness, Stella had, in the privacy of her own room, penned tales of love, spilling the self that sheltered within to paper, freeing that self from Angel, God and Martin Templeton. She’d begun typing her tales on the minister’s ancient Royal, and posting her compositions away to the women’s magazines. For several years, her writing had kept her both busy and happy, until one magazine had posted a cheque instead of the usual rejection.
Ron Spencer cashed that cheque at his supermarket, and with her ill-gotten gains, Stella had gone shopping. She bought six copies of the magazine and two pairs of fashionably tight jeans from the jean shop.
But keeping a secret in Maidenville was like trying to hide a pumpkin in a bowl of undergrown apricots. Martin Templeton, the omniscient, bore down on Stella, a copy of the magazine in his hand. ‘Daughter! Daughter! What is this I see?’ Stella cringed from his disapproval. She bowed her head and clenched her hands and she waited. ‘What you must ask yourself, Daughter, is what would God think of time wasted on this . . . this . . . this puerile trash . . . this . . . ’
She had not been expecting praise. Praise had always been a stranger in the minister’s house, but she had seen no wrong in her writing, and if she’d captured rotund little Doctor Parsons in his summer-winter uniform of baggy check shorts and wide-brimmed gardening hat, wouldn’t he have been amused by her description . . . even delighted? Wouldn’t he have shaken her hand and said, ‘Keep that chin high, Mousy Two’?
‘I . . . I didn’t use your name, Father. I didn’t for a moment consider using your name. See.’
‘Does that not, in itself, tell you, Daughter, that inside your heart of hearts, you were ashamed of what you had written? You cannot hide shame from God. Destroy it. Shred it, and swear that you will pen no more of this . . . this . . . ’ Words deserted him.
Stella took the magazine he had crushed in his huge hand; she smoothed it, looked at the illustration. It was just an innocent love story, the tale of a boy and a girl and an odd little detective. Of ‘Silver Sand’, by Lea S. Temple.
Lea S. Temple. Weeks had been spent in choosing the name. She’d practised it, over, and over, had finally printed it on the cover of a short novel packed ready to post away to Mills and Boon. They paid well for romance. Perhaps enough – this magazine had symbolised her true beginning. It was the promise that there could be a future for her. Publication. Fame. Fortune. Eventual flight from Maidenville.
‘Destroy it, Daughter. No good will come of it.’
Her hands were no longer driven by her will, but by his. She felt them grow hot, burn as they had that day . . . that other day. As from a great distance, she watched the scorched things slowly tear two pages from the magazine. Twin craven cowards, they shredded the pages, handed him the pieces.
‘Do you have more of this?’
Head down, she nodded. ‘Then let us be rid of it now, Daughter,’ he said, tossing her dreams into the open fire.
The cheap paper burned to ash before she walked upstairs to her room.
Her manuscript was in the top drawer of her desk. She picked it up knowing her hands would give it to him, let him place it on the coals. Palms would join and she’d mouth the words of a prayer while her future burned. Then she thought of Doctor Parsons and her chin lifted. High. Higher. The heavy bottom drawer of her dressing-table was eased silently to the floor and into the cavity she dropped the novel, safe with the six magazines and many exercise books, safe with the postcard Ron had sent her from Bondi, and his friendship ring with the blue stones. The drawer slid back on its runners, she closed it with her foot and stood dusting guilty hands. Cool hands. Even cold. From her desk she took a writing pad and, after scanning it briefly, she walked downstairs and handed it to the minister.
Several years passed before she discovered Angel’s fine metal knitting needles and a bag of knitting wool.
While others of her age lost their waists and energy in breeding the new generation of bored Maidenville youth, Stella remained slim and active. Perhaps there was something to be said for virginity after all.
Her garden had become her child, and a wilful ward too. It began when a teacher sent her home one day with a handful of bean seeds to grow in a jar. She had placed hers in the garden, and daily watched the miracle of birth, and later of death. Thereafter she carried seeds home from other gardens, and she learned early to nip cuttings from overhanging shrubs. Each birthday, Doctor Parsons had bought her a bulb to plant, and in later years he had become adventurous, ordering exotic bulbs for her from Sydney. The little doctor loved her garden.
Then Steve Smith, who now owned Gardening Supplies down the bottom of Crane Street, started bringing her his sickly discards, and Stella’s friends offered their dying plants when, after a meagre blooming, they curled up their leaves in suicidal pact. Stella nursed them all back to health, and found space for them in her garden. Forty years of undisciplined planting had created a wilderness, where narrow gravelled paths wended their way through the masses of blooms to tiny hidden lawns, and to bird baths. Large and hardy shrubs protected their tender relatives. Rare bulbs sent up their stalks to bloom, and the common geraniums, massed behind them, raised their own expectations higher.
Martin, who had a penchant for order in all things, could find no reason to disapprove of the disorderly garden, for each Sunday – summer, winter, autumn or spring – Stella filled his church with blooms. She picked bouquets for each new mother, and she knitted her colourful clown dolls for their offspring.
Every babe her father baptised received such a toy. Soft cuddly things, with contoured faces, each one was unique; they were coveted by those outside the Anglican congregation, and the few Stella knitted for the church fete sold as soon as they hit the stall.
It was the January of her thirty-sixth birthday and she’d been seated in the garden, watching the birds while adding the finishing touches to a large clown – a gift for Bonny’s fifth son. Because of their friendship, this doll was receiving special attention – the eyes were wide and innocent, the smile wry, the hair a carrot red. It was almost done when the minister had come to stand before her. ‘For the Davis child,’ he’d said.
‘Yes, Father – and I believe it looks a little like him.’ She’d held the clown up for inspec
tion, smiling at its cheeky face.
This morning her father was not in a smiling mood.
‘Your thirty-sixth birthday today, Daughter,’ he said.
‘Don’t remind me.’
His ‘Yes’ was long and thoughtful. He stood on, studying her attire until she looked up from her sewing.
‘Is there something you wish to discuss with me?’
‘Your dear mother has been dead eight years. It seems less.’
‘The years are flying,’ she replied. A long silence grew, an uncomfortable silence she had to fill. ‘My jacarandas have grown so tall. It seems like only yesterday I planted them and worried that the frost would kill them.’
‘Yes. Yes. I have been meaning to speak to you about your mother.’ He coughed, looked over his shoulder to the house and to his bedroom window, then he took two paces back. ‘Your mother’s wardrobe.’
‘Perhaps I should pack her things up for the opportunity shop. I’ve been wanting to for some time.’
‘No!’ His head was shaking adamantly. ‘Indeed, you should not!’ He stepped from foot to foot, seeking the correct approach. A bumbling great ox of a man, Martin had measured six foot five before age bowed his shoulders. Thankfully, Stella had not inherited his excessive height, nor his heavy bones, but his hair was as thick as her own, it curled as her own hair curled. Perhaps his too had once been the same shade of gold. She couldn’t remember him other than grey.
‘What you must begin to ask yourself, Daughter, is – ’ He coughed again, uncomfortable with personal issues, and he looked towards heaven for inspiration to continue. ‘Having now reached middle age, perhaps the time has come to ask yourself, would God deem that . . . that outfit suitable for a woman of your years, and your position in the community?’
She’d been wearing jeans that day, and a light T-shirt, through which she could see the shape of her small breasts – and worse. Her nipples were large. A bra did little to camouflage them. When she went out, she used two tissues, placed strategically, but at home, in her garden, she had seen no need for tissues. She blushed, folded her arms across her breasts. ‘I’m comfortable in jeans, Father.’
‘Around the yard. Convenient for some of the more strenuous tasks you take upon yourself around the garden perhaps; however, I know your dear mother felt that trousers on a female encouraged unladylike posture. She could never have been accused of unladylike posture – in her early years.’
‘Wearing a skirt while trimming the top of the hedge might be seen as extremely unladylike by some, Father.’
Again he’d looked heavenward, his face growing pink at the mere thought of his daughter’s bare legs. He’d swallowed, his jowls appeared to swell as he lifted a finger high. ‘I am speaking of the way you go about town, Daughter, and well you know it. I am speaking of this new habit of wearing those damnable working trousers to church! As you are aware, your dear mother left a full wardrobe, unworn in the last ten years of her life. She was never one to stint on her costumes. Thousands of dollars are invested in those wardrobes. I suggest you might look them over, choose some of the more suitable items for your own use.’
‘Father! How could you suggest such a thing?’ She had picked up her sewing and walked ahead of him to the house.
Two years passed before she’d asked him for money for a new pair of jeans. He shook his head.
Time had a habit of laying waste to most rebellions, as it did to stretch denim jeans. When the vibrant patches she’d stitched to knee and seat did not shame him into parting with his dollars, she thought to play a more devious joke. Her mother had not been as slim as Stella, and her garments, though purchased from expensive stores in Melbourne, were drab, hung long. But the joke backfired, her new garments gained her a rare smile of approval from the minister.
She’d again headed for her sewing machine, but having had the best, had spoiled her for the rest – and his approval was taking on an importance. He was all she had, all she would ever have, and she needed his approval. Eventually, the wearing of Angel’s colourless pleated skirts and twin-sets had become a habit. Certainly the old wardrobes were overflowing, and the fabric in these garments, though drab, was of a quality rarely seen in Maidenville. In time, Stella adjusted the suits, the pleated skirts, the tweed jackets. The many virtuous blouses were washed, pressed carefully, and again put to use. The beige woollens kept out Maidenville’s brief winter chill, and Angel’s many petticoats were soft against the skin. What did it matter? At forty, Stella had become a part of the background in Maidenville. Who was there to notice how the church soloist was clothed? Who was there to care? It was her voice that was sought after, her reliability, her eagerness to serve.
‘Who’s doing the roster for Meals on Wheels?’
‘Stella Templeton.’
‘Who’s supervising the youth group this week?’
‘Stella said she will.’
‘Who’s bringing the afternoon tea today?’
‘Stell.’
‘Who is doing the flowers for the funeral?’
Who else but capable old maid Stella? Always there, but never seen.
Ron Spencer sometimes saw her, smiled at her. But he was long married to Marilyn, and his friendship ring hidden away. Although first love may never truly die, Stella stopped dreaming her foolish dreams, her frustrated love had been given in full to Ron’s small son. Little Thomas. How she loved him. Of all the children in Maidenville, she had loved him best.
Her thick golden curls were the last to conform to middle age. Slowly her shoulder length hair evolved into a loose French twist, which developed quite naturally into a severe bun where grey began its slow erosion until the gold gave up the fight. It too turned beige. No overnight reversal of the caterpillar and the butterfly, but more a gradual decay, a giving up, until at forty-four, little Stella Templeton, sweet golden canary, trapped inside the minister’s cage, had become a small beige sparrow, its wings finally clipped – fair game to a youth, eager to try out his newfound weapon.
Tears were blurring her vision now as she stared at the road ahead. Tears were pooling against the lenses of her sunglasses. She rarely wept, and she shook her head at her tears; freed from the lens, they trickled down to her lips.
‘God,’ she said. ‘God. I have to stop this.’ She breathed deeply, held the breath, trying to regain control while she removed and wiped her glasses on her skirt. She wiped at her face, blotted her eyes, then glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror.
‘God. If anyone should see me. I can’t sit here.’ And the key turned in the ignition. She was certain the car would not start. But it did.
‘I have to keep going. I cannot face Maidenville, or that boy. I can’t, so I have to keep going. Just drive until the car stops, then get out and walk. I have to. I’ll find a way to get to Sydney.’ But she sat on, wasting precious petrol and allowing the tears to drip away. She couldn’t stop them. She didn’t try.
As a girl she’d dreamed wild technicolour dreams of Sydney. It had spelt freedom, and she’d been disappointed to wake from her dreams. Now she dreamed in black and white, and the Sydney she visited was a desolate place, where she walked dark streets alone, seeking, always seeking an address, or a building. She woke from these dreams, relieved to be safe in her own bed, in her own room. Safe in Maidenville. In the last few years, she had become afraid of life. But what was it she had feared? Rape in some strange city?
‘God help me,’ she whispered as she looked out across the blurred landscape. ‘Still, this flight was ill conceived. I’ll wait until tomorrow, until Father buys some petrol. I’ll pack a case tonight, and ask Father for twenty dollars – for a haircut. Thirty dollars. I’ll take some of the finished clowns with me. I’ll take the ring. It must be worth something. Perhaps a couple of the old ornaments. The ruby lamp would have some value if I can get it to Sydney. I’ll get a job. Something. Housekeeper. Nanny. And if I can’t then I’ll . . . I’ll apply for the dole. I’ll survive.’
Fool.
You should have gone ten years, twenty years ago.
‘Yes. Yes. I have been a fool, but I will go tomorrow.’ She dried her eyes on the cuff of her blouse, and replaced her glasses.
The sun was high, and too bright for weeping eyes. A hard, glaring land, and so dry. Crops had been harvested, now paddocks rested, brown beneath the cover of grey stubble. Summer was nearly over, but in this part of the country it was sometimes hard to recognise where summer ended and autumn began.
Five crows were squabbling over some dead thing on the road ahead. Two hawks were circling. Waiting. Birds of the heat. How did they survive in this dry, dry land? Where did they drink at night? The river was miles away.
The little car was like an oven. She turned the airconditioner on, and she wound her windows high. She had been born to heat, had lived with long dusty summers and short winters of sometime mud. Here, farmers spoke in the thousand hectare, and of how many tonnes to the acre. Houses were sparse, neighbours miles apart. Maidenville serviced this land, and the high school educated the children of this land. Some rode the school bus daily, but many were weekly boarders at the old school.
She had boarded for three months back when she was twelve. She’d started her periods when she was twelve and in her memory the two were ever joined. She’d loved the safety of boarding, the shared bedroom, the friendships and unchanging routine. She’d loved the every morning of waking up and knowing exactly how the day would be. A wonderful time. Her best time.
A white van was coming towards her. It looked like Len Davis’s, Bonny’s husband, the roof-rack loaded high with ladders and trestles. Quickly Stella selected drive and the car moved forward. Len tooted his horn as he drove by. She waved a hand and continued on to the intersection where the road ended on a well surfaced highway. Many signposts pointed to distant towns.
Dorby 23 K. Sydney 544 K. Maidenville 32 K.
