by Peter Twohig
I had never given much thought to netball uniforms, but now I saw straight away that I probably should have, and wondered what in the hell I had been thinking about all this time, but my mind went blank. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been too important.
‘Hello. Mum’s not here. She’s at work.’
She was smiling, a good sign. I opened my explorer’s bag and showed her the comics. I remembered that I could speak.
‘I came to swap comics with Johnny.’
‘Johnny’s not here either. Want to come in? I s’pose you do.’ I went in, but the same thing was wrong with her door as last time, and I had to squeeze past her again.
‘Come on.’
She went up the stairs, and I followed, tripping over halfway up because I forgot to look down.
She opened the door to her room and I went in, though she made me squeeze by her again. I didn’t say anything. I had to hold my breath to get past, and forgot to let it out, so that I suddenly felt a bit faint.
‘Want to sit down?’ She patted the bed, always a bad sign, that being what people do when they have to tell you that your dog just died. ‘Of course you do.’
I sat down on the bed and looked around. This was the first real girl’s bedroom I had been in, if you don’t count Judy Pickles, next door to our old house, and that was only because I’d been in there a million times, so I don’t. This room was full of dolls and pictures of actors and singers, and smelt perfumey. I began to realise that Mona also smelt that way, only better — I would have to give it a ten — and felt my face go red. When I realised that I was staring at everything like an idiot, I turned to Mona and bunged on a look as though I was used to girls’ bedrooms. Mona was watching me with what I thought was an unnecessarily determined expression for a comic swapper.
‘I’ve got some comics to swap. Want to see them? I bet you do.’
I nodded the lolly. The Spirit of Progress is a man of few words when in the presence of dames, especially when those dames like to answer all their own questions. Mona came and sat beside me on the bed. The bed sort of bent in the middle, and made Mona lean up against me. Suddenly, it wasn’t cool. It wasn’t even warm. It was as hot as hell.
She started going through the comics. They had names like Bunty, Schoolgirls and Treasure, and every single one had a picture of a girl with a pet of some kind on the front, or a horse. I had no sisters, myself. In fact this was the closest I had ever been to a girl in my life, if you don’t count the time Tom and I kidnapped Christine Papadopoulous and locked her in the linen press at school, and I don’t, because that was like trying to wash golden syrup off a cat and besides there was so much trouble over that it wasn’t funny. But the truth is Mona wouldn’t have been able to give these comics to me, let alone swap them.
‘What about the comics I saw downstairs — can you swap them?’
‘No, they’re Aunty Lucky’s.’
She was talking my language, the language of aunties, because in Richmond aunties were as thick as hairnets. Basically, you couldn’t turn around without getting aunty lipstick all over you, as they were famous for kissing anything that moved. I myself had countless thousands of them.
‘So who’s Aunty Lucky?’ I said, wondering why a lady had a name like a cigarette.
‘She’s my mother’s little sister. Her real name is Luca Theresa Maria Helena Martello. But we all call her Aunty Lucky. She isn’t married, though half the men in Melbourne have proposed to her. She speaks English, Italian, French, German and Swiss, I think, and spends most of her time overseas. She has a job buying something to do with, oh, I don’t know. Dad says she calls herself Lucky because her legs are so skinny she’s lucky they don’t snap off. Mum says she’s lucky she hasn’t got Dad for a husband. Johnny thinks she’s lucky because she’s got her own car and can go anywhere she pleases —’
‘What kind is it?’
‘What kind of what?’
‘What kind of car?’
‘I don’t know: it’s dark blue.’
‘Is that it?’
‘You can put the top down.’
Getting useful information out of Mona was like getting change out of a Salvo.
‘And the thing she likes best in the world is comics. She’s got hundreds of them. Johnny never has to buy comics; every time Aunty Lucky comes over she brings a new stack.’
It sounded like heaven. I’d never met a grown-up who read comics.
‘When is she coming over again? Maybe I’ll come over.’
‘I don’t know. But you could always visit her.’
Sounded like the sort of thing I’d do.
‘She doesn’t live far away. Want me to give her a ring? I will. I’ll give her a ring right now and see if she’s home.’
That settled it. Turned out she was home, and yes, she would like to swap. Also, she lived just across the road. A part of me wished Mona had told me that straight away. But another part didn’t. However, Mona wasn’t finished.
‘Who was that girl I saw you with at the swimming pool?’
‘I’ve never been to the swimming pool with a girl.’
‘Well, I saw you talking to a girl at the Prahran Swimming Pool.’
‘That wasn’t a girl. That was my friend James’s sister.’
‘Hasn’t she got a name?’
‘It’s Veronica Palmer.’
‘So is she your girlfriend?’
‘No, I haven’t got a girlfriend.’
‘Good.’
I stood up to go. Mona barred the way.
‘Would you like to pash?’
‘Pardon?’
There was nothing wrong with my ears, except they were about to burst into flames along with the rest of my face.
‘If you want to, we could pash, like in the pictures.’
She had stopped smiling and got that look on her face like when you swallow a Dr McKenzie’s Menthoid whole.
‘Okay.’
It was like when Captain Video is half knocked out and the ship just flies itself.
She flung her arms around me and kissed me, a lot like an aunty, but on the mouth, and for a long time. I imitated her actions, so that she could see that we Blayneys knew our way around pashing. When we were finished, she released me suddenly, and stepped back to see if I was still alive. Now she was smiling. So was I. It was better than I’d expected. It helped that she stuck out in places.
‘Would you like to be my sweetheart?’
I wasn’t entirely sure I knew what a sweetheart was, or was supposed to do. If it involved kissing, I was all for it. I thought about the words of the song ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’. Nope, no joy there, though it was a lovely song. I decided that, on the whole, being a sweetheart was better than not being one.
‘Yes, I’d like that very much … Mona,’ I added, remembering Granddad’s rules of conversation.
‘I’m so glad: I thought you were going to say no.’
‘A guy would have to be crazy to say no to a girl like you,’ I said, like Larry Kent, Detective.
‘What do you mean, “like me”?’
What would Granddad say to that? I wondered.
‘I mean beautiful.’
That got me another kiss. I was starting to get the hang of it.
When I finally got across the road to Aunty Lucky’s place, I was pretty much all kissed out, and knew what it felt like to be made of floating cigarette smoke. Mona came with me, to introduce me to her aunty. All the way across the road she held my hand, I think because we were sweethearts, though I still needed clarification on this point.
When Mona knocked on the door she let go of my hand, and adopted the speaking-to-aunties thing that girls do, which is different to the speaking-to-aunties voice that boys do, ours being quieter and more like a basketball match, where you are allowed to dodge the other player, but you are not supposed to actually touch him. With girls it’s more like they haven’t seen each other for about twenty years. So Aunty Lucky opened the door and drag
ged Mona in, and Mona dragged me in after her. Then, after introducing us, she immediately ran off to visit Tiny Tim, who for some reason I assumed was a budgie. Aunty Lucky asked me to sit down and said she would get me a cool drink, it being suddenly warmish.
I had only seen a couple of female members of Mona’s family, and I had already decided they were all dames who might smoke, have guns, and kill men who done them wrong. They were also all more beautiful than any of the females I had ever seen, including Wonder Woman and Charles’s mother — and including Annette Funicello and Tuesday Weld (but not JT).
‘So, Mr Blayney,’ said Aunty Lucky when she returned, ‘what’s your story?’
‘I came over to swap comics.’
‘Handsome and doesn’t mince words. You’ll go far, though if I’m any judge of the looks on girls’ faces — and I am — you’ve already done that. Now, comics.’ She jumped up and started gathering comics from all over the place. ‘Comics … comics. This should do for starters. What’ve you got in there?’
I gave her a stack and she went through it like a twelve-year-old, even making all the appropriate comments.
‘Got any Classics?’ she asked.
‘I don’t swap ’em, ’cos I collect ’em.’
‘Bugger it, another bloody collector! Okay, I’ll take these.’ She spread her choice out on the floor. We played the swapping game for a while, and I could see I wasn’t going to con her, though, to be fair, she didn’t try to con me either. It was a fair swap. Finally I said, ‘Thanks, Mrs Martello,’ which made her laugh like a film star.
‘I’m not married — no fear! Just call me Lucky.’
‘You mean just like that?’
‘Yep, Lucky, just like that. So, who’ll you swap those new comics with?’
‘My friends in our secret society.’
‘What’s it called?’
I hesitated, but only for a second. Girls don’t know anything about secret societies, anyhow.
‘It was going to be called the Larsons, but then I decided to call it something else.’
Lucky got up and turned her back, and walked to the window. She spoke without turning around.
‘I think the Larsons would have been a great name. Where’d you get it?’
She was playing the old sniffing game that Granddad taught me at the track. If he wanted to find out if a punter knew anything about something, he’d turn away before he mentioned it, and I would glance at the punter’s face. If he made a face of any kind, I’d sniff. There were just the two of us, so I didn’t sniff — though she smelt nine out of ten. That turned back told me that Lucky knew a lot more about the Larsons than I did, and that made me want to know more. I thought I might get the Larsons Caper going again.
‘Dunno, just picked it up somewhere.’
‘You probably heard someone mention that there used to be a family called the Larsons just across the river.’
But she wasn’t going to get anything out of me, even if she stuck burning matches under my fingernails.
She turned around and read my face. I’d seen that done a million times at Flemington. It was a case of nothing doing, sister. Then she smiled and asked me to come back in a few days with more comics.
When Mona reappeared, she dragged me to the door by the hand, and opened it for me. Then Lucky and I shook hands, and I was off. Mona held my hand all the way back to her place, where she insisted on kissing me goodbye. Twice.
All the way home, a little voice was telling me that I had completely worked out the detective’s greatest mystery (and obstacle), dames, and I had plenty to feel good about. However, there were two little voices, and the other one was frantically calling the running of the Ladies’ Handicap (for which I still hadn’t properly worked out the form):
And first out of the home turn is Mum, half a length to Aunty Queenie, Mrs Morgan, and Mrs S, three wide is Wonder Woman, boxed in is Lucky Martello, bunched up are Mrs Radion, Aunty Betty, Mother Sylvester, Mrs Dixon, and Nanna Blayney, a length to Annette Funicello, Tuesday Weld, they’re followed by Mona, Veronica, Josephine, Barbara, and last of all, Lorna the Clippie.
Oh, I dunno anything anymore.
24 The Russian flag
Saturday the 30th of January 1960 was turning into one of the best days in history. Next was a quick trip to James’s house, then we were off with Granddad down to Port Melbourne to join every other kid in the metropolitan area who wasn’t down with prickly heat to visit the Lena, which was a scientific Russian ship that had been in Antarctica, and had dropped in to Melbourne to get some decent beer before shooting through to Russkiland — at least that’s what Granddad said. The captain had decided to open up his ship to the public — that means kids — which immediately told me that he couldn’t have been a parent. I made a mental note to say to him that he would be lucky if he still had a ship at the end of the day. Wonder Woman was not crazy about James going, for reasons that were not explained, and only agreed because I told her my grandfather was running the show. I used my talking-to-adults voice: it’s a winner.
Ships are like other kids’ parents: you can imagine what they’re like till you’re blue in the face, but it’s not till you meet them that you understand what their kids were talking about. With ships, it’s not till you actually get on them that you appreciate their loveliness. They are a mass of secret passages, hatches and ladders, like a steel snakes and ladders game that you can play inside. And Granddad loved them too, having been to Egypt and back in ships during the Great War, which was a lot more fun than World War II, as a lot of blokes got to ride horses and camels, and they didn’t expect you to jump out of aeroplanes, or be tortured by the Gestapo. Biggles had definitely picked the right war.
Granddad loved the sea. Or, rather, he loved visiting ships that had been at sea and were shortly to be going back there again. He liked to leave each ship he visited with a package. This is not just a granddad thing: it is something that superheroes do all the time. Only we call them souvenirs. Same thing.
‘So what’s in the package, Granddad?’ I asked, after my first trip to a ship.
‘Supplies, young feller.’
The only supplies I knew about were military supplies, and I told him so.
‘Nah: you’ve heard of supply and demand?’
‘Course.’ (He may as well have been speaking Chinese.)
‘Well, I heard that there was a demand for what’s in here, so I decided to come up with the supply. Business, in other words.’ He tapped the side of his nose, which is the signal for: Not a word, mind you.
But Granddad liked to keep his visits to the ships pretty much to himself. He took me along on the odd visit, but only on the condition that I promised not to spread it around town where we’d been, and by that he meant Mum, as she disapproved of everything he did except, perhaps, getting a haircut. Once, he even stopped me doing a drawing on my map of one of the ships we’d visited. He was very careful.
All the way down to the ship, James and I kept an eye out for Flame Boy and his old man, the Torch, whose newspaper pictures all the Olympians carried on pain of torture. All we saw were people who wished they had stayed home and had a coldy or two. Granddad didn’t seem to mind the heat at all, and I guessed that was because he had once fought Abdul in the desert. James and I didn’t mind, because boys will put up with anything to get a close-up look at a ship.
When we got to the Lena, there were kids crawling all over it like maggies at a picnic. Granddad had explained that it was visiting to fly the Russian flag. I took a shifty at the flag when we got to the ship: it was pathetic. But the Russians let us go crazy and check out everything we were able to open, including the kitchen cupboards.
But I wasn’t born yesterday; I reckoned Granddad just wanted to keep us busy so he could collect one of his famous packages. Only it turned out I was wrong, because when I asked him where he’d been, he said he’d been on the bridge talking to the captain, as they were old mates. When we left the ship we stopped in to see a b
loke on the wharf who had a large office — a very important bloke. James stayed outside to watch the ship being loaded with supplies. I went in with Granddad.
‘Much as we’d like to put your mate on this ship, it can’t be done. We’d never get out of the bay. We’ve had ASIO all over it like a coat of paint.’
‘They can be got at.’
‘Not this lot. I think you better tell your mates at the co-op it’s off.’
‘He’s all ready to go.’
‘How long can he wait?’
‘A few weeks.’
The bloke took down a clipboard and looked at it.
‘The Volga will be here in a fortnight. I can get him onto that. But he’ll have to go on at the last minute. And no luggage of any kind.’
‘That’s a long time. A lot of things could go wrong.’
‘The Volga’s your best bet.’
‘The bloke’ll have a package.’
‘No luggage, mate.’
‘It’s part of the deal.’
‘How big?’ I saw the bloke nod a question in my direction.
Granddad gazed out at the Lena, which was now looking more like a Moomba float for the Boys’ Brigade than a research ship.
‘No, not him. It’s small; he’ll be carrying it.’
This whole conversation was strange, because it was kind of in code so that I wouldn’t understand it. But your superhero knows all and sees all, so I had an idea that it was all about mates with packages, and also that Granddad was not going to send me to Russia for the rest of my life, though no one would have blamed him if he had.
On the way back, Granddad was a bit more quiet than usual, not that he was exactly a chatterbox or anything.
‘Penny for ’em, Granddad.’
He had a quick look at James, who was giving all his attention to a Peters Kreem-B-Tween that was threatening to disintegrate.
‘I might not be around much for a day or two here and there for a while. Nothing to worry about. Have to take care of a few things.’
‘Like the bloke with the package, the one that might be a briefcase.’
