by Liza Perrat
‘Let’s go then,’ I said, starting down the hill.
My mother didn’t move –– her feet cemented to the footpath.
‘So steep,’ she said, gazing down the Figtree Avenue slope as if she’d never seen it before, as if it was a sheer cliff-face. ‘Might fall.’ Her voice had slowed to slug’s pace, the words almost breaking up before they got out.
‘Don’t be silly, you won’t fall.’
Her bony knuckles paled, gripping the pram handle. ‘Can’t go down there ... too steep.’
‘Now you are being silly, Mum. Come on, I’ll miss the bus.’
‘No, have to get back inside ...’ She turned around, the pram swivelling with her, head bent, shoulders hunched as she pushed it back into the yard without another glance at me.
I’d never admit it to them, but they were right –– Terry and Wayne Anderson, and Stacey Mornon. And all the rest of them.
My mother had definitely gone crazy.
***
The morning dragged by. As soon as the lunch bell rang I hurried out of the schoolyard, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no teachers saw me leave. I kept going over Uncle Blackie’s address.
Number eight, or was it eighteen? The name of his block of flats in Wattle Road ... Albany, that’s it.
I knew Wattle Road. My mother bought the good ham at the Wattle Road delicatessen if Dad got a work bonus. Or rather used to buy, before she stopped leaving Gumtree Cottage. There was a TAB –– a betting shop –– next to the deli, and The Monitor Arms pub on the other side.
Instead of turning right into Figtree Avenue as if I was going home, I kept walking along Gallipoli Street. I trudged up and over the big hill, then the long stretch down the other side.
The sun broiled my head, my arms, my legs and I squinted against the bright rays, trying to keep to the stingy gum tree shade. By the time I reached Wattle Road my soles were burning through my school shoes and my throat was dry as a summer riverbed.
Albany was number eight, a block of four flats. I slowed my pace as I walked up the pathway of the dirt-coloured brick building. I gagged on the stench of rotting food overflowing from rubbish bins. Supermarket pamphlets spilled from letterboxes and a swollen-bellied spider bobbed in a web cartwheeling from the eaves.
‘Beretti, Armstrong, Papa-dop-ou-lous,’ I read from the doorbells. I pressed the one marked “Randall”; heard the ring from inside. No answer.
I rang again. A silky black cat slunk up to me, meowed, rubbed its head against my legs. ‘Hello pretty cat.’ It looked up at me, its eyes the greeny-yellow of a sunrise. I stroked its back. ‘I’d love to take you home with me but Steely’d have a fit.’
Still no answer. I rang a third time, waiting and wondering what I was missing at school. A creature rustled in the bushes beside the front door. Lizard, snake? The teacher’s voice clanged through my mind.
The funnel web is the deadliest spider in the world. It can kill in less than two hours and the fangs can even bite through gloves and fingernails.
‘Uncle Blackie, are you home? It’s me ... Tanya.’
I wondered what I was doing here, at this filthy, scary kind of place. But beyond the grime and stink –– and my fear –– the thrill of something new prickled my skin. Something exciting.
The door to one of the two downstairs flats cracked open and my uncle’s head popped out.
‘Tanya? Wasn’t expecting you till later.’ His voice was still mellow but the words staggered from him in a cloud of whisky fumes. I knew the smell because Uncle Bernie, husband of Dad’s sister, That Bitch Beryl, drank whisky and smelled the same.
‘I decided to miss school this afternoon. It’s Christmas holidays in two days so nothing much is happening.’
‘You’d better come in then.’ He opened the door wider and the nice black cat slipped inside. Red-rimmed eyes narrowed against the sun, Uncle Blackie glanced up and down Wattle Road, and glared at a purple-haired woman frowning from behind her front gate across the street.
‘Is this your cat?’ I said, following it inside.
‘Don’t know who it belongs to but it’s always coming inside, meowing for food and a saucer of milk.’
Uncle Blackie’s flat stank of rotted fruit and unwashed socks, and in the dimness of the closed Venetian blinds everything looked grey, old and grubby. Except two posters stuck to a wall: one of a tropical beach, the other with fuzzed-out red roses on a pink background, which looked somehow strange on Uncle Blackie’s walls.
I bent down and stroked the cat. It meowed, wove between my feet, pushing its silky face against my leg.
Uncle ran a hand through his curls that stuck out at all angles, and rubbed at his watery eyes. ‘You must be thirsty after such a long walk ... let’s find you something to drink.’
I followed Uncle Blackie and the black cat into a tiny kitchen, where he poured milk into a saucer for the kitty, then made up a jug of orange cordial from a jar of Tang.
‘Here you go.’ He filled a cloudy glass with cordial and nodded at one of three tatty chairs.
While I drank, and the cat lapped, Uncle Blackie opened a cupboard, rustled around. A cockroach the size of a mouse scuttled out, which would have given my mother a fit. I shuddered, lifted my feet. Kitty swiped a paw but it got away, scurrying into a dark corner.
‘Gotta be something to eat in here,’ Uncle Blackie said, almost losing his balance crouched down like that. ‘Must get to the shops ...’
‘It’s okay, I’ve got my lunch.’ I unwrapped my sandwich, scraped off a wodge of Vegemite and let the cat lick it from my finger.
‘Look, Kitty loves Vegemite,’ I said. ‘Just like Steely.’
As if he hadn’t heard me, Uncle Blackie pulled out a half-eaten packet of dried-up-looking biscuits. ‘Not the most appetising, but when I take you home later we’ll stop at the corner shop for something nice. How about that?’
‘Okay, whatever. Don’t you go out to work during the day, same as my father?’
‘Yep. I just work different hours than most people, shift work.’ He told me about his job at the TAB down the road, where people gambled away all their wages betting on horses and greyhounds. He was silent for a minute, then said, ‘What’s wrong, Tanya? You’re not your usual self.’
‘Well, apart from my baby sister’s constant crying, which is sending us all a bit crackers, and my dad still in hospital, my mother’s gone crazy.’
I put down my sandwich and bit into a biscuit. The packet was torn, the writing so faded I couldn’t read the brand name, but it tasted like one of those plain buttery things –– the type old ladies dip into tea.
‘Don’t you worry too much, Tanya. Your mum can’t help the way she is right now.’ One of Uncle Blackie’s hands slid onto my shoulder, the other cupped under my chin which he lifted, forcing me to look straight into the brown, red-tinged eyes. ‘Your mum doesn’t want to be unhappy but she just can’t help it, so the doctor needs to give her some pills to calm her down and make her happy again.’
The biscuits were so pasty I understood why you needed to dip them in tea, but still I chomped through one after the other, Uncle Blackie’s fingertip caressing my chin, my moving jaw.
‘She’ll be better once your baby sister stops the constant screaming,’ he said. ‘That’d be enough to send anyone crackers, wouldn’t it?’
His sea-ripple voice was unlike any I’d heard. The complete opposite of Nanna Purvis’s screechy holler. So unlike Dad’s raspy bark or Mum’s airy, sluggish nonsense. It was different too, but just as musical, as Angela Moretti’s teensy-bit-Italian voice.
‘But what if Shelley’s colic doesn’t stop? What if Mum stays like this and my father dies from the car accident?’
‘Do you trust me, Tanya?’ Uncle Blackie touched a forefinger to the spot below my bottom lip. Dust-blown sunlight caught the creases on his face as he smiled.
I kept chewing the biscuit, nodding.
‘Good girl. So just believe me when I say your mum
will get better. And your dad too. But while they’re ... out of action, shall we say, I’m here.’
Of course I trusted my own uncle. If he said everything would be all right with my mother, then it would be.
‘So how did you know Mum, when she was young?’
‘We met at the beach. Summer of ’57-’58 it was, before she married your dad.’ He glanced away, at the cockroach cupboard, and the black cat grooming itself. ‘Your mother preferred my brother in the end.’
His gardening hand dropped from my hair, trailed across my shoulder. Sandpaper fingers. He inhaled deeply. ‘Mmn, Cologne 4711 again. It smells as nice on you as it did on her.’
I didn’t know what to say; couldn’t help shivering with embarrassment, with the strange mixture of excitement and fright filling me up. The kind of fear that is tangled up with worry. The fingers scraped down my arm, settled in the crook of my elbow. Tracing circles. Feather-soft dandelion seeds blowing in a breeze. I shivered but didn’t pull away, too afraid he’d think I was a stupid kid. Besides, it was nice having someone take care of me.
‘Why’re there no photos of you in Mum and Dad’s wedding album?’
‘Because I’d left Wollongong by the time your parents got married.’
‘Left Wollongong?’ I said. ‘Nanna Purvis reckons you were locked up in a place for doing something to a girl named Carter. Is that true?’ I realised he hadn’t answered me yesterday when I’d asked him about that Carter girl.
Uncle Blackie took a step back, said nothing, both hands sweeping back dark curls and I wondered whatever could have happened to the Carter girl.
What is it that men do?
He finally let out a chuckle. ‘And here’s me thinking you’re too smart to believe silly gossip, Tanya. You know your grandmother talks a lot of rot ... said so yourself only yesterday.’
‘Yeah, she sure does talk rubbish ... but I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘Course you don’t, clever girl like you.’ He jabbed a finger at the newspaper on the table. ‘Now what about this Miss Beach Girl 1973 Quest we talked about? You’ll miss out if you don’t enter soon,’ he said as I kept reading:
A WIN-TV team will soon be scouting beaches to select three beautiful girls as entrants for final judging.
‘And what do you reckon about this photo shoot, eh?’ He gestured at the fancy wall posters. ‘Against these nice backdrops.’
‘We’re doing the photo shoot today?’ I said. I’d agreed to it only yesterday, but hadn’t thought we’d do it just yet.
My gaze swept across the peeling wall paint, the rusty taps, the bubbled and grimy floor lino. And up to the posters –– turquoise water lapping smooth white sand, palm leaves waving at me. Pretty red roses on a fuzzy pink background.
... those models aren’t as beautiful as they’re made out you know, Tanya. It’s all camera angles and make believe. They’re quite plain in real life, in fact.
Uncle Blackie cleared his throat, spoke in the day-dreamy voice: ‘Only if you want to, Tanya ... if you’re game.’
I poured myself another glass of cordial, thought how much more thrilling it was to be here with Uncle Blackie than at boring school with Stacey Mornon having a go at me.
I gulped down the drink and stood up. ‘Course I’m game.’
The silky black cat leapt from his chair.
15
I stood before Uncle Blackie as he instructed me: legs slightly apart, palms clamped on my hips, one hip bent sideways. It was a lot to remember at once, as well as trying to look like a Dolly magazine model.
Click-clack went the camera. Click-clack.
‘That’s beaut, Tanya. You look smashing ... just like a model.’
I was in a ship sailing off to unknown tropical islands. Amazing, palm-tree places where I’d make incredible discoveries.
After he’d taken a dozen or so shots, Uncle Blackie placed his camera on the table. ‘Super job, Tanya. Ready for a break now? Let’s have a drink ... and a bit of a chat.’
From the cupboard above the sink, he took a bottle labelled: “Johnnie Walker Red Label”. He poured himself a glassful, his hands a little shaky so that some of the whisky sloshed across the bench top.
He held the bottle up to me. ‘Want to try some?’
‘No thanks, I already tried whisky,’ I said, remembering the furtive sip I’d taken from Uncle Bernie’s glass. ‘It’s yuck.’
‘Have some more cordial then.’ Uncle Blackie poured me another glassful, sat beside me at the table and clinked his glass against mine.
‘Cheers to us, Tanya. Cheers to the future top model.’
That made me smile and, together, we drank our drinks. I stroked the black cat, curled up again on the chair beside me.
‘Come with me,’ he said taking my hand. ‘I’ve got some things I want to show you.’
‘What things?’ I trotted after him into the bedroom, which smelled as if he never opened the window to air out the room, like Mum did every morning.
He nodded at the bed. ‘Have a seat, don’t be shy.’
I perched on the edge, trying not to look at the tangle of wrinkled sheets with some kind of stains. I imagined my mother ripping those sheets from the bed, scrubbing at the stains, then shovelling the sheets through her wringer washer. Twice.
Uncle Blackie creaked open the wardrobe door and pulled out a cardboard box.
He sat beside me on the bed and took from the box a little sculpture of a girl wearing white socks, black shoes and a checked dress like my school uniform. She had long hair, blue eyes and a small nose and mouth. ‘What do you think, Tanya?’
He took out more sculptures –– another girl and two boys. There were many more in the box. All of girls and boys in school uniform.
‘I made lots of them,’ he said. ‘Back when I had so much time to spare ...’
‘What are they made from?’ I turned each one over in my hand, amazed at the fine detail: buttons on the clothes, shoelaces, eyebrows and long lashes.
‘Salt dough. It’s easy. I could teach you to make some too ... if you wanted?’
I nodded, handing him back the figures. ‘That’d be groovy.’
‘You said you’re on holidays soon, right? Why don’t you come back to Albany then ... we could take a few more photos, and I’ll show you how to make salt-dough sculptures?’
‘Okay,’ I said, pleased to have somewhere exciting to go, something to do during what would be long, hot and boring holidays with my mother making up excuses not to take me for a swim. Or anywhere else.
‘That’s beaut,’ Uncle Blackie said with a pat on my thigh. ‘And I have a feeling there’ll be a nice surprise waiting when you do come back, my sweet Tanya.’
‘What surprise?’
He winked, the hand rubbing my thigh. ‘Ah ha, you’ll find that out when you come back to Albany.’
***
Back in Gumtree Cottage, after our tea of Spam on toast, I filled the bathtub, stripped off my school uniform and stood before the mirror in my singlet and undies. My body looked the same only it didn’t feel the same. It felt like the body of a grown-up woman, more powerful than my child’s body.
... you look smashing.
Uncle Blackie was right, I thought, stepping into the tub. If I was ever going to win Miss Beach Girl 1973 and become a model I’d have to stop feeling bad about my body.
I lathered the flannel with Pears’ soap. “Matchless for the complexion”, the Illawarra Mercury ad said, and scrubbed until my skin was raw and tingling.
As I dried myself, the ringing phone made me jump. I slipped on my nightie, dashed into the hallway and answered it. ‘Dad!’
‘Good news, Tanya. They’re letting me out of the hospital. I’ll be home tomorrow.’
‘Really? That’s so cool, Dad.’ My heart soared right out of my chest and buzzed over my head like a toy helicopter and I completely forgot I was still a bit mad at him for causing the car accident.
But as I sat on my bedspread, t
he red-rose pattern –– against the ghastly violets wallpaper pattern –– tinted the room a shade of dirty pink and it became stuffy and airless once more. Something worn and olden –– a convict-ancestor’s room that we no longer used.
I tipped out the box of Barbie dolls, picked up Twiggy Barbie. Pretty and skinny Twiggy. I pinched a glob of my belly fat, inhaled deeply. The glob was still there and I did not feel so smashing.
I’ll never be that thin.
I kicked stupid Twiggy Barbie and the other stupid Barbies under my bed and pulled Real Life Crime from inside Dolly magazine.
The night was hot and still. A mosquito buzzed deep in my ear as if it was stuck inside my skull. My ear hummed, itched like mad. I wanted to tear it off. I thrashed about, eyes wide open, staring at the horrible violet-patterned walls.
The clock chimed another hour and the whole neighbourhood –– even Shelley –– was quiet. But still I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Uncle Blackie’s photo shoot, trying to hold onto the excitement, and to fend off the swirling doubt.
I sweated and shifted, slid off the nightmare bedspread and padded into my parents’ bedroom. Shelley was asleep in her cot, my mother lying on her bed, facing away from the door.
‘Can I have a new bedspread?’
‘What?’ Mum’s voice was caked in a pastry crust, same as the Longbottoms’ and Dad’s, after too many schooners. Though by now I knew it was the Valium that slurred her voice.
‘I hate my bedspread,’ I said. ‘Can I have a new one?’
‘That bedspread cost me over half the housekeeping money, thought you liked it.’
‘I don’t. Never have. I always wanted a Holly Hobbie one but I don’t now, they’re for little kids.’
No answer. She stayed curled up, facing the wall.
‘Dad’s coming home from hospital tomorrow. Isn’t that good?’
‘Oh,’ she said, as if she didn’t care one way or the other.
16
‘Stop it, Shelley! Stop your crying ... Jesus bloody Christ, stop.’