by Alexa Aella
Where was Beatrice going to find a dress? She didn’t really want to go to this Farewell, but part of her, also, felt almost hopeful. She was still of an age when thoughts of Cinderella being magically saved from ignominy seemed possible. But where to find a dress?
Dad was staying away longer these days: probably with a new woman. So Beatrice drew back the curtain encircling his sagging double bed and odd shaped Laminex wardrobe. She turned away from the grubby sheets and unmade bed, like an animal’s lair and pulled the wardrobe slowly open and the mobile mirror flashed its reflection about the narrow room lending it a momentary glamour.
Inside, she could see a couple of her mother’s old dresses from the late 70s. They were tiny, as her mother was a brown sparrow of a woman. But, even though Sue concentrated hard, her mother’s face and eyes were withering in her memory.
She sneaked the stale smelling dress from the hanger and dumped it over her head. She had no shoes other than her school shoes though. They would have to do. She left the dank house, walked through drifts of petrol fumes and rowdy traffic and continued on her way. The sweat slowly gathering at the base of her neck.
Of course, the predictable posse of girls looked at Beatrice with their dagger eyes; laughed behind their chopping hands and made loud and pointed comments just within her hearing. Lisa didn’t say anything: Beatrice was beneath her notice.
But, come, take a look for yourself. See how well they dance. Memories are being manufactured tonight here. Myths are being woven into the quilt of one’s life. Lisa will forever see herself as that belle of the ball; Sue will always remember how Lisa shared the mirror with her, as she reapplied strawberry lip gloss. And, Beatrice, will observe the evening from the sidelines, an object of scorn: On the periphery. But do you see her stacked plate? She did manage a good feed didn’t she? Our Beatrice is a survivor. But what of Terry you ask? She wasn’t there.
Heat builds over Newcastle like a huge plate, pressing downward, as the long summer holiday arrives like a coal train. The White family enjoy Christmas day next to the Sparkle pool, with shiny wrapping paper discarded like fallen angels all about. Piles of presents already forgotten.
Turkey roll, cooked by Maria is eaten under the Luxaflex gazebo, but it is the smell of Aerogard that is most memorable. Flies those pesky intruders.
Maria arrives home late and exhausted, but ready to cook again for her own family. She will have a break for ten days, as the White family holiday in Fiji. Maria won’t spare them a thought, as they roast on the white beaches like prawns on a grill and order ice-creams and drinks from smiling, dark haired waiters.
Every summer holidays the Browns travel to the same caravan park, located on the Central Coast of New South Wales. This ritual continues for many years. However, they never knew nor cared that the Darkinjung people had lived in this beautiful locale for thousands of years. And, they were also unaware that this place of beauty was ‘found’ by the white man when the Governor of Tasmania, Colonel David Collins was looking for Mary Morgan, an escaped convict. History didn’t matter to the Brown’s. Maybe because they knew so little.
I know what you are thinking, as you look down upon the Browns askance: those wise words said by someone of note ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Well, we shall see. But look closely as Christmas morning arrives. You will see the Browns climb into their Ford, all scrubbed and clean and plain. They will drive off, with no detours, under the speed limit to visit the little wooden church and sit on its hard seats. Once here, they think of home.
Beatrice both longed for and feared the long summer holiday. Being cut loose and free from the mechanical prison of school was something she yearned for. But, once the holiday arrived, she felt she was in free-fall; unhooked and unhinged from any mooring. Floating free in space without gravity.
This panic would generally last for a few days and then slowly and methodically, Beatrice would visit the library and perhaps, Els Bookshop, to gather a stack of books together. She would also take long walks just to look at things. She would visit the shopping centre to gaze in wonder at the piles of stuff; stuff that you could possess if you had money. Sometimes, she would take rides up and down in the lift, to feel again that tingle of anticipation and imagine that she was going to the moon. The happy and light music, that piped everywhere throughout the centre, made her feel as though she was floating on the air. Almost.
After one week of holidays had clocked by, Beatrice got up one morning to find that she had a visitor outside her door. A small black and white cat, which looked like it was wearing a mask and a cape. The cat came in and chose to stay. Beatrice had a friend.
I am sure that your keen eyes had noticed the small figure of Beatrice during term time, every lunch hour, hunched on the unyielding mission brown benches. Eating her sandwich and pretending that she belonged to some random crush of girls. Now, Beatrice had someone to belong to. But beware Beatrice, cats can be so disappointing. They really only belong to themselves.
Most sensible people look toward the start of their high school career with apprehension. You are still a child and yet are forcibly thrust into a Mad Max world populated by child-adults; sprouting hair, oozing with smells and secretions and voices see-sawing about. Frightening! Stories are told to the initiate, of heads being flushed down toilets and illicit affairs conducted between student and teacher. And, yet, there is no reasonable way out. Like cattle stepping onto the chute leading to the abattoir there is only one way: forward.
This rather dramatic view was not one that materialised in the mind of Lisa White. She was obsessing about her new school bag. It looked, she thought, like something Madonna might own.
Lisa was getting dressed on that first morning of high school, listening to her favourite compilation CD. Dancing with her reflection to songs like ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’ and ‘What You Need’. ‘Michael Hutchence! What a spunk! Lisa was fully expecting to meet such a boy at her new school. Someone who poured in from one of the feeder schools in the district. Hormones had been released and fires were being lit.
High school is a very clannish place: more so than primary school. As the influx of new students flow into those utilitarian halls and smells of turpentine polish and raw youth mingle, a miracle appears to take place. Or, perhaps, it is simply part of the inherited tendency of people to form groups. There is, however, a seeming intelligence behind these group alignments: some kind of All Seeing Eye which appears to be pulling the strings.
Lisa, of course, finds a throne waiting for her and other ‘diamonds of the first water’ clustering about her.
And, like a tornado sweeping through a junkyard, Sue, finds herself set like a wooden bead, on a bracelet of other plain, smooth and round, freckled girls. Beatrice, too, found herself swept along by forces greater than herself. As though there was a conspiracy about to prove the law of attraction. So, there she was, finally, with a friend who had read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (twice!) And who was also smitten and bewitched by ‘Star Wars’. Take a gander at this scene for a moment. A moment set in time: an insect in amber. Everyone has their place. But, already, the winds of change are coalescing and the tide is about to turn.
Chapter 3.
That year, 1987, a big fat American film hit town and suddenly emotion and music and romance erupted from sedate everyday confines. Platoons of girls tramped into the Tower Cinema and sat on vinyl seats, awestruck in the frozen air; eyes open and unwavering: all ears. Baby Houseman was not perfect; she blew in like a breeze of hope.
In those days, as you walked along concrete school hallways, you could almost hear, behind the sounds of clanking rubbish bins and distant shouting from sports fields, the refrain of ‘Hungry Eyes’. Concrete and clay merged with Hollywood enchantment, to form the backdrop, to a fecund atmosphere of swelling bodies and flowing nature working itself free.
Our worthy young women changed that year; developing crushes on boys. And, for one of our girls, crushes on gi
rls too. Nothing was admitted, though, especially to herself. That time had not arrived. Still, a person was required to push and poke and force themselves into assigned boxes and slam down the lid.
The paths of our heroines, also, did not cross much this year. Lives were developing and advancing, trapped by time, in separate spheres. Then, suddenly, an intersection is reached on the night of The School Dance.
It was a sultry summer night. The night of what was quaintly called ‘The School Dance’. Held in the concreted school canteen area and cordoned off with clammy tarpaulins; in the days before public liability insurance was really ‘a thing’. The dance was a big money spinner for the school and so blind eyes were turned toward the antics of car loads of inebriated, sex-upped teenagers who crammed into corners. Sometimes they danced.
Lisa White swanned out of the double front doors of the brick veneer on Madison Drive, wearing a tiny gold miniskirt and sheer lace top of white. As she walked, she left a trail of Poison: ‘Dior's ultimate weapon of seduction’. Her father scampered around her, tongue between teeth, clicking the Kodak. Every now and then she would strike-a-pose.
Mrs White also stepped outside to watch her daughter, Lisa, as she set off to the dance with her boyfriend Gary. Gary, who was commonly called ‘Chook’, even by his mother.
On that sultry evening, as an opera of cicadas sang out, Mrs White, wearing a Lycra, sheath dress and holding a cocktail glass elaborately decorated with mini umbrellas and fruit, stood watching and gushing loudly to her husband ‘our girl could be a model!’ Pretty soon, in her mind after this night, her daughter was actually a model, even though she only had a part-time job at Katies.
At the Brown household it was a different story. The Brown’s didn’t approve of such ‘shenanigans’ and so Sue had to beg and plead. Imagine how it would look if she didn’t go to the dance! Eventually her mother relented. It was her decision which mattered and Sue was released from the Friday tradition of a tea time of eggs and chips and watching something like ‘New Faces’ or ‘Burke’s Backyard’ on TV.
Sue wore her green slacks and a flowered top that her granny from Lambton had given her on her birthday. It was from ‘Best and Less’. Sue’s dad then drove the giggling group of girls to the dance and afterwards parked outside his house in the twilight. For a moment, he knew what it was to feel free.
Adamstown Heights has no ancient ruins, statutes or tombs to be discovered. And in those days before, the footprints of the Awabakal clan had been light ones upon the earth. But underneath this area of weatherboard and brick veneer houses, lives a honeycomb collection of old coal mines and great chasms in the earth. Few people looking from above would have any idea what lies beneath.
Burning our past and our future.
Newcastle was built on coal and named after its British coal cousin. It was back in 1797 that Lieutenant John Shortland found the place, as he was searching for escaped convicts. And pretty soon, Newcastle was the place where the worst kinds of convicts were sent to dig coal. It was a place, which was often called that ‘hellhole’. There was no fondness in this description.
Mr Snellgrove, Beatrice’s father had some type of job connected with mines; something to do with machinery. Beatrice wasn’t sure what his job actually was, as they had never talked about it. They never talked much about anything at all.
Beatrice and her new friend Nola also ambled along to the dance. Beatrice had managed to get some money from of her father and she had taken the bus into town and scoured the second-hand shops for something to wear. She managed to find a pair of jeans and a top for less than ten dollars. She got some clogs too, which were fairly new. She felt good: almost as good as anyone else. But the heat was rising and swirling angry clouds could be seen congregating like a lynch mob.
When you have nobody to love you, for you; no person who cares about what you think and how you feel about things, you tend to feel like an unformed, incomplete thing. This is how Beatrice felt, although she had no real insight into her own self. She was still a raw, green and callow young girl: lacking symmetry and purpose. But soon, pressures would be bear down upon Beatrice and shape her: against her will.
Scientists may say that, although it feels to us like time flows: it does not. It is an illusion. Time is the fourth dimension they say: another dimension inseparable from space. I cannot tell you whether this is true. Or not. What I can tell you is, that time and space will soon appear to collide, so be sure to turn your eyes back and watch and see what will become of our girl Beatrice.
Outside the dance, Lisa and her boyfriend Chook were staggering around pretty drunk; Lisa talking loudly in outrage about how ‘people didn’t understand what it was like to be pretty’ and how ‘ugly boys should not imagine that she would go out with them!’
The rest of Lisa’s gang were sitting on a fence sharing a toke and looking bored; their hair shining like crowns in the light of the street lamp. The scene was set as Beatrice and Nola walked past. Then, Sue Brown and her pack of friends appeared out of the gloom. Without warning, Lisa, who had been waving her white arms about suddenly, in her ruminative outrage and without preamble, smacked the walking Beatrice in the head, mid stride, causing her to fall down: like a pile of bones. Lisa the ugly drunk.
For a moment, it seems like time has slowed down; the thump and grind of the music silenced. Nobody appears to move and the heat just hangs there. You may be forgiven for thinking that a game is being played; that the music will commence and everyone will move again. Eyes from everywhere are aimed toward Lisa. The die is cast.
A cry shatters the air and Lisa is suddenly sober. Lies begin falling like stars from her lips ‘it was her…she tried to hit me. Me!’ And, just like that, everyone believes it. Beatrice half believes it herself.
For Sue, her finest hour is upon her. She half carries the stricken Lisa away, sits her down and brings a cooling drink. She even dares to touch Lisa’s tanned shoulder: to show solidarity. Meanwhile, the night has returned, the mood swings back toward the merry go round of fun, as herbal aromas meander far and wide. Not for Beatrice, though, she finds herself lying alone on the hot concrete footpath, catty eyes glittering in the dark, focused upon her, and her friend gone. Nola is carrying Lisa’s shoes and bags like some kind of Sherpa: without a mountain to climb.
On Monday, Beatrice found herself alone. A friend no more. She was regarded with hostility and treated as something charged with evil-intent. It was familiar ground for Beatrice and yet, still a bitter blow. Beatrice had tasted friendship and she had liked its flavour.
Things, became progressively worse, however, and soon the teachers were treating her with derision. She appeared to be hated without reason and had enemies without cause. A plague carrier. Few people seemed to know why she was hated: they only knew she was.
Finally, Beatrice was released from that hell by the coming long summer holidays. She decided she would change schools and begin anew. She would study the arts of friendship and being liked and she would begin again. Like everyone else, Beatrice acted like the fault was within her.
In ancient Greece, a beggar, a cripple or perhaps a leper would be cast out of the group after some disaster had occurred. In the Bible, an actual goat, the ’scapegoat’, would be killed or sent out into the desert: the repository of all sin.
So, armed with ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ Beatrice began her course of study. But learning to live easily with others is something that must be practiced every day. And when your nature is cleaved from others, when you become the ‘other’, it becomes difficult to grow and ripen properly. Like a plant: yellow without the sun.
It is not surprising that Beatrice was attracted toward all that was gothic and darkly romantic; these call out to the blood of those who are misguided, maltreated or misunderstood. And, so, she would spend long hours reading paperback novels with covers featuring distraught young ladies running from castles or creepy malevolent looking manor houses. She took to wearing black clothing and ou
tlining her eyes with dark eye pencil. Like an Egyptian in a tomb.
One Saturday, whilst rummaging about in a second hand shop at the seedy end of town, Beatrice found a small and dusty Pierrot style clown, dressed in black and white. His clothing was torn and his face mournful. A mere one dollar saved the life of this dear little fellow and Beatrice took him home and carefully set about fixing his wounds and tears. If you look, you will see him still, placed close to Beatrice’s’ bed; wherever she goes: close to her heart.