by Jane Frances
Remembering the magazine-style program she had seen on television only a few nights previously—one where the ever cheerful presenters made building a house from the ground up look like child’s play—Lisa decided there and then she was going to re-grout the bathroom.
With mission decided, she headed for the nearest hardware store. Four days later she proudly displayed her handiwork to her housemates, who not only “oohed” and “aahed” over the finished product, but heaved a collective sigh of relief as they could finally shower without having to take themselves and their cleaning accoutrements to the nearest pal’s place.
Still bloated on her success, Lisa tossed and turned in bed that night. In the morning she took an inordinately long shower, much of which was spent admiring her lovely white grouting, and aimed her mustard yellow Datsun 120Y to the employment office to check the job boards.
After a month of scanning the papers, sending off resumes and daily journeys to the employment office, fortune turned in her favor. Lisa plucked the job card off the board, waited her turn and fidgeted nervously as the counselor—Judy, according to her nametag—made a call to the prospective employer.
Her spirits plummeted as she listened to Judy’s half of the conversation. It seemed the fact she was twenty and female was not scoring her any points.
Judy placed the handset onto the base with a definitive click and a skyward roll of her eyes. But Lisa’s sagging shoulders straightened as she watched Judy begin scribbling details from the computer screen. The paper slid across the desk. “This is the address. You have an interview with Mr. Giavanni at three today.”
Beaming, Lisa thrust the paper into her back pocket, already mentally sorting through her wardrobe. What on earth does one wear to an interview for a tiler’s off-sider?
Mr. Giavanni—George Giavanni to be precise—was a fiftyish Italian who lived in and ran his business from a white columned, red brick house that screamed of the old country.
George made it quite clear he had not been in the market for a female off-sider and proceeded to make the job sound as awful as possible. When Lisa nodded somewhat truthfully that she was an early riser (she had been prior to her days of sloth), that she didn’t mind getting dirty, having rough hands, or working long hours, sometimes even on weekends, George returned to his “female equals lack of strength” theme.
“One must be tough.” He flexed his own muscles, then felt Lisa’s upper arm. “Got no time for weaklings eh.” He must have found something promising in Lisa’s arm as he kept on talking. “I give fair pay for a fair day’s work.” He then named a figure Lisa didn’t see as very fair at all, but she nodded assent.
George lifted his large frame from his chair. The interview was obviously over. “I give you one-week trial. Be here six thirty tomorrow eh. If you late, you leave, no second chances.”
So began a four-and-a-half year stint with George. Lisa still looked fondly over those years and acutely remembered the first two weeks, when she dropped into bed almost as soon as she got home, too tired to even eat. The mornings were worse. Every muscle ached, her feet were sore and blistered from the steel-capped boots she was wearing in, and true to George’s promise, her hands were rough as sandpaper.
Over time Lisa’s body became used to the rigors of its new regimen, and within a few months she felt stronger and fitter than ever before. She took as much pride in her work as her mentor, watching as George measured and cut, spaced and leveled, all the time guiding Lisa in the intricacies of his craft. George seemed, in his gruff kind of manner, to be pleased with her progress. So pleased that after three months he offered her a full apprenticeship. Lisa’s time was then divided between work and technical college. Her wage was still paltry, but most of it managed to see its way into her bank account.
Two months before her apprenticeship finished, Lisa received a letter from the owners of the house she was renting. It announced they were putting the house on the market when her current lease expired—only six weeks down the track. Lisa was dismayed at this unexpected hiccup in her otherwise ordered life. She now lived on her own (her “friends” had moved out one by one, thinking she had turned into a “drag”). After receiving the letter, her mood at work the next day was sullen.
“Whaddya go wasting money on rent for eh?” George slapped a huge hand across her shoulder when he finally wrestled the truth from her. “You should be buying by now.”
Lisa had to grin. How George had changed his tune in the last few years. His refrain had long been, “Whaddya want to work for? A young woman like you should find a man, get married, have da kids.” Only after numerous attempts to pair her off with an endless succession of his nephews and cousins of his nephews failed, had George conceded Lisa was not interested in changing her single status. Or rather, her single lesbian status.
When she eventually told George she was a lesbian, he didn’t speak to her for three days. He finally came around, although now he kept quiet about his numerous nieces and cousins of nieces.
Lisa adopted her “George” voice, “I can’ta afford to buya da house. I not got enough for da deposit.”
George just grunted and went back to his work. Lisa went back to cutting tiles. They were both silent for the remainder of the afternoon.
George eyeballed Lisa from across the tray of his truck as they were packing up for the day. “This house you rent, you would like to buy eh?”
Lisa hesitated. Buying had not occurred to her as an option. Renting a shack was one thing, owning one was quite another. It could promise to be a veritable money pit. “Well, it needs a lot of work—plumbing, floorboards, probably even electrical.”
George rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the universal sign of money. “So, it should go cheap eh?”
“Well, yes.”
“Anda the land, it in a good suburb eh?”
“Well, yes.”
“You get da good price, I loan you da deposit.”
On the day Lisa became part of the mortgage set she and George cracked open a few beers in her backyard. Also present were her parents, who had refused to give Lisa a cent as she whiled her time away on unemployment benefits, but couldn’t wait to help as soon as she decided to help herself. They had been mortified at the thought of Lisa borrowing money from her boss, duly presenting her with a check for the deposit and waving away the promise to pay it back.
As dusk descended on the little group, Lisa saw her ramshackle cottage in a new light—an owner’s light. And she loved it.
Eight years on, Lisa loved her cottage even more. She poured every available cent into either the mortgage or ongoing improvements and renovations. Major construction, plumbing and electrical work were left to the experts, while Lisa undertook the grunt work and the decorator touches. To save money, Lisa spent nearly every spare moment doing whatever work she could herself. Exterior and interior walls were stripped and painted, floorboards were lifted, replaced, sanded and polished, the living room fireplace had been restored, and the chimney was now used for smoke extraction as opposed to a comfy nesting place for a family of rock doves. To Lisa’s delight, and probably aided by the seed she now tossed every morning, the said family took up residence in the Lilly Pilly tree in her backyard.
The kitchen had also undergone a major overhaul and of course, the toilet, laundry, and bathroom all benefited from new tiling. With the gardens now complete, Lisa’s home had gone from being the worst on the street to—in her opinion—one of the best.
However, keeping her home in its now pristine condition was not currently high on Lisa’s list of priorities. “Will you stop worrying and just get inside,” Lisa said as she pushed Joel through the front door, stopping his third boot-stamping on the doormat midstream. “One bit of sand is not going to hurt.”
“My, my, we’ve changed our tune. Haven’t we, Miss Take Your Shoes Off Before Entering.” Joel gravely studied the polished floorboards that graced the hallway of Lisa’s home.
“I don’t really care a
t the moment.” It had already gone past seven and Lisa was tired. She and Joel had put in just under twelve hours of solid work, finishing a job which should have been completed the day prior. Lisa clomped down the hallway ahead of Joel. “How does a beer sound?”
“Like magic.” Joel tiptoed down the hallway in his work boots, picking a set of security keys from the key rack next to the kitchen entrance. “It’s a nice night. Let’s sit in the yard.”
Once outside, Lisa passed Joel a long-necked stubbie. In the time it took her to retrieve their beers and make a quick trip to the bathroom, Joel had unlocked the French doors, turned on the patio lights, and settled into one of two patio chairs he had moved onto the lawn. The citronella candle that usually sat on the patio table now flickered on the grass between the chairs. “Here you go. Make yourself at home won’t you.”
“Thanks. I will.” Joel’s tan face was dark in the dim light, making his teeth seem all the whiter when he grinned. He clinked his stubbie to Lisa’s. “Here’s to making it through another day.”
“Hear, hear.” Lisa leaned back in her chair, comfortable in the ensuing silence. Joel was not one who felt constant conversation necessary. It was one reason they managed to work together and also maintain their long-standing friendship.
Lisa and Joel first met during her apprenticeship studies. She was the only woman in their class, and Joel was the only person who made an effort to talk to her in the first few weeks; really talk, that is, without the leers and suggestive winks that the other, considerably younger, students made toward her.
Joel was also a late starter in the apprenticeship stakes—he was nineteen to her twenty years—and had draped his arm around her shoulder as they walked to their cars one afternoon. “They’ll stop soon enough,” he had said of the other students’ behavior. “Once they realize what they’re missing out on with me.”
Lisa stopped walking only for a second. She’d had an inkling Joel was gay. “We may as well get them jealous then huh?” Lisa wrapped her arm around Joel’s waist and they laughed all the way to their cars, fully aware of the small group of classmates following a short distance behind.
That day cemented their friendship. It also marked the end of the winks and leers; the other students assumed Lisa and Joel were getting it together. None of the apprentices, even those who looked too brawny to be only sixteen or seventeen years old, were willing to take on Joel’s six-foot, broad-shouldered frame.
So when the time came for Lisa to branch out on her own, Joel was her first choice as a business partner. As in the purchase of her house, Lisa’s decision to start her own business was not pre-planned. It was a result of George’s decision to retire the following year, a couple of heart murmurs signaling it may be time to slow down.
Lisa didn’t have the funds to buy him out. He had been in the business too long and built up too much goodwill for her to afford such a venture. She didn’t want to be on-sold to the next owner; neither was there any guarantee the new owner would want to take her on at all.
“It could take quite a while before we bring in enough to turn a profit,” Lisa warned as they spent yet another night doing their sums.
“Baloney.” Joel’s enthusiasm was not to be diminished. “With your brawn and my beauty we can’t go wrong.”
Lisa threw her writing pad at him. “Well, you’d better get your best frock ready for when we meet with the bank manager.”
Joel threw the pad back. “And you’d better get your suit dry-cleaned and your jackboots polished.”
The banks turned them down. Lisa’s mortgage and Joel’s poor savings record worked against them. Six months later they tried again, this time with Lisa’s parents as guarantors to her half of the loan and Joel with a nearing healthy bank account. Again there was a celebration in Lisa’s backyard, this time with champagne and a framed Certificate of Business Registration that was passed among the little group.
Business was predictably slow at first. They walked a fine line between quoting low enough to get work and too low to make a profit. But their reputation as skilled and reliable trades people steadily grew, and with that, so did their profit margin. Joel had a creative flair that served them well with the resurgence in popularity of mosaics. His designs won many a client over, and they were able to charge a premium for the intricate work.
For Lisa’s part, her lack of artistic ability was compensated for by her business acumen. Drawing from two years spent studying for her unfinished commerce degree, Lisa did all the business accounts, including their tax lodgments. She was also the initial point of contact for their clients, after she and Joel decided two residential and two mobile telephone numbers would be confusing to potential customers. To date, despite the occasional flare of temper, the business arrangement suited them both, as did their friendship. Lisa considered herself more than lucky for the consistency Joel provided in her life. Lovers came and went, but Joel was always there, often silent in his support, but always there.
Joel had been her rock the past few days, instinctively knowing when it was time to listen, time to give an opinion, or time to simply leave Lisa alone with her thoughts. He also seemed to know that tonight Lisa was in the need of some company. He offered to share a drink or six and crash overnight in the spare bedroom.
“But Friday’s your big night out,” Lisa argued. Joel rarely missed a chance to check out the talent at the one and only gay nightclub in Perth. Besides, she was reluctant to accept Joel’s offer, it coming in the wake of Van and Steph’s, which she had refused.
“Come out with me then,” Joel countered, knowing Lisa, an infrequent visitor to the club at the best of times, was in no condition to face it at the moment, especially since the chance of Janice’s presence there was high. With a glare from Lisa, Joel closed the subject. “It’s settled then. Girlfriend, we’re going to get sloshed tonight.”
In keeping with his promise, Joel pried Lisa’s almost empty stubbie from her hand. “Time for a refill.”
“I’ll get it.” Lisa stood clumsily, a full day’s work on nothing but a banana for breakfast sending one beer straight to her head. “I have to check the messages anyway.”
“Let them wait.” Joel called, content to let Lisa do the fridge run. “The world won’t come crashing down if you leave them until tomorrow.”
When Lisa returned with the beers, Joel was gone.
“Joel?”
“Over here.” His answer coming from the rear of the garden, Lisa picked her way down the cobbled path. She found him on his haunches, examining the remains of her amphora. Not completely smashed, it lay in six or so pieces. “We could put this back together you know,” he said.
He just nodded when Lisa said she’d rather not. “It’s such as shame though,” Joel said, fingering the carving on one of the pieces. He glanced up to the fence line. “Damn cat.”
“Oh well, that’s life, I suppose. I should have known it was too fragile to put in the garden.”
Over the course of the day Lisa had become increasingly embarrassed about her reaction to the breakage. Another visit from Janice begging to take her back, followed by another sleepless night, found her with a fractured temper in the morning. So although the cat was a regular visitor to her yard, Lisa saw red when she spied it lying in readiness for her doves’ daily feed. An unexpected squirt from the garden hose sent the cat fleeing for the fence, but in its fright it clipped a curved foot of her amphora stand. Lisa watched as the amphora began to wobble. Too far away to save it, she could only watch as its wobble gained momentum and it toppled. From its regular arrivals and departures, Lisa knew the cat lived in the house across the lane at the rear of her property. Still flaming, she marched around the block, said her piece to the dumbstruck woman who answered to her banging, marched back home again, and drove mad all the way to work.
“Oh come on Leese, stop blaming yourself for everything that happens. Had I been you I wouldn’t have stopped at an ear bashing, I’d have demanded she pay for the dama
ge.”
“But even though I knew it was her cat, I didn’t exactly have any proof,” Lisa argued. “By the time I got there it was probably back inside, looking the picture of innocence.”
“You want proof?” said Joel, who was still peering at the remains of the amphora. He reached to pick something from its upturned stand, then handed Lisa a red collar with a gold nametag. “Here’s your proof.”
“Oh no! Maybe,” Lisa turned the tag over, holding it close to her face to read the name in the poor light, “Virgil hurt himself.” Lisa popped the collar in her shirt pocket. “I should go and see if he’s okay.”
“Hold on a second girlfriend.” Joel caught her by the arm. “For one, it’s nearly eight. For two, if you went off half-cocked this morning like you said you did, I don’t think Virgil’s mum will be too receptive to another visit.”
“But—”
“And for three, you’re already a bit wobbly and you stink of beer.”
“Thanks very much.” Lisa shook herself free of Joel’s grip. “And I love you too.”
Lisa was adamant—she wanted to check on Virgil’s welfare. “How would you like it if your collar was ripped from your neck?” she asked Joel. They locked up the house and set off around the block.
Giggling like a couple of schoolgirls and shushing each other every few steps, they crept down the old cobbled lane that divided the lines of houses. The lane was unlit. Both stumbled more than once as they had not thought to bring a torch.
“Can you see anything?” Joel whispered.
“Hang on a sec.” Lisa adjusted her position on Joel’s shoulders. “Move to the left a bit, there’s a shrub blocking my view.”
Clinging to the pointed jarrah pickets that comprised the fence, Lisa pulled herself a bit higher. “There’s a light on. It looks like there’s a sitting room at the back.”
“I don’t care about the architecture,” Joel hissed from below. “Can you see Virgil?”
Lisa scanned the room as best she could. Only one of the two windows had the curtains open, so her view was restricted. “No. Hang on—” A mottled lump appeared on the back of an armchair. “I can see him.”