by Helen Garner
Scotty sat fully dressed on the lid of the end toilet, scowling into her fist. On the back of the cubicle door some ignoramus had printed I hate the overalls brigade lesos and all dumb womans libb chicks. Scotty drew a black texta from her front pocket and replied Perhaps if you wore overalls yourself it might reduce the pressure on your spleen signed Miss Piggy Veterinarians’ Hospital.She stood up, rested one knee on the toilet and raised her face to the rigid louvre windows which gave on to the playground of the crèche next door to the pub. Through the chicken wire she stared at an abandoned swing: it moved faintly on dull silver chains, clinked faintly in the apricot night air.
The outside door of the lavatories, flung back by a drunken hand, crashed against the basin, letting in a bright blast of music. A harmonica squealed. Scotty sprang up, ran out the door and plunged back into the red crowd.
It was Madigan working away at the centre microphone, a stooped, shock-headed, self-possessed figure, both hands to his mouth, the lead wagging: his eyes were squeezed shut behind the flashing lenses, his fingers flicked open and cupped shut. He was peeling off high, sheer ribbons of sound. Everyone was dancing.
When the crowd straggled out, it took with it the fragile romance of 2 a.m. Without the music, everything showed its decrepitude. The carpet was hopelessly stained and damp, worn thin as skin between the tables. The musicians, their glamour turned off with the lights, stood about randomly looking ordinary-sized and ill-tempered, cheated again of emotional recompense for their outlay. Scotty leaned against a wall and watched two girls in vinyl pants and lurid make-up loitering with intent between the stage and the door of the band room. The girls were in the way of the roadies who staggered round them, knees bent under the shared load, muttering curses. Scotty stepped up to Alex.
‘You be long?’
‘Don’t think so. I’ll just pick up my pay.’
‘What’s the matter with Whatsisname?’ She jerked her head at Madigan who was crouched at the side of the stage.
‘Not feeling the best.’
‘Is he OK?’ Scotty stared at him. Alex shrugged and made a motion of playing a violin. Scotty approached the hunched figure. He saw her feet and jumped. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sort of-ish.’ He looked up.
‘Are you ill?’
‘Probably got flu. Or something.’ He straightened up with a confused attempt at a laugh.
‘Let’s go,’ said Alex, coming up behind. ‘Want a lift home, Madigan?’
‘Well . . .’ He looked around him. ‘Do you think anything else is going to happen here?’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Scotty. ‘I have to go to work tomorrow. Yes or no. Don’t drag the chain.’
Madigan followed sheepishly, dawdling past the closed door of the band room with its strip of light along the floor.
When they stepped out on to the esplanade, the clock on the pillar said two thirty. A line of palm trees held up their stiff fingers against dark blue air which smelt of fish and salt.
Madigan had begun to shiver dramatically. Scotty shot him a cross look.
‘Let’s drop in at the Greek’s for a coffee before we take you home,’ said Alex. ‘Are you too sick for that?’
Madigan shrugged, knowing he did not have a choice. He twirled the pillowcase this way and that; the harmonicas clacked.
Alex was greeted familiarly by the owner of the café as he served them at the high glass counter.
‘Do you always come here after gigs?’ said Scotty.
‘Always. It’s open day and night.’
‘The whole twenty-four?’
‘Yep. It’s a rock and roll café.’
Scotty thought of the morning to come, children in the kitchen and the classroom, and longed again for the exhausted camaraderie of night workers.
‘Now you know why I’m always half stunned in the mornings,’ said Alex, tipping a sparkling river of sugar into his cup. He glanced at Madigan, this spectre he had invited to the feast, and tried to kick things along.
‘This is a rare moment,’ he said, ‘seeing Scotty awake in public at this hour of night.’
Madigan did not reply. He looked quite pathetic, hitching his thin jacket and the collar of his lairy shirt up round his chin.
‘Comes on sudden, doesn’t it,’ said Alex. He stirred his cup with a vigorous motion.
‘Come and stay at our place,’ said Scotty on an impulse, half to make Alex laugh, half meaning it. ‘We’ll look after you till you’re better. What are you doing out on the streets at night in this condition? Don’t you get looked after at your place?’
‘Are you kidding?’ said Madigan.
‘Bloody hippies,’ grunted Scotty with a righteous expression.
‘They’re all right. They’re not running a hospital, you know.’
‘It’s the test of a collective household,’ said Scotty primly, ‘whether you get looked after when you’re sick.’
‘Ah yeah. They told me over in Prahran to look out for people like you,’ said Madigan. ‘Communes, and that.’
‘What would they know about it,’ said Alex with a blithe laugh. ‘They’re hopeless, south of the river. Sit round the kitchen table blowing joints all day, nothing gets done.’
‘Come to us, then,’ said Scotty, beginning to clown. ‘We’ll make you a little bed, won’t we Alex? All nice, with clean sheets smelling of mothballs. Freshly squeezed orange juice. Fizzy vitamin pill.’
‘Yeah, that’s the stuff,’ said Alex.
‘And we’ll put the orange juice through the – what is it, Alex? – the sieve, like Ruth does, so it won’t be, you known, too strenuous to drink.’
Alex tipped his chair back and laughed out loud, but Madigan, unable to gauge the exact edge of her tone, watched suspiciously. ‘I think I’m probably too weak for the treatment,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’d better just drop me off home. I’ll get something at the chemist tomorrow.’
‘Get stuck into the ginseng, pal,’ said Scotty, swilling the dregs round in her cup and not looking at him. ‘Isn’t that the big cure over your side at the moment? Or is it comfrey?’
‘What’s wrong with comfrey?’ Madigan rallied. ‘Myra at our place makes fritters out of it. I like comfrey.’
‘Myra makes ’em, does she?’ said Scotty. ‘And what do you make?’
‘Me? I can’t cook,’ he said, caught on the hop.
‘Know what the first thing is?’ continued Scotty smoothly.
‘Learning how to boil water. Or – no. First you have to find the kettle.’
Nobody laughed.
After they had dropped Madigan home, they turned into Punt Road and flew back across the river.
‘Bit rough on him, weren’t you?’ said Alex.
‘Rough! He was just trying to provoke me!’
‘No he wasn’t! Listen, I’ve been to his place. You ought to go down there. Un-believable.’
‘What happens?’
‘They couldn’t even get a market roster going. The men objected to being asked to come to a meeting about it. The blokes sit up at the table like Lord Muck while the women run round waiting on them.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a lackey of the feminists,’ said Scotty. ‘Are there any kids?’
‘A couple, I think. It’s the sort of house where you hear terrible sickening bangs and screeches from the other room. And their mother never goes out at night.’
‘What a horror show!’ said Scotty, gasping with enjoyment. ‘You mean that actually still happens?’
‘Look, Scotty – it’s time you got out of Fitzroy! Nothing’s changed, in the outside world!’
*
Ruth drove, and Scotty and Sarah crouched at the back doors of the Holden poised to spring out at the chosen spot. The first couple of times they were jerky with fear and excitement, so hard did their blood thump. Ruth sat behind the wheel, leaning forward eagerly to watch the dim figures bobbing up and down against the wall like buoys struggling in water. By the fifth ti
me, out in Hawthorn, far from home, their actions had become fluid and swift. Up came Scotty’s arm, sprayed the huge words in her elegant left-handed script, while Sarah squatted, hopping crab-wise along behind her underlining in one smooth continuous flow. They sped away from each finished sign in a euphoria of silent laughter. It was like falling in love again in the dark. All their antagonisms dissolved, their eyes shone.
‘Don’t you want to have a go, Ru?’
‘Oh – I’d be too slow. I haven’t got such nice writing as Scotty,’ said Ruth shyly, dying to.
‘You do the next one with Sarah,’ said Scotty. ‘I’ll keep watch.’
‘Here’s a nice white bank,’ said Sarah. Ruth swung the car into the side street and turned off the motor. ‘Come on, Ru.’
Ruth grabbed Scotty’s can and slipped out after Sarah. She was so eager that she started without checking that the nozzle was facing away from her, and squirted herself on the face and neck.
‘Eeek!’ she screeched, brushing pointlessly at herself.
‘Leave it, leave it!’ said Sarah. ‘Go on! Your turn!’
Scotty heard them and glanced over. At that moment the divvy van flashed past along Glenferrie Road. None of them saw it. Sarah and Ruth, weak with laughter, were stabbing away with the cans at the punctuation which Scotty insisted be perfect. Scotty neglected her watch again to check the spelling, and round the corner swept the divvy van.
‘Get in! Get in!’ yelled Scotty, twisting the key in the ignition. Sarah tumbled into the back seat and Ruth ran to the driver’s side, pushed Scotty over and took hold of the wheel. Of course it was too late. The van blocked their exit from the narrow street, its lights blinded them, its doors burst open and two policemen strode down upon them, huge in the blaze of white and flashing blue.
‘Oh God, look at ’im,’ whispered Ruth. The first one was blue-faced, big-jawed, a nightmare cop, eyes invisible under the peak of his cap. He shoved his hand through the window and seized the keys out of the ignition.
‘Whose is this car?’
‘My husband’s,’ said Ruth.
He saw immediately that there were no men in the car, and his tone changed. The younger one stood silent on the other side of the car.
‘Where is your husband? Does he let you out on the streets after midnight, does he?’
‘My husband’s in jail,’ said Ruth, staring straight ahead through the windscreen with narrowed eyes. ‘And I wouldn’t ask his perm –’
‘I see. And where are your children while you’re out at night engaged in this sort of activity?’
‘At home. Well looked after. Mate.’ Ruth turned her black-streaked face up to him with a stare of concentrated hatred.
He met her gaze. ‘I’m Inspector Nunan, of Glenhuntly CIB,’ he said. ‘We’d like you to follow us to the station.’
He passed the keys back to her and she snatched them rudely.
The divvy van sped away and they followed.
‘Our rights. Our rights. What the fuck are our rights?’ hissed Scotty. ‘I knew we should have read the Civil Rights booklet before we left.’ She began to giggle.
‘Shut up, Scotty,’ said Ruth. ‘This is serious.’
‘What a disaster,’ said Sarah, whose freckled face in the helmet of curls looked white and small. ‘We didn’t even finish the sign.’
‘Forget that now,’ said Ruth. ‘That’s the cop shop there, isn’t it? He’s goin’ in. Well, what are our bloody rights? Do we have to say anything? You two are the fuckin’ intellectuals round here.’
‘We can’t very well deny anything,’ said Scotty. ‘They did catch us red-handed.’ She and Sarah were on the verge of a fit of laughter.
‘Can’t you two shut up?’ said Ruth, furious.
‘I thought you’d know all that stuff about rights, Ruth,’ said Sarah. ‘I thought communists knew all that stuff.’
‘I’m just a fuckin’ deserted wife, mate,’ said Ruth grimly, pulling up next to the divvy van outside the town hall. ‘That’s all I know about.’
‘Well don’t start bloody playing the violin about it, for Christ’s sake,’ said Scotty.
‘What are we going to say?’ said Sarah.
‘I’ll do the talking,’ said Scotty.
The young policeman had inspected the boot of the car and was standing beside it with the keys in his hand when they came out the door to go home. They nodded to him and got into the car. Ruth backed it out of the drive and made a big U-turn.
‘Look at that dingbat,’ said Sarah. Scotty glanced back and saw the young cop standing with one arm raised, waving goodbye to them like an idiot country boy waving to a train. The two of them began to giggle weakly, disgusted with themselves. Ruth took no notice. She planted her foot and away they went.
*
Ruth stumbled out of her bedroom and heard shouts of laughter from the kitchen. Scotty was transforming the night’s debacle into a comic turn for Alex’s entertainment.
‘And round the corner, to put it bluntly,’ she was saying with her wry smile, ‘came Inspector Nunan of Glenhuntly.’
‘To put it bluntly,’ said Ruth from the doorway, ‘we made fuckin’ idiots of ourselves. In the cop shop we were pathetic.’
‘Oh, come on, Ruth! It’s not all that serious!’ said Scotty. ‘Can’t we even get a laugh out of it?’
‘It’s all right for you. You’ve got enough money to pay the fine.’ Ruth slopped coffee into a cup. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘Out in the street,’ said Alex. He stood up from the table, picked up his bowl and ran it under the tap.
Ruth took a tearing drag on her cigarette and breathed out a long plume of smoke. ‘Did they get anything to eat?’ she said to nobody in particular.
‘No,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll go and call them.’
‘Oh, don’t bother,’ said Ruth with a sigh. ‘I’ll do it in a minute.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Alex.
He could be heard yelling at the front door. Ruth and Scotty drank their coffee with downcast eyes.
‘I’m goin’ down the Prom for the weekend with Dennis,’ said Ruth. ‘An’ I’m leaving the kids here.’
‘All right,’ said Scotty ungraciously.
With a great stampeding the two children ran in at the door and flung themselves at the table. Alex went about the business of serving them, singing to himself to cover the dismal sound of burnt toast being scraped. Laurel seized the plate of toast, divided the pile into two equal parts and shoved one in front of her brother. The red bow on top of her head wobbled vigorously as she ate. The children crammed the slices into their mouths and chewed loudly with much smacking of lips and champing.
‘Why don’t you two shut your mouths when you chew?’ said Scotty in a surly tone. ‘It nearly makes me sick to listen to you.’
They glanced up at her, puzzled, and went on gulping and gnawing.
‘Lay off ’em, Scotty,’ said Ruth. ‘Just lay off ’em.’
‘I live here,’ said Scotty. ‘It’s awful, the way they eat. Why don’t we teach ’em?’
‘Don’t be so fuckin’ bourgeois! You never used to think table manners were important!’
‘Things change,’ said Scotty. ‘They’re not babies any more.’
‘You’ve changed!’ said Ruth. Out came the Drum, the tense rolling. ‘You know what’s happened to you? You’ve turned into a boss. You’re an individualist.’
The children stopped eating. Wally kicked Ruth under the table, and pointed at Scotty.
‘She’s fat,’ he announced.
‘Shut up, Wal,’ said Ruth. Her mouth flickered, and Scotty had to turn away to hide a tremor which passed across her lips. ‘I’m goin’ away for the weekend, you kids. Scotty ’n’ Alex are goin’ to mind youse.’
‘Ohhhh! Ru-uth! Why can’t we come?’ cried Laurel.
‘Cause you can’t, matey, ’n’ that’s that. Come up to my room ’n’ talk to me while I get my stuff ready.’
The family trooped o
ut the door into the hallway, keeping their eyes down.
Alex, who had observed this scene from the other side of the bench, came and sat down beside Scotty at the devastated table. Their eyes slid sideways and met. Scotty gave in.
‘Fat, am I,’ she said.
‘Miss Piggy,’ said Alex.
The pair of them lolled there, faces to forearms on the tabletop, and laughed till tears came to their eyes.
‘Oh God this house is gruesome,’ groaned Alex. ‘It’s driving me nuts.’
‘Don’t say nuts. I might want to eat some.’
‘Driving me bananas, then. Oh, sorry.’
Fresh spasms bowed them down.
When they looked up, Wally was standing on the kitchen step, half hiding in the doorway.
‘I’m gunna make a rabbit hutch,’ he said.
‘But you haven’t got a rabbit,’ said Alex.
‘But one day I might save up and buy one, from selling bottles.’
Laurel pushed into the room behind him. ‘Are you going to make it now? I know where the hammer is.
Can I make it with you?’
‘Sure,’ said Wally magnanimously, heading for the shed. ‘You can hold the nails.’
Laurel’s face dropped. She looked back at Scotty and Alex sitting at the table. They were speechless, but Scotty raised one clenched fist and shook it encouragingly. Laurel ran out the back door with an expression of single-minded determination.
‘Starts young, doesn’t it,’ said Alex.
From the shed came the splintering of wood and voices raised in eager discussion.
‘See youse,’ shouted Ruth from the front door, and crashed it shut.
‘I think she’s going down to the beach to make up her mind,’ said Alex.
‘What about?’
‘Whether to leave or not.’
‘Leave? Oh Christ. I thought we’d made up our minds to stay here and knuckle down to it.’
‘It?’
‘It, it, IT. The flaming collective necessity.’