The Book of Emmett

by Deborah Forster

  ‘Sit down on the couch, my dear, while I see to this.’ He gestures to the couch and then returns to fooling around with the camera, clicking and winding and polishing.

  He moves the camera closer and takes many pictures of her face, coming over sometimes to turn her head or lift her hair and once he says, ‘You are very beautiful, young Louisa Brown.’

  ‘Come off it,’ she says laughing and flushing scarlet, her wrist quivering away like a trapped bird.

  ‘No, I won’t come off it. These pictures will be perfect and they will show your beauty and you will always have them.’ Then he sits down beside her and kisses her mouth slow and tender as if she were beloved and says, ‘I could take some really lovely pictures of you if you would take your clothes off.’

  She looks at him as if he’s an alien and notices that his eyes are the green of leaves.

  ‘No way in the wide world,’ she says, and it comforts her that she can still think. She wonders why he reckons she’s special and realises it’s because he wants something of her; but still, this suggestion of beauty is engrossing. She should have left then but a feeling like concrete keeps her there. Beauty is a sticky, seductive notion.

  He takes pictures for a long time while outside the rain falls dark and slow. Inside it is warm and Michael is thrilling, his eyes, his hands.

  She never thinks of it as losing her virginity to Michael Abbey. She sees it more as a gift to herself and to someone who, for that moment, seems to care for her. He shows her how to hold him and he’s tender. This is the most you can ever ask of men, she reasons, that they seem to care.

  They clean up the bit of blood on the couch with copy paper. When tears appear he holds her and strokes her hair and then the phone rings and it’s Mick Fan on the speaker screaming, ‘What the fuck is going on down there? Where’s the hourly update?’ he also wonders whether it’s a bloody morgue in Melbourne and Michael Abbey and Louisa, both half-dressed in the studio, have to laugh at that one.

  After she assures Mick Fan that she will get his updates to him soon, she finds her tears have dried and that Michael is getting dressed and time is back in its envelope.

  The next day Louisa feels the weight of a bruise within. Feels that her pelvis has carried something heavy. She knows she won’t be the same and yet she’s pleased about it, pleased that girl is folding into the wind. Now she is really an adult and that means she’s further from home. She realises she could have made a more careful choice but what’s done is done. Childhood is over. Let the future begin.

  On Monday, Wayne’s hanging around as usual and after taking a surreptitious peak, clears off briefly when Michael gives her the folio of pictures. Louisa remains friendly with Michael for years but they never make love again. He never offers to help with her knitting and he never offers to leave his girlfriend.

  ***

  Louisa edges at her father with little squares of ten-paragraph stories cut from the paper and stuffed into a manila folder and later, with Abbey’s photos. Perhaps she hopes that these things might tame him.

  On the Saturday she takes the headshots home, she finds Emmett alone at the kitchen table, a glass of VB and the form guide open out before him. It’s a glassy kind of day and she’s enjoyed the walk from the station past all the houses she knows with a terrible intimacy. Every step is charted. And every inch of change noted.

  Stepping into the kitchen is like walking back in time. She falters when she sees him looming at the table suddenly right there before her, absorbing all space. But today he recovers fast from this unexpected privacy theft. ‘Louie, the baby girl come to visit the old man!’ He sounds up but he looks old. The grey cardigan is strained across his stomach and the darkness of the years is disclosed under his eyes.

  ‘Everyone’s out mate,’ he says gruffly, then remembers his manners, ‘but I’m glad you dropped in. Bit of a chinwag eh? Would you like an ale?’

  ‘No,’ she snaps, appalled that he would offer her beer. ‘Dad, it’s ten-thirty!’ she adds, with a kind of umpire’s reason in her voice. She’s surrounded by the stench of booze, the old rival but experience says shallow breathing will defeat it.

  Briskly, she gets her coat off and puts the kettle on and soon a chaste mug of tea seethes before her and she asks, ‘So how ya bin?’ and he says well enough and looking her over brightly says, ‘You look pretty swank today, Miss Louie.’ Now that she’s got money she dresses well and today she’s got her new short brown boots under her Levis and a short tweed jacket and a long-sleeved white T-shirt with small pink roses all over it.

  As ever, compliments leave her puzzled and silenced so she slides the folder across the table at him and it nudges the form guide and that’s not a good thing, could annoy him. She decides to ignore it.

  He straightens the newspaper carefully, even reverently, and then opens the folder and pushes the pictures out over the table. When he looks up he smiles like an old man. ‘Hmmm. You know Lou, you look like a movie star,’ he decides. ‘Reckon I could have this one? Spare your old man one photo?’

  She agrees and as he holds it, the alcoholic tremor works itself in him and a loose fragment of pity hits her and she thinks, you poor old quivery thing, and closes her eyes for a second to steady herself. Emmett, in his grey cardigan and unironed blue work shirt, collar up on one side, scans the photo like there might be an answer in it. ‘I know!’ he says, jubilant and clears his throat. ‘I know who it is you look like. That little girl in Romeo and Juliet from the film, that’s who you look like.’ Louisa says nothing. It’s Emmett she looks like, not some movie star.

  So they fall back on book talk for a while and Emmett gets interested because he loves matching books and people. ‘I tell you who you should read. D.H. Lawrence. A wonderful writer and a true voice for mine.’ He’s getting misty now as he often does about his special writers.

  Louisa starts to bristle. She hasn’t read much Lawrence but it’s 1977 and the accepted thinking says that Lawrence is a male chauvinist pig. She decides to share this with her father even though her knowledge of Lawrence is extremely limited. She brushes her hair back with a hand, her voice lifts a notch and she heads into the breach. ‘Come off it. He’s nothing but a misogynist. Why on earth would I read that crap?’ she demands. ‘You must be joking.’

  Emmett is astonished at the attack. Bloody kids, he thinks, a man’s trying to be sociable and gets it wrong yet again. He has no wish for bloody tension today so he says, ‘Don’t do your block now Louie. Bit prickly today, eh? Strike me. You kids have got an answer to every bloody thing in the world.’ He laughs, scratches his head, messing up his hair so he looks slightly crazy, and can’t disguise a longing look over at the form guide.

  He doesn’t give up on the books though but when he suggests Mailer, Louisa stands up abruptly and with a haughty look snatches up all the pictures, including the one she’s given him, and shoves them in the folder. She gets her coat and heads home, glad that home is no longer where he lives. It’s two trains away and the pictures are balanced on her knees in the manila folder and all the way she can’t decide whether she’s a bitch or whether she hates her father. Both true she allows.

  And on that departing train, she realises there’s no going back. Whatever home was it’s all finished and I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going, she thinks, grabbing at her hair and pulling it over her shoulder.

  On the dirty old Saturday train, a knot of leering youths is looking for trouble and a woman with almost no hair reads a fat pot-boiler. The shipping containers are low but they’ll build up again. Things come and go. Life sucks and then it’s fine. Emmett is disconcertingly pleasant and then he’s a shit again. Stuff happens. She looks around the train and thinks, these people are all making it. Pretend you know what you’re doing, and keep going. She holds that thought all the way to Flinders Street.

  30

  At work in the long days of learning about journalism, Louisa is well aware of John Keele. He’s tall and lean and mayb
e, she thinks, he’s kind. But mostly she likes his tanned face, his grey eyes, his full lips and wide smile. She forgives the slightly beaky nose and loves the straggly straw hair. Gary says he’d be right for her because there’s some kind of symmetry going on, fair and dark, tall and not so tall; but then Gary reckons many men would be right for her, which is becoming annoying.

  John works up the back of the newsroom in the sports department a few desks away and over time they become distantly connected through lust. Often, in any lull, they will glance towards each other then guiltily, hastily, look away. When he catches her looking, she feels a tilt in her heart. There’s an old intent at work here and Louisa, even though she’s wary, would be happy to look at John Keele all day.

  And John even seems less threatening than other men. There are the smiles for one thing, and his surfer looks make him seem otherworldly in the office. He wears the same grey suit every day but this has been duly noted because little escapes trained observers like renowned luncher and Melbourne sports editor, Ralphie-boy Hobbs. It’s often late in the afternoon when he puts on his little performance pieces and today, in a booming voice so everyone can hear, he asks Louisa, ‘What is the difference between a journalist and a reporter?’ Bit of theatre to cheer up the troops. But Louisa couldn’t care less. She’s about to make a phone call to the Lord Mayor to ask him about a councillor charged with something seamy involving council funds. She’s nervous and she’s written out her questions but as usual she’s got the order all screwed up and the good questions end up at the bottom of the list and as the time appointed for the phone call looms, she re-numbers but her nerves are as taut as a kite string. ‘Honestly, I would not know Ralphie,’ she snaps, looking down at her messy list. ‘I’m sorry, I’m still busy here you know.’

  She’s impatient, but Ralphie’s pushing on with the joke. ‘Never mind love, must be that time of the month.’ Everyone laughs. ‘Take young Mr Keele here,’ he says and winks, ‘he’s a reporter because he’s got one suit. Now if he had two, he’d be a journalist.’

  Weak laughter wafts through the newsroom and copy paper is scrunched and hurled at Keele. It’s that golden time of the afternoon when early deadlines have passed and the light sneaks in through the big smudgy windows and first thoughts of clearing off for the day arise. Today there’s a game of cricket with a taped-up copy paper ball and a cardboard bat and the news editor’s bin as stumps and sixes are carted all over the newsroom.

  But Louisa still isn’t finished so she keeps her head down behind the shield of the upturned typewriter and tosses the paper ball back without looking when it lands on her desk. She does the phone interview with the hostile Lord Mayor and he calls her impertinent and hangs up on her so all is not in vain. When she looks up, it’s like coming up for air. She manages to read back her notes, which is unusual. Sydney wants five pars just to cover themselves so she files.

  It shocks her later that night when John Keele is waiting for her downstairs in the circle of light out the front. She steps back when she sees him, understanding instantly that the time of looks is over. ‘Come for a drink Lou?’ he asks, and in the bright light she sees his one suit is shiny and creased; but still, it is thrilling to be so close to him. This Keele person seems like someone I know, she thinks, someone I’ve always known.

  In the corner of the drab smoky pub they sit on high stools at a round table away from the others from The Ant who are already running a shop on the likelihood of a match. John Keele talks about music and poetry.

  He puts a glass of paint-stripper wine on the table before her and says, ‘That’ll put hairs on your chest,’ and blushes then yanks opens a bag of chicken-flavoured chips way too hard and spills them over the sticky table like so many communion wafers. Louisa picks one up, eats it and smiles.

  After a silence, acutely observed and snickered over by the comrades at the bar, John wants to know her favourite book. She surprises herself by saying Alice in Wonderland which is the truth but she instantly wishes she’d gone for something cooler. She smiles and sips wine.

  He drinks Coopers beer from South Australia because that’s where he’s from. Men and beer, she thinks, and a mild wave of nausea catches her. John laughs at some of the things she says and thinks she’s kidding when she describes her father as a psychopathic maniac. ‘You are an absolute riot Louisa, who would have thought it,’ he says, grinning like a happy schoolboy. She sips the turpentine wine and thinks, this is not going so well.

  He talks about his poetry and then about his mother’s heart disease and he seems caring and tender and, almost against her will, she finds herself noticing his fine hands, his wide wrists and his raw mouth; and then her heart is beating way too hard. This is no good. She gets up to leave, gathering bag and coat fast. ‘Goodbye,’ she says, brushing chip crumbs away, ‘I’ve got to get home.’ And she’s gone, leaving the chorus of comrades smirking at John until he joins them with tales from the front.

  Walking to the train, almost running, she tries to work out what has just happened. Whatever it is, this cannot be good because when he speaks to me, she thinks, I feel empty. Empty and full. As if I had so much room to hear him, as if listening were a whole new thing. What is it? she asks herself. What is this thing that’s going on? Later, she will recognise that it was his kindness that got her.

  The next day on her muddled desk with its fossilised phone numbers and addresses and mugs lined with mysterious festering layers, there’s a small brown paper parcel tied with string. Her name is written gracefully in black ink. She smiles. Seeing her name in print always gives her a jolt, makes Louisa feel real, that if someone’s written it down, there must be a person to match. Vain idiot, she mutters to herself, open the damn thing.

  Still in her coat but slowly, to stretch the moment, she opens the parcel to find a very old copy of Alice in Wonderland. It can only be from John Keele. On the title page he’s written a quote from Alice: ‘He was part of my dream, of course ... but then I was part of his dream too.’

  31

  Though she’s out of there now, out of the daily round of it all, Louisa assumes that Emmett is much the same and no one tells her different because once you leave, the group closes around those who remain. She can see this.

  But regardless of Emmett, change is on its perfect swooping course and not even a year after Louisa leaves, Anne decides she needs to be around more for Jessie.

  The local rag has long been a solace for her. It means half an hour to herself and any child who interrupts her at it gets short shrift. She often gets a snack to go with her read and in summer it’ll be a nice tomato cut up fine and dosed with a dash of vinegar, salt and white pepper. With her tomato diced in a dainty dish, she retires to the kitchen table for a detailed perusal of the local, and she always finishes with a smoke.

  Today, a tiny speck of an ad says there’s a shop for rent on the road to Footscray about a mile away backing onto the railway line; but still, people get used to trains. She pores over the ad. ‘The House of Norma’ has been on Williams Road in West Footscray for at least thirty years and now it’s for sale. A ladies’ frock salon, she reads, frocks, hmm yeah, I could sell frocks till the cows come home. This will do me, she thinks, I’ll have my own income and I’ll be there for Jessie. Two birds, with one stone.

  When it’s time to tell Emmett, she’s hollowed by fear but he stuns her by being sensible. It’s one of his reversals when he behaves just like a normal person. ‘Reckon you can make a go of it, do ya?’ he asks quietly, even reverently. They’re sitting on the back step after tea. ‘Time to change,’ he says, ‘best for all of us.’

  That late summer night as Emmett and Anne talk, the crickets sing in the hard grey dirt of the yard and they catch a glimpse of a pocket of indigo sky tucked between their roof and next door’s. She explains her strategy slowly to Emmett and the possibilities reveal themselves one at a time like emerging stars.

  They could strike it rich here, he thinks, feeling heat in the idea, she’
s a bloody handy dressmaker, can talk to anyone and she’s got a business head on her shoulders. Could definitely be a goer. ‘I’ll be in it,’ he declares, ‘definitely.’ They shake hands and respectfully, he kisses her cheek.

  They decide he will stay on at Wolf Street with Peter while they sell up and Anne will go straight to the shop. After the sale of Wolf Street, they’ll buy the shop and all live there. She’ll get Jessie settled in at the state school down the road and get the shop going. All sorted.