‘Shit!’ echoed Clover.
Whoops. ‘Come on, Cloves, let’s pump the tyres up.’
‘Oooh, is nice bike. Big girl bike!’
That afternoon I rode around the streets of Emyvale, keeping my hood up and my head down, and I cycled towards Miss Nell’s house. It was my favourite house in Emyvale, a beautiful little weatherboard cottage next door to the primary school. When I was little, it had been perfect: painted bright yellow and with a verandah at the front. Agapanthus lining the path and a flower-filled garden laid out just so. It looked like a storybook house, which was probably why I loved it so much.
Now, the house looked empty – abandoned even. I could hardly see through grimy windows. The front door was locked, so I walked around the house. A pane of glass had fallen out of the back-door window so I was able to get in. Inside, I went from room to room. There wasn’t any furniture left. The house felt tilted. Forlorn.
I sat down in the middle of what would have been her lounge room and tried to imagine what spending the rest of the year at home would look like. Could they force me to go to school? Did I want to finish year twelve? And working at the historical society – I couldn’t quite imagine it. Maybe I wanted to be getting on a plane and flying to see new places, meet new people. I was ready for it! But I also wasn’t. I, in a very secret part of myself, wasn’t sure I was brave enough. Plus I didn’t even have a passport.
I lay down, even though the floor was dusty and probably covered in creepy crawlies. I needed a new perspective.
The ceiling was cracked. Maybe it always had been. I mean, the house was old. But now the outside was starting to come in. Tendrils of plants crept through floorboards and around the window and doorframes.
Was this what happened if you sat too long in Emyvale?
I had to get out of there.
Miss Nell had always had a honeysuckle that climbed up one of the beams of her verandah, by the front door. One week, when it was my turn to deliver the weekly school newsletter (she loved it when kids came a-knocking), she sat outside to chat with me. ‘Thank you, dear. Now, which one are you?’
I brushed my hand along the little pinky white blooms, enjoying the way they bobbed and moved on the bush. ‘I’m Adelaide Longley.’
‘Ah!’ She picked off a flower and held it up to her lips. ‘I know your grandpa.’
I picked one, too, and distinctly remember looking up at her as though waiting for her okay. I put the end of the flower to my mouth and enjoyed the sweet honeysuckle taste. Miss Nell smiled at me, her eyes disappearing into her wrinkled skin in a friendly way.
Now the plant hung limp and brownish, as though it hadn’t been watered in a long, long time. I felt a sadness unfurl in my stomach.
When I got home I asked Mum what had happened. She got all quiet and sympathetic. ‘Oh, Addie, my love. Miss Nell died last year. Didn’t I tell you? She was a very old lady.’
True. Miss Nell had always looked about a hundred years old, even when I was eight.
Another sad scene for the strange little town of Emyvale.
I didn’t talk much about home to the girls at school. My family and my childhood in Emyvale seemed so separate to St Thomas’s and the girl I could be there. I doubted my stories would entertain, anyway – our funny small town with its one main street, one supermarket, one bakery (that wasn’t Bakers Delight and where the shop girls didn’t have to wear lame little hats). The other country kids had the same stories, and the city kids had much more exciting ones. After the first term or so, nobody ever seemed to expect me to tell stories at all.
‘How was the break?’ someone would cry on our first day back, throwing her arms around me.
‘Good,’ I’d say. They never really asked for more detail, not even Mia. Maybe they’d make a joke or two about cows, sheep or bogans.
Until I went to high school, coming from the country didn’t feel weird or different. It was just home. And even when I thought home was embarrassing, backwards and uncool, a little tiny part of me wanted to defend it.
Because there’s all the great parts to a country town. Community, space to ride a bike, backyards for acres. Giving directions using landmarks like ‘the Blairs’ big shed’ or ‘the corner where Nana Dear rolled the car’. And there’s something comforting about everyone knowing who you are. Until you realise there’s always someone who knows what you’re up to.
So now I was back in the family bosom for at least eight long months. In my head I was calling it ‘coming home for a spell before having adventures’. Because thinking about it too much made me feel well and truly claustrophobic.
I’d just said a really big no, which was really brave. Yes to everything else from now on! There was so much I wanted to do! Once I did my time here.
‘You’re just like me, dreamer-girl,’ Mum mused as we sat on the couch that evening listening to ‘This American Life’.
‘And what would you tell younger you?’
‘To listen to my mother,’ she said, serious as you like. She put her forehead to mine and looked me in the eyeballs. Then she burst out laughing. ‘Oh my god! Imagine where I’d be if I’d listened to my mother!’
Mum’s parents still lived in Brisbane in a tidy little house, and their favourite things to do included going out once a week to the sports club for a meal, going to church events and criticising their children’s life choices. Mum never visited them anymore. When I was little we drove all the way up the coast for a family holiday and all I remember is that their house was very quiet, and they had a pool. It was awesome. But now I was older I could understand that Mum had found it impossible. They weren’t supportive when at eighteen she left home to travel to Melbourne. They weren’t supportive when she met my dad. My uncles had both left their parents too. Mum’s older brother lived in South Africa and her younger brother worked in the mines in Western Australia.
‘But seriously,’ I asked. ‘What advice would you have for your younger self?’
I was so brave.
Mum put a ‘serious mother’ face on.
I waited for her wisdom.
‘I think,’ she started, ‘that all I want for you – and for me, for that matter – is to be happy, and healthy. Basic rights, right? But then there’s the other layer, many other layers. I want you to be challenged, I want you to have goals. I want you to know love, and passion—’ She cut herself off here and added in a jokey voice, waving her hands about, ‘Not that I want to hear about that.’ And then she pulled herself up and got serious again. ‘But don’t feel like you can’t talk to me about that, if you have questions or any problems. Oh, Adelaide! Nothing happened up in the city you need to talk to me about, did it?’
‘No, Mum.’ I’d started to think this wasn’t the time to be asking for her advice.
‘Phew! But listen, I’m getting distracted. If you really want my advice, if you need help deciding what to do, here’s what I think. Get out of the house. Go get involved. Have you talked to any of your friends since you’ve been back?’
‘Mia’s constantly texting me,’ I said. She’d sent a photo of the side of Mr Ellis’s head, which I took to mean she missed me. Or that she thought Mr Ellis was still mighty fine.
‘I mean your friends here. Jenny and Sam, any of the others from primary school. You guys were all so close once upon a time.’
‘Yeah, once upon a time,’ I emphasised, trying to bring home the sense of fantasy and just how in the past it all was.
‘Well, they’re still around. I’m sure they would love to see you. Give Jenny a call, it’d do you good.’
‘And that’s your advice?’
‘That’s my advice.’
I tried to hide the fact that I was rolling my eyes.
‘And another thing. I agree with Clive and Verity. I think you should finish off your studies.’
‘I’m not going back t
o school!’
‘Don’t shriek!’
‘I’m not shrieking!’
‘You don’t have to go to school. I’ve been in touch with the distance education people, twisted some arms, and you can do it all from the comfort of our lovely home.’ She spread her arms wide as if to take in all the clutter and joy of the house. Ears hopped around the side of the couch and nibbled on the rug. ‘Can you make that work?’ she asked.
I couldn’t disappoint her. And I couldn’t think of a better option. There were only eight months until exams. Not even that. Then I’d be free. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘There you go. I knew you were smart.’ Mum winked. Then she kissed my head. ‘I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too late.’
‘I won’t,’ I sing-songed.
But I stayed on the couch until late, patted Ears and let him hop around the room depositing little round presents while I watched a film I’d seen many times before and messaged with Mia.
She wrote: Babe! What’s yr plan? Coming back to school?
Might go fruit picking? I replied. Prob meet a handsome world-travellin’ backpacker.
Or you cld volunteer in an African orphanage!
Or go to Japan just for fun
Yusssssss xx
Or do school by distance ed
For reals?
Yeah. Boring I know. But is compromise with family.
Your mum is so cool. My dad wld have killed me by now.
Want to go to Berlin at end of the year?
Yes for sure! Gotta sleep now tho – love yr face x
The idea of dropping out was romantic, but now I’d agreed to the school plan I guessed I would just do it.
I reconciled myself to the so-called charms of Emyvale until the end of the year.
On the day of my first historical society shift, two weeks after sneaking back to Emyvale on the 4.13 train, I rode my bike down through town and watched it waking up. Down past houses fringed with autumn-leafed trees and the warble of magpies. The Emyvale streets tried hard to be suburban, with picket fences and standard roses, but there was so much grass and so much space. The fresh-bread breeze from the bakery blew along the main street.
Melbourne was always offensively awake by the time we headed to school. Roads congested, the stale salty smell blowing in from the bay mixing with exhaust fumes. CBD workers squished into trams looking like sad business-lemmings with their e-readers and bad haircuts. Fortunately, we only had to cross the road from the boarding house to our classrooms.
I was musing on how much more pleasurable my current state was than the old, when a horn blared behind me and I hit the brakes, skidding on the gravel between the road and the grass. My heart started beating like crazy.
It was some kid with a red P-plate on his ute’s windscreen. His tyres squealed as he rounded the corner.
What an idiot. In five years’ time he would just be some loser bludger with a beer gut. Probably married to some poor local girl who didn’t know better. Or he’d be just a white cross on some highway somewhere, some Christmas road statistic, a cautionary tale.
And me? At twenty-three? I’d be in New York City, making a living working in a café or an art gallery. My boyfriend would be a muso, his star on the rise. We’d live in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. It’d be Nick and Norah without the straight edge, F Scott Fitzgerald without the sexism. I’d read The Beautiful and the Damned and listen to Patti Smith and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I’d tell hilarious tales about my time as a reluctant intern at a small-town historical centre.
The Emyvale Historical Society and Museum was really just a dusty, poky, sad little place off the main street. A brick building, not old nor beautiful, tucked behind the big bluestone town hall. The hall was the most historically significant building of Emyvale, built not long after the explorers and early settlers came. Actually, my great-great-great-great-grandad colonised this land, something I had been really proud of until a couple of years ago when I’d actually started thinking about what our country’s colonial history really meant. Now the hall was an Australia Post and town information centre.
‘Good morning, Adelaide!’ Grandad was out the front, clearly waiting for me, though under the sneaky guise of picking up some stray sticks on the lawn. I would put money on him bringing the mower from home, to mow around here in neat circles, before raking it all up and composting it properly.
‘Hello,’ I called.
He rested the sticks in a pile by the wall and we went in. The temperature rose about ten degrees and I practically had to squint it was so dim. Heavy curtains hung over the windows.
‘So, what should I do?’ I asked, feeling awkward.
‘We’ll need you for lots of bits and bobs. I thought you could start with some reception work while you find your feet. What do you think?’
I had no idea. I guessed I’d do whatever they asked. So I just shrugged. ‘Sounds good.’
A shuffling old biddy came towards us. Her jumper was amazing, the fluffiest purple wool. ‘You remember Mrs Dobbs,’ said Grandad.
‘It’s very nice to see you again,’ I said, using my most polite voice.
‘Mrs Dobbs runs the newsletter and oversees the historical displays,’ Grandad explained.
Mrs Dobbs was older than my gran and her hair was all thin and wispy, but she was so well-dressed. I mostly couldn’t see the point of dressing up every day, or taking so much care in my appearance. Today I had tried though, putting on my good jeans, a long-sleeved top and a black-and-gold groundigan. (That’s a cardigan I’d found on the ground – practically new!)
‘So good to see the young people taking an interest in local history,’ said Mrs Dobbs. Her cashmere voice matched her jumper.
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I held back. Grandad was watching me, nodding and smiling, tapping his fingers on the top of the reception desk.
He introduced me to Bill, a big, shabby man, who was sitting at the only computer I could see in the room and clicking earnestly with the mouse, trying to open a file, his tongue out in concentration like a little kid.
‘Bill,’ said Grandad, ‘you know my Adelaide.’
Bill turned and smiled. He had a bunch of molars missing from his grin. But he wasn’t very old, maybe only in his forties. He sort of – and I know this sounds awful – looked like he might smell, so I decided I would try not to get too close.
Grandad put his hand on my shoulder. ‘She’s a whiz on the computer …’
‘Ah, the kids today, they’re the future, aren’t they?’ Bill nodded his head slowly, seriously.
‘She can give you a hand with anything, just ask her, she’ll be around.’
We then looked at the tea room, where there was a plate of scones under a tea towel on the bench, and Grandad showed me the shelves of folders and boxes, all labelled with dates and places, some typed, but most written by hand in permanent marker. ‘Today just settle in, make yourself at home.’ Grandad waved a pink feather duster towards me. ‘And perhaps give things a dust.’
The museum looked like a detective film from the 1980s. My post was to be a small wooden desk by the front entrance, so I was the sassy secretary who kept all the secrets and looked classy while doing it. I liked to think I had sass.
At eleven, Mrs Dobbs came towards me bearing a cup of tea. ‘Elevenses,’ she said. ‘And are you settling in all right?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I replied. ‘And thank you for the tea.’
I nosed through the papers and files on the desk and in the two flat drawers underneath. Maybe this was where the expression ‘paper pushing’ came from. There was a schedule book. There was a regular meeting on the second Wednesday of each month, marked just by a bright blue ink square with ‘7 pm to 9 pm’ within it. How vague. A wide array of dusty pamphlets: cemetery maps for the morbid or grieving, information on Areas of Interest
for tourists, advertisements for local B&Bs.
If ever someone came and wanted to visit the museum exhibits, it would be my job to welcome them and take their $3. Students and children could come in for $2. Unsurprisingly, despite it being a total bargain, not a single curious soul came through the doors that morning.
Just a little bit different to St Thomas’s and its schedules and rules and bells. And even if this was supremely dorky, beige and boring, at least I could breathe.
‘Do you get a lot of visitors?’
‘Comes and goes,’ said Bill. He and I sat at the table in the kitchen, eating our lunches.
Mum had found it hilarious to present me with my primary school lunchbox at breakfast that morning with a salad roll, a muesli bar and an apple inside.
‘I can make my own lunch!’ I’d said, mock-offended, but she just flicked me with the tea towel and told me to have a nice day, dear.
Bill had something in a plastic container, which he nuked and plopped onto a plate. ‘Chicken parma,’ he explained. ‘Di at the pub sometimes takes pity on me. Leftovers, you know?’
We sat in silence for a moment. I ran my fingertip around the lip of my water glass and made it sing.
‘I don’t do a lot of cooking, myself,’ Bill added.
‘Me either,’ I said. ‘So what are you doing today, you know, for work?’
‘We’re digitising the archives,’ he said, sitting up, his belly shifting against the table. ‘Bit of a process, but you’ve got to go online, don’t you?’
‘That’s good,’ I said automatically. ‘It will be a good resource for Emyvale.’
Would it? What was I saying? What a funny role I’d started to play.
I took my seat at the welcome desk for the afternoon stretch. No one visited in the afternoon either.
Grandad wandered past. ‘How’s that dusting coming along, then?’
I hadn’t dusted so much as a tiny dust mite. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Still some to go.’
My pink feather duster and I did the rounds of the two big rooms that made up the museum. All the galleries and museums I had ever been to in Melbourne on school excursions had exhibits that gleamed – and exhibits that consisted of slightly more interesting objects. So this, by comparison, was hardly a museum. More mausoleum.
Untidy Towns Page 3