Well, these things were trying, it was all rather sad. But Caesar was only a dog — a mongrel, at that, and Hazel, poor thing, had been weak in the coconut for ages. These things happened, but they didn’t much matter.
What did, was that Lou had her hair cut. She decided all of a sudden. One minute she was dusting Auntie’s shepherdess ornament, the next she had this feeling that she couldn’t stay in the house. It was as if she’d smother if she didn’t get out of Sorrento, and she couldn’t bear the feel of her hair hanging floppy on her neck. She knew she’d go mad as Hazel if she couldn’t have a shingle; if she didn’t get away from Tom’s moony eyes and Doll sitting in the drawing room in a little pool of dust. She was in the way when you swept the carpet, she wouldn’t move her feet. Auntie was someone Lou couldn’t ignore, since she’d chosen to come in from the garden.
She was creepy. Like a fly with no wings, or the white puppy that squirmed on the road till the man came to hit it with a brick.
Life was meant to be charming, and Lou was being cheated. She threw down her duster and went to Auntie’s drawer; she knew she had every right. If she’d stayed at the Bon Marché to be a shop girl there would have been regular pay-days. She felt virtuous as an avenging angel as she opened Auntie’s hanky box where she kept the neatly folded pound notes. She knew she was off to town. There was just time to catch the morning charabanc.
And all the way in, as the Hills sped by, she felt in a trance. She couldn’t stop smiling, as she savoured the secret. How on the outside she was merely Lou Mundy — fat, with old-fashioned hair. A sensible girl who anticipated a house with rockwork and china frogs in the garden; whose first finger left was nearly pricked raw from all that sewing for her glory box.
But in secret, inside, Lou was quite someone else. Hot jazz melodies bloomed in her head, and it was autumn, but she was tormented by spring. She felt as tempted as a heroine of Miss Corelli’s; she didn’t care if she ended up like Lillian Gish in Way Down East, being turned out into the snow by her stern papa.
Lillian had a baby without being married, and it was a film Ella used to cry in. Lou snuggled against her, and started sobbing, too, as she bit on her ice block from interval. The piano vamped worse and your plush seat was soft. Your teeth ached from their bite on ice; the tears spread warm on your cheeks …
In Adelaide, flags and pennants waved from every point of vantage; triumphal arches were going up everywhere. For Their Royal Highnesses were almost come. Hotels were full, boarding houses crowded. Visitors, finding accommodation difficult to obtain, were sleeping two and three in a room.
It was a fairytale city and Lou had the feeling that some of the magic was laid on for her. She had money in her purse and something good was going to happen — she would return to the Gully with curls like question marks on her cheeks and her coat collar rubbing a freshly shaved neck.
The shop window dummies wore satin and lace. Though, as well as evening frocks, there was all this fur wear. For winter approached — even the Duke and Duchess couldn’t keep it away. You’d soon need that coney coat, that stole of skunk opossum. There were rabbit skins, squirrel skins, marmot skins, wolf skins — so elegant and excellent, so smart and cosy. But they were dead, dead, dead. The worst one was the fox with its little dangling paws. Its glass eyes stared. Girlie had a fox fur like that.
And now Lou was inside the biggest of the big shops. And she must hurry from counter to counter; she must purchase lippy and powder and scent (and should it be Russian Violets or La France Rose?). It was as if she had a fever; even as she waited to be served she had a feeling of panic that only a counter away was the best buy of all — if she didn’t get a move on she’d miss it.
She must have the crêpe de Chine hanky, the shadow silk stockings; the velvet poppy, the sequin ornament. And then she was going up in the lift, and so many ladies crammed tight together smelled strange. There was a smell of wild beasts under the icing sugar smell of cosmetics.
Some ladies were going up to the Tea Gallery and Roof Garden with its glorious view of the city’s scenic environs. But Lou got out at the Beauty Parlour, where all ravages of climate and age might be removed.
It was Hairdressing, too, and you didn’t need an appointment. Next thing, Lou was sitting before a mirror, and she hadn’t known it would be done by a man. She felt embarrassed as he bent over her, his hands intimately brushing her neck. And then it was like murder: just a few cruel snips, and her hair was all over the floor.
She felt trembly as she got ready to meet him. It was thrilling pulling on the stockings and smoothing her eyebrows with spit. She pouted, so her underlip resembled a shiny cherry; she had a second dab of Russian Violets, for it would be a let-down if he didn’t catch the scent.
And he was there by the lemon trees, and so overcome by her appearance that he didn’t know what to say. They started walking and he seemed scared to touch her — even her hand. Leaves fluttered down; autumn flowers were everywhere. Soon Lou’s silky legs were powdered with pollen, flecked with winged seeds.
They stumbled, separate, through soursobby orchards. Teakle’s wouldn’t have bothered with these trees. The peaches and apricots were given up to curl-leaf and spot-hole; the apples were full of codlin moth.
Garnet was a stranger, struck dumb. It was crazy, fantastic, and Lou gave herself up to the dream. He led her through a forest, an enchanted wood. They went in and out of sun and shade — now your eyes were crinkled, fighting the light; now they were blinking, trying to see in the dark. Leaves crumbled away under their feet. The trees loomed and it grew darker; then the leaves came untangled, they seemed to be burning, and the light was smoky before it went gold. They linked hands and started to run. He loved her, Lou knew, though his face was so set, so strange.
They crashed through the grass together. Branches see-sawed, something secret scurried away. And now the apple trees were familiar, for they’d reached the orchard that bordered the model nursery. There was a smell of wet flowers, a sound of water flowing. The bushes looked furry, like caterpillars; leaves stuck out like hands that wanted something from you.
Suddenly they were standing still. He looked at her and started laughing as he ran his hands through her hair. He laughed, and she couldn’t bear it. She tried to push him away, but the grass laced her feet, it tripped her up. He fell with her, and for a moment they lay quiet; they were tender as their bodies tilted together.
But then the grass went bruised. They were fighting and hitting and the sky slid sideways and now it wasn’t day but night. He lay over her and blocked out the sun and she cried out for him to go on. Her body went careless, she wanted anything to happen. She was so big, she was just like Ella.
They folded close, to make a big pale animal. You must fondle it, feel. Some parts were silky-smooth, others were fuzzy as the skin of a peach, and there were hanging bits like queerer fruit.
And now it was happening fast, now it was slow. It went on and on and tears were all over Lou’s powdered face for it hurt before it was beautiful. And she pushed her body at him, for she never wanted it to stop, but they started to come apart; her skin slipped away from his fingers.
Then they were dolls. They lay separate, sprawled, and Lou opened her eyes to see clouds making a tree in the sky; and the rayed sun was a flower, there was a wrinkled moon pressing close, too. It was a scene just as perfect, as pretty, as a Tarot card picture. This face like a moon seemed to think so, as well. It watched them hard; it watched them with a queer flushed smile. He was hidden in the bushes but Lou saw him. One eye was gloating; the other stayed cold, unmoved, because it was glass.
3
The soldiers kept coming and his eyes made him look. He didn’t bother to tear them up, now. When he tore them, his fingers turned sorry; they must play paper chase over the floor, then get out the Tarzan’s Grip glue, and stick till the soldiers were mended.
Resurrected, they were worse than
before. Somehow the wrong bits were always united. Blue tunic, scarlet-faced, buttoned up to workaday khaki; shiny black boot clicked against Blancoed shoe; feathered cocked hat merged with Kilmarnock bonnet.
He’d been sticking so long and with such care and he’d only succeeded in making comics. All their daredevil swagger, their hostile beauty, had ended up merely ridiculous. Faces were splintered with tear marks like rapier wounds, stale glue dribbled like sweat from beneath the spiked helmet; and you were young and old at the same time, your smile began smooth and finished jagged. Instead of being a hero, perfectly brutal, you were reduced to a rickety monster.
And Charlie hated them, he loved them. They were Papa, they were the Duke — he was so muddled.
For there were always new pictures, and now they’d stopped being anonymous; now they were always of one man.
But the Duke was every inch a sailor. He wore captain’s uniform and the royal train had brought him from Melbourne, and as he stepped from the carriage the Artillery Officer telephoned ‘Fire’. So that as the Duke’s foot touched red carpet the first shot of a twenty-one gun salute boomed out.
And autumn sunshine came crisply from pale blue skies, mingling deliciously with a south-westerly breeze that stirred the bunting. And there was martial music and the triumphal progress started off, the troopers’ white horses trailed dung. All Adelaide cheered and the Town Hall bells chimed. People tip-toed, they stood on tables and step-ladders. Pink-stockinged legs (looking dreadfully nude from a distance) made a fringe along the roof of the Post Office, where flappers sat on the parapet and defied nerves.
Charlie didn’t understand. There must be a reason for the newspaper cuttings. With the one headlined ADELAIDE’S SUNNY WELCOME was one telling what happened in ’68. Then it was another tour, another Duke, and the Fenians plotted assassination. But though the bullet felled H.R.H., he recovered to live. A wave of relief passed over the continent and the miscreant was hanged and was it supposed to happen again? But Charlie didn’t have a gun — was he meant to play David with a stone? He couldn’t be sure. He wished his head didn’t hurt; he wished he wasn’t alone.
Caesar had died. He stretched his neck to snap at the ball and it was a lively bouncer (Caesar smiled as it gripped his teeth), but instead of being india-rubber, a ball that would not injure, it was heavy — like a big marble, a large spangled knocker, a glass tiger, a Yankee steelie — and it kept going down: till it stuck.
And Charlie wanted to cry but he started to laugh. He was so alone, and he had to get away from his house. Someone had switched balls, and he couldn’t sit lonely without giving vent to his feelings. He kept crying and laughing, and seeing Caesar half-choking, then choked. And the soldiers kept advancing, and the Duke had come, and what was Charlie to do?
But when he left the hermitage, the wind tried to drive him back — it swirled his cloak, it spun him round — and the herbs clutched his feet, but he trampled them off, so that herby smells blended together. And the bees swarmed and clustered, so he must play scarecrow and waggle his fingers; he must ape St Vitus dancing with angels. And he threw his head from side to side like the mad Bible king, for it was a man hunt and all nature was out to get him.
Things rushed and ran, they came in scurrying surges — they were ants and beetles and queer red bugs, and something hissing through the leafy tunnel. It blew hard enough to puff him back home, but Charlie persisted. He vaulted pits and trenches and the grass jostled him — it was green and waving and dangerous as a sea full of snap-toothed sharks — but Charlie pursued his solitary path and at last the Hills turned calm.
Now everything was comical in the extreme, and Charlie started to sing. He sang: ‘Oh where, oh where is my little dog gone? Oh where, oh where can he be?’ Nothing mattered, for Charlie had braved chasms, forests, bogs, morasses, mountains and now it was a marshland … but, no — it only reminded him of that because everything was grey: sky, gum trees, fence posts, grass. But then the sun returned; it shone in his eyes, sparking and tinselled, till Charlie must wince with pain as he remembered how she was a pretty little thing, a dear, and he gave her violets and roses, and everywhere he went she was with him, even in old-fashioned lands where icicles were hanging daggers and snowflakes whirled like white bees. But he lost her in modern times. But Charlie blinked away the tears — for, not to worry, she was somewhere ahead.
He was on his way to find her, even though there was magic and witchcraft about. He was in among the twisty apple trees, and there were sucking sounds for the creek was near. Charlie went on and on, past the shadows of the willows, and now he’d come to her orchard. Her house was up the top of the hill and she’d run down to meet him and for so long he’d sought her, he’d kept himself pure, and now here she was. But it was sad, for she made it seem easy, as she held out her arms. Charlie couldn’t watch. He hid behind the bushes and, hiding, he missed out on his turn.
Someone else took her. Her skin filled a stranger’s fingers; her body burst into his hands. And she had tricked him, for she wasn’t a child at all. She was a big girl, a woman, and the boy threw her down. Now Charlie must look. He felt sick but he must see: their bodies stuck together like pink nougat pieces, the sweat moustaches above their lips. Then his face went over hers like a mask, and in their armpits were little furry animals, and it seemed they did cheek-to-cheek dancing, lying down.
The light swam and trembled, midges veiled them in a gauzy tent, but nothing could hide what they did. Charlie shivered. He felt as if he watched them through a pane of icy glass. They were locked in a warm fleshy world, while he was left out in winter forever. They were together but Charlie was alone, and he hated them, he wanted to sing about a lady who kept a wonderful tomcat. And root-to-to-too-e-e-it! — didn’t they go at it; wasn’t he a regular slobberlips.
Oh, but it was disgusting and they were only two kids, yet rooting like they could never have enough. At last they fell back. The galanty show was over and they lay loose as puppets on the grass.
And all through the Hills, boys were running. They were boys from Fern Gully College, but they’d taken off their Roman Catholic clothes. Now the boys were disguised in khaki, and they had knotted hankies round their necks and soldiers’ hats; shoulder patches, name tapes and badges.
These boys were Boy Scouts and Tom wished he were one, too. A Scout knew the secret sign and did a good deed a day and was always smiling. Scouts could tie reef knot and clove-hitch and fly the Union Jack; they were wise fellows who didn’t scatter toffee papers and would end up with money in the Savings Bank. Now they were out here, running about. Tom watched them nicking tree trunks, consulting the compass, arranging arrows from sticks and stones.
It was like a club, and everyone was in one but Tom. If you weren’t a Boy Scout you could be boy and girl together like Lou and Garnet, or you could give up like Doll and sit tight till you belonged to your chair. Everyone belonged to something, everyone had their label. You were a Catholic or a boy-hero or a hermit — Tom wasn’t anything at all. Once he’d had Charlie who’d said they were equals; but when Caesar died, Charlie Roche changed. You couldn’t tell him about Auntie anymore, for he’d turned into Cockroach; he’d become the hermit he was supposed to be. And a hermit belonged to aloneness, so Tom must be frightened away.
Cockroach waved his stick, he spoke foreign. His glass eye spat fire and he was the gipsy who’d steal you, the sandman who’d send you to sleep. He was as bad as the wind that could freeze the grimace on your face, or the falling star that meant a dead baby.
Tom had left the Scouts behind. He was out of the gum trees and into the orchard and up there was The Frangipani Gardens and down among the apple trees was Charlie …
And since he’d seen her play harlot, nothing counted. It was all he could think of: her baby flesh growing bloated, turning wickedly womanish before his eyes. One minute she was innocent; the next, spinko-spanko, she was ruined.
Charlie
had wanted to kill her, but somehow she got away. She did up buttons like a mad thing, she hid herself in a grown-up disguise. The gentleman stayed reclining on the grass. Charlie could have killed him easy.
But bow-wow-wow, it was angel-child he was after, and damme, if he didn’t feel her hand on his sleeve. It seemed like her; Charlie thought it was her. It felt like little girl’s hand, though the eyes and the hair were different …
And Tom touched him, he shook him gently, for it seemed that Charlie must be asleep. Though was it Charlie? — Tom couldn’t be sure. The skin was right — splintered and wrinkled; the eyes were Charlie’s, too. But the spirit of the man was missing …
And the child kept pestering him and it wasn’t a girl but a boy, it wasn’t the one he wanted. But it had a child’s flesh and its smell — milksop mixed with the sweaty scent of new pennies — was perfect: little girl had smelled like that.
Charlie mused; he sat mum, and felt the dizzy pleasure creep upon him. The child’s smell, its fingers, had stirred an old animal to life. Charlie’s body stopped being sawdust-stuffed; now it was inhabited by a nightmare wolf. The child was a silly, it would deserve all it would get. The animal was savage with a fury’s temper, but the child kept petting it on.
And he wouldn’t care what he did. He would let the animal have its head. For so long Charlie Roche had been hated and feared; he’d been treated as a foe by the Gully. He was tired of playing wise man, of keeping himself good.
But Tom loved Charlie and he started to fight. Fighting was like having a fit. It was being a golden eagle and beating at Charlie with your wings, assailing him with your great cutting beak.
Tom twisted and writhed and grasped Charlie’s stick. He raised it in tender violence, for he loved Charlie so much he would kill him, he would do anything to free him from the devil beast’s grip. But he didn’t have to bring the stick down, for at the sight of it Charlie was cowed. He was no longer a tiger who’d munch away your arm to the elbow; now he was a captive circus beast, enfeebled and mangy.
The Frangipani Gardens Page 16