She looked up and studied his face and eyes. “Thanks, but I will,” she said. She pulled out his handkerchief and blew her nose again, then walked quickly to the front door and out. Willy stood and watched her go from the top of the steps. She did not look up as she got on her bike and he could see she was red in the face and crying again. However as she pedalled down the street she turned to look back. Willy gave a feeble wave and tried to smile. He felt all choked up and was ready to cry himself. Marjorie looked away and rode off.
Willy slumped into a chair. He felt utterly exhausted and totally mixed up. He was relieved they had not done it; but strongly regretted not doing it. All sorts of mixed thoughts and feelings surged through him. Finally he decided that his strongest emotion was relief.
‘Too much too soon!’ he thought.
CHAPTER 13
GIRLS !
Willy retired to his room when his mother came home. He felt completely confused and could never remember a worse time in his whole life. His emotions surged as he alternately despised himself for not being brave enough to be a man and doing it; and with relief at having done what he was sure in his heart was the right thing. He tried to divert his gloomy thoughts by reading but even Isaac Asimov could not compete with the jangled impressions tumbling in his brain. Willy also felt very guilty and he did not want his mother to notice anything out of the ordinary. He did not want her to suspect he was interested- was that the right word? - Or should it be overwhelmed- by sex!
Feeling emotionally battered and bruised he ate a snack for lunch and retreated to the workshops. Here he slowly calmed down as he completed all the frames for the model. All the while he battled with heated surges of erotic memories. This caused him to have confused debates with himself over morality.
At 5pm his father arrived home and came in to see him. “How is it going Willy? Have you had a good day?”
“OK Dad. I’ve got a lot done. I’ve finished all the frames and am starting on the stringers now,” Willy replied. He held up a long, thin piece of balsa a metre in length but only one millimetre square. This had just been carefully sliced from a sheet of balsa.
His father bent to study his handiwork. “That’s good Son. Are you OK? You look a bit down.”
Willy blushed with guilt. He managed a wry grin. “Yes Dad. I’m alright. How is Aunty Isabel?”
“Battling on, but she’s making heavy weather of it. She is very depressed, although she tries not to show it. She is going to keep the farm and is hiring labour to help with the work.”
“Any word from the police about Uncle Ted’s murder?” Willy asked.
“No. Nothing. It is a complete mystery. The only real clue is the chain saw and it can’t be traced to any retail outlet in the country,” Willy’s father answered.
“Why did they do it Dad? How could any person kill someone else?” Willy cried.
“All too easily I’m afraid. It is one of the worst aspects of being a doctor- seeing the results. Besides, don’t you want to become an air force pilot?”
Willy nodded. “Yes Dad. But that is different.”
“Is it? What if they make you a bomber pilot and order you to bomb some city?”
That idea made Willy very uncomfortable. It was not an aspect he had given much thought to. “I wanted to be a fighter pilot,” he replied, knowing it was just as bad. He continued: “Any way, it won’t happen.”
His father made a face. “Does that mean you have given up that ambition?”
“No Dad.”
“So it might happen.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Willy replied gloomily. He began to seriously doubt if he was the person for the job.
His father stood up and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t let it weigh you down son. In the real world it is rarely a choice between good and evil. It is usually a choice between two evils. Sometimes doing a bad thing is the best choice. Soldiers and police face this choice every day. To save people they have to use violence. If the cause is just then let God be the judge. Personally I hope you never have to fight- but if you do I trust you will do your duty.”
There were a few moment’s of silence while Willy digested this. To end the embarrassing silence Willy’s father bent forward to study the airship plans. “That’s enough philosophy for the time being,” he went on. “How is the planning going for Airship Number Two?”
“It’s not really,” Willy answered. “All I’ve got are those photos from the ‘Aircraft’ magazine; some rough calculations in my note book; and the scale plans of Airship No1.” He stood up and extracted a cardboard folio from a cupboard and spread the plans on the table.
His father studied them thoughtfully then pointed to the picture and said, “This fellow in the photo has one large gas bag made of some sort of plastic. That could be very expensive. The rest looks simple enough. Were you planning to use the bike frame again; or a framework like this in the photo?”
“Bike frame I thought,” Willy replied.
“Hmm. I suggest you will need a longer frame; to spread the load more evenly; and to mount a bigger rudder. Grab that sketch pad and let’s rough out some ideas.”
The two of them set to work side by side with pencils and notepaper. Suggestions were tossed to and fro. Most were discarded. Some were included. The end result wasn’t too different from the photo. Willy’s father tapped it with his pencil. “At least we know it works. So why reinvent the wheel? Now, let’s make up a shopping list of the major items; and of the specialized ones we may have to order. Then I will get some quotes and see what the costs look like.”
Willy was very pleased with this. He started to redraw the plans neatly to scale. This was interrupted by his mother calling them to tea. That evening he finished the job then did his homework and some study to catch up. He went to bed feeling very tired but emotionally satisfied. Progress had been made. Better still he had been so busy he had not had time to brood. There was also some pride in his victory over lust. This he counted as the main achievement, but he was troubled with the presentment that it might only be the beginning of a long struggle.
He was, in fact, deeply worried over Marjorie. He knew he had hurt her feelings but hoped she would recover. It was her awful revelation that troubled him most.
With some trepidation he went to school the next day. When he arrived he scouted carefully, and somewhat nervously, but saw no sign of her. Feeling quite mixed emotions he joined Stephen and Stick.
In the distance Willy saw Barbara walk past. That made him blush with shame. ‘How could I be so weak and let Marjorie do all that?’ he thought. What bothered him the most about it was that he knew he had not once thought of Barbara while he was with Marjorie. Sadly he pondered his frailty and decided not to make any advances to Barbara until the raw edges of his guilt were numbed.
As for Marjorie, he did not want to see her at all. During the breaks he took himself away from their usual haunts: with the result that he met her quite by accident down at the far end of the oval. She came walking towards him but pretended not to see him.
As they drew level Willy spoke: “Hello Marjorie. Are you alright?”
She glanced at him. “Of course I’m alright! Why shouldn’t I be?” she snapped.
“I was just worried about you,” Willy explained lamely, feeling a bit hurt by her abrupt response.
“You were not. You don’t care about me. You said so,” she replied, but with less of an edge on her voice. She stopped walking and looked at him.
“I didn’t say that. I said I wasn’t in love with you,” Willy replied. “But I did say that I like you. And I do! And I care about you.”
Marjorie met his gaze. Her mouth was tightly pursed but her eyes looked unhappy, misty. “You made me feel like a real cheap tramp,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to, truly. It was just the wrong time,” Willy replied lamely. He studied her, his mind whirling in confusion. ‘Real tramp?’ Probably. So why did he care? He shook his head. “Marjorie, you’ve
got to stop it. It’s not right.”
“What’s not right?” she snapped, her anger visibly rising. “You enjoyed it didn’t you? Don’t give me lectures on how to behave! Have you got religion or something?”
“No. I meant....” Willy floundered, licked his lips, and blundered on. “I meant you and boys.”
“What’s it to you? Mind your own business!”
“It’s wrong Marjorie. It’s against the law.”
Marjorie paled. Her lips trembled. Then her eyes half closed and she clenched her fists. “It wasn’t like that! And don’t you say anything to anyone. Don’t you get me into trouble or .. or.. or.. I’ll..” She began to sob.
“I won’t,” Willy said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “You must think I’m a real little tart. Well too bad! I can’t help being me.”
Willy didn’t know what to say. His mind reeled. “I.. I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Sorry! You are always sorry! What good is that to a girl? We need loving you know. Anyway, just leave me alone!” she cried. With that she ran off sobbing, leaving an unhappy Willy to ponder it all. He sat under a tree and tried to reason it all out but ended up more mixed up than ever. Then some Year 8 grots began to tease him.
One of them called, “Look. There’s Willy the Mad Scientist. Hey Willy, how’s your nuclear bomb going?”
They all laughed and called unkind jibes. Willy scowled at them and stalked off to sit alone in a classroom. He was on the edge of tears. “God!” he cried. “I’m miserable- and confused!”
When he got home after school Willy was so dejected that he almost burst into tears. Rather then have Lloyd see this he took himself down to the workshop and began working on the zeppelin model. By tea time he had manufactured two more frames.
Luckily Willy also had plenty of homework to occupy his mind. Over dinner he was moody and short-tempered; and too self-absorbed to notice the occasional worried glance exchanged by his parents. That night he slept poorly and was tormented by dreams- mostly about Marjorie and sex.
The next day at school he saw Marjorie as soon as he walked in the gate. She was talking to Stick, Noddy and Stephen, but as soon as she saw him she walked away. Willy felt quite hurt, and guilty.
His friends were no help. They were on with their argument about UFOs again and didn’t even seem to notice.
Stephen said, “There was another one seen last night, over the Evelyn Tableland.”
“Oh yeah?” Stick drawled, scepticism in every syllable. “What did they do? Did it draw people up with a force ray? Or did it hover and send the cows mad?”
“The man said it hovered and made whirring noises, then vanished,” Stephen replied.
“Sounds like a load of bull to me. How come you never see photos of these things?” Stick asked.
“You do. Lots of them,” Stephen insisted hotly.
“Yeah, like the ones you made earlier in the year; all bloody fakes! A tennis ball a metre away, or a model flying saucer, or two images superimposed,” Stick snorted.
Stephen went red. Willy knew that Stephen had been in serious trouble for taking the wrong sort of photos at the start of the year but felt that it had served him right. Some of the photos had been very embarrassing or hurtful to the people in them. Stephen shrugged and then turned to Willy. “What do you think Willy?”
“Well.. er.. I just wonder why they don’t land at the airport.”
“Probably because they don’t want to frighten us,” Stephen replied.
Willy wasn’t convinced. He said, “How come, if all these sightings happen, that the government doesn’t tell us? Why isn’t it on the news official like?”
“It’s a conspiracy,” Stephen replied. “The government doesn’t want us to know in case we panic.”
Stick and Willy both laughed outright. Stephen flushed angrily and blinked rapidly through his glasses.
Stick said, “I think it is like Astrology; it’s all hocus-pocus. It is all in people’s minds. Remember what Mr Feldt said about Star Signs? If they really worked there would be a government department to oversee it; or General Motors would have bought the patent. But as it is it is just left to madwomen. All bull!”
“What’s that got to do with UFOs?” Stephen asked irritably.
Noddy interrupted. “I just remembered a joke. There was this flying saucer and it came down and landed ….”
It was a good joke and relieved the tension. They all laughed, even Stephen. The conversation shifted to the Year 11 bullies who were tormenting a group of Year 8s.
For Willy it was another testing day at school. He sat in class and gazed adoringly at Barbara, contemplating his tactics. Then he was upset and worried when Barbara and Karen began to misbehave. This resulted in both girls being sent to the office and placed on detention at lunch time. ‘I wish she wouldn’t!’ Willy sighed. ‘I wish she would move away from Karen. She is a bad influence.’
So, no chance of talking to Barbara that day, not that he felt like it. And he noticed that Marjorie avoided him all day. ‘Perhaps I’ve finally put her off?’ he thought, but not without a twinge of regret. ‘No more hot encounters. Oh well! Oh, what a hypocrite I am! I lust over her and want to have sex with her but I don’t want to get emotionally involved, or cheat on Barbara!’ Willy mentally flailed himself as a weakling.
So unhappy was he that it took a real effort of willpower to do any work on his model. He made two more frames, but only after mucking one up and having to start again. ‘Only six to go,’ he told himself. But it was becoming a repetitive chore that he was not enjoying.
On Wednesday Willy was pleased to see that Barbara and Karen hade been separated so that they sat on different sides of the classroom. The strategy did not end their misbehaviour however as Barbara proceeded to write notes, fold them into paper planes, and toss them across the room whenever the teacher’s back was turned.
During Mr Conkey’s lesson one of these messengers dived off course and into Donovan’s ear. “Ouch!” he cried. He grabbed at the plane and looked at it.
Barbara called to him: “Don’t you read that Donovan. It’s not for you.”
Mr Conkey turned round. Donovan began to unfold the plane. He scanned the note and called gleefully: “Hey Willy, this is about you!”
Mr Conkey advanced to Donovan’s desk and held out his hand. “Give me that.”
“But sir, I didn’t write it,” Donovan said.
“I didn’t say you did. Give it to me.”
Donovan handed it over. Mr Conkey took the note and smoothed it out. Next he said, “Now be quiet and go on with your work.” Then he read the note. As he did his eyes travelled to Barbara, then to Willy, then to Karen. Willy squirmed with curiosity and embarrassment. No expression crossed the teacher’s face. He folded the note and put it in his pocket, then went on with the lesson.
During the break between lessons Willy went over to Donovan. “What did the note say?” he asked.
“Dunno. Didn’t have time to read it,” Donovan replied with a shrug. Willy found not knowing even worse. Was it good or bad?
At lunch time Barbara upset him again, quite unwittingly. He went looking for her and found her walking up and down with a group of girls who were making giggling comments to some of the Year 12 boys. The word ‘flaunting’ floated into Willy’s consciousness and stayed there in spite of attempts to banish it. Sadly he went off to join Stick and Noddy. They were discussing the latest ‘Rock’ music and he tried to pretend he was interested.
The afternoon dragged and Willy threw himself into his schoolwork. After school he got another discouraging shock. The school was one of the few which still had an army cadet unit, largely through Mr Conkey’s efforts. After school on Wednesdays, for two hours, the volunteers did military training. This involved Stephen, Peter and Graham, who were all ‘Second Years’ with the rank of corporal; and Roger, who was a ‘First Year’ Cadet.
&nbs
p; As the army cadets milled around in their uniforms waiting to be called on parade Willy, Stick and Noddy wandered past, making disparaging and rude comments. Willy’s gaze settled on a head of glossy black hair in the middle of the throng:- Karen’s. She was in school uniform, not cadet uniform, he noted. Surely she, of all people, wasn’t thinking of joining the cadets! No. She wasn’t. He saw her upturned face smiling at one of the Year 12 boys. It was Michael Masters. He was in cadet uniform and Willy knew he was one of the unit’s four Cadet Under-Officers.
Willy had already resolved that he would get to be a CUO in the Air Cadets. ‘Then I will go on to be an officer in the RAAF,’ he thought. His gaze swept on- then he froze.
That red hair! It was Barbara’s! She was also talking to a boy; smiling at something he was saying. Willy’s heart thumped. He moved to see who the boy was. The boy was only in school uniform, which was some relief to Willy. But then he saw the face, confirming his worst suspicions. It was Nigel Cressly. Marjorie had been right!
Nigel Cressly:- Prefect, Sports Captain, academic prize winner, blond, tall, good-looking; Mister Super Cool. His dad had pots of money and Nigel drove a red sports car to school. Willy’s heart sank. How could he possibly compete?
Worse, his heart turned over and he felt sick when he saw Barbara place her hand on Cressly’s arm. They both laughed at some private joke. Adoration appeared to shine out of her eyes. It was too much. Willy quickly walked away.
As he rode home on his bike deep dejection seized him. He wasn’t winning with Barbara- wasn’t likely to either, from the look of it- and he had rejected Marjorie. ‘I have lost all round,’ he thought gloomily. With these unhappy thoughts he wheeled his bike under his house and retreated to the workshop to try to take his mind of his problems:- off girls!
CHAPTER 14
THE NEW MODEL
Next day Willy plunged into black despair. During the lunch break Barbara sat next to Cressly on a seat down at the oval and he had his arm around her waist. Willy saw this from afar and then moped around dejectedly for the rest of the hour.
Airship Over Atherton Page 14