Fergus McPhail

by David McRobbie

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose.’ It’s important to sound keen, but not too keen. ‘I mean, we’ve done fruit and jugs of water. The human form would be a challenge.’ I am making all of this up, but it is going over well, especially when I chuck in a few more examples of arty words. ‘Light and shade, form, proportion and stuff.’

  ‘Not to mention perspective.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, obviously. Perspective, definitely.’ I wonder if I should toss in chiaroscuro but she might not know that one. (I don’t either but I’ll look it up.)

  ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do,’ Ms Crombie tells me seriously. ‘Now, nick off to your next class.’ I leave the art room, zombie walking with bum-thrust, eyes out on stalks. Christmas has come. Wait till I tell the guys. Hey, guys. Guess what I’ve organised for us?

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Do I lie?’

  The holidays have ended and we’ve been back at school a week and a bit. Sophie has obviously patched things up with Richmond because they are very friendly all of a sudden, which gives me deep inward pangs of regret. But to the outside world, I act as if I don’t care; the world doesn’t care either.

  It’s her problem if Sophie wants to go around with Mr So-Far-Up-Himself-He’s-Inside-Out. She’ll be miserable with him, while me? Look at the fun I’m not having. After school, for example, where Rodney next door tells us his price for the drum kit.

  ‘You just need to do a few things for me,’ he says. The job he has in mind. is cleaning the heated outdoor swimming pool, so Mitch, Lambert and I set to with a will. It seems Richmond’s mum and dad now expect him to work for all the handouts he receives. Which is where we three come in. The hired help.

  We stick at it until it’s too dark to see what we’re doing then we go to collect the drum kit. Mitch is already salivating at the prospect.

  ‘'We’ll take good care of them,’ Lambert promises.

  ‘Not so fast!’ Rodney holds up a hand. ‘I said, “a few things.” That was only one thing.’ Mitch tries to argue that we got the pool equipment out, we cleaned off the scum, then we put the stuff away, which adds up to a few things, but Rodney holds the whip hand, and the drums. So we leave without them.

  ‘He’s only toying with us,’ Lambert mutters when we are outside the gates of Fortress Rodney. ‘I hate being toyed with. Makes me feel like a girl.’ Mitch agrees.

  ‘Yeah, and we’re still not toying with his drums,’ I remind them. ‘What say we do another couple of jobs to check him out?’ Militant Mitch suggests that if Rodney doesn’t come across, we’ll toss all his garden furniture into the pool and watch it sink.

  ‘Be like the wreck of the Titanic down there.’

  Senga has found a job. She’s in the complaints department of Crawford and Dunne, an upmarket emporium in town. Dad says she got the job because of all the first-hand experience she’s had over the years.

  Complain, object, disagree, protest - in her time Senga’s done the lot!

  ‘Mum,’ Senga cries. ‘Dad’s undermining my confidence.’

  ‘See what I mean?’ Dad says.

  ‘Stop it, you lot,’ Mum calls from her comfortable chair by the gas heater where she can put her feet up. ‘You’ll bring on the baby.’

  I wish I had a line like that! ‘Stop it, you’ll make me pass water’ doesn’t have the same effect.

  Anyway, as the days trundle by, we hear little snippets of Senga’s brushes with the complaining public. Born grumblers and whingers, Senga describes them. At dinner, she gives us an action replay.

  Crawford and Dunne vs Senga McPhail,

  Episode 1

  Scene: The Complaints Department, Crawford and Dunne.

  Senga is filing her nails. A large woman customer bustles her way to the counter, produces a cashmere sweater from a Crawford and Dunne carry bag. The woman waits. Senga ignores her.

  Woman: [COUGHS, WAITS THEN COUGHS LOUDER.]

  Senga: [WITHOUT LOOKING UP.] Pharmacy’s that way. Get something for that cough.

  Senga fans the air to get rid of the germs. The woman flares her nostrils.

  Woman: Excuse me, young lady! This sweater’s too tight.

  With an expression of annoyance, Senga stops filing her nails, slips the garment on and holds her arms out. On Senga, the sweater is very large.

  Senga: Looks fine to me. In fact, it’s huge. They don’t come any bigger. You’d get a wheelie-bin in here.

  Woman: Tight on me! It’s too tight on me!

  Senga: Well, you didn’t say that. Am I supposed to guess?

  The woman glares and drums her fingers on the counter.

  Art has suddenly become the most popular lesson in the syllabus. Soon as we’ve done with Mr Boddie and his boring English, guys almost run to get to the art room, knocking each other over in the rush.

  ‘Maybe she’s here already.’ They crane their necks to look in the window in case there’s a naked woman sitting on a podium, patiently waiting to be painted, sketched or modelled in clay. Who gives a stuff about the medium? It’s the subject that matters. I’ll do her in tapestry. It takes longer. But there’s no one in the room. Not even Ms Crombie.

  ‘Bummer!’ says Lambert. He opens the cupboard but the model’s not in there either. The girls arrive at a more sedate pace. Having got wind that there might be a figure model, they are up in arms. But only the feminists, which is really all of them.

  ‘Typical,’ Angela says. ‘It’s going to be a female. Why can’t it be a guy?’

  ‘Who wants to look at a bloke?’ I ask.

  ‘Me, me,’ say a thousand girls. The debate grows in intensity just as Ms Crombie enters.

  ‘Goodness,’ she marvels. ‘Such animation. What’s the subject?’

  ‘Art,’ I say. Then it comes out. The girls don’t believe there’s to be a live figure model. Ms Crombie agrees that it is only a remote possibility at this stage. It would take some organising, she’d have to go all the way to the top, to the department, to the minister. ‘How much interest is there?’ Hands go up all over the room. More hands than students because most guys have two fists in the air and their tongues lying on their desks. The demand is overwhelming. Ms Crombie capitulates. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘We should toss for it,’ Angela persists. ‘Heads for female, tails for male.’ And so eager eyes follow the rise and fall of Ms Crombie’s coin as we await the outcome. It’s female.

  ‘And a male the week after,’ Sophie adds. So we settle down to do other things. Ms Crombie reveals a dish containing four bananas which droop over the edge. There are also some grapes.

  ‘See how the surface of each grape picks up the light,’ Ms Crombie tells us.

  ‘Girls do that too,’ Lambert says. ‘Especially on their rounded parts.’

  ‘Shut your face!’ Angela snaps. Girls can be really bad losers.

  On the home front, the three of us turn up at Rodney’s place and through the intercom he tells us he doesn’t need anything doing today. Mitch offers to polish the drum kit but Rodney says it’s not dusty. So we leave empty-handed.

  At dinner that night, Senga gives us the next episode from her life in the workforce.

  Crawford and Dunne vs Senga McPhail,

  Episode 2

  Scene: The Complaints Department, Crawford and Dunne.

  A small man comes timidly to the Complaints Department and places a long cardboard box on the counter. He smiles at Senga, who has received some counselling. She is also on her last chance.

  Small Man: Excuse me.

  Senga: Yes?

  Small Man: These chest expanders are too much for me.

  Senga: I can’t make them any cheaper.

  Small Man: It’s not the cost. [HE PAUSES.] I can’t pull them. Senga looks down at the small man, her heart filled with pity.

  Senga: Have you tried taking them out of the box?

  The small man is stung. He becomes angry.

  Small Man: Of course I have! Young lady, you may call me simpleton, but I
do have some common sense.

  Nearby, Mr Pitchewski, the Complaints Department Manager, overhears this. Smiling his troubled-waters smile, he approaches.

  Mr Pitchewski: What seems to be the problem, Miss McPhail?

  Senga: Mr Simpleton's not big enough to pull his wire thing.

  At school, Class 1OC has not lost its interest in drawing, painting or whatever. As each lesson passes, there is still no live figure model, but Ms Crombie tells us she’s working on it.

  ‘Work nights,’ Lambert suggests.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ breathes Ms Crombie.

  Richmond and Sophie are now sitting near each other and I don’t get a look in. Even Lambert has managed to crack a smile from Angela. As part of my campaign, I have shifted geographically further away from Sophie but Lambert has not joined me. Move any more and I’ll be out in the corridor and to make things worse, no one notices, ’specially not Sophie.

  At home, Dad takes delivery of a huge pile of sand which the truck driver dumps in the driveway, blocking in the car. (Dad has sold our truck and we now possess a 1984 pre-owned Holden.) Dad complains to the driver who dumped the sand.

  ‘So what do you want, mate?’ the driver asks. ‘Me to shovel it all back on the truck? Says on the invoice, “deliver to this address” so there it is. Delivered.’ He doesn’t wait for Dad’s answer but swings into his cab and he’s away.

  ‘Wouldn’t it rot your socks,’ Dad says. The sand is a small mountain so there’s no driving over it. Dad can’t get the Holden out but he drops his voice and becomes conspiratorial. ‘Not a word to your mother, Fergus.’

  ‘Right, Dad. She’d only worry.’

  That night, Senga comes home with bad news which she relates to us at dinner.

  Crawford and Dunne vs Senga McPhail,

  Episode 3

  Scene: The Complaints Department, Crawford and Dunne.

  Mr Pitchewski comes to Senga with a stern look on his face.

  Mr Pitchewski: Miss McPhail, I’ve had complaints.

  Senga: You too, eh? You should hear the ones I get. Wrong size, wrong colour, it nearly strangled the baby. Moan, moan, moan.

  Mr Pitchewski: No, Miss McPhail. Not complaints about our merchandise - but in the entire history of retailing, we’ve never had complaints about the complaints department.

  Senga: Does that mean I’ve made history, Mr Pitchewski?

  Mr Pitchewski: I’d like you to go to the personnel department, please.

  Senga: I don’t know anything about personnel. I won’t be happy there.

  Mr Pitchewski: Don’t worry, Miss McPhail, it’ll only be a quick visit.

  ‘Never mind, love,’ Mum says when Senga finishes her tale. ‘It was a good three days’ experience.’

  ‘Yeah, and gave us a terrific laugh,’ Jennifer agrees, which makes Senga wail.

  ‘Mum, Jennifer’s threatening my self-assurance.’

  ‘Jennifer, go and practise your scales,’ Mum says.

  ‘I’m scared of that piano,’ Jennifer comes back. ‘Look what it did to my father.’ She has an answer for everything.

  Senga goes to Mum for a heart-to-heart, which she’s been doing a lot of lately. I am in the living room, at one end of the table tussling with an assignment so they ignore me. Nothing new in that. Senga spells out her problem.

  ‘Oh Mum, where am I going to get a job?’

  ‘It’s hard, love.’

  ‘Don’t I know it.’

  ‘Have you tried the fire station?’ Mum suggests. ‘Your dad says they had a sign out the front.’

  ‘Went there.’ Senga is scornful. ‘It was only polishing fire engines! Wouldn’t be so bad but they keep taking them out and getting them covered in soot and splashed with water.’

  ‘What about the hospital? They’re always looking for casual staff.’

  ‘There’s nothing casual about bedpans!’

  ‘Well, Senga, I keep telling you, there’s always the school,’ Mum says. But this time Senga doesn’t totally reject the idea.

  ‘Oh, the school. I don’t know, Mum.’ She bites her lip. ‘It’s like admitting defeat.’

  In the world of art, there’s been a breakthrough. Ms Crombie has found a pair of screens and we come into the room to see them standing there, ready to shield someone’s modesty until she’s ready to come out and let us get on admiring her proportions and shadowy parts. Lambert peeps behind the screens but draws a blank. It’s a start, though. Ms Crombie also has provided an electric heater which is a thoughtful touch in the winter. What guy wants his first nude model covered in goosepimples?

  ‘I’m interviewing this morning,’ Ms Crombie tells us. ‘So that should make you happy.’ Happy? She doesn’t know the half of it!

  At the morning break, I see Senga walk in the gates and head for the administration block but I don’t think anything of it. Lambert comes to me with a soccer ball and demands my attention game-wise.

  It is only when I am booting the ball around that things suddenly fall into place.

  ‘Mum,’ I hear Senga say from the night before. ‘Where am I going to get a job?’

  ‘I keep telling you,’ I hear Mum answer. ‘There’s always the school. ’

  Then I hear Ms Crombie, not half an hour ago.

  ‘I’m interviewing this morning.’

  Lambert kicks the ball to me but it truckles past because my mind is elsewhere. What is my sister doing at school? Is Senga to be our figure model?

  That puts an entirely different complexion on things!

  Deeply preoccupied with thoughts of Senga’s new job, I wander home. Lambert and Mitch come too, all ready to have another go at Rodney and maybe to do the final job that will release the coveted drum kit.

  When we turn up at Rodney’s place, his parents are home - twin BMWs rest side by side in the garage, big one for him, smaller for her, both cars looking as if they’d pounce on you. Rodney doesn’t bother to introduce the hired help to his parents who stride back and forth along the patio by the swimming pool, passing each other without making eye-contact, ears glued to mobile phones. His mother’s in a pencil-thin business suit, high heels tapping on the tiles, hair piled on her head.

  She says on the phone, ‘I can’t help that. No, it’s a moronic attitude, tell him. Look, it’s not my fault his mother’s sick. Waste him!’ She rings off and dials another number, punching the keys carefully so as not to break her long, red fingernail.

  Rodney’s father wears a dark suit, old-boy tie and striped business shirt. He probably looks as groomed now as he did this morning. On his phone I hear him say, ‘Better buy me five thousand, no, make that fifteen. And sell that other pathetic stock - the funeral home. It’s woeful.’

  Lambert, Mitch and I stand transfixed. It’s a peep into another world but not our world. Rodney tells us there’s no work today. He hasn’t got time for us so we’re to nick off.

  Lambert tries to bring up the subject of another job that we can do so we can get the drums but Rodney tells him it will have to be later. He’ll let us know. Rodney is edgy and it’s not until we’re outside with the gates clanged shut behind us that we realise why we got buzzed off so quickly.

  ‘He wants a word with his parents,’ Mitch says. ‘He’s got to hang around waiting till they get off their phones.’

  ‘He should make an appointment,’ Lambert suggests.

  ‘Or check out his mum and dad’s web-site,’ Mitch says.

  We’re not making very satisfactory progress with the drum kit, nor am I shifting the load on my mind. I see the art room with Ms Crombie standing by the screens. The guys wait with pencils poised, eyeballs bulging.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Ms Crombie asks then slowly slides back the screens.

  I look out the window while everyone else gasps.

  At home, I find Senga at the table in the living room, looking at a magazine. Jennifer is in the back room, plink plonking the baby grand at arm’s length and sitting sideways, all ready to make a sprint for the door shoul
d things turn perilous. Mum is off basting some bit of meat in the kitchen. I sit at the other end of the table from Senga and pretend to lay my books out, ready to work.

  ‘Saw you at school today,’ I say. Senga immediately looks alarmed.

  ‘Shh, don’t mention it to Dad,’ she whispers. ‘Not until I’m sure I’ve got it. It’s to be a surprise.’

  ‘You did an interview then?’

  ‘M-mm. And I thought it went well. But keep it under wraps.’ Under wraps? My sister sure knows how to chose her words. Okay, that confirms it. It’s all I need to know - Senga is about to reveal all, complexion-wise!

  Later, at dinner, Dad gets on to the subject of suitable jobs for Senga, having been on the lookout for employment opportunities but with no success. He’s got stacks of advice, though.

  ‘You don’t want a job that keeps you locked up in some back room,’ he says. ‘Look for one that gets you noticed.’

  Yep, she’s ahead of you, Dad!

  ‘Show them some of your talent,’ my father goes on.

  Plus her charms. Cheek that one too, Dad.

  ‘Yeah, never let it be said that my girl’s one to sit around, gazing at her navel,’ Dad says.

  Not when there’s a hundred guys keen to do it for her.

  As I try to eat, I am thoroughly miserable. What is the world coming to?

  At school, the very next day, I start my campaign with Lambert and a couple of guys who mooch around biting their nails.

  ‘Listen guys,’ I begin. ‘About this nude thing.’

  ‘Woman,’ Lambert corrects me. ‘It’s going to be a nude woman.’ The other guys nod agreement and make snuffling noises.

  ‘The thing is,’ I say sincerely, ‘I reckon we’re too young for stuff like that.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Lambert tells me. ‘You’re never too young. Or too old.’

  ‘Well,’ I try another tack, ‘what would your mother say if she knew?’

  ‘She’s not going to find out, is she?’ Lambert has a good point. ‘Otherwise it’s the end of friendship as we know it.’