Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  At last, inside, in the dark, Virginia crisply unscrews the top of the brandy she bought and stares at the provisions on the table. She thinks of Cybil. A stone-heavy ache of her love weighs her down to her seat. Yet a magnetism draws her to dreams of seeing her again. She forces herself to stay put, as if she were in a train looking out the window, letting thoughts come and go. Jeff is a good man, Cybil, and our mother was not a good woman. 'He and I would be equal were it not for the war against women,' she sighs. Cybil is not listening. Cybil has heard the stories already. Jeff and Virginia suffered so much parental violence, corporal punishment, physical discipline in their young years, what would be criminal abuse now, toughened them. Virginia is thankful it wasn't sexual, nor reinforced, like Hope's, with religious bigotry. The bruises, the scratches and gashes on her body are no big deal.

  The phone was ringing. I propped my brief-case beside me and sat down to answer it, idly picking up a pen, reaching for the note pad. It was my hairdresser.

  'What's wrong with me? Got the plague? You coming or what?'

  My hairdresser is a Koori who works out with weights. Her scrawny white husband looks incongruous at the gym. Her salon is a light airy room above the store opposite the ferry landing. Its big aluminium-framed windows give a grand view of the river and the mangroves. The husband, who used to work in a family timber mill until it was auctioned for peanuts, whose father worked with logs out in the bush with his father before him, does delicate inlaid craft. Lois's benches are a sight to be admired, her mirrors small and beautifully bordered in patterns of different wood-grains.

  The local village, if you can call it that, consists of a two-storey brick veneer building. On the ground floor is the shop, which sells newspapers, groceries, milk, cheese, ice-cream, fresh fruit and vegetables in erratic selections, mostly locally home-grown. Videos for rent. Cut and Thrust, my hairdresser, is above it. Her neighbour in the darkest of the upstairs rooms is a dental prostheticist whose door proposes every other Thursday in the morning hours for false teeth fittings. I have never seen anyone go in. I imagine it is very Dickensian in there. The other door upstairs is also sinister, saying MASSAGE. At odd times, an unhealthy looking man sits in there behind a desk before a narrow window. An older, wooden building has outside two petrol bowsers of an old-fashioned variety. On peeling paint is written BAIT. Lois's husband hangs around a lean-to aromatic with wood-shavings behind it. Often he is out the front exchanging grunts about the river. Twenty-five kilometres away along the coast is the Hawks Head National Park which has rudimentary camping facilities for dedicated bird-watchers and eco-tourists. The other caravan park, picnic area and surf-beach are on the ocean side of the peninsula.

  Lois must have seen me drive off the ferry and not stop at the time of my appointment. Then she would have waited for me to get home. Hence my phone was ringing just as I came in.

  'What?' I responded, 'What day is it? What on earth am I thinking of?' I had forgotten I had made the appointment. Most of my adult life I've had long straight blond locks maintained at little expense. I would patronise the local store more, except that it never has anything I want. I had already picked up a newspaper. If I had stopped I wouldn't have had the extra aggravation of driving back there because Lois would have yelled out and reminded me. Five minutes home and I was out again.

  Even though I was quick, I had to wait at Cut and Thrust and sit in a low cane chair. Unlike all other hairdressers in Australia, Lois did not have the Women's Weekly, New Idea or Latest Hair Styles to browse through. Her coffee table carried an assortment of brochures about things to buy. Outboard engines, Bolens Tractors and Riding Mowers. The enormously thick Deals for Wheels. I read the Bolens booklet because that was the ride-on Chandra was driving: 'Now, we've taken the vision and foresight that invented the riding mower, the mulching mower, the rear-line tiller and the chipper/vac, and turned it to the needs of home owners for top-quality tractors and riding mowers. Convenient cruise control lets you set and maintain a comfortable pace by pushing a button.' Safe for the disabled? The right side pedal could be easily worked with a crutch and the only shot of the left showed the man not using his foot and all gears were on a handle attachment.

  'Gunna buy a ride-on, Margot?' Lois was shaking out a floral piece of cloth and her customer, an elderly woman, was easing herself out of the comfortable chair. Another sat stony-faced, her hair stretched into tiny rollers, stinking of permanent solution.

  'Come on. Get yourself in here. What do you want? Same as usual?' Lois always offered 'the usual' and it invariably came out different, but similar to everyone trimmed around the same time. My thick, straight fair hair responded well to changing styles.

  'Make it sexy, will I?' she asked. I nodded as I smiled at myself.

  She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows in the mirror over my head, hands on my shoulders. 'You got it, sister-girl.' She was a rough and ready artist at work. She shaved my skull from the nape of the neck to a neat line from the top of one ear to the other. I could hear and feel it with my head bent. When I looked at myself I saw that Lois's 'sexy' was 'cheeky'. I was going to have a straight fringe almost to the eyeball that I'd have to flick out of the way, while the back was a basin with a few wispy long bits hanging over the breezy pituitary-cerebellum area. As I was getting used to this, I wondered what the bit of paper in my pocket was, and brought it out.

  I chatted. 'There's an ex-gladiator at our gym.'

  'You have to have upper body, yeah. And balance. But it is so stupid. Bring back mud-wrestling I say.' Lois laughed with real amusement.

  'I can see you as a champion mud-wrestler, Lois,' I answered. Lois had challenged once on The Gladiators. Her big moment. She had spoken of it before. In fact, she spoke about it a lot. 'They filmed that in Queensland. You have to go to Queensland. I wanted to go to MovieWorld. But, too big a mob of us went. Who wants to go to Queensland? Needed my head read.' But she was proud in retrospect, of something. She pulled a face.

  She makes me laugh, Lois. And when I laughed, in the mirror, the hair-do looked great. Would she remember Tiger Cat?

  'It was like a blown-up kindergarten plastic play area. Only they don't make it as interesting for kids. You don't get hurt, though.'

  She stopped trimming and took in the mangroves. I mentioned the Gun Lobby Rally.

  She lent down and whispered in my ear, 'Someone's going to kill that goon of a white virgin.' Then she let out a squeal of self-fulfilling laughter. Ripping Velcro from Velcro, she carefully removed the hair-filled floral smock.

  Not only is Lois a hairdresser, she is part of a community within a community and that ensures that she knows all the gossip. I wanted to talk to her about the night the boys died. But not in front of the ladies with their dyes and perms. I flicked about my new fringe and complimented her. 'Got to go fishing with you soon, Lois.'

  She said she would call me and I paid. As I left, she called, 'I didn't like those gladiating sheilas. Stuck up.' Racist she meant.

  Outside I ran into the teenage son of my southern neighbours. When I spoke, he snarled in a hostile manner but his eyes were vacant. Stoned or shocked, immediate intelligence seemed blown away. Ignoring his aggression, I asked if he were all right.

  He stared back. Simply didn't answer me. I couldn't find the right question relating to the activities of last Friday night. 'Did you know either of the kids killed?' He shrugged, turned and sloped off to the park across the road to be with a few of his friends.

  Lois's husband, whose ancestors appear in sepia photographs in the salon beside logs of a diameter over the height of two tall men, earned the nickname Thrust on the river. No one called Lois 'Cut'. Thrust stopped me to talk. He was worried about the upcoming rally, blokes were coming all the way from the Western Plains to create hell, and hatred went two ways.

  'Trouble brewing in Vegemite city,' he mumbled.

  'I beg your pardon?' Although I knew he was referring to a part of town chiefly inhabited by Aborigines, the familiar s
lang gave me a shiver.

  The water looked silky in the afternoon sun as the cable lugged the ferry towards our bank. The vehicles on board seemed mostly bound for the camp sites, with a couple of familiar station wagons of residents coming home from work. The boys were smoking dope at a picnic table through a hooker made of a little plastic bottle and a few centimetres of garden hose.

  Thrust went on, I've known some of those blokes all my life. Bullies at school, they're still at it. They'll come around to my place and make mayhem. World War Three.'

  'Don't worry, Thrust. You are always worrying. Why would they bother you?' I asked, trying to sound indifferent and casual, as I guessed by naming a real outside threat, he was actually talking about the effect anticipation of that was having on the individuals he knew; conflict with each other.

  'You know.' He shook his frowning forehead from side to side. 'I don't know if they know where I live these days. Unless someone said. And there's Lois's sister's family, they're closer to town. Crossroads won't be a place to go if you've got a white face, girl.'

  'What's all that about threats of assassination to their white virgin?' I joked.

  'She said that, did she? Oh no. What am I going to do?' Constant anxiety seemed to be Thrust's major mood. 'Wouldn't put it past her city cousins, no I wouldn't.'

  'It's a worry,' I said brightly, 'but don't let it get you down.'

  'Danny.' Thrust actually identified who he was talking about, 'As sweet a fella as you could meet, when he's sober. A bloody meat-axe with a skinful.'

  There followed a story of domestic violence. I did not know the people by name or face and felt uncomfortable participating in loose-lipped gossip, especially as an outsider. But he apparently wanted to tell me. 'Lois promised me we'd go fishing,' I changed the subject.

  He placed another durry between his nicotine-stained fingers, and nodded, 'Plenty there. The mullet are jumping.'

  'Gotta go, mate,' I said.

  Thrust worries, but does nothing. A foot shorter than she is, he is devoted to Lois, to fishing and to his woodwork. Her people have taken him in as one of their own and their three children are polite and energetic.

  As I started off, he wandered over to the jetty to stare at the water. He could watch the river for hours, quietly watch and smoke, thinking about blackfish, bream and schnapper, a mystery to me. But I like enthusiasts. There is always something for them to find contentment. Happiness? The damaged Achilles tendon grabbed now and then on the accelerator pedal.

  20

  Dishes for the Quick and the Dead

  Mouldy Rice Bread

  Cooked rice gone mouldy. Excellent ferment.

  Mix with flour and warm water and sachet of yeast should you have it.

  Chuck in a handful of sugar if you feel like it, if you've got plenty of sugar left.

  Knead. Leave near fire.

  Come back later. Punch it and knead again.

  Have fun. Grease camp oven. Build up fire.

  Place sculptured dough in 'dutch' oven. Put lid on upside down.

  Find a nest of red coals for it to sit in.

  Shovel a pile of hot coals on top of it.

  Turn every now and then, don't hassle it.

  Remove when you think it's done.

  Black Coal Chapattis (or bread substitute)

  Flour and water.

  Make into a firm dough. Shape into flat dinner plate.

  Throw onto black coals of fire. Turn once.

  Remove embers and eat as unleavened bread.

  Pip's Eggplant Dip

  Medium-sized aubergine

  Garlic

  Yoghurt

  Lebanese bread, 1 pkt.

  Put whole eggplant in microwave for three to five minutes until eggplant is soft right through.

  Chop fresh garlic finely.

  Get bowl and yoghurt out of fridge.

  Peel eggplant, mash with garlic and two generous tablespoons of yoghurt.

  Dip into it with Lebanese bread while getting on with your work.

  Sofia's Dope Cake

  ½ lb of unsalted butter

  ½ lb of useless male leaf

  All the ingredients of your favourite chocolate mud cake.

  Place leaf and butter together in heavy-based saucepan, leave on slow heat for ages.

  Remove and strain off stalks etc. Allow dope-butter to cool.

  Use in straight recipe in place of butter.

  VeeDub's Anything Patties

  Anything that can be mashed can be made into patties.

  Place in bowl, break in one egg.

  Combine with nice heavy fork. Sprinkle flour, mix in until all is firm.

  Crumb stale bread and spread out on dinner plate.

  Spoon patty mix onto bread-crumbs and pat into rounds.

  The secret is in the patting.

  Fry on cast iron frypan in salt or little oil, keep patting, turn until golden on both sides.

  Serve hot.

  Camp Oven Stewed Vegetables

  Have time, good fire, commitment and company.

  Fresh produce from recent shop at the growers' market.

  Vegetables: pumpkin; potato; sweet potato; parsnips; carrot.

  Peel and cut into equal size (bigger than chips and smaller than baked).

  Fire should have built up a reasonable heat so there is no need for kindling. Not too hot as you must be able work close to it for a few moments at a time.

  Place clean, empty camp oven on fire (have handy either very long sleeve on jumper, or topflappen i.e. any old bit of heavy rag or superannuated gardening glove).

  Tablespoon of virgin olive oil.

  Onion, chopped, whisk with wooden spoon until softened.

  Turn fixed vegetables into onion, with wooden spoon, generously splash in soy sauce or tamari, grate black pepper and mix in.

  Add a cup of fresh spring water, or tank water.

  Put on lid and leave for twenty minutes.

  Get ready green vegetables: broccoli; peas; beans; zucchini.

  Rest in water with white vinegar in it.

  Cauliflower, turnips, brussels sprouts optional (according to taste).

  Carefully remove camp oven lid. Sprinkle with plain flour.

  Stir vigorously, add more water and the other vegetables.

  Toss in handful of roasted sunflower seeds and dried mixed herbs.

  Replace lid. Leave for another twenty minutes or whatever.

  Serve when pumpkin is unrecognisable.

  Chandra's Strawberry Jam

  Pick strawberries, wash and remove green bits.

  Put in saucepan with a cup of sugar and cook until jam.

  Bottle in sterilised jars, identify and date.

  Victoria Shackleton's Fried Tomato Sandwiches

  There are no grillers in the bush, or on the road.

  Thickly butter the bread on the outside, sliced tomato in the middle and put them on the skillet. Nearly burn, turn once and nearly burn the other side. Yummy.