Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  Nicotine, she types.

  It is surprising how many gurls smoke, why? She, herself, is too busy. Most of the bush dykes are waiting for something to happen, except Judith, who lives what she believes. For all her talents, Meghan has never been able to keep to a tune, not even sing the national anthem. What made her fall for Jill in the first place was the effortless song bursting from her throat, vibrating the beauty of being, soaring in sound like a bird in the air. A purity rivalled only by silent maths which, of course, Meghan does have. When Maria sang in the protests, Meghan loved her too. Buddies into drugs, alcohol, disinterested in the civic duty of adult citizens, or mad, inspire Meghan to write her essays. Or chained to inaction by depressing poverty. Her sisters from the scrub hang about like the idle youth scaring the ordinary folk, as teenagers do. But that fear must be phobia because there is nothing to be afraid of. Unfortunately. Judith, on the other hand, is strong enough in her conviction to dress in the green, purple and white colours of the Suffragettes in the style of the second-wavers. Meghan remembers Maria with cigarettes, like Valerie Solanas, like Simone Weil, shooting the breeze, pursuing the feminist discourse.

  Smoke is a social thing. Helps conversation? Cigarettes in their way contribute to the annihilation of female self as it seems to assert rebellion. Smoking in public places is something a respectable family does not like. The gang who drink also smoke cigarettes, and cannabis. While alcohol can be blamed for aggressive and destructive behaviour, the effect of smoking, nicotine, tar and carcinogens is less obvious psychologically, it being a together thing, a sit-down thing, a ritual, with approval overtones, probably generational, legal, cultural, certainly endorsed by film images. Apart from being a disincentive to exercise, it also suppresses extremes of emotion. Schizophrenics and manic-depressives smoke and smoke. They would prefer to smoke than eat or drink. Smoke affects the chemicals in the brain without making women particularly insane. The anti-nicotine campaigns do make them feel bad, but dedicated smokers like it regardless. The counter-revolutionary effect of smoking is, patently, the lack of healthy exercise, energy, passion, acceptance of guilt, and a measure of self-contempt in that women will do this to themselves when they know they are doing themselves no good.

  Meghan tends to abstraction when she expresses herself. She has energy to burn. For the sake of air traffic control she cannot go online, even though, as she looks at the clock, now is the moment to check the market. So she raves and saves.

  What about prescription drugs, Pharmaceuticals? Anti-depressants, painkillers, Serapax, Valium, stimulants and amphetamines? Your doctor is a drug pedlar. Although it is okay to take them when prescribed, it still affects your personality. Calms you down. Enables you to cope with the regime that denies your existence. Heroin is 'drug culture'. The black market. The drug of drugs. Methadone just as bad. Counteracts heroin. Dangerous to take both? Too many gurls take heroin. They want to get out of it. Cocktailed and that's it! Annihilation: complete!!! Neutralise anger, pain. Perfect panacea for oppression. Dope the populace! Any threat to the hegemony is undermined. And financial and emotional resources are devastated. Loyalty shot. Heroin people become 'sick' and this brings all the rescuers to their service. Taking them away from the first principle of identity, getting to know and demand their own needs. Rescuers are so sanctimonious, but they also die. Yet political women are seen to be selfish or naive.

  Tragic!

  Meghan objectifies Maria's death and what she judged about her lifestyle. Again, the image of Judith ratifies her moralism. Song-birds, she muses. Soon she will be with Jill and her heart warms. She has a life-long companion, home fires, but her own happiness is not enough; who rules the world, or rather, what? Wealth? People don't, peoples allegiance does, therefore, if women were to have power, it cannot be a group of diverse individuals united by an ideology, nor any idealism, but something simple like an agreed value-system which can include difference of opinion. Something to replace the fiat that money has intrinsic value. How could she ensure, had she the choice, that in making money available to women they did not just go out and kill themselves with it? She turns off the laptop and snaps it closed. The aeroplane is ready for departure.

  For the moment she rides her own dragon. When she has time, Meghan swears she will study the basics for a community bank, maybe even get a law degree, but first, she has a job to finish, a point to make. What a blessing Chandra's website is! She will establish within it e-commerce credentials and a fund, perhaps an on-line female university, a shelf for the study of everything from a female viewpoint, architecture, prehistory, languages, military systems, music, current affairs, barter economics, the lot. And, she thinks, as she boards the plane, she will name it, She(se)lf, or something like that. She has not answered any of Chandra's emails but she digs the nickname. Meghan is the Annihilation Tragic.

  Virginia parks her truck at the bottom of the path to Rory's, and cooees. Birds incorporate her call with a bit of extra chatter and a semaphore of wings: big-headed stick creature! where? where? get out of the way! down on your right! okay! okay! where are the chicks? here! here! is it gone? yeah! yeah!

  Rory reaches for her Barbara Walker and reads, to Hope, that 'Universal Dike' was the Orphic name for the underworld goddess who received the soul of Orpheus. After Virginia joins them the three women talk about Eurydice.

  'Sent by a serpent's bite to the land of death', Rory reads.

  'Dike is another goddess name for Justice,' contributes VeeDub, sitting down.

  'It occurs to me,' says Hope, 'that it's not such a bad thing to be called a dike then.'

  'But the disparagers don't spell it that way. What they mean is toilet, I think.'

  'Language is a fucken maze,' states Hope. 'Like dike is justice and hell, and us, toilets and serpents are bad, why, anyway? People don't deal with their own shit. Especially the rich. Maybe that's the whole answer.' While Hope is serious, Virginia and Rory can't help laughing at her chaotic logic.

  Jill David knows the Qantas flight is late as she pulls the red Saab into the accountant's parking spot. She returns Rosemary's keys to the office manager and reluctantly climbs into her dinosaur of a van. She checks that her stuff in the back is covered and spends her time driving to the airport rehearsing her beautiful lies.

  Rory has both hands full; in her left the phone, in her right the stone Hope gave her. The green-white pet rock soothes her arthritis, her tired eyes. She holds it instead of rolling a cigarette. Even though she lives in the bush she has indoor plants. On her desk is a maidenhair fern in a clay pot, a miniature forest if she brings her face too close to focus; it's ages since she has painted, or even brought out her drawing pencils. Rory puts down the stone. Covering the mouthpiece, she tells Virginia and Hope it is Chandra she is speaking to.

  'Too many brilliant woman have killed themselves,' she says into the receiver.

  Chandra in their short friendship has never been this curious. They trip through modern history and do not run out of names of scientists, writers, politicians, poets and painters of the female sex who have, ostensibly, gone mad. 'We must change that.' Dissemblance bothers both of them. Chandra saves going into detail until they are speaking in person, her immediate worry: is the Annihilation Tragic the mole?

  'Actions speak louder than words. Lying for a greater cause, perhaps, can be excused,' says Chandra.

  'What shits me about liars is they think you're a fool.' Rory plays with her red dog's ears.

  Speculating on who might be subverting the game, they find themselves gossiping. Margot gets a mention, and Margaret Hall.

  'Sofia learnt about computers,' Rory recounts.

  'I know,' responds Chandra's rich voice. 'Sofia is smart; she could hold her own with the intelligentsia.' Chandra laughs. 'She would love it.'

  'Margaret Hall had the job of helping beginners with the Internet at CyberCage. It's cheaper than the library. Customers there might be interesting. But I heard she isn't there any more.'

  'Wher
e's Margaret?' asks Chandra, suddenly urgent.

  'She got a job in Sydney. I think,' Rory's inflection has a shrug in it. 'Where exactly? I don't know.'

  'Perhaps, she'll be there today.'

  After a pause, Rory says, 'I was worried about Maria.'

  'Chandra and Maria did not get along,' Virginia tells Hope.

  'Pretty Sofia is an absolutely delightful woman. I love her, but,' Chandra admits.

  'What happened?' Rory knows from the grapevine it was more than fancy. 'You were close.'

  Hope makes coffee and Virginia sits silently at the table, making eye-contact now and then, with each other, and with Rory.

  'Nothing dramatic. She is fun,' says Chandra, we're friends.' Hope places a mug beside the stone on Rory's desk. 'But she's like a diet of too much candy. Her bedroom is draped with brocades and tassels like some movie of the 'twenties or 'thirties. She'd stand among the materials being Greta Garbo, in some moods, in some roles. Her clothes hang in a circle as if they were for sale at an outdoor market, all maroons and purples and velvet and velour. She'd tell stories about how her great-uncle was a grand archduke in Vienna when Vienna was the New York of the Western world. She amused me, but it was never serious. I mean I never told her my stories.'

  'If Maria were less impeded by her weight or less lazy, do you think it would have happened?' queries Rory gently.

  Chandra is circumspect. 'I wouldn't say she was lazy. She would run around and clean up after Sofia when she went off.' Both go quiet, as individually they recall the place as untidy and the glamour Sofia affected all but lost among the dirty cups and ashtrays. 'Last night Sofia was oscillating between being a grieving hostess or swanning smokily in doorways, a femme fatale. Over-generous. Women everywhere.'

  'I'll miss Maria enthroned in her bulk in an armchair allowing it all to happen around her. It was a place I talked to people I hardly ever spoke to elsewhere. Anything goes. Went.' Rory turns in her chair to put both elbows on the desk and take the weight of her head in her hands.

  Chandra says, 'Sofia demands ambience'. Her throaty voice carries a slight sob. Rory reaches for her mug of cool coffee, which she drains thirstily.

  'There are times when Sofia is afraid of everyone,' continues Chandra. 'The front gate padlocked. Nazi troops have come to Austria and she must hide, no one is to be trusted. "They will look at my hook nose and think I'm a Jew!"'

  'She doesn't have a hook nose,' observes Rory.

  'I know. Her nose is actually a little turned up,' Chandra states. 'Retroussé.'

  'Their relationship was like a vortex of drama into which other women were drawn, to then turn on each other, creating a complete psychodrama out of life as if lesbianism were a full-time job. A storm in a tea-cup. All fuelled with gossip, creating new bits of mischief, tossing in your tuppence worth. It made me so angry, the waste.' Rory wonders if she has said too much.

  'Yes,' Chandra eases her mind. 'Better go. See you at the wake.'

  'Right.' Rory puts down the phone and strides around before settling down with her closest neighbours. 'I don't really know what that was about.'

  Then she says, 'We should think about going.' Feelings of anticipation, and yet not knowing what to expect, still them for a few minutes.

  'Plenty of time,' says Virginia.

  Hope prepares another brew.

  Although Rory is wise enough to know that Chandra, so far, has kept a fair amount from her, thus the web-work must be pretty important, she feels she can trust Virginia and Hope so she describes what Chandra has shown her.

  'The revolution might be gaining some reality, in the virtual world, at least,' she grins. 'The invisible cell of the wimmin on the net, murmuring of dissent. But Chandra's after information. I don't know what, though.' Rory savours the image of revolutionaries coming into her parlour to discuss action, practical problems, face to intense face. Whispering in case of spies.

  Hope is happy to explain to Virginia the cyber-adventure of the night before.

  Their dishes of prepared food covered and boxed, Rory's casserole, Virginia's potato salad, they join the exodus from Lesbianlands as gurls' vehicles gather on the river road to proceed in head-lit convoy.

  The Campbells take the opportunity to pack their tools and Eskies, spikes, bolts, nuts, snigging chains, to trundle the old bulldozer down into Lesbianlands, to throw sleepers and thick milled boards on the back of the flat-bed, and, helped by a bunch of blokes told 'we're doing our neighbours a favour', as that's what country folk do, to spend all day on the witchy property. Safe in the assumption that the noise of crashing and crunching and cursing is unheard by feral gurls hidden in their homes, they work hard. The cacophony of intermittent chain-sawing and the constant drone of the petrol-generator echos in hills normally eerily tranquil with the quiet orchestra of flora and fauna listening and murmuring. They fell two grey gums, clean them of branches and crowns, lay them parallel across the creek, gouge out tight holes for the joists and secure the planks of black butt with six-inch nails, leaving a neat new bridge across the creek and an untidy mess in the scrub.

  The Pearceville Mechanics Institute is not near the pub or the strip of houses along the ribbon of highway. Several miles inland, the hall is still used and maintained, with car-parking space and a single tarred, high-fenced tennis court in the once-vital village around the timber mill now practically deserted except for fallen-down mill-workers' cottages. The building survives as a venue for social activities. The hedge of hoary azaleas provides a carpet of pink and white petals in which the kids roll. Girls play and boys throw sticks for the dogs when they have been told to fetch fuel by the gurls who build a huge pyre in the paddock. At least two hundred women come to Maria's funeral from near and far, close in time, place and politics and distant in one or other of those. The Larrikin and Milt, with other bikers in ranks behind them, rumble up the dirt road like a pack of trained Rottweilers, coats shining, power contained, rest their machines on their stands in a line, take off their helmets and open their panniers to produce fresh vegetables which they carry in procession to the table. Cars keep coming all day. Each has brought something. Floral arrangements, fruit, a feast of food, rice, curries, stews, sandwiches, cakes, crackers, dips and chips. Pretty salads. Ice, beer, spirits and coke. Wine, coffee, tea, herbal drinks. Music on tape and musical instruments. Chairs. Cushions. Catering things.

  When I arrived I parked beside two cars covered in the red dust of days' travel through the outback, and glanced at the number-plates, Northern Territory. Beyond them was Jill David's navy, rusty Urvan. I was surprised both by the amount of motor-bikes and the number of Indigenous women wandering about. I looked for Chandra's Subaru, and Rory's Guntractor. The red Saab? Close to the hall-door, as if it had been early, was Cybil Crabbe's shiny bubble of a car. Next to it the newish LandCruiser had its back open, inside a guitar case, bongo drums and something wrapped in a sari. The horse-float was stacked with hired chairs stamped RSL. Alison's Ford was there. But for the most part I did not recognise the vehicles. There was a motor-home with the stickers of Christian mission and extensive touring decorating its rear glass surfaces.

  In the paddock gurls were feeding a fire with objects, clothes, papers from cardboard boxes which in turn were tossed into the flames. They were quite reverent, the rubbish detail dealing with the bits and pieces a person doesn't need any more, and no one else can use or treasure. I watched for a minute, and wondered what was going up in smoke.

  Cybil and some other women were busy, unloading, arranging, sweeping. The first person I spoke with was Meghan.

  She was scattered but she hugged me. There was a lot of hugging going on. I pulled away, clumsily asked, 'Where are your goats?'

  'Oh they're fine, thanks.'

  Not an answer to my question which was not, apparently, appropriate to her mood. I desisted from further inquiry.

  'It's not only them,' she indicated an inoffensive elderly couple. 'It's the whole Christian hegemony!'