Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  One person's sense and purpose can look like nonsense to another. Glancing at her red dog's yellowish eyes ever-ready to go for a walk or leap onto the flatbed of the truck, she decides to go on-line for a little while. Full of hot air, some of these women. She clicks the Stein code of hypertext, prepositions, articles. There are only three in the chatroom she wants. Who is truly revolutionary and who is, at heart, a lachrymose reformist? The truly cruel thing we know about women is the way they pull each other down; nurturing females failing to nurture each other?

  Rory believes real courage does not involve killing. It is about living and goodness, practising what you preach. Not designing drugs for children: what are you women doing?

  Well, let's raid this lab and grab the sweets, then the means of destruction are in our own hands anyway.

  Crumbled and powdered chalk? Fine sugar and glucose?

  Rory frowns as she reads. She types 'MMIMR'; signalling private chat. There she gets a mobile number to ring, written in a jumble to resemble a car registration. Beneath the symbolic language of white food is the code for action, and right now she wants to know for sure whether her cyber-co-conspirators had anything to do with the accidental or deliberate death of the lad who dressed as a girl. Are any of her comrades vicious enough or mad enough to take the life of a contemporary Achilles, some mother's heroic son, as Valerie Solanas took a shot at Andy Warhol? She, herself, is too fundamentally decent. However, she does need the information. She speaks on the phone.

  'Something to do with kids?' she asks the woman whose voice she doesn't recognise.

  'A new generation of party drug was disguised in candy. Yeah, boiled sugar, so the guinea pigs, the lads, didn't even know they were eating narcotics.'

  'Reminds me of the alcohol they're pushing these days, that look and taste like soft drink but are almost as overproof as rum,' Rory expands.

  'Yeah. Looks like sweets. Old fashioned granny-made lollies.'

  'So? What? They invite boys around, go fishing, surfing, give them toys, say they want their bodies, for a little play, when actually they're monitoring the effects of the concoction?' Rory takes notes.

  'Right, they move up and down the eastern seaboard, targeting holiday spots. The laboratory this month is in Port Water.'

  'What's our interest?' asks Rory, the Solanasite.

  'Nothing. It's common knowledge on the grapevine.'

  'Good.'

  'In sisterhood.'

  'You too, bye.'

  Rory rings Margot and conveys all the information she has, barring the network of Solanasites. Tess's wild barking transforms into a yelps of welcome. Rory goes to the window to see Virginia picking her way through the trees under a battily broken black umbrella. Long legs in big gumboots, an old brown oilskin making her rucksack into a humpback, she walks slowly humming the first bar of 'Singing In The Rain', without the verve of dance or happiness, more like the drone of some insect. However tuneless, it is music to Rory's ears. She laughs through tears which sprout in her eyes as underground springs break out of craggy hillsides Ah friendship, she sighs.

  Outside on the porch where VeeDub disrobes, Rory says, 'Hi, where have you been, you bloody old mole?'

  'Lost and found, you might say,' grins Virginia. 'Up and down. In the ground and all around, and here I am, Rosaleen, Josephine, Penelope.'

  'What the hell are you talking about?' Rory lifts the pack off her back, shakes out the coat and hangs it on a rack. She is so pleased she fusses busily.

  Virginia examines Rory's blotchy clay-red face with her intense eyes but the beetling brows are wide on her forehead. She opens her arms for a warm hug and holds Rory till her shuddering sentiment rises and falls, until she becomes still. They break apart and go indoors, words tumbling and somersaulting in acrobatic interruptions and effortless assumptions of care and communication.

  'Where's my vehicle?'

  'We're in for a flood.'

  'Got any grapes or an apple?'

  'You're as skinny as a stick.'

  'I am, Rory, I am, accountable,' Virginia states, as if it is an explanation for everything. She pokes about Rory's fresh food bin.

  'Hope drove it to the front gate.'

  'Accountable, Rory. No excuses. None.' Virginia finds an apple and sinks strong teeth into it.

  'I haven't seen you for a week.' Rory sits heavily at her dining table. 'You've been gone.'

  'A week, is that all? It seems an age.' Virginia fills the billy, finds matches and lights the gas, saying, 'I've been gone an age.'

  'I've got to go into town later. There have been developments. They're mining on our land. I'll have coffee, not tea,' Rory remarks as she notices Virginia shaking tea-leaves into the pot. She gets up to locate her percolator.

  'I better have tea. Coffee might be a little too heavy on my nerves,' Virginia sits down and lets Rory take over preparations of their beverages.

  Rory rattles the biscuit tin. 'Oat-cakes.'

  Virginia nibbles the one she takes, and compliments her friend, 'You make a nice Anzac bickie, Rory. Yes, I know. Mining. Willy's got a fenced-in yard up the top. Full of heavy machinery. Padlocks. The lot.'

  'No kidding? Fuck.' Rory repeats the swear-word several times as she grabs the billy with a cloth and pours. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.'

  'And that's only half of it,' Virginia explains.

  After they have exchanged information, worried and reassured each other, Rory rings Margot.

  Looking at the time, she says to VeeDub, 'I'll drive you to your car. Hopefully it's okay. The creeks are rising. We had better go.'

  'Cool. We've got to look at the bright side. I'm lucky I fell down the hole last week and not this, heh? Their excavations are so primitive, they'll fill up with water for sure.' Virginia chats as Rory collects her bills and books and bags. 'You taking the SCUM Manifesto for any particular reason?'

  'Why do you ask?' Rory responds with a question. 'Don't I always have something to read?'

  'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' Virginia says as she watches Rory fold her laptop into its case. 'I surfed the Internet a couple of times when you weren't home.'

  Rory stops, amazed. 'I didn't know you even knew how!'

  'My brother, you forget, builds the bloody things. Or did.'

  'Yeah, yeah, but I didn't think you were interested.'

  Virginia White laughs because she simply can't explain to the dogged, pragmatic Rory the possession of wings. She hugs her again, and says, 'Let's go.'

  'Wait, you bugger. How did you know my password?' Rory is indignant, and mystified.

  'Easy,' VeeDub smiles. 'Practically everybody uses their pet's name.'

  Instead of treating my liver, I attacked my hangover with raw egg and hot sauce. After speaking with Rory, I rang Philippoussis. No chump with the technology, my man. As soon as I gave him the lowdown on the plant, he was on to it. He said he would get toxicology into gear, retesting stomach contents. But sugar was hard to detect, being quickly absorbed by the bloodstream. More for the magistrate to deal with at the inquest. How was the deputy coroner? Fine.

  I rang Alison at Penny's. She asked for the details of the detective's email address to send across as attachments all saved correspondence with the Boy-lovers, both hers and Neil's. Plus the graphics of the plant. Ask Penny. I warned her they would probably come to look at the Waughans' computers and, while she was forthcoming with what she had discovered, she thought it best to get out of there and send the stuff anonymously. Neil had found out the Whymen web address was an organised paedophile ring with links to the drug trade. She confirmed there was a cruiser up in the mangroves.

  I got back to Philippoussis to tell him to expect electronic mail, and although I'm no expert on hardware, software and the Internet, and what is where exactly, I said, 'Neil's PC might be worth a look.' In this exchange, I recommended police look for Tiger Cat. As she was handing out freebies at the gay and lesbian picnic, that is where he could find a sample of the pill. Reassured that he had lit
tle or no interest in the other women at the barbecue, I asked if he thought the Crank was kosher, after all. Now we knew a new drug was being made in a laboratory in these parts, with paedophiles providing candidates for singular scapegoats. 'Or money,' he said. 'Two birds with one stone.' Ha ha. Whatever, Catherine Tobin was the courier to the scene of Neil Waughan's decease. Although I didn't like Cybil Crabbe, I didn't want her roasted while genuine evil bastards got away scot-free.

  Meghan Featherstone sees a pure green as people are said to see red when they are angry. Jill David is relating to someone else. If they weren't in the Arrivals lounge of a country airstrip, she would have smacked her. Jill's desertion is dressed in moody blues, sinking head and pearly tears. While actually sincere with fear, the actress in her could have performed the part with equivalent outward signs. Meghan does not appear to hear the rest of the conversation that assures her that the goats are with Judith's friends up on Hippi Sitti plateau. Navy-grey clouds lurk behind the smoky hues of mangrove trees. She rushes along the edge of the tarmac to the hangar where her car is parked.

  Driving out to Lebanese Plains, furiously speaking to her emotions, the music on her CD blaring, Meghan's sight is sharp. Yellow leaves stand out in relief, skinned gums are peachy pink and lemon streaks in the scrub, last year's bark on the forest floor soaking up the rain, too wet to be a bushfire threat, just yet.

  'Jealousy, you jade dragon breathing flame,' rails Meghan. 'Burning self. Stupid emotion clutching the guts, depressing the nervous system, bringing frowns down from the crown, crinkling skin, grabbing a slimy hold like some goo from sticky elsewhere, not respecting boundaries, taking over everything. Rendering the lot yucky. All thought sucked into quicksand. Jill, you are without morals! You have brought a strong woman down. This is horrid, annihilating pain, you bitch! Jealousy could drive a girl barking mad. Because. Simply because there is no answer, no getting rid of it, just languid songs whining about not going out. Self-destructive fucking jealousy.'

  She replays the scene of her homecoming over in her head, from touch-down to let-down, word for word. She remembers exactly what Jill told her about Judith and Trina. But Meghan, feeling so absolutely betrayed, is not inclined to believe anything.

  Chandra Williams is on her horse outside the local store getting her shopping handed up to her and packing it into her saddle-bags. Meghan does not stop. She does not wave. She takes the gravel bend at speed.

  'Yet, one bit of my mind knows, Jill and Rosemary could be having a ratshit time. There is no guarantee they are not really spooking one another. Self-hurting women are nothing new. That cow Turner is too smug for self-harm; all feminism means to her is her personal advancement. Masochist Jill, she'll have you for breakfast. Masochists, addicts, think they're only hurting themselves, but they are hurting all of us. Is it only jealousy I feel? I grieve for what you have lost. Me! I could be constructive, whereas you, Jill, you are plainly destructive. Gives you heaps to weep about with no responsibility. I have been there for you. Taken the tab. You want to see me squirm so you say you are really happy, having a great time. You sex junkie. Don't feel sorry for me; pity I don't need. My distress is denser, broader. You only worry if the blame can be placed on you, then accuse me, when, in fact, you project your faults onto me! And succeed. My feelings of self-immolation make me welcome danger.'

  At her parking space overlooking the creek, Meghan checks whether she could drive all the way home. The stream is muddy, swirling, making eddies and strange moving surface puddles. A risk, yahoo. She reverses, accelerates and bumps the undercarriage of her low-slung car. 'Get over it. First one ford, then the bridge. I am so over it! but wishing you cared.' Her car is skidding, sliding. 'I think you do care. It is just that I am too intense. That thieving sleazy mongrel is the opposite, lazily saying sweet nothings, certainly not challenging truth.' Meghan is losing control on the greasy clay. The fat mags are slipping sideways. 'Facts are harder than the pleasure domes of gambling and drug-dance frenzies. Dream on. Pretend. So why am I so jealous?' She guns the motor. The back wheels spin, spitting grass and mud behind, until careless fury and engine-power have her fish-tailing across the turf. 'I don't know what I'll do. Oh fuck the enemies in our bosoms. I hate this hurt. Jill, Jill, why do you do it to me?' The on-road tyres in off-road conditions are like skis in melting snow, but Meghan, eventually regaining control, manages to bring her car to a halt near her house.

  The half-renovated dairy is perfectly clean. Meghan sees Judith's work in the cell-like order. Pretty flowers picked from the paddock in a vase are dandelion, lantana, scotch thistle and Paterson's curse. Everything put away. 'What a well-meant bloody nuisance!' Too many vacant surfaces. A note on the table. The names and address of the goats' whereabouts, saccharine wishes in yellow on purple like the daisies of fire-weed and morning glory, with kisses and stars, such a lot of effort on such a small thing. Judith had done no more than give Jill the phone number of the couple, but she intended to milk her serendipitous intervention for all its worth. The drawers where Meghan's papers and photographs are kept in a rough and ready fashion are neat. Envelopes clipped together to be used again. Meghan sighs. She will never find anything unless she goes through it all, tossing, making a vital mess.

  No cat, no dog, no goats, no lover, no homeliness. Meghan gazes out on the miserable day and stares at the silvered bits of hardwood planking Judith brought to make a pigeon coop so that they could home messages to each other over the hills. Judith never even got as far as bringing a pair down in a cage to fly back to Lesbianlands. A glance in a book was probably all she knew about training homing pigeons. If Meghan herself had glanced in that book, or Permaculture magazine which is what it was, the birds would have been into their schedule within the week. But, Meghan realises, all she did was buy the original parents and acquiesce to a lot of utopian, atavistic visions. The half-built pen is ghostly. Deadly nightshade with its black berries grows through the rolled chicken wire. She lets her eyes roam across her piece of real estate, as she stands at her bedroom window, trying to revive her vision for this place.

  Canines guard the gates of hell, but Meghan is more partial to felines. A devil-dog appears on the edge of her consciousness. She focuses on her driveway. Chandra's hat, horse, side-saddle and person come over the brow of the hill. Meghan stares at her, the straight back, the elegant flop of her useless legs, the riding crop, the classic arch of her mount's neck. The obedient, huge dog lopes along with laughing, savage teeth and lolling tongue. 'That woman is together while I am in a thousand pieces.' When she hears the 'cooee', Meghan descends her ladder.

  'Are you okay?' Chandra asks, 'You were driving like a maniac.'

  Chandra has come to make sure she arrived safely. The fact that Meghan drives that way most of the time seems to have escaped her memory.

  'I guess,' Meghan replies suspiciously. Chandra knocked her out last time they were this close to each other.

  'I'm surprised your car made it up that hill.' Chandra indicated the erratic tyre marks.

  It is not raining. They talk outside. When Meghan was away Chandra had had a visit from Trina, her sister, who was psycho, according to Jill David, who had thrown her out. Meghan nods. In her own account Jill was a heroine. Trina had walked over to Chandra's, and told her. Meghan asks why Chandra took Trina's side in the brawl. At this minute, she enjoys a bit of malice at Jill's expense. Before, she would hear nothing against her. This among other things jostles for room in Meghan's capacious mind as she offers Chandra a drink, is accepted and passes her a glass of tank-water.

  Chandra sits high on her stocky horse. Meghan's eyes are level with her waist. Since their last encounter, their violent disagreement, relations are so cool, warming would take some effort.

  But Meghan is abrupt, 'When Jill threw Trina out, what was my sister's story?'

  Chandra is watching her dog with a frown, 'Pardon?'

  Meghan glances at the animal that is perfectly still, like a cat, concentrating on something invisible
. 'Trina?'

  'Well, I can only say what Trina said. I mean there were accusations I didn't necessarily take on board because she was obviously distressed.' Chandra is circumspect.

  'Why didn't you tell me?' Meghan demands irrationally.

  'You wouldn't have listened. And, why would I? I was just an ear, a counsellor, not a gossip. Besides we weren't talking,' Chandra says off-handedly.

  'Right,' Meghan is aggressive. 'I'm listening now.'

  'She said she was convinced that Jill was stealing from you. Large sums of money.'

  Tears appear in Meghan's eyes. She tries to force them back by pursing her lips.

  Nikki begins panting again, and drops her ears. 'I didn't make any evaluation either way. It did her good to talk. There was lots of stuff. About your childhood. About her envy of you. How emotionally cold your parents were. How you succeeded and she didn't. How you bought her a flat in Brisbane. How Jill accused her of bloodsucking. Sibling rivalry weighed on her mind. My advice to her was to do one thing,' Chandra speaks gently.

  'What was that?' Meghan demands, in a much harsher manner than she intends.

  'Oh, not any precise thing. Just one action which would make her feel better. You know, to get it out of her system. It was no good her stewing on it, grinding her teeth to stumps, not eating, chain-smoking, tying herself in knots. I didn't care what she did, I said, it could be anything at all, provided it expressed what she felt and what she thought, put the problems that were eating her up inside out there in the world so that she could deal with physical monsters, rather than ghosts of the past and suspicions, and so on.' Chandra's hands on the reins are still as if her whole posture was studied, ready for an explosion which if it scared her mount would not shift her from her seat. 'I gather from Margot Gorman she wrecked the place.' Chandra grins; after all, once they were friends who understood each other. She senses a vulnerability in Meghan that could go either way, to volcanic eruption or soggy dissolution.