Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 15, Issue 2

by Susan Midalia

  ‘Thank you for the conversation,’ he says. ‘It’s been, well, good to talk to you, autumnal Hazel.’

  ‘And it’s been good to talk to you,’ I say, bravely. ‘The man who loved children.’

  I don’t look back to see if he smiles: at my throwaway ending, at me. A silly, romantic girl stepping off a train, preparing for the long hot trek to see my mother. Just to say hello and try not to talk about me, avoid her well-meaning pep talk about my more-or-less aimless life. The sun’s already blasting my face, with a swirling easterly wind, heading for another unbearable day, and I make myself think about something else. How maybe tonight I’ll buy a bottle of rotgut wine and ask a friend to come over. But not to talk about a man on a train who was a whole lot older than me, with a formal way of speaking. Who was wry, thoughtful, a little angry, a whole lot wise. Because he felt to me like something private. Almost intimate. Or I can think about taking a long hot bath in my very small bathtub, which is the best I can do, really, under the circumstances. But most of all I’m hoping that by the time I walk past the trendy hair salon, the boutique, the Bed-and-Bath shop, all the familiar, pointless signposts, that the memory of his face, his dark, solid presence, will already have started to fade.

  And then I hear a shout, my name. Turn around to see him running. Adam.

  ‘Your book,’ he says. Out of breath. ‘You left Persuasion on the train.’ His hair is messy in the wind and here he is with his deep brown eyes and strong nose and stubble on his face and all of this is beautiful to me. He passes me the book, runs his fingers through his hair as I gush out my thanks… library book… would have copped a whacking fine… so lucky you saw it…

  He’s looking at me so intently that it almost hurts my eyes.

  ‘I just wanted to say again, properly, that I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘I must have sounded insufferable. So pompous, so self-righteous. I’m… will you let me buy you a coffee? By way of atonement?’

  I take a deep breath. Take a plunge. ‘I’d prefer a glass of wine,’ I say. ‘If that’s alright.’

  He laughs. ‘But it’s only nine in the morning.’

  And I’ve stumbled again, muttering that I’ve lost track of the time, even as I see the warmth of his eyes, feel the heat of his body.

  He shuffles his feet, nervously. ‘How old are you, Hazel?’ he says. ‘If you don’t mind me asking. Twenty-three? Four?’

  ‘Twenty-five,’ I say, staunchly.

  ‘I’m forty-two,’ he says. ‘I’m… well, I don’t want you to think I’m a dirty old man who picks up young women on the train. Or indeed anywhere.’

  ‘I’m not a frivolous person either,’ I say.

  ‘I know that,’ he says, quietly.

  I feel courageous. Bold. Entirely new.

  ‘I just want you to know—’ now that I’ve made a start— ‘I want you to know that I don’t mind at all being picked up on the train, or indeed anywhere. As long as it happens to be you.’

  He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. He takes a step towards me.

  ‘I never imagined you,’ he says, and brushes back his hair.

  A Woman Who Went to Town

  Josephine Clarke

  All that remained of him was the smell of coffee and his empty bowl in the sink. It was Sale day, and he had already driven off in his ute. Lena couldn’t help herself; she left the dishes and went outside to her garden. She’d been waiting all week for a chance to look over the roses. Her shoes darkened with the wet dew. It was delicious, the freedom.

  She quickly pulled on her rubber boots and hurried down to the dairy, singing as she strode. With the wheelbarrow from the feed shed she went to where they heaped the hay, foetid and warm, from under the cattle. She took the pitchfork from its hook at the shed door, stacked the barrow high, then pushed the heavy load up the little hill to her garden. She started at the furthest end of the rose beds and piled the warm grassa around each plant, not too close, working it into the soil with the fork, talking to her roses as she did: Superstar—such a brash, lipstick orange; Queen Elizabeth with her delicate English pinkness; Memoriam—strong stems and tightly clustered petals, like her memories. Apricot Nectar, Chrysler Imperial, Blue Moon… Her allies, every one of them.

  Lena moved more swiftly and filled the barrow again. The day was warming. Clouds drifted away in the southern sky, and in the east the sun was reaching over the forest. She drew in the smell of it all: the damp leaves, the richness of the grassa, the wet soil broken open by her fork.

  When she had finished the first bed, she moved on to the second in the side garden. It was like sewing; her fork going in and out of the soil. With her secateurs she trimmed off the yellow leaves and quarantined them into her apron pocket, then dead-headed the overblown blooms and buried them into the soil with the manure. She cupped her hands around the last few blooms and drew in their sweetness, treasuring it.

  The soil was swollen with her generosity. Soon, when the winter set in, she would prune each rose, feed them all again and wait for their spring bounty and the Agricultural Show. If the timing was right, if the weather smiled, the moon waxed, and the days before the Show were calm enough, perhaps, if all these conditions were met, she might win the Champion sash. In her mind she already saw the purple and white ribbon wrapped around a Charles Mallerin or a perfect Pascale.

  Across the paddocks she could hear a tractor ploughing. The sun fell full on the orchard but the vegetables still hung wet with night. She knocked her boots against the bottom step, shook them clean over the fuchsias and went back inside, where everything sat as she had left it. The fire needed stoking. In a flurry she raced through her tasks– the dishes, the sweeping. She filled the woodbox, put away his Weekly, emptied his ashtray. She felt it, the silence of his absence, as she hurried on through more chores, returning the room to its order, ready for his return. ‘Twas on the Isle of Capri that he found her…’ she sang. Why couldn’t he love music?

  Passing the calendar, she stood back to enjoy the picture from Switzerland. It was just like their own mountain back home. Would anyone there recognise her bronzed face after thirty years in the sun? What would they think of her short hair? She put her hand where her bun had been. She’d cut it years ago when they were busy digging the summer crop. What a relief it had been not to wear a scarf in the heat. She turned to the view out the window: the thick pasture of the valley, the poppies up the slope, the leaning pine tree where the old house had been, and the three dams. She loved it. They had made it look that way. The old country seemed so untouchable—living there you had to follow the rules, those mountains closed you into a set path. But here, there was room to breathe.

  She opened the curtains and let the sun in, warming their bed. She sat on the mattress and breathed in the smell of him, remembering. The first time she had put her head on his chest and he held her close, she was drunk on the odour of tobacco and wool, and of his skin. Their stolen hugs, when no one was watching. She laughed to herself. How innocent they were, always terrified of being caught. Those long kisses… Before they were married, she had thought they were sinful, that they shouldn’t kiss because it made them want each other more. The ache she felt for him when a day passed and she hadn’t seen him. A feeling as though the whole village was watching, could read her every thought. The whole village was an audience to their desire.

  She picked up the heavy receiver of the telephone and dialled the Riches number.

  ‘That you, Norma? It’s Lena here. How are things?’

  ‘Not too bad thanks Lena, pretty good. What time do you think Jack will be leaving for town?’

  ‘About one? I will be ready. I will have an early lunch and I will be ready.’

  ‘Thank you very much. Elio will pick me up at the store at three he said, so that will give me plenty of time to do a bit of shopping and have a wander up the street.’

  ‘How did Peter and Robert go at the football on Sunday? And Mark and David going off to school on these cold mornings?’ />
  Lena didn’t linger in conversation; she wanted to get back to her freedom. She saw the roses through the kitchen window. The morning light had intensified. She made herself another cup of coffee and sat back in the armchair. She rested the length of her neck along the old vinyl and closed her eyes. She saw exact little buds before her, and full but disciplined blooms. She imagined painting the cool-drink bottles in which she would present them. Even Elio, who had no time for the beauty of the roses, was proud of her prize-winning. It made up for other things, she supposed; she liked to think she deserved it… She turned away from those thoughts and began to list what she needed to buy. Lena was looking forward to town. She hoped she would see June at the Post Office or Beverly at the Chemist… Beverly seemed to understand Lena. They didn’t mix socially, they only spoke when she went into the pharmacy on the rare trips to town, but she knew Beverly had some inkling of what her life was like. Once it happened that Beverly had said something about Elio, what it must be like to live with such a determined man, and Lena had burst into tears right there in the Chemist’s shop. Beverly hadn’t ever said another word about it, but it was always a comfort for Lena to have a quiet chat amongst the medicines and giftware. That was what she ached for nowadays, such small consolations.

  When she opened her eyes and looked at the clock it was still only eleven. There was time enough to do a bit of ironing before she got ready. She filled the kitchen with the smell of hot cloth and steam, then carried the warm clothes to their room and put them away before she relented and made the bed.

  For lunch she ate bread with cheese and salami, and fig jam on the crust for dessert. Finally she could prepare for town. Lena’s pulse quickened. She had a shower under the weak stream of hot water. She powdered her cream-coloured skin with the smell of another world, then put on her good frock. She pulled the seams of her stockings into place before the mirror of her dressing table. Now she felt like someone else. A woman who went to town. The wife of Elio Rinaldi. She cupped her black shoes over her broad feet and enjoyed feeling taller. She straightened the snug seams of her navy dress. Someone might compliment her for this, her favourite frock. Elio would never tell her how she looked. His head was always on the farm, the beef prices, the potato quotas. He was a good farmer; others came to him for advice, but he never said… Oh, what was the use of thinking about all that, it didn’t get you anywhere.

  Her heels clicked onto the tiles of the cold blue bathroom as she teased the curlers from her fringe and combed her hair into place. She sprayed her thick hair generously with the smell of Sophia Loren. Face powder, lipstick, and she was done. She put her hat into place. She was quite pleased with the result. She put her white hanky into her handbag, checked that the cash he had given her was in her purse, and snapped it shut.

  In Jack Richss’ Vauxhall, Lena sat close to the passenger door and looked out. She noticed how much water there was in the Coopers’ dam, saw John Wells’s son ploughing their hill paddock, ready for the next crop. Jack whistled through his teeth as they drove. It reminded Lena of the day little David was born and Jack had spent the whole time in the kitchen, his back to the stove, whistling airy melodies. The baby had arrived before they could get to the hospital, and Jack rushed over to pick up Lena to help. She almost fainted at the smell of the blood and the wet sheets, but without looking too closely, she wrapped the baby in a clean white sheet and washed his little face as best she could. His fingers stretched and clenched under his chin, their tiny nails perfect. For a few long seconds she hugged the bundle before she handed him to Norma. She couldn’t watch the little mouth around the nipple, but busied herself with the soiled sheets. Jack hadn’t even thought to put some water on to boil.

  She had cried for days afterwards, wouldn’t let Elio near her…

  Lena crossed herself as they passed the cemetery and she remembered her mother, and all the ones who had died. She was lucky to still be here, and to still have Elio. They had been lucky; they survived all the dangers of working amongst the big timber. Even when they argued, and he slept in the spare room for days, eventually they both remembered how lonely life could be and he softened and would put his arm around her at the stove. And that was enough. They slipped back into their bed, their intimacy.

  Jack dropped her at the Post Office. Lena looked in through the wide glass door, but couldn’t see June. Disappointed, she walked down the main street, aware that people might be watching her. Admiring her, perhaps. She looked in the windows of all the shops, sometimes catching her own reflection. At the dress shop she peered inside. If there was someone she knew, she could go in and chat and touch some of the dresses while she talked. But again she saw no one she knew, so she took a long look at the three models in the window.

  At the Chemist Lena entered bravely. Janine Little, the young girl, approached her.

  ‘Is Beverly here? I just wanted some advice about Elio’s cough.’

  A quick excuse. But Beverly was not in. Her mother was ill. Lena declined Janine’s offer of help, said it wasn’t that bad, that she still had some mixture from last time. Lena turned around before the girl had a chance to ask any more questions, and stepped back into the cold wind outside. Bother! She didn’t get to town often; where was everyone today? She made her way to the Continental Store on the corner. She looked at her little watch, barely holding onto her fattening wrist. She had half an hour before Elio would come to pick her up.

  ‘Eh, compare!’ she called out to Gino, glad at last to talk to someone.

  ‘Ciao signora. Come va? Ow you going? We got good coffee this week signora. Colombian. Real good.’

  ‘What? Colombian? Me, I love the Kenyan. You got any of that?’

  ‘Sì, sì. But you look at the Colombian. Smell him. You will like that one.’

  Lena smelt everything. It was full of the old country; their little bit of the old country in the new. Lena took a slow look around the shop. When Mrs Paravicini had made her choices and left, Lena put her handbag on the counter and expounded her expertise to the obliging Gino. She bought coffee—Kenyan coffee—pasta, sugar, flour, cheeses, tins of tuna, olives, beans. Then she chose the good bread. Finally she decided on the big bag of rice. Gino cheerfully packed everything in boxes for her, complimenting her choices, acknowledging her understanding of the world of food. He totalled it up. Twelve pounds and ten shillings.

  ‘We make it twelve pounds for you signora.’

  ‘What? Twelve pounds? So much?

  ‘All here signora. You gotta the Romano, is expensive now. You got all this rice’ —and he waved his hand over her boxes and she knew he was right, he wasn’t cheating her. She had been over-indulgent again. She felt her face reddening.

  ‘Can you wait until Elio gets here? He’s picking me up soon. Can you wait and I will pay you then?’

  ‘Sì signora. No problema. I put the boxes here, and you bring me the money when Signor Rinaldi gets here.’

  Gino put the boxes on the floor behind the wide bench and Lena walked out onto the footpath. She saw Mrs Giglia turn down another aisle.

  She didn’t have to wait long. Elio was always early. He drove the ute into the angle park outside the dress shop. Fear drew on the muscles of her throat. He got out of the car, ready to pick up the boxes, as he always did. She put her hand out, signalling to him to wait. He looked at her. She knew he was thinking What now? The humiliation rushed over her. She saw the silent drive home, the clatter of cutlery during the evening meal. She took out her gentle voice.

  ‘Elio, the stores cost more than I thought. There were big bags of rice and I thought we may as well get a big bag and one thing and another, and … Can you give me two more pounds?’ Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  She saw his eyes cloud, his jaw set. He drew the wallet from his back pocket and his hands were shaking. He unfolded the wallet and spread the sides open, and there the money sat like accordion pleats. He took out two one-pound notes and tossed them at her. They drifted to the ground and
she, looking sideways, bending her knees to the side in her tight navy frock, scraped along the footpath to grab them. She smoothed down her dress as she stood. In the reflection of the shop window she saw the power in Elio’s arms as he opened the back of the ute. Tears welled. She looked around. Mrs Kelly was staring into the window of the haberdashery. Then across the road she saw Beverly helping her mother out of the Doctor’s surgery. Beverly waved and smiled. Lena waved back, coughed, and went in to pay her account.

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