Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘Who, Conner or Jordan?’

  ‘Your . . . er, the one you’re going out with,’ Carmel said. Katerina shrugged noncommittally.

  ‘Oh, about twenty-eight, I think.’ She looked up with a quick laugh. ‘Oh, Carmel, I can see you don’t approve!’

  We all laughed, although I knew that she’d made Carmel feel stupid. Carmel got up suddenly, picked the cups off the table and dropped them roughly into the sink.

  ‘I’ve got to go to bed,’ she said gruffly, not looking at us. I watched Katerina’s mouth twist into an ironic little smile as she gazed over at Carmel’s back.

  ‘Have I shocked you, Carmel?’ she asked sweetly. Carmel spun around, her face flushed with anger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shocked you? I don’t think you approve of my friends or of me doing the calendar, do you?’ Katerina went on lightly.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with me,’ Carmel said quietly, refusing to meet her eyes. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  With that she disappeared into the bathroom. Katerina shrugged and yawned.

  ‘I’m tired, too.’

  We could hear Carmel brushing her teeth. When she came out she headed straight for the door leading to the bedrooms.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Katerina and I were left looking at each other.

  I got up, not wanting to be there alone with her. I’d had enough heart-to-heart talks in the middle of the night. But on my way to the door I impulsively touched her shoulder.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Don’t let anyone talk you into anything you’re not happy with, okay?’

  ‘Right.’ She looked back at me seriously before giving a quick tentative smile. ‘Thanks, and listen, Jude . . .’ I was at the door, but stopped and turned around.

  ‘What?’

  She seemed embarrassed suddenly, lost for words.

  ‘Sleep well, okay? No bad dreams.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said gamely. ‘You too.’

  One night the next week I was working late in my room. I had a chemistry test the following day and I wanted to do well.

  ‘Jude, you awake?’

  ‘Come in, Carmeloo,’ I said. I looked up from my books. Her thick hair was pulled back into a rough bun and she was dressed in her old flannelette nightie.

  She sat slowly on my bed. When she looked up at the black-and-white photo of Allende on my wall she was frowning, studying it for some answer to her innermost questions.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know how to say it.’

  ‘Carmel, tell me?’ I said.

  ‘It’s about . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘Anton?’ I ventured. She nodded and gave a deep sigh.

  ‘He’s got a nice face,’ she said, still staring at the photo.

  ‘Who? Anton?’

  ‘No,’ she smiled. ‘Allende.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I said unenthusiastically, not wanting her to change the subject.

  ‘He kind of looks like everyone’s uncle . . .’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I repeated.

  ‘Did your father really know him?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Now they’re both dead,’ she added slowly as if to herself.

  ‘Yep.’

  We smiled gingerly at each other. She knew I was on to her stalling tactics. I tried to think of a subtle way to get her talking.

  ‘You want to sleep with him?’ I began. Then grimaced. Typical me. No one in their wildest dreams could call that subtle! To my relief she burst out laughing. I smiled. These days Carmel was looking fantastic. She was still big, with plump arms and shoulders, but her skin glowed.

  ‘Trust you!’ she said wryly. ‘I might have known you’d be on to it.’

  ‘Well, am I right?’ I replied with a grin. She became serious suddenly, troubled again.

  ‘Jude, I don’t know how to . . .’

  ‘How to what?’ I asked gently. She shrugged and looked away. ‘Carmel, what do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how to . . .’ she repeated miserably, ‘do . . . it, if you know what I mean.’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Oh it,’ I said after a couple of moments, as if it explained everything and from now on everything would be very simple. We both burst out laughing. Not so much because we were embarrassed, but because it suddenly seemed absurd to be talking about it like this. Actually I had no idea what to say, so I said the first thing that came into my head.

  ‘Have you . . . er, tried?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, not really . . . well, yes, I guess so.’ She sighed. I was about to ask if that answer was a yes or a no, but thought it would be better to save my flippancy for another time.

  ‘Does . . . er, he know how to do it?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ She wrung her hands. ‘I think so!’

  ‘Are you attracted to him?’

  ‘Jude. Of course I am,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘I know that was a stupid question.’

  ‘It’s just that . . .’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t know what I should do . . .’

  ‘You’ve kissed him?’

  ‘Yes. But, like, when it gets to a certain level I.. . . I pull back. I’m afraid.’

  ‘Have you got any protection?’ I asked, thinking of the inevitable.

  ‘Well, no . . . but that’s not what makes me nervous!’ I rolled my chair nearer and leant across to touch her hand briefly.

  ‘Get nervous about that,’ I said sternly. ‘It’s really important. A girl like you, Carmel. You’d find it very difficult having an abortion.’

  ‘Jude!’ She pulled away, shocked at the idea. ‘I’d never have an abortion! Ever!’

  ‘So get something!’ I snapped back sharply, then felt sorry when she winced. ‘Getting pregnant isn’t the only disaster that can happen, you know. Sorry, Carm, it’s just that . . . well . . .’ I shrugged. Damn it. It was important. Herpes. Bloody AIDS. And I couldn’t bear the idea of Carmel going through all that abortion crap.

  ‘Do you know what to do?’ she asked shyly, looking down at her hands.

  I smiled and shrugged.

  ‘Well, yeah . . . I suppose so. I suppose I do.’ Her question had stumped me, though. I’d never thought about anyone not knowing. I mean, it’s not something you even know about exactly, just something you do if the situation is right. I don’t really know where I’d got my own attitude from. She was looking at me steadily now.

  ‘You don’t seem all that interested in guys, Jude.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ I said, surprised. Would I tell her my own sordid sob story? But I didn’t want her to feel intimidated because I’d had more experience. I figured I should shut up for a while. ‘I’ve seen guys looking at you in the cafe,’ Carmel went on. ‘That guy Eduardo. You know, the good-looking one. And Patrick. He likes you, too.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said noncommittally. ‘They’re nice, both of them, aren’t they?’

  ‘Eduardo’s really sweet, eh?’ she added. ‘He likes you a lot. I can tell.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I smiled. ‘Maybe . . . he does.’

  ‘He plays good guitar, too.’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  I turned towards the window, aware of a burst of heat beginning in the pit of my belly and spreading out to my arms and down my legs. I’d managed to forget about all this for months. Now here it was, rearing its dangerous, beautiful head again, making me remember that I was a body, too. That for all my fancy ideas I was still a body, like everyone else, a body with a life of its own, almost apart from my brain, my soul, my mind, with desires and feelings of its own.

  For those few moments I was back there in the half-light in that shabby house in Manella rolling around in David’s sheets, in David’s arms, stroking his wiry curls and kissing his mouth, loving the feel of his hands on the small of my back. All those hot afternoons between four and six, when my mother thought I was at the library or off studying with girlfriends,
I’d been there with him; talking, laughing, arguing and making love. Girlfriends! I didn’t have girlfriends. Not really. I got on with people, did enough so that they wouldn’t hate me or pick on me. But my head was elsewhere. No one in my class was interested in the things I was interested in. Until the end of Year 11 I had no real confidante, except for my mother. Then at the beginning of Year 12 I met David. It was then that I realised I’d been lonely for years. The only problem was that he was the senior politics and history teacher at the school. I was doing sciences, so thankfully I was never in one of his classes. But it was uncomfortable enough. It began as such fun, such a thunderbolt of unbelievable joy, but it quickly became dicey and dangerous for both of us. Ultimately it was a shameful business, especially for him, and I couldn’t bear that. Even so, I’m glad it happened.

  I had approached him initially, wanting some political background on a newspaper cutting about El Salvador. But it was only an excuse. The week before I’d heard him speaking to a few Year 7 kids about the motorbike he’d had when he was younger. They were all poring over an illustration of a Harley Davidson. I’d watched him bend down and pat one of the kids’ heads when the others had all rushed off to class. He’d patted this pale, grubby little malnourished kid, who came from a local impoverished family, and spoken to him in the gentlest way. Little actions sometimes speak more eloquently than a million words. At that moment I somehow knew instinctively who he was. I mean deep down. Those troubled blue eyes and the slow way his mouth moved before it widened into a smile. I watched him for a few days and decided that I’d have to push some kind of meeting. We met alone for the first time in his office after school. It turned out he’d spent three years travelling throughout South America, spoke Spanish, and knew lots that I wanted to learn.

  But in the end he put a stop to it. He said it made him feel too bad. He was thirty-one, you see, unmarried but thirty-one, and I was only seventeen. He wanted to be able to take me out. ‘What sort of life is it when you have to hide your girlfriend in your bedroom?’ he used to rant. I didn’t care. His grotty bedroom was just fine with me. But he was so afraid we’d be caught. In fact, by the time it ended, in spite of all our care and discretion, a couple of people did know or at least were suspicious. When David found that out he freaked. We’d have to stop it, he said, or it would only be a matter of time and we’d both be ruined. ‘For God’s sake, David, it’s not the nineteenth century,’ I’d yell. ‘These things happen!’ I tried to persuade him not to care. I did love him: his funny clear mind, his blue eyes and curly black hair, the way he’d groan and breathe my name when we were caught up in our passion. I would have been happy to marry him, to be with him forever. But he was convinced that he had somehow debauched me, taken my innocence. I couldn’t bear that. ‘David, I have never been young and innocent, even when I was young and innocent! In fact I am much older than you in real terms. I know a lot more about life and death. I’m definitely wiser!’ I said that kind of thing to him so many times and it never failed to make him laugh, in spite of himself. He knew in some crazy way that it was true. I had always known what was going on. He knew that. But after eight months, two weeks and four days it was over. And I had to accept it.

  I looked at Carmel. With David it had never been a matter of not being able to do it. The big problem was stopping. That was where the pain had been for me. I realised with a small shock that I must still be getting over it, because I hadn’t considered anyone else, at least not for more than a moment, since I’d hit the city. But I pushed the thought from my mind.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ I asked slowly.

  ‘I don’t know!’ she sighed. ‘But when he begins to touch me . . .’ She blushed. ‘I sort of clam up and get cold and shaky.’ ‘It will go,’ I said, unsure if I was right or not. ‘I’m sure it will go . . . D o you feel comfortable with him?’

  ‘I love him!’

  ‘I know, but do you feel comfortable with him?’ She shrugged miserably.

  ‘I don’t know. Jude, what if I’m one of those frigid girls? That’s what he might be thinking!’

  ‘No!’ I said emphatically. ‘He wouldn’t be thinking that. You just need more time. And while you’re both taking time, promise me you’ll go and find out about contraception.’ I was stalling, changing the subject from what Carmel really wanted to talk about. But I didn’t think it was a good idea just to shoot from the top of my head. I needed to think a bit more about what she’d said, maybe try to find out more from someone who might know.

  ‘Where,’ she asked, ‘do I go for that kind of thing?’

  ‘That kind of thing,’ I mimicked. ‘Stop being coy! At uni, the health clinic . . . where do you think?’

  ‘I’m not a student, remember.’

  ‘So go to the clinic down the road! God, Carmel,’ I yawned. ‘Don’t be a dud.’

  She stood up and we grinned at each other.

  ‘We will resume this conversation at a later date,’ I joked, meaning it quite seriously, of course.

  ‘Okay.’ She looked a little relieved as she moved to the door and opened it. ‘Night, Jude.’

  ‘Night,’ I said lightly. ‘And don’t worry. It’ll sort itself out . . .I promise you.’

  I went to sleep troubled because I didn’t understand my friend’s problem at all. And I also thought that my telling her not to worry about it was probably worse than useless.

  That talk with Carmel stands out in my mind because it seemed to be the closing of a chapter in our little house. After that night life seemed to speed up for both of us. I had a lot of tests to study for at university so I was very busy, and then there was the protest against the Chilean president that Juan, Eduardo and José and I were coordinating. And Carmel became very busy too. On top of her work at the cafe, she was rehearsing with her new band every afternoon. She was learning a heap of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, k.d. lang and Paul Kelly songs and when we’d meet in the kitchen on our way to somewhere else she’d sing a few bars loudly and I’d join in.

  Carmel was taking a crash course in a style of music that she’d barely heard only the year before and she was loving it. Some of them were great songs, real blues/rock classics, and they suited her voice beautifully.

  Carmel would howl mournfully into the empty hallway or shower. I’d open the door and join in or belt out the next line. Then we’d either finish the song together or, depending on how we were feeling, crack up with laughter.

  We were as close as ever, but for a few weeks there we saw each other only in passing, or while we were working with the others on the protest.

  And then somehow it was already that clear cold night in July. Three hundred of us huddled together, chanting, outside the Melbourne Town Hall. The mood was up, spirits were high. Even though it was drizzling, the crowd was bigger than we had expected. I’d taken two days off university to help Juan coordinate the four days of protest, and it had gone better than we could have imagined. Early in the week we’d got some prominent news coverage. For some reason the reporters and journalists homed in on me. I suppose I provided an ‘angle’ that ordinary people could quickly grasp. The fact that I’d been born in Chile and that my father had been killed by the junta encouraged them to suggest that I was on some kind of crusade to avenge his death. Not strictly true, but I didn’t care. At least we were getting coverage. The interviews nearly always ended with questions about my plans to return to Chile to continue my father’s medical work. I was often asked whether I also intended to agitate for political change once I got there. I always smiled at this point, not wanting to give too much away. ‘It depends on what I find when I get there.’

  It was after one of these interviews that Carmel asked me wistfully whether I definitely planned to work in Chile after I had finished my degree.

  But I could only shrug. It had always been my plan, but now that it was closer than it had ever been, it suddenly seemed an impossibly long time away. Such a long way off that there was no point planning for it.


  At some of the day venues only fifty or sixty protesters had been able to come along, because of work commitments. But this night, the last night in the Chilean president’s Melbourne itinerary, the crowd was terrific. We stood on the corner of Swanston and Collins streets with our placards, alternately singing and chanting. We didn’t actually stop the traffic, but we did slow it down. Tired and sometimes annoyed faces peered out at us from the rows of cars. I was filled with appreciation for the ordinary Australian that night. The tolerance with which we were greeted, by people who obviously had no idea what we were on about, was really something, especially considering that we were holding them up on a cold Friday night when they were trying to get home. Many seemed genuinely interested in what we were on about, their hands diving out of their cars to take the leaflets we were distributing. Others were obviously frustrated at being waylaid. They would shrug impatiently and walk or drive on without taking a leaflet or screw it up without reading it. But almost everyone who passed by, either on foot or in their cars, wore an unspoken expression of forbearance on their faces: there was no fury or hatred. They believed we had a right to be where we were. When I think about how intolerant so many countries are, and about how reckless the authorities in Chile were when they felt their own power being threatened, I realise all over again how much Australia means to me. I love this country with a fierceness that I reckon many people who were actually born here might never feel.

  The good grace we were receiving from people passing by might have had a lot to do with the music we were playing and singing. Eduardo, José, and about five of their friends were standing out the front of the crowd on a stage of wooden fruit boxes with their guitars, drums, flutes and charangos. The sound was loud and buoyant, the rhythms infectious.

  We had twenty-five people handing out leaflets, and at least another twenty-five holding up the banners that Juan, Eduardo, Carmel and I had made over many late nights at the back of the cafe and in our back shed.

  10 000 killed, Mr President . . . what are you going to do?

  After all this time, still no proper trials.

  Chileans in Australia will not forget the disappeared.