by Judy Nunn
Robert held her to him for a second, grateful to have his little girl back. Then he broke the clinch before it became uncomfortable.
‘You know the birthday cheque you sent back several months ago?’ he asked. Maddy nodded, hoping that he wasn’t going to give her another lecture. ‘Well, would you accept a belated present?’ Then he added hurriedly, ‘So long as it wasn’t money.’
Maddy smiled. He was trying so hard. ‘Sure. That’d be great.’
The present turned out to be a bright red MGB which Alex made her accept even though they both knew the disapproving faction at NADA would think Maddy had gone even further up herself.
‘Fuck them,’ said Alex, and once again Maddy had to agree.
The bond between Maddy, Alex and Julian continued to grow. Not only did they enjoy each other’s company but they nurtured each other’s egos and fed each other’s ambitions. They even produced their own pub revue and managed to score a regular gig every second Sunday at a Woolloomooloo dockside alehouse. For fifteen years the pub had specialised in weekend jazz but a new wave management had decided to branch out and vary the programme.
It was an exciting existence. NADA continued to be stimulating and there was the heady knowledge that, at the end of it all, they would be fully equipped to launch themselves upon the outside world and make their impact on the Australian theatre.
It was the end of second term and Julian had finally decided to set into action phase B of his plan. He had learned a great deal about acting in eight months of full-time study. Indeed it was a far more complicated and interesting craft than he had originally assumed. But he hadn’t been tempted to change his strategy.
‘I’d like to transfer to the directors’ course, Mr Thomas.’
Jonathan Thomas was surprisingly obliging. It appeared that Julian was a borderline case in the selection lists for second year anyway.
Julian stared at the man in amazement. ‘You’re not serious,’ he said disbelievingly.
Jonathan read the young man’s reaction perfectly and smiled as he opened a folder on the desk in front of him. ‘You’d be surprised, Julian,’ he said. ‘We have to let many clever and talented young people go. The only way we can handle the numbers is to be extremely selective.’
He ran his finger down a list of names with comments beside them. ‘Some people who don’t complete the NADA course prove us wrong and go on to achieve great success but we can’t take that risk. Our directors have to assess as they see fit at the time.’
‘And I was going to be kicked out?’ Julian still couldn’t believe it possible.
‘No,’ Jonathan’s finger stopped halfway down the list and his eye scanned the comments on the right-hand side. ‘As I said, you were borderline. Your theory and improvisation would have got you through.’ He flashed a quick smile at Julian. ‘Augurs well for the directors’ course, doesn’t it?’ Then he returned to the comments. ‘My report goes before the Board in a fortnight—you would have been advised to work harder on your voice and movement and …’
Julian didn’t hear the rest. He was trying his utmost to read the list upside down. It was in alphabetical order and he could see Maddy’s name above his. Beside it he could distinctly read the word ‘excellent’ a number of times, and her comment section was brief.
He skipped down to the Rs. The comment section beside Alex Rainford was twice as long. He’d deciphered the terms ‘too remote’ and ‘not enough’ when Jonathan Thomas closed the folder and looked up at him.
‘So, all in all, I think it’s an excellent decision for us to transfer you, Julian. Of course you’ll have to wait till first term next year to start the directors’ course but I’d strongly recommend you finish this year. A first year acting course can only stand you in good stead.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ Julian agreed, but he couldn’t wait to get out.
‘No, I’m not joking!’
Maddy and Alex stared at Julian in horror. It was lunchtime and they were about to pile into Maddy’s car. Although it was only mid-August, spring was definitely in the air and they’d recently made a habit of zooming down to Bondi Beach during their break.
‘His report goes to the Board in a fortnight. I couldn’t read it properly, but my guess is they’re going to kick you out,’ Julian continued.
‘Only one way to find out.’ Alex nodded for them to get into the car. ‘You go on without me; I’ll see you when you get back. And grab me a pie or something, will you, I’m starving,’ he added as he walked back to the main gates.
The folder wasn’t on top of Jonathan Thomas’s desk when Alex stole into the deserted office several minutes later. There was nothing on top of the desk except a telephone, a notepad, a tray of pencils and pens and a large, leather-framed blotter. Jonathan was a compulsively tidy man.
Damn, he must have hidden it, thought Alex. But as he slid open the top left-hand drawer, there it was. He ran his finger down the page to ‘Alex Rainford’ and started scanning the comments opposite. They appeared to be a compilation of quotes selected by Jonathan Thomas from the various tutors’ end-of-term reports and there was a summation in Jonathan’s own hand at the end.
‘Improvisation lacks involvement, too remote’. Bloody Norah Hogarth, Alex thought, he’d been sure she liked him. Then from the acting tutor: ‘Approach clinical, short on passion, but intelligent, nothing that can’t be worked on’. Theory and voice classes were both conducted by Jonathan Thomas himself and the comments were not good: ‘Voice average quality, vocal range not improving with tuition’ ‘no applied application to theory; appears more interested in other class members than study of classics, poetic metre and history of theatre’. The comments on film and television technique both concluded that his looks and personal presence were good enough to maintain a pass so Alex skipped through to the summation. ‘Borderline case but recommend letting him go. There is a lack of commitment and he seems to rely too much upon his personal charm to get him by which, in my opinion, is not enough.’
Julian had been right. They were going to kick him out. No, not ‘they’. It was that bastard Jonathan Thomas. Where did they get off letting a wimp like him have the casting vote?
It was true that the final decision did, in the main, rest with Jonathan. The other members of the Board had voted it Jonathan’s duty to draw up the final report and summation and he considered it a personal honour. The other board members were only too happy to allow Jonathan his personal honour as it saved them all extra work and the only time his recommendations met with any disagreement was when a board member’s relative or ‘favourite’ was involved.
Alex returned the folder to the drawer and slipped quietly out of the office. He almost ran into Jonathan Thomas, who was crossing the courtyard with an orange juice in one hand and his customary salad sandwich in its white paper bag in the other. Alex smiled warmly at him and Jonathan replied with his tight smile before disappearing into his office. Bastard, Alex thought, his mind seething with plans and ideas. There had to be a way, there had to.
‘Yeah, you were right,’ he said to Julian as he took another bite of his Sargent’s meat pie. ‘Shit!’
They were sitting on the bench underneath the giant Moreton Bay fig tree in the centre of the courtyard.
‘What are you going to do?’ Maddy asked.
‘I’m working on it, Mad, don’t you worry.’ He winked and kissed her. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
Maddy could taste the spicy, peppery pie on Alex’s mouth and she smiled back at him. God, how she loved him.
‘Everything’s going to be just fine,’ he repeated as he took another huge bite. And he meant it. Alex had a plan.
Later that night a weary Maddy let herself into the flat. Friday was always busy in the restaurant and Alex was usually fast asleep by the time she got home. Invariably he’d wake and they’d make love, languidly, tenderly. Not tonight.
‘Hello, girlie, fancy a bit of rough trade?’
Maddy g
asped as the lights came on and Alex stood before her, his hand caressing the bulge in his tight blue jeans. He hadn’t showered or changed from his night’s work and the battered singlet he wore smelt of petrol and sweat. His hair was wet and his arms and hands were covered with black grease stains. As he slowly started unzipping his fly, he held his other hand out to her.
‘It’s all yours, baby. Come and get it.’
And Maddy did. As she sucked and licked and straddled and bucked, somewhere in the vague recesses of her mind was the image of Helena. What would her mother think? And the threads of that song from Sweet Charity: ‘If they could see me now’ … It added to her excitement. Then she heard her voice. Good God, was that really her? ‘Fuck me, Alex, fuck me, fuck me,’ over and over again. And then the flickering images of her mother disappeared as Maddy abandoned herself completely.
When they awoke in the morning, the sheets were covered with black grease stains.
‘Oh, hell,’ Maddy nudged Alex awake. ‘Look.’
‘Well, you will go in for rough trade,’ Alex shook his head disapprovingly. ‘I mean, you lie down with pigs …’
‘It’ll never come out.’
‘’Course it will. It’s only a mixture of black pancake and glycerine.’
Maddy looked at him incredulously. ‘But I thought …’
‘That I’d come straight from work? Christ, Mad, I’d get the sack if I served customers like that. I ran all the way home to get up a sweat, then I threw a bit of petrol on the singlet, grimed up with the pancake, head under the shower and, bingo, instant rough trade.’ He kissed her and jumped out of bed. ‘Come on, let’s take all this to the laundry.’
‘Why, Alex?’ Maddy looked a little bewildered. ‘Why did you do it?’
It was Alex’s turn to look confused. ‘Why does there have to be a reason? You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’ Maddy nodded. ‘So, why not?’ She shared his smile, then he heaved her off the bed, smacked her on the rump and started stripping back the linen. ‘Now give me a hand with this and we’ll go on to the next stage of your sexual development.’
‘Which is?’
‘Erotic photographs in public places.’
Maddy laughed until she caught sight of the blouse she’d been wearing the previous night. It was ripped to pieces. ‘Oh no,’ she said, picking it up. ‘It was one of my favourites.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll buy you a new one. Now we need plenty of film for dirty pictures.’ Alex started rummaging around in a drawer.
‘You can’t be—’
‘Bring some changes of clothes and wear a skirt to start with.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
But Alex was.
‘Where the hell am I going to wear it?’ Maddy pirouetted in front of the mirror while Alex looked on admiringly. The blouse was the sheerest, flimsiest silk and, because it wasn’t in any way tarty, utterly erotic. Soft, pink folds of material caressed the delicate shape of Maddy’s nipples and, from the side, with the light shining through the folds, the contour of a perfectly shaped young breast was faintly and tantalisingly revealed.
‘It’s a bit see-through. Maybe I should wear a bra with it.’ Maddy was not in any way a vain girl. She wasn’t stupid, of course, she knew she was pretty. And she was glad she was slim and relatively small-breasted because it was the fashion of the day. But she would never have used words like ‘beautiful’ or ‘sexy’ to describe herself.
‘You bloody well will not wear a bra with it,’ Alex insisted. ‘You’d look like a tart or an idiot or both.’
The attractive young shop assistant nodded her agreement. A guy with taste, she thought. And sexy too! But she didn’t attempt to flirt with him, it was not only bad business, but how could you compete with his stunning girlfriend? Pity.
‘Where to now?’ Alex asked as they left the boutique. ‘Watsons Bay?’
Maddy nodded happily and got into the passenger seat carefully nursing her new blouse. Saturday was her favourite day. Alex had long since given up his supermarket job and Harold’s lunches, lovely as they were, had recently been exchanged for midweek dinners so that Maddy and Alex could have Saturday to themselves. They’d go to Paddy’s Market together or hop in the MGB and burn up to Watsons Bay where they’d sit in the beer garden and watch the yachts on the harbour. Saturday night saw them working petrol pumps and waiting tables again but the day was theirs alone and Maddy loved it.
On Sundays Julian came around and the three of them worked on their NADA assignments together, learning lines, rehearsing, reading plays and essays and, every second Sunday, performing at the Woolloomooloo pub.
It was a sparkling spring day and the beer garden was quite crowded. A couple of tables in the centre were free but Alex insisted they wait for one down by the fence to become available. They were onto their second beer when the family at the corner table gathered their belongings together and got up to leave. Alex dived for the table immediately. It directly overlooked the promenade, the narrow beach and the beautiful spread of harbour dotted with sailing boats.
‘Perfect,’ Alex said.
‘Yes, isn’t it beautiful?’ Maddy agreed.
Alex put his hand between Maddy’s thighs. ‘Spread them a bit,’ he whispered.
‘What?’ Maddy looked confused.
‘Erotic photo time. Open your thighs a little.’
Maddy looked about guiltily and locked her thighs together. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. I couldn’t.’
‘Nobody can see, sweetheart.’ Alex’s hand caressed Maddy’s leg as he slowly edged her miniskirt up even higher. ‘Look, there’s no one on the beach, no one on the footpath. They’re all behind us.’ He kissed her ear lobe and she could feel his warm breath on her neck. ‘Just for me Maddy, just for me.’
His hand felt wonderful, his breath was caressing and the mere thought that he might be aroused sent a tremor through Maddy’s body. She parted her legs several centimetres.
‘Good girl,’ Alex breathed. ‘Stay like that.’ And he slung the camera around his neck and was through the gate and out on the footpath in a matter of seconds. He jumped the metre from the promenade to the beach and looked back up at the beer garden. He was the only person privy to the glimpse of Maddy’s crotch, encased in white Cottontail panties—with the crowds of carousing weekend drinkers behind her, the view was extremely voyeuristic.
He squatted down on the sand so that he was even further beneath her, gestured for her to drink her beer and gaze out at the harbour, and he started snapping away. He could feel himself becoming aroused and, as he watched Maddy squirm slightly in her seat, he knew she was too.
At one stage an elderly couple walked along the promenade for what seemed an age and Maddy’s legs snapped shut. When the couple had finally passed, she once more spread her legs. This time there was a fraction more white Cottontailed crotch—the thighs were now a little further apart.
Alex made himself stop. He mustn’t waste all the film; they had a lot of ground to cover that afternoon.
‘Oh God, you’re turning me on, baby,’ he whispered as he rejoined her at the table.
‘Me too. Shall we go home?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Oh no.’ His grin was irresistible. ‘You don’t get off that easily. Let’s try the new shirt.’
He photographed her sitting on the beach looking at the boats. The camera’s zoom lens, focused on the blouse, caught to perfection the innocent invitation of her breasts.
Another change of clothes. Maddy lying on the grass of the adjacent park reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich. Leaning on her elbow, one knee raised. The camera again zoomed in on the crotch of her skintight jeans.
Another change. Maddy leaning forward to entice a pigeon to feed from her hand. The camera zoomed in on the gaping neck of the denim shirt to reveal an entire breast unwittingly exposed.
And in between each set-up pose they whispered their desire to each other until, after two hours, they could bear it no longer. They found
a niche in the rocks down by the foreshore of the park and made love, frantically, feverishly, aware that at any moment they could be discovered—but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered.
It lasted only seconds and, afterwards, Maddy could barely believe that she’d done it. But they’d got away with it and she laughed breathlessly with a mixture of relief and sated desire.
Alex insisted they take the film directly to the all-hours chemist at the Cross for development as soon as possible.
‘They’ll be ready in a week,’ he told her as he got back in the car. ‘I can’t wait,’ he said, grinning, ‘it’ll be like doing it all over again.’
‘Why don’t we?’ suggested Maddy. Alex looked questioningly at her. ‘The photos,’ she continued. ‘Why don’t we do it all over again? We could do it every Saturday.’
Alex burst out laughing. ‘Hell, Maddy, it’d cost us a fortune.’ He kissed her deeply, his desire mounting once more. ‘For a late starter you’re sure making up for lost time,’ he said fondly.
As Maddy rummaged through her T-shirt drawer on Monday morning, Alex said, ‘Wear your new one’.
Maddy was about to protest but he got in first. ‘I’d like to see you in it.’ He ran a finger along her cheek. ‘It’ll remind me of Saturday.’
In the cold light of Monday morning Maddy felt a little self-conscious about her abandoned behaviour. ‘It’s too dressy, Alex. Besides, I want to wear it somewhere special the first time.’
There wasn’t even a second’s hesitation. ‘We’re going to Harold’s straight after classes.’
‘Great.’ Maddy was pleased; she always enjoyed going to Harold’s. ‘Why so early?’