The Fine Color of Rust

by Paddy O'Reilly

  My friends have been as encouraging as usual.

  “Give it up, Loretta,” Helen said this morning. She looked down at the latest letter to the education minister.

  “I can’t. It’s turned into an addiction. I can’t stop writing letters to ministers.”

  “Like heroin.” She nodded sympathetically.

  “Or beer, but not as pleasant. Actually, it’s more like an addiction to ground glass, or whipping yourself with wet rope every morning at dawn.”

  “Great. My best friend has turned into a pain junkie.”

  “Helen, do you remember what I said when I first started the Save Our School business?”

  She shook her head.

  “I said that you should tell me if the whole town started to hate me. It’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?” Helen inclined her head doll fashion, smiling a fake smile showing no teeth, only tight lips with upturned corners.

  “I saw Maxine in the grocery store yesterday. She didn’t have time to say hello. You know why? Because she was running. Yes, people are running away from me now.”

  “Maybe she was busy?”

  “She hadn’t bought anything. She dropped a tin of tomatoes as she ran out the front door.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating, Loretta.”

  “I didn’t ask her to pay for the biscuits in the meetings.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Don’t blame me when this obsessive-compulsive thing puts you in a straitjacket,” she said on her way out the door.

  Underneath every conversation, like having an electric current buzzing through my brain, is the fretting about Norm. Each day I ring or drop in and try not to ask him about his health.

  “Don’t start asking about my health all the time,” he warned me on Monday. “I know what a terrier you are. I’ll tell you if there’s anything you need to know.”

  So I don’t. I’ve been pestering Justin instead. Yesterday Justin asked me if I wanted to know about Norm’s bowel movements.

  “Well,” I said dubiously, “I suppose. If it’s important.”

  Justin looked away, smiling.

  “Oh, you were joking.” I thought I should probably go home. Norm’s illness seemed to have stripped me of my sense of humor.

  “He’s doing OK. Really.” Justin was still smiling. Thought he was a pretty funny bloke.

  “Hey, forgot to mention you’re signed up for the Save Our School and Stop Our Development Committee. Norm said you’re good at math, so you’re the treasurer.”

  No more smiling for Mr. Funny Man. I pulled a meeting flyer from my handbag and dropped it on the table. He’s not really the treasurer, but neither is anyone else, and since he didn’t say an immediate no, I think I might have done something smart for a change.

  “See you tomorrow night!” I called back gaily over my shoulder on my way out of the shed.

  This afternoon I remembered to drop into the library and read the article in the Shire Herald about the council.

  COUNCILLORS NEED PROBE

  It has been leaked to the Shire Herald that last year certain shire councillors and council staff took trips, sometimes with spouses and children, which our source claims were paid for by a corporation involved in land acquisition in the shire. Three of these trips were to Western Australia, ostensibly to investigate small-scale agriculture, and included winery tours and boat cruises. The cost of the trips is estimated by the Herald at approximately forty thousand dollars.

  And I was worried about the amount of petrol it took to drive the kids to Melbourne.

  It has been suggested by the source close to the council that there are inappropriate links between council and local builders, as well as larger development companies based out of the shire. The source suggested that there may have been intervention in planning processes for building applications that violate the local building codes.

  The Shire Herald is also investigating allegations that a major development company made large campaign donations before the election, but that these donations were not declared.

  Hot stuff! No wonder Mrs. Mayor almost went at me with her handbag the other night. Even if Vaughan isn’t one of the people the article is talking about, he looks like an idiot for letting this go on.

  I made twenty copies of the article to bring to the meeting tonight. I had already changed the night of the meeting so we wouldn’t be competing with the Church of Goodwill, so this time we’re in the big room. Brianna has offered to mind the kids again—she really has no fear.

  When I arrive, Helen’s sitting alone in a circle of orange plastic chairs at the front of the room, reading. Behind her is the stage where every year the Halstead Players do a performance of a musical, which has been The Sound of Music five years out of eight. We Gunapanians feel obliged to pay good money to hear them yowling and yodeling, then tell them over a cup of tea afterward how much we loved it.

  Helen looks up as I head for the board to write up the agenda. “Peter sent his apologies. He’s had to stay back for a school staff meeting tonight.”

  “OK. Good book?”

  She turns it over and reads the blurb aloud. “‘Heather thinks this holiday in her hometown of Darwin will be just the thing to cheer her up after the breakdown of her marriage. But when she meets a mysterious man claiming to be her long-lost uncle, family secrets emerge that will rock her world and set her on a surprising course to new love.’ How come thrilling secrets never emerge from my family?”

  “I’ve discovered some dark secrets in mine.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s true,” I tell her. “A mysterious man. Five Chihuahuas. A sudden trip to a tropical destination.”

  “Your mother marrying a geriatric and retiring to the Gold Coast is not thrilling or mysterious.”

  “Here’s a real secret. I got the check from Mum from the sale of her flat. Five thousand dollars!”

  Helen whoops as Justin walks in the door. He’s alone.

  “Norm not coming?”

  Justin shakes his head. “Next meeting, he says. He’s sent me to represent the Stevenses.”

  “And don’t forget you’re the treasurer.”

  For the next ten minutes I sit on the edge of my vinyl chair, biting my nails, while Helen reads and Justin wanders around the room, hands clasped behind his back, looking at Vaccination Works! and Literacy Week posters. The hall is the original building that the community center has been constructed around. It’s paneled in oak and the ceiling is painted the original toilet-block green. On one wall is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, who never made it to Gunapan on her coronation tour but sent a framed picture instead. The back wall has the names of all the mayors listed in gold lettering.

  I can’t wait any longer so I pass them copies of the Shire Herald article. “Did you read this?”

  “Typical.” Helen goes back to reading her book.

  “I saw a copy on Dad’s door,” Justin says. “And I don’t think he’s finished with them yet.”

  Now Helen looks up. “Norm’s the source? He is full of surprises, that man.”

  At seven fifteen, Leanne appears at the door. She looks around the empty room.

  “Is this . . .?”

  “The Save Our School and Sod Off Development Committee.” I gesture around the empty room. “Maybe someone’s meeting in the room next door, but I haven’t heard anything.”

  “That’s right, I’m here to save the school.” Leanne sweeps into the room. Ever since she reappeared as Leonora, she’s been wearing clothes that sweep and swish and pretty much walk around with a life of their own, while little Leanne gets carried inside. And she loves the heavy jewelry. Tonight she’s wearing a necklace and bracelet of ruby-red glass baubles the size of knucklebones.

  “Did your mum send you?” I ask.

  “I’m not your babysitter anymore, Mrs. Boskovic. I’m a grown woman and a practicing Wiccan.”

  “Sorry, Lea—Leonora. And you’d better call
me Loretta.”

  “So why are you here?” Helen asks Leanne. “No offense.”

  Justin meanders back to the chair circle and sits beside Leanne.

  “That’s OK. I want to have kids one day. And I want a proper town for them to grow up in. Everyone thinks I’m weird coming back here, but I like Gunapan.”

  Justin and Helen and I nod as we ponder this.

  “Why?” I ask finally.

  “That’s what everyone says! I dunno. It’s home.”

  “The vision splendid,” Justin murmurs.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I mean, is it the countryside? Fresh air, all that. You ‘see the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended and at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.’”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t make that up,” Helen says. At least she’s showing enough interest now to drop her book into her bag.

  “Can you do the whole thing?” Even as the words come out of my mouth I wonder if I’ve gone too far by asking shy Justin to recite a poem to three women. But he leans back and closes his eyes and starts to intone.

  “‘I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago.

  “‘He was shearing when I knew him so I sent the letter to him just on spec, addressed as follows, Clancy of the Overflow.’”

  He continues with the poem. I’m stunned at his memory. I’m lucky if I can remember the three things I went to the supermarket to buy. Quite often I arrive home with seven completely different items, none of which we need. That is why we have a whole cupboard for toilet paper storage. If there is ever a major oil spill in Gunapan, my household will have enough absorbent paper to effect a full cleanup.

  “‘But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of the Overflow,’” Justin finishes, and opens his eyes. Which are blue, washed-denim blue.

  Leanne and Helen clap wildly.

  I can take a joke. “I see, Justin. You’re telling us that Gunapan is ‘the vision splendid.’ Obviously it would be from the west with the glowing mountain of Norm’s junkyard on the horizon. Or at night, the wondrous glory of the abattoir’s all-night shift lighting up the sky. And that must be why you came back, Leanne—sorry, Leonora.”

  “Don’t worry, everyone still calls me Leanne. I’m not sure about a vision splendid, but it is nice here. And I can rent a house for a quarter of what I’d pay in the city.”

  “Yes, Norm’s yard.” I’m on a roll. “The vision splendid. You can see it from the moon—all those bits and pieces of broken machinery glinting in the sunshine. Well, the parts of them that aren’t half rusted away. And it is smack bang in the middle of the, what did you call it, ‘sunny plains extended’?”

  “Settle down, Loretta,” Helen says. “Norm’s yard is so far from splendid it needs a new word. It’s a blight on the landscape. So, Justin, do you know any other poems?”

  “A few. Had a bit of time for reading. I read a book of poems and they kind of went in without me even trying. I can recite them all.”

  “What were you doing?” Leanne leans forward in her chair.

  “Time.”

  Leanne opens her mouth to ask the next question, but I jump in. “Do another one.”

  “What kind?” He doesn’t look very enthusiastic.

  “Anything, honestly, anything. Love poem, hate poem. Whatever.” I’m stalling. If we sit through the time it takes Justin to recite another poem, fifty excited Gunapan citizens might storm the room, pitchforks raised, ready to make kebabs out of the Minister for Education, Social Inclusion and the Service Economy if she won’t save our school. Because if someone doesn’t arrive soon, I’ll break into the wailing country music song of self-pity my mother always hoped would issue in glorious twang from at least one of her daughters. Except without any kind of tune because we’ve all inherited her tone deafness.

  “Another day, maybe.” Justin keeps his head lowered.

  We sit in silence for a few more moments.

  “All right then, we might as well go home. The Save Our School and Stupid Obnoxious Development Committee is obviously finished.”

  No one charges in to protest. At least if Kyleen was here she’d be telling me not to let the carburetors grind me down, but she’s in Halstead working her new job at the cinema’s candy bar.

  I turn to Leanne. “I’m sorry you came along for nothing.”

  “No, it was good.” She’s still staring at Justin.

  I think she’s in love. A strange bubble forms in my gut. “I’m sorry, everyone. You go, I’ll pack up the chairs.”

  Against their protests and offers to help tidy up, I herd the three of them out the door and shut it behind them. After I’ve dragged the chairs back to their spots lining the walls and rubbed the agenda off the whiteboard, I lock the door and head for the car, thinking about the Freedom of Information application I put into the council yesterday to find out about the development. It took me two hours to fill in the forms and, what’s worse, it cost twenty-six dollars. I wonder if I can get that money back.

  26

  IT’S DARK IN the Community Centre car park. We’ve asked the shire a million times to put some lighting in here. It would serve them right if I got raped and murdered right here on the concrete. Then they’d be sorry. Or I could trip on this poorly maintained surface and crack my head open. I find tears springing to my eyes at the satisfying image of how right I’d be and how sorry they’d feel when they visited me in hospital and found me hovering at the edge of death, pale and delicate, the trauma surgeon—who has fallen in love with my quiet courage—at my bedside wringing his hands and praying for steady nerves to perform the surgery that could save my life.

  A rap on the driver’s-side window makes me jump so high I nearly do end up with head trauma. My heart is still battering the wall of my chest as I wind down the window.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you. Are you OK?” Justin leans in close.

  “Apart from this heart attack?”

  “Wondered if you were all right. You sounded a bit wobbly before.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.” I wait until he’s ambled off and the rumble of his motorcycle engine has faded into the distance before I slump into the seat.

  This is the freedom I used to dream about. The kids off at their auntie’s house and me with a tank full of petrol and an empty evening ahead. I only wish I could think of something to do. Now that mine is the only car left, the gloom in the car park seems to be even darker. In fact, over near the community hall, a patch of darkness is moving as though it’s caught on a breeze. Must be the shadow of a tree, I think, until it emerges from the bushes and starts moving toward me.

  I know I’m screaming because my ears are hurting, but I don’t have any control over it. The darkness slips closer to me as I suck in another lungful of breath and scream again so loudly that the steering wheel thrums. My keys, which were in my lap, have jiggled loose and I know they’re on the floor, but I can’t lean down in case the black specter flows into the car and smothers me while I’ve got my head between my knees. The darkness is pressing in on me and I can’t help turning my head and seeing . . . a smiling woman in dark clothes standing outside the car door. I wind down the driver’s-side window. That’s two terrifying moments I’ve had tonight. I don’t think my heart can take it. I must stop reading those books from the Neighbourhood House donations shelf.

  “I come to meeting,” says the mother of the children my kids were bullying. “Your friend Mr. Stevens, he tell me to come.”

  I explain to her that the meeting is over without mentioning that it’s because no one came. The night is chilling down. She is shivering and holding her arms close around her.

  “Hop in, please.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Stevens say you bring me home.”

  Trust Norm to have worked it out so that we end up together in a confined space. Heroic war widow and mother of four, beautifully dressed on a shoestring budget
, well mannered, helpful, and toast of the town, clutching the dashboard and sliding around on the vinyl seat of the Holden beside me, the old scrag, deserted mother of two Gunapan-bred bush pig bullying children. I’m certain Norm only does these things to humiliate me. On the drive back to her house, I find out her name and the correct name of her country and repeat the names to myself twenty times so I won’t get them wrong. Mersiha, Bosnia Herzegovina. Mersiha, Bosnia Herzegovina. Mersiha, Bosnia Herzebogova. Mersiha, Bosnia Herzeboggler . . . In between gear changes and mental exertions, I attempt chitchat about the weather, about the school, about the annual Kmart underwear sale in Halstead next week.

  “It’s a highlight of the Gunapan calendar. I’m heading over with Helen and Kyleen first thing Monday. Feel free to come along if you need undies.” The moment I’ve spoken, it dawns on me that I don’t often have the opportunity to converse with people outside my normal circle. Perhaps underwear isn’t the most appropriate conversation topic for a first meeting. It will have to do though, because I’m desperate to avoid the other topic, the real topic—my bullying children.

  “I find that the elastic only lasts ten to eleven months, which makes these last few weeks before the sale pretty dicey. I try not to run or make too many vigorous movements and that usually—”

  “I’m sorry,” Mersiha interrupts.

  “Pardon?”

  “My children. They say rude things to your children. I am very sorry. They had a hard time. Their father, the war, the camp. I speak to them. I tell them to be kind, to be good—”

  I burst in and apologize to her for my horrible children. They should have known better. It’s my fault, I say. I’m a delinquent mother. I tell her that I’m sending them to the revenge camp for bullies and their bullied where they’ll find out what it’s like, and she gasps and I have to stop the car and explain that it was only a joke. How stupid am I to make a joke about revenge camp to a woman who has come from a war? Stopping the car also allows her a moment to unclamp her fingers from the edge of the dashboard. Perhaps Melissa is onto something about that refresher driving course.