The Beloved (24 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Port Moresby, June 1961

The new high school library was small. There was only a handful of books on art but I had access to them whenever I wanted. An hour with Helen was never enough and Tempe's introduction to perspective had whetted my appetite for more.

On my first day back at school, I found a book I hadn't seen before. At first I thought it was a photography book, until I saw how weird the photos were. The first was of a man and a woman, headless and naked. The next showed them kissing (heads attached) and the one after that showed a penis in a vagina among a frenzy of black curls. Then there was a picture of a pregnant woman and after that, a baby at the woman's breast. Not a photography book but a sex-education book misfiled. But, added to what I'd learned at the life-drawing class, the pictures gave me an idea. One of my favourite books in the library was by an artist called Miro. ‘What really counts,' he said, ‘is to strip the soul naked. Painting is made as we make love: a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back.' His pictures were intensely coloured, unexpected and exciting. They looked simple yet there was so much you could make of them. Miro also used a lot of lines so, using his work as a guide, I spent several lunch hours in the library turning the photos into lines. One line suggesting a leg, another a curved hip, two lines for swelling bosoms, one for the soft retreat of underarm, another for the sleek curve of backbone. Soaring and dipping, my pencil traced the folds of flesh – heavy, light, even absent. A woman's eyes shut, head tossed back to expose her throat, the man more muscular and bulky, the planes of his face more lean.

Mama was having a ‘family' night, which she made a point of doing whenever she'd been away for a few days or had been coming home late so often Dad would be steamed-up. That night, because Mama and I had been South for three weeks, she produced steak to please Dad, macaroni to please me and a salad to please herself.

‘I've made an appointment for you, Lindsay,' she said, forking lettuce into her mouth. ‘Tomorrow, after school, to get your hair cut.'

‘I'm not getting my hair cut.' My hair was one thing I could control and she wasn't having any of it.

‘Not short,' she said. ‘Just tidy up that tatty fringe and get some taken off the bottom. Your plait's so long you look like a squaw.'

‘I don't care.'

She eyed me sharply. ‘You do care. I'll drive you to school in the morning and pick you up at three.'

I left for school early the next morning on my bike while my mother was in the shower. But she was waiting for me beside her car when I came out of class.

‘I'm not getting my hair cut,' I said, and went for my bike.

She grabbed my arm. ‘Just a trim, Lindsay.'

‘No!' I pulled away.

She lunged after me, catching my satchel. I yanked it back but she hung on and I lost my balance and let it go. The bag flipped over, spilling books, pencils, waxed lunch paper, my fountain pen, two ancient lollies and my sketches on the ground. Mama registered the mess in irritation, then her face changed. She bent down and picked up a drawing. A woman lay in the grass by a river, breasts exposed to the sun, pubic fuzz exposed to her lover's hand. My mother stared for a long time, then bent to pick up another sketch – backs arced in pleasure, a cross-hatch of bloom on the man's rump. She picked up each sketch one by one, the pad and pencils, and dropped them into my bag.

‘You're a slut, Lindsay,' she said, and walked to the car with my bag held out from her side like poison.

When Dad came home from work she showed him the drawings. ‘Not only is Lindsay defying us, she's done these.'

Dad looked at the pictures and frowned. ‘That's hardly suitable material for a young girl.'

‘That's the least of it,' said Mama.

She took my sketches and pencils to the backyard and sent them to hell with a match and a can of petrol in a forty-four gallon drum.

‘You're grounded,' she said. ‘Indefinitely. I'm taking your bike.'

‘No!'

‘I trusted you. More fool me.'

‘You never trusted me. You've always got someone to look over my shoulder. Josie, Mrs Breuer, Tempe, anyone.'

‘With good reason. You have no conscience. Those drawings were obscene.'

She chained my bike to a concrete pole under the house. ‘If I can get a half-decent price for it,' she said, ‘I'll sell it.'

‘You can't sell my bike! It's mine. Dad gave it to
me
.'

‘I'll donate the proceeds to your education.'

‘I've rescheduled your hair appointment,' my mother said the following evening. ‘I will drive you to school in the morning and pick you up at three. Be ready.'

‘I'm not getting my hair cut.'

‘You are getting your hair cut.'

The next afternoon she drove me to the salon. Outside, she stopped the car, leaned over and pushed open my door. ‘Go inside, Lindsay.'

I didn't move.

She pushed my shoulder. ‘
Inside
, I said.'

I stumbled out and stood in the salon doorway. The hairdresser looked up in surprise.

Mama pressed past me. ‘My daughter has an appointment,' she said.

‘I'm
not
getting my hair cut.'

‘Ladies . . .' The hairdresser turned pink with embarrassment. ‘When you've decided what you want, come back and see me.'

That night after dinner I sat on a footstool flipping through a
Women's Weekly
magazine. Mama hogged the lamplight, examining photos under a magnifying glass. Dad was sprawled in his chair, listening to ‘Take it From Here' on the radio. Every now and again, he chuckled. I liked the sound of it; he'd been more than usually preoccupied with work lately. Moira, his secretary, had finally found herself a husband and gone South pinis and his new secretary, Faith Parker, was – according to Dad – a lazy, disorganised baggage whom he wouldn't have hired if there'd been anyone else.

I slid a venomous look at my mother. As soon as we'd arrived home from the salon she'd written up an ad for my bike and phoned it through to the newspaper. The prospect of losing it was worse than losing my art things. I could always find a way to draw, even with HB pencils and exercise books, but losing my bike was losing freedom. And Wednesdays.

Mama got up and went to the kitchen. I flicked over the pages of the magazine and saw an ad for Lifebuoy soap that reminded me of the little stack that used to be on the bathtub in Melbourne. Blue Neko, green Palmolive . . . Suddenly I felt a tug on the back of my head and a sound that made me retch. Before I could do anything my mother was holding up twelve inches of severed plait. She tossed it into my lap. ‘If you don't want me to take more, tomorrow you'll go to the salon and get it tidied up.'

I stared at my hair . . . dead ferret.

Dad chuckled at Denis Norden. My mother pulled the lamp closer over her photos. I sat on the footstool until I knew I could make it to my bedroom. I crawled into bed and lay between the sheets with my clothes on. Everything. She'd taken everything. My art, my bike and now my hair. She wouldn't take one more thing.

It was a long time before I fell asleep.

When I woke it was six o'clock. For a moment I wondered why I had all my clothes on and then I remembered. The house was quiet. I got out of bed and carried my boots and satchel to the kitchen. The scissors were on the bench top. I crept out of the house, down the stairs and up the driveway. When I was out of sight I put on my boots and walked to school. In the toilets I faced the blotchy mirror and grabbed a handful of hair. I cut low at the top of my head. Then again, and again. My hair slid silently to the floor. When I had finished, two inches remained all over. It was thick and springy and stuck up, making my eyes looked huge and my chin more pointed. I looked like my own caricature.

No-one said a word. Most of the kids looked shocked, some even looked cowed. I avoided Chris's eyes and barely glanced at Stefi.

At recess she put her hand on my arm. ‘Did you do it?'

I nodded.

She sighed. ‘Poor thing. What happened?'

It was a long walk to Helen's and as soon as I got there I knew I'd have to start back. If I didn't get home before my mother, Josie – instructed to monitor my comings and goings – would cop it. Out of Mama's earshot Josie had whispered to me, ‘Never mind, piccanin', maybe I forget what I see.'

My heart lurched at the sight of my art things laid out ready and judging by the look on her face, Helen's lurched at the sight of my hair.

‘I can't stay,' I said. ‘My mother found my drawings. Men and women naked. She went nuts.'

‘Oh.' Helen pressed her hand to her mouth.

‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘She doesn't know about us.'

‘Us.' Helen smiled. ‘Sweetie. What happened, Lindsay . . . to your hair?'

‘I refused to get it cut so she hacked off half my plait. I took the rest.' I slumped in a chair. ‘Nothing's mine any more. She's taken everything, including my bike. She's trying to sell it.' Tears sprang to my eyes. ‘She called me a slut.'

‘
No
.'

‘I'm not, am I?'

‘Don't be daft.' Helen put her arm around my shoulders. It felt like cloud.

‘She hates me.'

‘No.' Helen shook her head. ‘She loves you. But right now you're changing from a child into a young woman and I imagine she's . . . well, challenged.'

I glanced at my watch. ‘I have to go, but I need a new sketchbook and some pencils. I haven't got any money with me. I'll pay you but I don't know when. I don't know how I'm going to get here without my bike.'

‘You mustn't come, Lindsay. And forget about the money. I'll get you your things but please, please be careful. Let the dust settle. Let your relationship with your mother heal.' She took my hand in hers. ‘Your day will come, Lindsay, truly. Just give it time.'