The Best Australian Stories (34 page)

Monica glanced across the carpet at the old woman. She was now clutching the string of beads in one fist, and when she caught Monica's glance she said loudly, ‘Do you know who gave me this?'

‘Your necklace?' asked Monica.

‘Not the necklace,' said the old woman with scorn. With a middle finger she jabbed hard at her breastbone. ‘
This
. Do you know who gave me this?'

‘No,' said Monica, while her neighbour jovially and loudly called out, ‘Better relax, eh?'

‘My husband,' said the woman. ‘My husband gave me this. He was at home, see? He was convalescing, and I had set a little breakfast table out on the veranda, in the sun, and we had no sooner sat down than he jumped up and reached over and upset the table and took me by the throat. And was squeezing the life out of me, when all of a sudden he let go and dropped down dead.'

‘Jesus,' whispered Monica's neighbour, while Monica said with formality, ‘And how soon after that—'

‘About a month,' said the woman. She released the beads. ‘About a month after that, I felt the first pangs. But funnily enough, they were in one shoulder.' She pointed. ‘So I thought, Oh, a bit of rheumatism, and didn't bother, so by the time I
did
bother—'

Monica's neighbour asked abruptly, ‘What sort of a bloke was he?'

‘Oh,' cried the old woman. ‘A real hail-feller-well-met. As jolly as you please. Moods. But not real bad moods.'

‘Did he drink?' asked the fair man.

‘Oh he used to, all right, with his mates.
Drink
. But only beer, as he would point out if I said anything. And after his first attack he cut it down to one a day. And sometimes, even, none.'

‘I'm a wine drinker, myself,' muttered Monica's neighbour, and at the same time the door was opened by a woman who quickly went to the chair beside the old woman, reached across, embraced her, and then gently unloosed her hands from the yellow beads.

‘Daughter,' murmured Monica to her neighbour. Then the curtain was set aside and Mr Maloney appeared with the nurse. Mr Maloney crossed the room to the door, looking at nobody, but saying loudly, ‘All that for nothing, how much for sixpence?' then raising and crooking an arm to look at his watch, while the smiling nurse consulted her list.

‘Missus Dulcie Macauley.'

The old woman rose. ‘Mac
Auliffe
,' she said sullenly.

‘I'll be waiting, Mum,' the new arrival called, on a note, almost, of warning, while the nurse said ‘MacAuliffe,' and, as the woman approached, ‘What pretty beads.'

‘They're supposed to be amber,' Monica heard the woman say as the curtain fell to conceal her.

Monica's neighbour again leaned towards her and spoke in a low voice. ‘Did you believe that? That strangling stuff?'

‘Yes, I did. Didn't you?'

‘Yeah, I guess so,' he said moodily, then raised his head and said, ‘Yes I did. There are some mad bastards around, no getting away from that. Typical, anyway,' he added, grinning, but careful not to raise his voice, ‘of a beer drinker. I used to drink beer. Then a mate of mine – I got to know him in 'Nam – started a bit of a vineyard down the Barossa. And in – what? Seventy-two – yeah, seventy-two, I went down to give him a hand. And that was – what – ten years ago …'

‘Twelve,' she said.

‘Twelve. Well, I got interested, got in deep, and switched over to wine, and never looked back, though with this,' he said, half-turning in his chair and setting an open hand across his chest, ‘I've had to more or less give it away, in the meantime.'

‘Did wine give it to you?'

‘No.
Nah
. What gave it to me was the big
di
-vorce. Guilt, that's what they reckoned. Well! Don't know about guilt. But yeah, I suppose so, yeah. And worry, and all that legal stuff. And money. And the fuckin', excuse me, lawyers. But yes, I admit it.' He raised a hand that held, gracefully, the imaginary wineglass. ‘I've got to admit I was giving this a bit of a nudge.'

‘When I was told I must have none,' she said, ‘absolutely none until this was cured, I packed one precious dozen, which I had been keeping, and put the case right at the back of a cupboard, where I couldn't even see it.'

‘Oh yeah, me too, mostly. Bet you think of that stash though, Mon, especially about 5 p.m. What kind of stuff is it?'

‘Well, mixed, you know.'

She named them, checking each on her fingers, while he nodded, and when she had finished he said solemnly, ‘Yeah, most of that's the real good stuff. Sixty and sixty-two were good years all round.'

‘And I imagine pouring a glass at night,' she said, smiling. ‘Not when I have guests. But when I'm alone, so that I can put the glass on my window sill.'

‘Not that sixty-one, though.' He shook his head. ‘I got caught on that one. Not a good year.'

‘No?'

‘Whatever they tell you. Not a good year.'

‘No? Well … I have these lovely broad window sills, you see? And I imagine putting the glass there, and then sitting down.'

‘And then – the nose.'

‘Yes.' She did it. She held the imaginary glass to her nose, then raised her eyes in imaginary delight. ‘As soon as that map disappears.'

‘Good for you,' he said glumly. ‘You know what my trouble is? I got a lot of mates in the business, growing and retailing both. And my wife, the new one, she's only young, Mon, see? Poor kid. And she likes to party. It must be easier when you're older.'

‘It is,' she said. ‘Much easier.'

‘And if you don't have mates who give you a bottle and say, “Here, Doug, let's know what you think of this?” And you're supposed to have a good nose, and a good palate and all that? And so you bloody well have. You're serious about it. You
want
to help—' But then he broke off and muttered, ‘Ah-hah! Now is it you or me?'

Mrs MacAuliffe, her head bowed, was shuffling through the raised curtain, while the nurse was saying, as she sent a look across the room to the daughter, ‘Well, they look just like amber to me.'

‘My turn, I reckon,' said Doug. ‘I got here first.'

The nurse watched Mrs MacAuliffe until her daughter rose to receive her. Then she looked at her list and said briskly, ‘Mrs Monica Patrone.'

As Monica got to her feet, she heard Doug say with resignation, ‘Well, Mon, best of luck. Hope you're demobbed.'

The corridor behind the curtain was narrow and rather dark, like a stem from which the brightly lit examination room triumphantly flowered. This room was, unexpectedly, crowded, though the figure Monica always called the king was quickly discernible. At a mysterious, non-spatial distance from the others, he stood reading her chart. Five of the other six were men. The nurse who swathed her in a gown and proffered a cotton cap was the only other woman, and she rather impatiently nodded as Monica babbled on about how nice it was not to have to undress, or to put on those dreadful humiliating garments.

She was not asked to mount an examination table, but was told to sit in a chair, like a dentist's chair, which was then extended and raised to hold her flattened obedient body on its surface. But after that it became, again, the usual scene – again the faces, bored or impartial, clustered above her, again the clear dominance among them of the king. He was looking down at her. He said, ‘You've had this for quite a while.'

‘Yes indeed,' she said.

Someone else said, ‘Please open your mouth,' and the king said, ‘We will just put in a drop of this. Now,' he said, as if to a child, ‘this isn't going to taste very nice.'

It tasted bitter. She had time to say, ‘Not a good year,' and then there was just enough added time to be pleased by the sudden loud concerted burst of laughter that accompanied her into oblivion.

They were still smiling – or at least, though variously busy, they had a changed mood, a relaxed and humorous air – when she rose into consciousness. As the nurse helped her out of the chair, the king said, ‘I have good news for you, Mrs Patrone. It's healed. All healed. I'll write to Doctor Macintosh.'

Healed.
She softly breathed out the word as she dressed. The smiling nurse took her by an arm, and as they walked down the corridor, bent sideways to look confidentially into Monica's face, and to smile again when Monica said, ‘Healed? Or am I dreaming?'

‘Not a bit of it,' said the nurse. And she giggled, and gave Monica's arm a shake. ‘You're healed.'

Nor did the nurse release her arm when they reached the curtain, but parted it with her free hand, and ushered Monica through. As they crossed the room she bent her head to peer sideways into Monica's face. ‘I hope you're being called for?'

‘My son,' said Monica. Beyond the nurse's concerned and smiling face, she caught a glimpse of a foreleg swinging fast from crossed knees. She wanted to make some kind of signal, but before she could devise it, the nurse was saying, ‘Where is your son waiting?' and smiling again, and then Monica was saying, ‘At the door. Unless he has trouble parking. Then I'm to wait on the footpath.'

‘And keep an eye on the traffic. Good.' They had reached the door. The nurse gently squeezed her arm, and gave another little giggle before she said fondly, ‘Take care, Mrs Patrone,' and ushered her into the hall.

Her son was waiting at the street door.

‘Oh,
great
!' he said when she told him. ‘That's really wonderful, Mum. But you do seem to be still a bit wafty. Of course,
any
anaesthetic—'

‘It's not that. It's only that there was a man in the waiting room – he made me laugh – I didn't get a chance to say anything to him.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like – oh, I don't know – good luck, goodbye. Something.'

‘Well, you might see him again some time.'

‘Unlikely.'

‘But in the meantime, I'm illegally parked. So let's push on.'

*

More than a decade later, she did see him again. She was watching a beach volleyball match on television with one of her granddaughters, and suddenly, she pointed.

‘That man with the woman in blue. I know that man.'

‘That
fat
man?'

‘He once gave me a good line.' And she added, smiling, ‘He
is
fat, isn't he?'

‘The woman looks all right,' said her granddaughter politely.

Onionskinny

Campbell Mattinson

There have been times when I've thought that the best thing about making love to an eleven-year-old was the pure secret joy of it, but the truth of it was that it was also a bloody, smelly affair that, like a drug, unnerved my life far longer than it intoxicated it.

How I ended up making love to an eleven-year-old is something I'm not entirely sure about, though another truth is that although I've not spoken to her for many years I hope Tania herself knows. I was eleven years old at the time too, if you're curious to know, and what I do know is that it was in grade six of primary school, in the hot summer at the start of the year, when it all began to happen. What provoked it were two extraordinary events – and they still seem so – kicked off by a couple among us who somehow did the unusual thing of stepping beyond their years, in public. A particular boy and girl did this by leading a gaggle of us innocents down to the back of the wispy onion-grass cricket oval after school one day, where they promptly opened their mouths and kissed, really kissed, in one long, stunningly smooth and crowd-thrilling stretch.

I tell you, we all stood stunned.

If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. I had never seen anybody do this. Not on TV. Not my mum and dad. Not like this. This was a girl named Julie and a boy new to the school, named Rocco, who I'd never taken much notice of other than that he had a killer throwing arm and had run me out at cricket once. Kissing. Deep. Long. Like adults. Better than adults. With such an intoxicating intensity that, looking on, it seemed as if as a group we'd suddenly discovered electricity.

Julie and Rocco put on a show like this most school nights for the next two weeks. Then their job, unwittingly, was done. Others followed – none with such clean execution, but all with more or less the same technique. Hands loosely on the other's hips. Heads tilted. Mouths opened. Attached. Moving together. A crowd of boys and girls surrounding them, shifting constantly, constantly fixed.

Soon after this the entire year level headed to school camp in Monbulk, a place in the distant forested hills at the opposite side of our city best known for the summer berries grown there for the making of jam. Here, on the first day of this camp, the most extraordinary scene developed – so extraordinary in fact that it would lay out the fuse to the rest of my life.

Where the teachers were, I have no idea. But after an early afternoon of swimming and splashing in the pool, the whole group of year sixes moved out of the burning sun and into their dormitories – maybe the teachers could hear our riot and decided to let us wear ourselves out. Whatever. For the next two hours, there was a sustained war between the girls and the boys, a war that lurched between the girls' dorm and the boys' dorm, a tussle that amounted plainly and squarely to multiple gang molestation. I use the words molestation, and gang, with care.

We'd worked ourselves up – and in these hours we exploded. A grade-six girl would be captured, by force of numbers, by the boys. She'd be dragged into the boys' dorm. Surrounded. She'd scream and kick like a horse – someone would drag her bikini bottom off. Right off. More fighting. Kicking. Legs spread. Pinned apart. And then we all – twenty boys, more – would clamber and peer with increasing excitement at the girl's smooth or slightly-haired genitals. Near the end of this wild two hours, and especially if the captured girl did show signs of pubic hair, a finger or a series of fingers would prod at her, trying to reach up into her. And girls showing particular development would have their tops removed and their breasts groped and inspected and squeezed, even (with a disgustingly excited squeal) licked. The girl would eventually be released – legs reddened with contact – and she'd flurry away, crying.