Fresh Fields (15 page)

“Yes Dad,” said Greg.

“Do you think so, Meredith?”

Meredith was looking out the window.

“Meredith?”

“What?”

“Do you think the Lord is shaking His head?”

“I haven't the faintest,” she replied. “Why don't you ask Him?”

The youth saw Mrs. Blackett shoot a frown at Meredith.

“I
will
ask the Lord, Meredith,” Mr. Blackett said, “but unfortunately I already know the answer. I don't want the Lord to have to sorrow over the behaviour of this family, I really don't. And what about the fact that we have a new friend with us? Shouldn't we be making his introduction to this family a joy rather than a horror? Greg?”

“Yes Dad.”

“How about us apologising to our new friend?”

The youth cringed.

“Greg?”

“Sorry,” Greg murmured.

“Yeah, sorry,” said Meredith, glancing across.

Even in the depths of his embarrassment, the youth felt it was nice of Meredith to have said that. She didn't have to. Only Greg was being pressed.

“There we are then,” said Mrs. Blackett, sounding pleased and happy.

“Okay!” said Mr. Blackett, turning back to the wheel and starting off again. “Send those jubes round, O Merrie-daughter-of-mine, and don't forget dear old Dad!”

“I net gen anyink!” yelled the toddler.

It was wheat country, flat country. The youth leant against the door and watched the blaze of sunset at the horizon. He was still hoping what he'd been hoping ever since he got into the car: that he wasn't giving off a stink. He kept sniffing the air to see if he could detect anything, but you never can when it's yourself. He listened to every word of small talk, trying to tell from the tone of the voices whether they were gagging from his pong. He was trying so hard to keep himself clenched and contained that it was making it worse all the time. He told himself not to be over-sensitive, not to imagine things.

It was a relief when they arrived at the property and the youth was shown his quarters and left alone there. He was in a converted garage a stone's throw from the house. It was properly lined and clean and comfortable. There was a bed, a dressing-table and a wardrobe, but the one small bulb didn't light the room very well. That was a worry. The youth had his two special magazines, the ones with the photos of Sweetheart, and he wanted to be able to see them properly. If only he'd bought himself a bedside lamp, like he'd thought of doing when he was at Dunkeld.

To check the light he took out one of the magazines and looked at the cover. There she was, gazing out at him, but slightly dim. He began to feel furious, perhaps as a reaction to his misery in the car. Did they expect him to live in the pitch fucking dark, like a bat in a fucking cave? He began to swear under his breath. There was a knock at the door and the youth paused and then opened it.

“Everything alright?” Mr. Blackett asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“There's some food on,” Mr. Blackett said.

The youth sat down with the family and Greg was asked to say grace. The toddler screamed “Me say gace!” over and over until he wearied of it. Mrs. Blackett told the youth it was only a rough-and-ready meal that night because of them having been to town, but to eat up because in their house it was “first in, best dressed.” The youth was afraid Mr. Blackett had heard him swearing and felt very uncomfortable. Also the toddler was in a highchair right beside him, flicking bits of food. He felt a baked bean hit him on the neck and slide down inside his collar. The only good thing was that Meredith was busy making extra toast.

The talk at the table fizzled out and they ate in silence, except for the toddler. The youth was convinced now that Mr. Blackett had heard the swearing, that he was very disturbed by it and that his mood had dampened the others. Either that or the youth was stinking the place out. It was probably both. The silence got worse and the youth got more and more clenched, trying to close off the pong. He grew faint from the effort of staying in control and was afraid he'd fall off the chair.

Then some talk began. Greg mentioned school, and Meredith said how fed up she felt there. It seemed to be a well-worn topic. Mr. and Mrs. Blackett reminded Meredith about prospects and the importance of having some. Meredith groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Oh, not again, please.”

“You don't want to be without prospects, do you?” asked Mr. Blackett.

“Okay then,” Meredith snorted. “I'll have half-a-dozen in a brown paper bag, thank you. And a pound of sausages as well!”

“Punna sosses!” cried the toddler. “Punna sosses!”

They found this amusing and the mood lightened.

The youth was able to slip away from the table and escape outside.

 

NEXT MORNING
there was a single place set for him in the kitchen. He sighed with relief.

“It's such chaos with us, breakfast time,” said Mrs. Blackett. “I thought you might find it pleasanter to have yours in peace when we've finished.”

While the youth ate his breakfast he could hear voices and bustle as Mrs. Blackett got Meredith and Greg into the car and drove off. She was taking them a couple of miles to a crossroads where the school bus would pick them up. From somewhere outside, the youth could hear Mr. Blackett talking to the toddler.

The youth finished his breakfast, rinsed the dishes at the sink and went outside. He looked at the flat land stretching all around. The sun was well up now and the last of the dew was drying in a slight wind.

Mr. Blackett and the toddler were nowhere in sight. Then Mr. Blackett appeared at the door of the big shed and called the youth over. The shed was full of tools and bits of machinery. Mr. Blackett had some kind of mechanism in pieces on the bench and was trying to do something with it with one hand while holding the toddler away from the bench with the other.

“Just fetch me that Phillips head screwdriver, will you,” Mr. Blackett said. The youth didn't know what a Phillips head screwdriver was, but went to the shelf that Mr. Blackett pointed to and got the only screwdriver he could see there. He handed it across, and was told it was the wrong one. The youth went back to the shelf and looked again. He found another screwdriver and took it across. It was the wrong one again.

“Isn't the Phillips head there?” Mr. Blackett asked, puzzled. The youth started to mumble that he wasn't sure what a Phillips head was, but the toddler began to squirm and whine and Mr. Blackett got distracted. Then Mrs. Blackett arrived and took the toddler back to the house.

“Ah, peace at last,” said Mr. Blackett. “Now we can get some work done.”

The youth stood around, watching Mr. Blackett. He was asked to fetch this or that and mostly did not know what the item was, or what it looked like. He was asked to hold this or that in place while Mr. Blackett adjusted something or unscrewed something, and half the time he did not hold it properly or in the exact position. Everything Mr. Blackett was doing was a mystery. He did not grasp the process or the logic of any of it, and so could not understand which tool would be needed next, or which piece of metal would need to be held or adjusted. And the more he tried to concentrate the more confused and fragmented his thinking became. “Oh well, we all have to learn these things,” Mr. Blackett said when the youth had confessed to not knowing what a ballpein hammer was. When Mrs. Blackett came in cheerfully at mid-morning with tea and scones on a tray, she asked how it was all going.

“Oh well, we'll get there eventually,” Mr. Blackett replied. “With the Lord's help.”

Mrs. Blackett's smile wavered when she registered her husband's tone of voice and she gave the youth a glance of reassurance, but the youth understood that he was already trying Mr. Blackett's patience.

That evening the youth sat at the family table with his eyes downcast and listened to the chatter. Meredith had had a bad day at school, she said, because another girl was spreading rumours about her. Meredith didn't say what the rumours were. The youth sat staring at his plate and wondering what kind of rumours could be attached to Meredith, and hoping she would say more about it. Mrs. Blackett told Meredith she should ignore the other girl's behaviour, or, better still, try to make friends with her. Meredith snorted at this. Then Mr. Blackett gave a quote from the Bible about forgiveness, and Meredith snorted again. Mr. Blackett told her she was not to be unseemly at the Lord's table. The youth cast a quick glance at her face and saw that she was flushed and was biting her lip. Nothing more was said for a few moments, then Greg chimed in.

“She said you started it.”

“What?”

“Carol Metcalf said you spread rumours about her first.”

“She's a liar!”

“You are!”

The toddler began screaming. Mrs. Blackett stood up and tried to shush him, while Mr. Blackett was saying something to Greg about not tormenting his sister. The youth watched Meredith stalk out of the room and slam the door behind her. Mrs. Blackett got the toddler quietened and asked who wanted dessert.

A little later the youth went outside. The sky was cloudy, but there was a moon partly visible and a breeze blowing across the paddocks. He went past the woodheap to the door of his garage room. He saw a shadow move and made out Meredith standing a few paces further on, gazing out over the flat expanse. He went to go quickly into his room so as not to intrude on her, but she had turned and was looking at him, the moonlight on her face.

“Why did you come here?” she asked.

“Sorry?” he said.

“I wouldn't come here in a fit.” She didn't sound hostile, just unhappy.

“I came for a job.”

“You came from the city, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I could get to the city.”

“What would you do there?”

“Be a hairdresser.”

“Do you like hairdressing?”

“It's alright,” said Meredith. “It's a living.”

“Would you have to learn it?”

“Of course. You do an apprenticeship. My Aunt Patricia would take me on. She's got a salon in the city. She's told my parents that I can come down to her and learn hairdressing, and have a life in the city, but they keep saying I'm not ready to leave home yet.”

“How old do you have to be to do hairdressing?”

“I'm fifteen. I could leave school now and start as soon as I like.”

“I knew a girl who was a hairdresser,” said the youth, feeling very daring. “Her name was Polly.”

“Did you go out together?”

“Yeah. We sort of had a few dates and stuff.”

Meredith did not reply and the youth began to wish he hadn't said anything about Polly. It was a bit too personal and also Meredith might be thinking he had made it up. The breeze strengthened and brought the sound of a creature bellowing from somewhere. The moon came out and lit everything up for a few moments. It embarrassed the youth to see Meredith so clearly and to have her see him. He began to mutter goodnight and to go into his room, but Meredith spoke.

“You could come to Con's, if you like.”

“Sorry?”

“Con's place in town. It's a milk bar and cafe. There's a jukebox. I go there on Sunday morning while my family goes to church.”

“Don't you go to church with them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't believe in it, that's all. We had a lot of big fights about it. Now my parents and I have an arrangement. I go to town with them on Sunday morning, but if I don't want to go to church I don't have to. So I mostly go to Con's.”

“Ah,” said the youth.

“You could come to Con's too, if you like.”

“What happens there?” he asked.

“Nothing much. I play the jukebox a bit. Anyway, it's up to you.”

“Thanks,” he murmured.

“I'm going in,” Meredith declared abruptly. “I'm getting cold.” And without saying anything else, she went quickly past him and inside.

The youth stayed out there for a long time, gazing at the moon. He was thinking about what had just happened. He'd had a long private talk with a girl and she'd invited him somewhere. He reflected on it from every angle he could imagine. Yes, that was what had happened. He'd been asked out by a girl! He was part of the great flow of life now. He could feel the vibrancy of it in his veins and in the air around him, in the earth and in the moon. He had this forever now, this fact of having stood in the moonlight talking to a lovely girl about life and everything, and it couldn't be taken away.

The longer the youth sat there, though, the colder and more remote the moon became and the emptier the night grew, and the glow of what had happened began to fade. He told himself what a paltry thing a brief bit of happiness is.

He went inside eventually and lay on the bed without undressing. He wondered how it would be if he gathered his things and left now, just walked away. Then he remembered that he had no money. He was trapped here at least until he got his first pay. He would stay quietly inside himself, he thought, and just go through the motions. He would not speak an unnecessary word or look anyone in the face. He would be beyond it all, like Diestl. Diestl! How could he have forgotten Diestl, even for an hour! It was Diestl who always got him through. The youth began to let go his grip on the quilt and to let his body sag on the bed. The bed was in a bombed-out house in a bombed-out village somewhere, and Diestl was just passing through and needed some shut-eye. The youth made the motion of settling the Schmeisser comfortably against his stomach where his hand could rest easily on it.

He began to picture the scene that often came to him: The Beautiful Girl Alone in the Village. This was not a scene from the movie, but one inspired by what the youth had learnt from Diestl's journey. The scene could vary in its details but was always the same basic situation. The girl has been hiding somewhere like a bombed-out cellar and comes to Diestl in her loneliness and fear. The two of them lie side by side for a few hours. Then Diestl gets up before dawn and leaves the village and the girl forever. The scene was painful and yet consoling. It said that there was no turning from the path that the Diestls of this world must walk. But it also said that now and then, when you least expect it, there might be a moment of sweetness and consolation. The price of that occasional sweet moment, though, was that you never try to prolong it or make more of it than it really is. If you try to prolong it, or enlarge on it, you are breaking the agreement you have with life—and life will punish you by not letting the odd sweet moment happen anymore. It was quite simple and fair, the youth thought.