Lilian's Story (8 page)

The night I crept downstairs with my satchel full of jars I discovered how easy it was to leave dark houses. A noise from behind Father's door might have been a snore or a moan, but I did not stop. Out on the headland, Ursula waited for me with her jars and together we lifted the boards away from the entrance to Rick's fort. Inside, the cave was full of a smell of damp, and old urine, and our candles only made the shadows blacker. The back of the cave tapered into a cleft full of drafts and Ursula and I did not care to turn our backs on it.

The jam jars were disappointing. Perhaps the smells had not got into the jars.
Maybe it just fades
, Ursula said and sniffed at the rim of one.
Just smells of jam.
On the rough walls of the cave, names had been scraped with a slate and under each name was a rough seat. Under the word RICK there was a chair, one leg mended with string, the springs bursting through rotten brocade. At the back of the cave, there was a sharp-looking rock with JOHN above it in letters that started big and ended small. John, with his glasses and feeble wrists, and younger than the others, was only tolerated here sometimes. When Rick had no need of our boat, or another body to swell out his gang, John returned red-eyed and silent from the headland.

Boys are dirty
, Ursula said and sat on Rick's springs and brocade.
Dirty and silly.
I touched my arm, full of happiness that I was not a boy. The shine of Ursula's fringe by candlelight was good enough to eat.
Come on, Lil
, she said.
Think of something.
In my excitement my mind was blank and Ursula watched with dark eyes.
Something good, Lil.

When I reached over her head and added a T in front of Rick's name, Ursula nodded but it was a while before she smiled. She was waiting for more and I began to sweat.
Well?
She kicked at John's sharp stone.
You got a sissy brother,
she said. They all say. Rick says.
She moved aside to let me get to John's name on the wall and finally rewarded me with a laugh when I had made JOAN.
Boys are silly
, Ursula said again,
but sissies are the worst. I
gave her the slate to do something with GARY or KEVIN but she dropped it in the sand.
Won't they be angry?
she whispered. The slate lay as if she had never touched it. Our shadows wavered over the walls and shadows sprang out from corners, but turned into yellow rock when I looked closely. Outside, the bush whispered and crackled and something began to croak and would not stop.

Ursula made me go outside while she hiked up her pinafore to ease herself on the sand of the cave near John's stone. The croaking stopped abruptly when I trod on a twig and the sound of Ursula's water was loud and rude in the night. The patch of sand was still steaming when I was allowed back in to watch as she did up a last button or two.
They will not know if it was you or me
, she said.

I spoke before I thought, and would not have spoken and shocked Ursula if I had thought, but the words came out on a thought:
Books should have toilets in them.
Each word was bitten off by the dead air of the cave. I coughed, to hear the sound flatten into the crumbly stone walls. Ursula's giggle floated a little further. When it was swallowed up in the silence, she laughed again on an anxious pitch.
What
do you mean, toilets?
The last word rang out around the cave.
I mean like people really do, go to the toilet and eat.
Ursula sucked the end of her plait and brushed the ribbon against her nose.
You're loony
, she finally said.
I've got to go home now.

Pride and Its Fall

I am afraid of nothing
, I boasted in the playground, but Ursula remained expressionless over her fish-paste sandwich.
I do very dangerous things and am not scared.
Ursula's eyes shifted to the side and I felt the hot breath of Rick's contempt in my ear.
You! Crybaby, and being sick all over the place!
Rick was scathing and Ursula allowed herself a small glistening smile.
You two couldn't even keep your cake down.
Rick was without mercy. His birthday party would never be forgotten, even though at home I had done my best to destroy the memory of that day. With Mother's sharp scissors I had shredded the hated cardigan with the embroidered cherries, and dropped the pieces behind the huge wardrobe in my room, where they would never be found.
And you cried at
the magic. Bet you're not brave enough to go to the toilet by yourself,
even.
Everyone laughed, Ursula showed banana in her open laughing mouth, pale Anne hid her laugh behind a hand, freckled Judith tittered, even George stretched his lips back, copying everyone. I was dignified as I walked away from them all, and did not spoil the effect by stooping for the orange I dropped, but let it roll.
Lil!
I heard Ursula call, and turned, hoping, but felt one of Rick's pellets hit me on the nose and could not stop sharp tears as they laughed again.

In the middle of mental arithmetic, Miss Vine was not able to suppress a snigger as she asked,
Lilian, whatever
has made your nose that colour?
It was time to silence them all. John warned me,
There will only be trouble, Lil
, but I decided that there were worse things than trouble.

Under the Moreton Bay fig, where the ground was sour and black, I unwrapped the pride of my collection, the tile with the goat's face. Rick was a cool one.
So what's
the story, fat-face?
he said dismissively, a finger tracing the thick embossed glazing of the beard. His finger could hardly bear to leave the smooth cool glaze.

Ursula had not quite been impressed.
Where'd you get it?
she kept asking, and would not touch it.
Whose was it, did
you pinch it?
She continued to ask questions, when what I wanted was awe.
Is that the famous secret, then?

Finally it was Gary with the pendulous lower lip who was the first to recover from the shock of the sly goat face and those tilted amber eyes.
She pinched it
, he said.
She got no
right. I'll tell my dad on her,
said eager Gary whose father was a policeman in important blue. They went away at last and left me with my tile and a shrivelled fig that had fallen into my hair.
They are just jealous
, said John, and waited with me until Miss Vine came out and rang the big brass bell.

But after school, in the Bent Street lane, between the dunnies and someone's chooks behind a fence, Rick was waiting with his gang and John and I stood watching them come closer.
Show us again
, Rick said, but my nose still smarted from his pellet.
Ask properly
, I shouted.
Ask nicely.
Rick did not glance around at Gary and Kevin and Andy, but he must have known they were watching him. I saw him hesitate, and knew then what power there was in the goat face.
Well, please, then
, Rick said in a mumble, and I watched his teeth shine with spit and continued to stand with my arms folded, smug in my silence.
Come on, Li!
, he shouted then.
Please, please, please!
I saw that this was as far as he could go with Gary and Kevin watching, and made a show of accepting his humility.
But only for a minute
, I said, and took as long as I could to unbuckle my satchel, take out the tile, and unwrap it.

Where'd you get it, Lil?
Rick asked while I let him hold it for a moment to feel its weight.
Where, then?
But I was full of triumph and would not tell.
It is
my
secret
, I crowed.
Because I
am braver than anyone, and know all the dangerous places.
I watched Gary watching Rick, but Rick did not have anything to say, and he knew we were all watching.
I am an explorer and a
hero
, I shouted,
and I discover things.
But before I had finished, Rick's voice had gone shrill to drown me out and a dog began to bark behind palings as he shrieked,
You ugly fatso,
you ugly old maid, you make me sick.
He was breathless when he had finished, and Andy was capering vaguely and trying to start up a chant:
Old maid, old maid
, but I knew what to say.
Yes
, I shrilled, and grabbed the tile back from Rick,
I will be
an old maid like Queen Elizabeth was an old maid, and Grace Darling.
There was a silence in which we all heard Kevin snuffle up his surprise. Rick was loud but not quite convincing as he shouted in a strangled way, choking on dust in his throat, perhaps,
You! You ain't no queen!
He spat and a gob of spit landed in a ball beside my shoe. It swayed, rolled, covered itself with dust.
You ain't no queen and you ain't no hero.
His voice was still thin in the sceptical sunlight. He had to go on trying to shout.
You got no right
, he tried, and grabbed at the tile.
Not yours, anyhow!
He jerked at the tile, but I was strong in my triumph, and knew that Gary and Kevin were watching, more aloof every moment as Rick's voice grew reedier with frustration.

When our struggle was over, the tile with the goat face lay on the tired dust between cauliflower stalks, its fragments already part of the rubbish of the lane, one amber eye split from the other, the beard a dozen sharp chips. There was a silence in which we could hear the squeal of distant billycarts. Rick's voice was at the end of its tether.
Go on, cry, then
, he said, but I did not.
I got plenty
more
, I said, and tried to shrug, though I knew nothing would ever equal that goat.

Andy began to pick his nose and Gary could suddenly have been alone in the lane as he bent to peer at a wheel of his billycart and smear a little black grease that was leaking out of a vital part. Kevin was squatting, piecing together the beard as if it could be whole again. Rick's shadow lay alone on the dust. But his eyes grew narrow as he turned to John, who stood beside me holding his satchel tight.
It
was you, Johnny. Wasn't it?
With a toe he recalled Kevin and Gary, and Rick had a gang again as he said,
Fatso girls don't
get things. It musta been you, Johnny.
John shook and shook his head until the glasses slipped down his nose and he had to let the satchel go to push them up, and I heard myself grow shrill as I screamed,
It was me, I was the one.
But Rick with a hand in my chest pushed me back and with all his old swagger said,
Couldn't be you, Lil, its man's work, see.
The gang crowded John like mates but he was puny between them and knew what was coming.
Come on, Johnny, tell us where you
got it
, they said, and crowded closer. For a moment Rick's father was with us in the lane as Rick winked in a man-to-man way.
Come on, John, she's only ya batty fat sister. Tell us.
John looked as though he would have liked to start polishing his glasses or being deaf, but he could only go on standing. In Rick's hand, my brother's shoulder was like paper.

It was me
, I continued to shriek, even after Kevin had been ordered to sit on me.
It was me!
I tried to stop them when they took John's glasses away and began to poke at him, but they all ignored me, even Kevin, who sat harder on my back and forced my nose to inhale the dust.
Tell us,
Johnny
, Rick crowed, his voice full of power again.
You can be
a proper one of the gang if you tell.
He laughed and tried flattery.
Pretty smart getting that tile, Johnny, pretty brave.
But John went on shaking his head, saying nothing and shaking his head, even after they thought of tying him to Kevin's billycart and sending him down the steep part of the lane.

That lane plunged down between the fences and dunnies like a crooked drunk making for the creek at the bottom, but John would not get that far. Without his glasses he could not see the way the lane twisted violently, or the fences he would hit when he failed to steer the cart around the bends, but he had seen it all on other days. They put the ropes in his limp hands and laughed to see him blink at the blur of the world.
Just steer her down, Johnny, she'll be right
, they said, breathless at the thought of how gravity would seize him. They could hardly speak for panting and laughing. Without his glasses John's eyes were tiny and blind and did not blink often enough as he squinted round mournfully.
Lil, Lil
, he called, and they laughed and copied him.
Sil-ly
sil-ly Li-ly
. Kevin's knee in my back was squeezing all the air out of my lungs so I could not call out, and the dust in my mouth tasted of failure, and heroism gone wrong.

Other Games

A few hot days were necessary for the word to get around. Smells of bananas, of ink, of the sad insides of satchels, rose to the high ceilings while Miss Vine spoke and pointed and tucked the hankie into her belt. The seven-times table was hard and we were becoming familiar with the threat of algebra. It seemed that the holidays would never come to relieve us.

In the playground the heat made us shrill, the way it beat back from the bitumen and fell out of the hard-edged sky. When Gwen forgot and left her rubber ball on a grating, it shrivelled and died in the sun.
Pooh
, Ursula hooted.
It's gone and melted.

In that playground where only the most desperate still ran and yelled at midday, I could not fail to notice the silence gathering around me or the way people under the trees became nothing more than leaf shadow as I approached. Always elsewhere, people spoke together. I sweated in my fat and felt my lips grow thick with the desire to please.

You are a thief
, Ursula explained, her eyes, though, still on the pumpkin scones I was offering.
You pinch things.
Her fingers smoothed her silky fringe.
Rick says.
I could not bear the way her eyelids were sleepy over her eyes, and bit into the scone to feel the comforting crumbly dough in my mouth.
And you're a liar. Wasn't even you took it.
I could have choked on that scone, so dry with that flat pumpkin taste. Ursula was hardly interested, her eyes elsewhere, a hand idly swinging her skipping rope.
I did
, I tried through a spray of scone.
I did. It was me.
The scone muffled the words so that even I was hardly convinced. Ursula watched as I poked a bit of crust back between my lips.
I am the bravest
, I tried to say, but Ursula spoke crisply over my words.
You
think you're Christmas
, she said.
And you're too rough.
As if I was not there, she uncoiled her skipping rope and began to skip in front of me, her eyes staring past my shoulder or over my head. Even when I took a step closer and filled her vision with my bulk, her colourless eyes would not admit that I was there. But when I grabbed for her wrist to make her see me, she tripped over the rope and began to shout,
You're too rough, Lil Singer, and you think you're someone special and
you're not.