Mallawindy (12 page)

‘I remember the taste of big red apples and the juice running down my chin. I think I ate about a million apples one day. It might be imagination, but sometimes I think if I could bit
e into one it might jog my memory. I can't. I smell them and ... and I switch off.' She stopped short, the point of her tongue moistened her lips.

‘Continue, Burton. Each segment you grasp is a gain.'

‘That face I told you about ages ago. I dreamed it two nights back and woke Branny up with my screaming.'

‘The face?'

‘I used to call it the demon's face. It's ... it's pulsations of light, of shadow ... light shadow. It's like a kaleidoscope, made of melting fat. It keeps changing as I turn it, then it forms a face, and just as I'm about to grasp it, suddenly it melts into two, breaks up, and sizzles away in black smoke.'

‘Your Aunt and I spoke at length on the telephone. Apparently they found you beneath a window that looked out on the rose garden. Try if you will to think of that window. Was it a large window? A small window? Were the roses in bloom?'

‘Nothing. I don't know. Thinking about it makes me feel as if the inside of me is going to implode. Like all of the outside of me will be sucked into the inside – like a deflated balloon. When the last of the air is gone, I'll just shrivel up and blow away.'

They talked an hour away, both keeping one eye on the clock.

‘I'd better go,' she said at four-thirty. ‘I have to sew tonight, sir. I might be going to the pictures on Wednesday.' She walked with him back to the room he had set up as a study for her. He watched her stack her books, place them on a shelf, while he played with the old typewriter.

‘I did a little typing when I was in the army. They say it is like riding a bicycle, once learned never forgotten. I have not put the theory to the test in some time ... bicycle or typewriter.'

‘I'm off then, sir. Thank you.'

‘Any time, Burton. The door is always open.'

When she had gone, he poured a small brandy, tossed it down and sagged to the chair before the desk, his mind on Jack Burton. He hated the man, and though Ann never admitted it, he knew her father still abused her. He began poking at keys with two index fingers.
Fell out of tree,
he typed.
Very tall tree.

He was still there at nine o'clock, his out of practice fingers growing faster at finding the right keys. Only the empty bottle forced him from his absorbing occupation. He stood, his bones grown stiff with sitting. He picked up a small sheaf of papers, leafing through them as he wandered into the passage, flicking on light switches as he went.

A half a dozen chops tossed into a frying pan, he stood close to the stove, reading, then re-reading his evening's work as fat sizzled and flew.

Publishers hadn't wanted the lyrical prose of his youth. They'd
returned his manuscripts without comment. Now, chuckling and jiggling beside his frying pan, Malcolm read the type-written words aloud. The first page was discarded, and the second, but by the time he got to the third, he began mentally editing.

She allowed the blouse to slide from her rounded shoulder and her heavy breasts sprang free of their restriction. Backing away, she taunted him as he reached eagerly for his prize.

In all his life Malcolm had never seen a heavy breast spring free, but it looked good on paper, as the names of his characters looked good on paper. He read two more pages.

Mack Curtan and Bell Reva were a fiendish pair. They were reaching out from the paper, ensnaring his imagination. For years, while his liver soaked up alcohol, his subconscious had soaked up a thousand scenarios. Mallawindy, tiny hell on earth, might yet pay for what it had stolen from Malcolm Fletcher.

david taylor

Ann's scissors were sharp and confident. Each stitch she placed in the blue woollen fabric was a positive stitch. She finished the hem on Wednesday evening, and when she modelled the frock for Bronwyn, the ten-year-old told her she looked like a fashion model in a magazine, and all she needed was some lipstick.

Ann didn't own any lipstick, so Bronwyn crept into her parents' bedroom, and returned with her mother's. ‘Put a bit on,' she said, supervising as Ann outlined her lips with the Burnished Spice. ‘More. A bit more,' then she palmed the lipstick. ‘Who are you going to sit with?'

‘No-one. Probably no-one. I just want to see the picture.' Her lips felt greasy, she blotted half of it off.

‘Why the new dress then?' Branny scoffed. She sounded like Aunty Bessy.

Jack and Ellie were watching the seven o'clock news when Ann left. Bronwyn stood at the lounge room door, playing watchdog. Ben was in the paddocks.

‘Want a ride?' he called.

Ann waved a hand, shook her head. She wanted the walk, wanted the time alone to think. She didn't even know the bank man's name, and by the time she got to town, she'd convinced
herself that he wouldn't be there, and if he was, Mallawindy girls would be a metre deep around him. She'd just walk past as if she didn't see him and she'd sit with Jimmy Willis and his mob.

But the bank man was waiting alone on the corner – as if he were waiting for her. Her heart began to beat against her ribs like a jackhammer. If he hadn't seen her first, she would have turned and run for home. But he had seen her. He walked across the road.

‘I hoped you'd come,' he said.

‘Hi.' That one word was enough to choke her. She licked her lips, tasted Burnished Spice, and walked ahead of him to the hall.

He wouldn't let her buy her ticket. She stood back, praying for the lights to go out before she had to enter. It wasn't to be. The picture-show man only turned off the lights when he was sure he'd get no more customers.

People stared at her. Eyes turned to watch her take a seat in the second back row. Then the lights went out and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.

He bought her a bottle of Coke at interval. They stood outside, and he took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, offered it.

‘No thanks,' she said. ‘I don't – '

‘I'm glad you don't. I don't much either,' and he put the cigarettes away. ‘How old are you, Ann?'

She couldn't say fifteen. She tried, but she couldn't say it. Couldn't even say nearly sixteen. ‘How old are you?' she asked.

‘Twenty-four.'

Johnny would be twenty-four. Johnny grown up, not sitting with a fifteen-year-old at the pictures. ‘How old did you think I was?' she asked.

‘Twenty?'

She shook her head.

‘Eighteen?'

‘My birthday is on December twenty-fourth.' She hadn't lied, just hadn't told the truth. Just for tonight she could be nearly eighteen. He'd be gone on Saturday.

‘I thought you'd be older. You're only a baby.' He took the hand fiddling with the empty Coke bottle, held it.

Jimmy Willis walked past, saw her holding hands. ‘G'day, Annie,' he said.

‘Hello,' she replied, surprised she had breath enough to reply. Her heart was trying to ram an extra airhole in her throat. She was going to die if he didn't let go of her hand. But he didn't,
and she didn't die. They walked inside holding hands, and the whole of Mallawindy stared.

Two older girls, who never spoke to her, walked over. ‘Hello Annie,' they said. Their eyes were on the bank man. She didn't know his name, and the longer the night went on, the harder it was becoming to ask.

‘This is Greta and Lyn,' she introduced.

‘David. David Taylor,' the bank man said. Then he led Ann to her seat.

There was magic in his hand. Everyone was smiling at her. She started smiling too, and her smile suited her well. Tonight she was someone else in lipstick. Cinderella at the ball. Scarlet O'Hara. Miss Ann Blue Dress from Narrawee –

David held her hand for the next two hours, and when the film ended with a passionate kiss, Ann's intestines ached like nothing she'd ever felt before. For the first time in her life, she wondered what it was like to be kissed. Her face grew hot. She didn't want the lights to come on, and when they did, she made a great show of looking at her watch. It was just after eleven. Midnight, with its pumpkins, was an hour away. If she could play Cinderella for just one more hour, just one more hour of magic, then she'd die happy.

Outside the hall, his arm crept around her waist. He walked her to a car she thought was her father's, but he opened it with his own key, then expected her to get in. She was fifteen going on eighteen tonight, so she got in.

Never get into a stranger's car, her mother always said to her
and Branny. Never, never get into a car with a stranger. Now she was in his car, and the doors closed.

The night was cold, light rain was falling. How was she going to explain not getting wet? Maybe they'd all be in bed. Please God let them be. What's on television tonight? she thought. Nothing much. Please God let Dad get bored and go to bed, and I'll go to church on Sunday. I'll go every Sunday for a month.

David said something. She hadn't been listening. ‘Pardon?'

‘Have you got any brothers and sisters?'

‘Two brothers and one sister.' She told him her mother had a small mixed farm. It was becoming easier, like speaking to Bessy's Mick, like getting a lift home from the town with a cousin. He wasn't like a stranger.

‘I'll walk from here,' she said, when the car stopped before the old wooden gate.

‘Do you have to go in straight away?' His hand was on her shoulder, burning a hole through to her bones. She was going to die of pleasure tonight. No-one ever touched her, held her. Only Johnny. Johnny used to hold her hand, and give her a hug, and lift her over fences. Her father had held her once, and he'd touched her face the day Linda Alice died, but this was something different. She was drowning. Waves of delicious warmth washed over her as his arm drew her closer. Her shoulder was against his shoulder; it was like with Johnny, like warm, like a place to lean when she was tired, or shy. She wanted to lean against him, let these new warm waves crash over her, wipe out the old her and wash up someone better.

Then his face was close, like he was going to – . Quickly she pulled away, sat back, ram-rod straight, grabbed at the door handle.

The lights were still glowing from verandah and kitchen. They'd be off if her father was in bed. Maybe she should sit a bit longer. How long did other girls sit? Perhaps if she sat for ten minutes. If her father knew she'd gone out, he wouldn't expect her home for half an hour, not if she had to walk from town. Her eyes
scanned the land, seeking his tall shadow. He liked to lurk in shadows, creep up and spy, listen at doorways.

‘How many cows are you milking, Ann?' David wasn't trying to touch her. He probably wanted her to go. Probably thought she'd do it, and now he was bored.

She swallowed, released the door handle and folded her arms. ‘We've got ten at the moment. Eight more should calve soon. We've got a few pigs, and half a million chooks. We sell eggs to the egg ... egg board.'

‘Got a bull too,' he said, sighting Bessy's bull at the gate, rampaging, wanting to get out and kill.

‘That's my Aunt's, from over the river. He's a problem, swims over and gets at Mum's – ' She stopped. Perhaps it wasn't the right thing to say. ‘I'd better go around to the top paddock tonight. He's as mad as a hornet,' she said.

The verandah light went off, but the kitchen light still burned bright. Her father must know she'd gone out. He'd be waiting for her, another bull, but madder than a hornet.

Then the kitchen light went out, and the house became lost in the shrubbery.

Thank you God. Thank you God. ‘I'd better go now,' she said.

He left the car too, so he wasn't that eager to get rid of her. He walked with her down the road, and he held her hand again. He held the fence wires apart while she climbed through, careful of her new dress. Safe from him on the other side, she took the magic hand he offered. She shook it, and he laughed, drew her back.

‘Watch the barbedwire,' she warned.

‘Sensible parents,' he said. ‘Barbedwire entanglements around you. I enjoyed tonight, Ann. Can I see you again?'

‘Again? I thought you were leaving on Saturday.'

‘I don't live too far away. Would you like to see me again?'

She had thought no further than this night. Just one night, just
to see what it was like being with a boy, holding his hand. There could be no more. David would find out about her, and her father would find out about him, and – . But her mouth was wearing lipstick, and it said, ‘If ... if you really want to.'

‘Oh, I definitely want to. Saturday?'

‘There's no picture show on Saturday.'

‘We'll find something to do. Do you dance?'

‘No. Just church social stuff.'

‘Do you fish?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, if it's a nice day we'll go fishing and have a picnic on the river.' He leaned across the wire, brushed a place between m
outh and cheek with his lips. Her intestines twisted around her heart and threw her lungs into turmoil.

‘Okay. I'll call for you around two.'

‘No. No,' she said. ‘I'll ... I'll meet you at the bridge,' and she ran across the paddock, sucking air, her hand touching the place of her first kiss.

She met him the next Saturday and they caught a sack of fish. ‘You take them,' she said at the canoe tree. ‘We get plenty.' Then he kissed her. Kissed her properly. On the lips, and she ran.

He came each Saturday through September, and she met him at the bridge, and drove away with him to somewhere. He kissed her often, not only when he was leaving, and she loved it, loved his mouth, loved his arms, loved him – and she went to church with her mother each Sunday.

David took her to Daree one week to look in fabric shops. She spent twenty dollars and wished she'd brought more money with her. He wanted to lend her twenty. She shook her head, but let him carry her parcels. She felt eighteen, so totally old and grown up, and happy as she'd never been before. Then she left him at the canoe tree, and she was fifteen, and home. She was mad Annie until next Saturday, when she was catching a bus to Warran. He would meet her at the bus, at ten, and take her to the market. A
whole day. One whole day with him, and in another town where she could be anyone she wanted to be.

Warran was an old city, its shopping centre huge. David knew every street. He lived there, owned a block of land there. His parents had bought it for him, for his twenty-first birthday. He drove her to the estate in Mahoneys Lane, and she looked at the fine houses on each side, and she walked with him on his land while he spoke of the house he planned to build there one day. At one, he took her home to meet his parents.

His mother, a big, loud woman, dominated the conversation, her voice accusing when she spoke of a girl called Melissa, a girl David had dated off and on for four years. Ann wanted to run, didn't want to know of the other girl with a prior claim t
o him. She asked for the bathroom, and sat on the edge of the bath for fifteen minutes, listening to his mother through the thin wall.

‘How old is she?'

‘Almost eighteen.'

‘Eighteen? You're twenty-four years old. Wake up to yourself and apologise to Melissa. I was speaking to her mother yesterday. The girl is broken hearted.'

‘Crap. She's been going out with other blokes,' David said.

‘Who is this Ann, anyway? What do her parents do?'

‘They're farmers. They've got a place just out of Mallawindy.'

‘Watch out for her, my lad, or you'll end up with more trouble than you want to handle. Steer clear of the quiet ones. They're hiding something. You mark my words.'

They didn't stay for lunch. David knocked on the bathroom door, and when Ann emerged, he took her hand and led her away. They went to a take-away shop.

She wasn't hungry. She was trembling, internally. The woman's words kept running around in her brain. Hiding something. Hiding something. In his car, the windows up, their breath, the hot chips
and hamburgers, created fog on the windows. She tried to hide in it. She didn't want to talk. She nibbled chips and thought of the other girl. Someone else had kissed him, probably slept with him. Someone. His mother liked her. He'd go back to her and the magic Saturdays would be over.

‘Eat up,' David said. ‘Nothing better than hot chips out of paper.' His words sounded hollow, muffled, and she remembered another voice speaking the same words. Her father's voice. Her father's car. Stopping at a shop. Foggy windows. Eating chips. Hot, crisp, salty chips. Going home. Going home to Johnny. Safe. Safe Johnny.