Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories (7 page)

 

I'm booked in at the above address, on the 44th floor, and I'm not allowed to leave Bangkok, George. I admit we had words and that I might have threatened to push her, but I didn't, George. She was leaning over the balcony, looking down at the swimming pool and she always was top heavy. But the people on the next balcony told the police they heard us arguing so they've taken my passport. Please get the first plane out. Use the rest of the money from the caravan account and bring that overnight bag I sent home. It's stinking hot here. Can't wait to see you. As ever, love, Alice.

At ninety-nine, Granny Jordan was losing her marbles, and no one knew where to find them. This made the grown-ups very angry. They had been talking century party, talking spring, and Aunty May icing the cake, and Uncle Henry coming all the way from Hay with his new wife and some mallee roots.

‘Maybe we should tell him,' they said. ‘No use him coming all that way if she doesn't know him when he gets here.' They spent their days tut-tutting, and discussing Granny and Abby Rations, and no one even bothering to look for her marbles. I didn't know Abby Rations, but there were many relations coming to the party who I didn't know.

I searched for those lost marbles though, hoping they might be on the floor in the passage where naggy Nanna would put her foot on one and go for a ride. They weren't there, but I found the wedding ring that had slipped from Granny's finger weeks ago. It didn't make the grown-ups happy. They tossed it in a dish on the windowsill and muttered about the century party and what the doctor had said.

Everybody who belonged to me lived in that cold brick house at number forty-two Station Street, where I spent the winter of my first memories. Everyone called someone else Mum, until it got to Granny Jordan, who naggy Nanna called Mum. We fitted in, and it wouldn't be forever, the grown-ups kept saying. We all had to live together because of Costa Living. He was very dear, and he wasn't coming to the party but Aunty Alice was.

I slept alone in a green metal cot, in a room filled with many beds. The other occupants of that room rose early and disappeared off to school where I must not follow. My place was in the kitchen with the black stove and the singing kettle – and Granny. It was a dark and cosy place when the winter winds wailed around the chimney and rattled that back door, a smoky place that smelled of hot sultana cakes and fried onions, of roast lamb and Granny's camphor. She always wore a block of camphor stitched into a little bag hung like a long pendant around her neck.

She lived in the kitchen, her cane chair claiming a corner close to the stove so she could watch for bad omens in the twisting coils of smoke. She told me tales of black witches and white wolves, told rambling stories about Charlie and when she was a girl – never told me to run away and play, and she wasn't mean with the Arrowroot biscuits either. In time, I moved my own small stool to her side.

Granny and I were never invited to sit in the parlour before the log fire. We had no respect for fine vases, and Granny laughed at the grown-ups' rules – because she had lost her marbles, though she never missed them. The priest was allowed to sit in the parlour, and I sometimes crept in there to hide beneath its big polished table while naggy Nanna and the priest sipped tea from fine china cups and ate sultana cake with a fork. One day they spoke about me.

‘She's Granny reborn, the little minx. That black hair, those wicked black eyes. And those hands –'

Hah! A blind man could see that Granny's hair was as white as snow, even her prickly chin whiskers were white. And her hands? They were mallee roots, wound around the twisted handle of her walking stick. I liked that walking stick, and wanted my own when I grew big. It was a handy thing. It could thump Pa, and trip naggy Nanna with its handle; it could scratch our favourite cat's belly, and walk alongside Granny's broomstick legs when we escaped via the back door to toddle off about our important business.

Granny Jordan had her good days and her bad days, the grownups told the doctor when he came to call, and they couldn't even tell the difference between good and bad. On the days
they
called
good
, Granny sat by the stove reading ill omens into every puff of smoke. These were the days she used her walking stick on the ones she named ‘them-in-there', tossed her broth onto the floor, demanded dry wood for our stove, and cursed the grown-ups until they gave us Arrowroot biscuits to dunk in her tea. Those biscuits tasted better dunked, and when ‘them-in-there' were not watching, I too learned to dunk, then bite fast before the soggy bit fell into Granny's cup.

Them-in-there burned mallee roots and big fat logs in their open fireplace, but they measured mean green sticks into our firebox, until they wanted to cook – then they used the good wood, and when them-in-there went back where they belonged, we opened that oven, propped our feet on the shelves and talked and talked, all toasty and warm while the soles of our shoes cooked.

‘I've lived too long, lassie. I wish I was dead and roasting in hell right now. Least they'd keep me bleedin' old joints warm, not like them-in-there, planning their cakes and parties while freezing an old body into an early grave.'

‘Does the train go to hell?'

‘That's where they send the sinners to stoke the fires of eternal damnation, lassie, and for all their priests and their prayin', that's where them-in-there will end up come judgment day. You mark my words.'

‘I like Dan Nation, Granny,' I admitted, creeping closer to her skirts. To stoke a winter fire until its face was red hot sounded like a fair occupation to me when Granny was having one of her miserable
good
days.

We didn't feel the chill on the days the grown-ups named
bad
, because Granny and I always found a way of escaping watchful eyes. These were the magic days when Granny's name was Becky, and I was Katey-me-darlin'. We tried to catch trains, but the man in a uniform wouldn't let us, so we roamed the neighbourhood, dragging a galvanised bucket behind us because there was scrubbing to be done at Charlie's house so it would be ready when he came home. I knew he couldn't really come home, because he was only a photograph on the wall with a mouse moustache but Granny couldn't remember that on those days. I thought Katey-me-darlin' was a fine name, so I walked with Granny and searched hard for Charlie's house wishing that all of her days might be such magic
bad
days. She was happy then, and her eyes, though searching faraway places for things I could not see, were cheeky black beetles, full up with life and living.

‘We don't wish you was dead and stoking Dan Nation's fires today, do we, Granny?' I chattered as we toddled down unknown streets.

‘Ah, me wishing never bought bread to fill your little belly, Katey-me-darlin', though I done enough of it in me day. Charlie is always telling me, “Wish in one hand, Becky, and spit in the other – you'll see which fills up first”.'

We were never lost, although we never knew quite where we were, something them-in-there did not understand. They sent policemen to find us, they trained neighbours to tell tales on us. Someone was always out there waiting to bring us back to our kitchen. Our very finest finder was the red-headed baker, who twice tempted us on board his van with a sticky bun. He and his black pony always took us riding before delivering us home with the bread.

That winter was slow to wear itself away. Even the grown-ups said they'd never known a longer winter, which was because of the calendar and the crosses they had to make on it every day.

Then one day came that wasn't a
good
day of thumping them-in-there and of tossing her broth, or even a good
bad
day of wandering. Granny had gone to a place of dreaming and drooling where I couldn't find her. Still, I stayed close by, wiping her mouth with a handkerchief, as she had once wiped mine.

The grown-ups watched her, and made crosses on the calendar with a red pencil. They propped Granny with pillows, and made their crosses. They spooned soft boiled egg and tonic into her mouth, they spring-cleaned the parlour, because most of the calendar was red crosses now.

‘I wish we could have a story, Granny. Tell me the story about when you was a girl as big as me, and you went . . . ' I looked at her eyes, small smoky marbles, strange lost things. Ah, so that is where they had gone to.

‘Granny. Granny, I found your lost marbles. Granny! We have to clean the house for Charlie. Granny?'

‘Charlie?' She lifted a hand and patted mine.

‘'member? We have to find Charlie's house,' I said, touching a wrist of old bones wrapped in bruised tissue paper. ‘I wish we could find Charlie's house.'

Then her brittle fingers grasped my hand and her marbles were lost once more as her eyes looked again into mine.

‘Always wishing for the moon, Katie me' darlin', 'she said. ‘Wish in one hand and spit in the other, darlin'. You'll see which fills up first.'

I pulled my stool close to her black skirts and rested my head against her knee, content a while, listening to them-in-there entertaining the priest, twittering about their century party and Uncle Henry coming with a load of mallee roots.

‘They'll freeze an old body into the grave before he gets here with his bleeding mallee roots,' Granny said.

‘I wish we could stoke Dan Nation's fires today, Granny.'

‘That would throw a spanner in the works,' she said.

I had often tested her wishing and spitting theory, my eyes closed, my cupped left hand held high to trap the wish, my right hand beneath my chin, wishing hard and spitting harder. That day, naggy Nanna came in to make tea for the priest and she caught me, slapped my spitting hand and, while my eyes were still closed tight, she slapped my bottom and sent me out to the garden where the peach blossoms were braving the wind.

I watched those petals fall to the earth like rain-wet confetti before Granny was carried from my house – and with only two days left on the calendar to mark with those red crosses.

Everyone was sad about not having their century party, but Uncle Henry and his new wife were still coming with their mallee roots, for a different party. Naggy Nanna was pleased about that. Heaps of people were coming, lots of cooking to be done, Granny's back room to be cleaned and aired, then made up fresh for Uncle Henry.

On the day of the party, the house was all flowery and busy with grown-ups wearing black and them-in-there came out to the garden to get me. They found me up the peach tree and I wouldn't climb down. They talked some more about heaven and told me again how Granny was now living with the angels, and it was time to get dressed and go to church to say goodbye to her.

‘She's not with the angels,' I yelled. ‘She's stoking up Dan Nation's fires in hell and she's all warm and toasty and I want to go there and see her.'

They made the sign of the cross, tut-tutted a while, then Uncle Henry lifted me down from the tree and told me Granny would never be dead while I was alive. He carried me kicking into the kitchen where they clad me in white, sat me on Granny's cane chair and told me to be good.

Hah. What did any of them-in-there know of good and bad, or of anything much at all? I knew exactly where Granny was. Naggy Nanna's slap had emptied my spitting hand that day, but I'd still been wishing when she'd slapped my bottom – and my wishing hand had felt as heavy as lead.

She sits in the waiting area of a new salon, searching though her handbag. She's fair, fat and frumpy and she shouldn't be there. Janet, her daughter, made the appointment. Janet cut the coupon from the local newspaper.

‘You look daggy with long hair, Mum, and you need a decent rinse.'

‘Your dad likes it long.' Or he'd once said, long ago, that her hair had been spun from honey and sunshine.

Opening special. Cut, rinse and blow-wave, only $35.

Her appointment is with Paul, a boy from Janet's HSC class. Janet went on to do law at Melbourne uni. Paul became a hairdresser.

Heated words were whispered about Paul and this appointment. Janet, twenty-three, Peter, twenty-one, inseparable always, argued because of this coupon.

‘You're being a total bitch, Jan.'

‘Then you tell her.'

Too late now to ask what. Too late to buy the usual rinse at the supermarket and wash her own hair. It's so thick and long, it takes an age to dry, and it is looking very grey.

Present this coupon by the 28th.

Today is the twenty-eighth, Peter's twenty-first birthday. Her appointment is for three. She arrived at five to three. She's always early, hates making people wait, but she herself has been waiting for twenty minutes already. Waiting and watching.

To her left, a woman's greying hair is being transformed by reckless hands. The watcher frowns, her attention focused on the long fingers plastering goo. Large hands, they are attached to the arms of a haughty, pencil slim, breastless being in wide black slacks and a tight black vest. Classic features but a petulant mouth, quite beautiful – or handsome. Hard to say which these days. Reckless is waiting for a phone call. Each time the phone rings those hands flinch and his/her eyes turn to the desk.

The coupon bearer watches, thinks of Peter, her beautiful boy, out of work for three weeks since the
FIGHT
. She sees that word in capitals, the print bold and red. Until the
FIGHT
Peter worked with John, his father. She doesn't know why they fought.

Janet knows why. ‘Ask Peter,' she says.

Can't ask Peter. Don't want to know the answer
.

But she listens when her children speak in whispers, and last night, when Janet drove in from work, Peter was waiting for her in the yard. They didn't know she was in the garage dusting off the fold-up chairs she'd need tonight and they were not whispering.

Gay.
She heard that. Heard Peter say it.

She looks at the ceiling, willing her mind to her shopping list. Won't think of
gay
today. Strawberries. Pickled onions. Cream, and mixed nuts. More dry biscuits to go with the dips.

Peter has never been interested in girls.
Wrong way, Go back
.

Cream, and mixed nuts. Fruit, maybe – if she's got enough money left.

It's a beautiful salon, only opened last week. A black ceiling scattered with tiny lights, each sending down its circular shaft of light to the black and gold tiled floor, and to her worn-out sneakers. Peter's discards. He is small, has small feet, a throwback to her mother's family. She is tall and her feet are not small, or not for a woman, and those expensive sneakers were too good to throw away.

Not so good beneath a spotlight. She draws them back beneath the chair, hides one with the other, flicks her long hair back as she looks at a wall of gold framed mirrors to the left, a row of black basins to the right. Discarded sneakers and a shapeless blue tracksuit have no place in this palace of the pampered. She is out of place.

‘Get it layered, and have a change of colour or something, Mum.'

‘Your father likes my hair long, Janet.'

‘He might have when you were twenty. You're fifty, for Christ's sake. Face it and move into the twenty-first century.'

Don't like the twenty-first century. Want my safe old twentieth century back.

Hairdressers are not safe. They never were, even back in the seventies. ‘Just a light trim,' the bride-to-be had said on her wedding day. ‘And nothing off the fringe. It shrinks.' Since then she could have counted her trips to a hairdresser on one hand. Hairdressers are all megalomaniacs armed with scissors. She looks like a shorn sheep in her wedding photographs. She'd like to throw them out, but can't. They are hidden away in the hall closet. A crowded place, that hall closet. All of the items she can't look at but can't throw away are locked in there. Words like
gay
are locked in there too.

A shake of her head and she turns to watch reckless hands piling greasy hair high, then she glances at her own hands, rough and work-worn, and at her rings. She loves her eternity ring with its rubies and diamonds. It was expensive and looks so well with her engagement ring – a pity her hands don't look as well. She covers one with the other. They've worked hard this week, cooking and cleaning for the party.

Which John doesn't want. Which John said he wouldn't be attending. Since the
FIGHT
he hasn't spoken a word to Peter. Not one word.

‘What happened between you two? You used to get on so well. Tell me what happened, John.'

‘Ask your son.'

‘I'm asking you.'

John's brother is driving down from Sydney for the party and he's bringing his parents. They're booked into the motel with her two sisters and their families. That's all organised. Her father is coming in on the bus today, taking a taxi to the house. He'll sleep in Peter's trundle bed. He's so easy to please. ‘Just find me a space on the floor, love,' he said. ‘I'll be jake.'

How long does a rinse take? And a light trim – just to keep Janet happy. Strong-willed Janet, as domineering as her father. She came home last Thursday with a pair of black slacks and a colourful silk shirt.

‘That's what you're wearing to the party, Mum. I'm sick of you looking like an old frump.'

‘That's a very nice thought, pet, but the blue suit is more me – I can wear my pearl earrings and necklet with it. And your father likes me in blue.'

The truth was, she'd feel safer in the blue. But what is safe these days? Where is safe? Damn the twenty-first century, she thinks, damn progress and sexual preference and a society that brainwashes children before they're in high school. I have to face it though. Sooner or later I'll have to.
Gay
. I'll learn to accept it. Other mothers do. But not today. Leave it until next week, or next year – when he's grown out of it.

She looks at her watch. John should be home by now, and of course he'll be there for the party. He won't dare not to – not with his brother and parents making the long trip down. It will be a good night, Janet will see to that. She's a social animal, like her father.

Too much like her father. She always has to win. Anything she does, she excels at. Like her father. John was fifty-two last birthday, but since last winter he's taken to playing competition bowls three nights a week. He used to play tennis with Janet, until she began beating him. Determined Janet, not interested in marriage. She wants to become a trial lawyer – will become a trial lawyer. And God help the judge.

‘How long does it have to stay on?' the purple goo-head asks, and the coupon bearer listens for the reply.

‘Half an hour.' Reckless wants to get away, glances at the coupon bearer, offers a sneer saved for matrons who think a rinse will make them young and beautiful again.

Her sneakers squeal as she shrinks lower on the black vinyl chair and her mind flits away to the safe place, to her kitchen. She has to finish off the pavs. Do the savouries. See if Janet will give the kitchen floor a wash. Ask Peter to clean those hall mirrors. She meant to clean those mirrors before she caught the bus. Too many things on her mind today.

She waits, watches the minute hand tick around and around once more. She opens a magazine, flips through it, then places it down, stands. She straightens her tracksuit, removes her prescription sunglasses. It takes a minute for her eyes to grow accustomed to their loss.

‘What's the time, dear?' she asks the broom girl.

‘Half past three.'

‘My appointment with Paul was for three.'

‘He's running late because he had to do a bleach job,' the broom girl replies, sweeping by with a mountain of multicoloured hair.

The coupon bearer sits again, watches as a small blond male removes a cape with a flourish then walks his blonde customer to the desk. He must be Paul. His customer has surely been bleached.
My turn next
.

‘I got her an appointment with Paul,' Janet said in the yard last night.

‘You're a prize bitch, Jan.'

‘I told you I'd do it if you didn't tell her.'

Don't go there. Not now.

She watches the blonde pass over two fifty dollar notes, receive thirty-five in change.
Sixty five dollars? That woman paid sixty-five dollars to look like Harpo Marx?

The coupon bearer checks her purse, finds the coupon, finds a few coins and one fifty dollar note. Housekeeping, stretched like a rubber band all week, snapped on Wednesday. She asked John for extra, but he forgot to go to the bank. He handles the money, pays the bills, hands her two hundred each week.

‘I told you I've got a big game on Saturday,' he said. ‘I told you to have his party next week.'

‘It's his birthday on Saturday. Why put it off for a week when we can have it on the right day?'

Janet lent her the fifty. ‘If you get it cut, you don't have to pay it back,' she said.

The little blond male, who is definitely
one of them
, stands before her, smiles. She forces a smile in return. It is not his fault. It is probably his mother's fault. Mothers are always to blame. They love their boys too much, let them cling to their skirts too long.
My fault
.

‘Would you like a coffee, sweetie, or a cup of tea?'

‘No. No thank you. How much longer?'

‘You're next.' But he turns, gives his smile to a new arrival, a male, in for tips. Is he
one of them
? How can you tell these days? They are just beautiful boys and they all have bad mothers.

I should have forced him to play football, she thinks. I shouldn't have let him bake cakes, taught him how to knit, bought him baby slippers with bunny rabbits on them. But he loved his bunny rabbit slippers. He wanted to bake cakes. Always more capable in the kitchen than Janet. She can't even make a decent cup of tea. Lives on black coffee. God help her husband – if she ever marries.

Peter's old sneakers hiss against the tiles as she turns to face the manager. She's middle aged, thin as a rake, looks twenty-five from the rear but fifty up close.

‘So, what were we having done today, dear?'

‘I've got the coupon.' A worn coupon now, a sweaty coupon, spreading black newsprint onto her fingers.

‘Oh yes. Paul's special. We'll get you started.' She doesn't want the coupon, but leads Paul's special to purple goo-head's side where she is enshrouded in a black cape.

‘It's a permanent colour. I hope I can live with it.' Purple wants to talk, but the coupon bearer is looking into a cruel gilt framed mirror.

My God! I look so old – old and daggy.

Then Reckless is back, but only long enough to toss a colour-card onto the bench before disappearing again.

‘He's having man trouble,' Purple whispers behind a hand. ‘He called his boyfriend just before he did me and I got the overflow. I asked him to give me the plum red. This doesn't look plum red.' Purple takes charge of the colour-card, points to the plum red. ‘Does it look like that to you?'

A shake of her head, a shrug, but no reply, though the coupon bearer claims the colour-card.

Honey blonde, or maybe the lighter golden blonde would be better.

‘Going somewhere special, are you?'

‘It's my son's twenty-first birthday.'

‘My ex has got the kids in Queensland. I was up there two years ago.'

So many children with one parent. Her children have two parents. She has always been a stay-at-home mother, always there for her children. Boys need a father more than a mother. Should have made John spend more time with Peter, play football with him. He was never there for the children – or for her.

‘Colour, madam?' Reckless is behind her and he's definitely a he. Is he Paul?

‘I want it to look natural.'

‘All of our rinses look natural, madam.'

The coupon bearer glances at Purple, doubts his word. ‘My natural colour,' she says.

‘Grey, madam?'

She lets that one pass, swallows, takes a deep breath. ‘What would you suggest?'

Reckless's mirror image suggests he's disinterested, but Purple is eager to advise.

‘I'd go for the lighter one,' she says, peering closely at her darkening reflection.

So it is mixed, and the hair John once called honey and sunshine is piled high beneath a cold glut of pinkish goo. ‘How long does it stay in?'

‘Thirty minutes, madam,' Reckless replies.

‘Can we make it fifteen, please? I'm in a hurry.'

Reckless is in a greater hurry. He's on the other side of a beaded doorway, three feet from the wall of gilt framed mirrors. The watcher and her new friend Purple hear every word.

‘Yes it is me again . . . well I don't give a fuck who you're with. You can't do this to me.'

She looks at her hands, tries not to listen. Doesn't like bad language and loathes that
F
word – keeps it locked in a back corner of her hall closet. Janet uses it. Never Peter – or not in her presence. What else does she not hear, not see?

A long, cold and greasy tendril falls to her brow as she shakes the thought away. She looks to her right where the small blond Paul is folding aluminium foil into a guy's hair. Doctor Frankenstein, move over.