Girl with a Monkey (2 page)

You are escape and all that spells new places and people, she thought. Why should I care if, despotic, this man makes me sit up even two nights? To leave this evening at eight and slip quietly away from the
kernel of my discontent is now the
summum bonum
. He only sees me as a thin girl in a red frock, though perhaps as I turn away holding my tickets he may watch my legs.

But he did not watch her legs, and if you had asked him there and then the colour of her dress would have eluded him. Elsie moved back into sunlight past sleeper and boy with cans to more pain than she had ever imagined.

May

T
HE BIG
sports oval lay indistinctly under the star-shattered sky that smudged the windy outlines of palms on the ocean side. There was a large crowd, sensed rather than seen, sitting or standing around on the warm, pleasant grass, and waiting contentedly enough for the bishop to begin speaking. Jon and Elsie scuffed noisily through the paper bags that littered the turf, moving in closer in order to obtain a better view of the dais under white electric light. Behind the platform and to the right of it, a truck was being unloaded of loudspeaker equipment that two men were carrying up to the dais. There were red and blue drapings, an illuminated crucifix and a microphone. After some time the workmen departed, leaving only the empty stage, a strident little pool of light thrown up by the blackness of the mango-trees along the fence. Suddenly there was a movement in the groups of people in front of them, and by straining on tiptoe Elsie and Jon could just catch a glimpse of lamplight on metal as a black sedan curved in across the oval. A priest, dumpy and pale, mounted the five steps to the platform where
he was greeted by a few awkward clappings and a wave of shushings that passed from group to group.

However, he spoke only briefly and, to a louder roar of applause that rose spontaneously, introduced to the crowd the smiling bishop who had by now joined him. The bishop raised thin fingers to adjust his biretta, then blessing himself largely,

“Dearly beloved,” he began, and his voice had a unction and sophistication somehow out of place in the warm May tropic night, “it is indeed a gratifying tribute to our beloved Master to find so mar enthusiasts conjoined in brotherhood for this rally. He paused a moment, and during the waiting silence Elsie became conscious of laughter and scuffling within the black shadow of the mango-trees on their right. “. . . Christian in every sense, and so I believe this human generosity will be reciprocated by a divine generosity whose fruits so many of us have tasted already. It is this month, the fifth of a bountiful year, that gives us special opportunity . . .” At this moment the sound of laughter beneath the trees fluttered obscenely into the crowd, and Elsie found herself peering into the darkness, able only to distinguish five or six amorphous shapes seated on a long bench. One of them, speaking softly to his companions, sounded familiar, and there was something in the set of the body that puzzled her, so that for the time, occupied with remembering the owner's identity, Elsie heard
no more of the bishop's speech than a disjointed phrase or two which later she could only recall as an odd
mélange
of humour and piety. But the voice was cold like the chill of sand at night and without warning she began to shiver. Perhaps it was the cool wind that sprang up unexpectedly from the beach.

When she finally directed her thoughts to the tall, smiling figure by the crucifix, there was a spluttering of static in the amplifying system and the bishop's voice burst and crackled as unintelligibly as thunder. It was as if his words blossomed into flaring fireworks, the meaning crackling, sparkling, and spreading in corollas of coloured light. The crucifix on the stage plunged into darkness through which, as the eyes grew accustomed to it, one could see the frantic outlines of gesticulating officials working unavailingly at the microphone, the speakers, and at the control panel fitted to the back of the truck. The bishop, with the gesture of a Pilate, wiped his hands of the whole matter and continued gallantly to address the crowd without mechanical aid. At one corner of his mouth a nervous tic induced by his dilemma played over and over again its simple little drama. Unfortunately his voice carried no farther than the crowds immediately round him, so that the most Jon and Elsie could hear was an occasional pious phrase borne to them salted with sea wind. By now the crowd had pressed forward so tightly that they found themselves edged nearer and nearer to the
profane group under the trees. Undecided whether to go home or stay, they poised irresolute on their momentary doubt and heard to their utter astonishment Elsie's name called from beneath the blackest branches. She dragged a little on Jon's arm as they both turned pallid masks towards the deeper shadows. A gauche outline breathing wheezily moved away from the bench to where they stood. Under the sifted starlight the puffed-up, pimply, late-adolescent face of Desmond Macarthy appeared, snuffling and grinning with a puppy's good humour. He took Jon's hand into a limp freemasonry of perspiration.

This false heartiness, thought Elsie, when young men meet is so pathetically childish, extrovert, and boring, world without end amen. Jon's too handsome face smiled with pleasant stupidity at Desmond's ugly one, and Elsie smiled distantly between them both and caught a glimpse of one white hand on the dais holding aloft giant-sized rosary beads.

“Sh!” she admonished both of them. “They're starting the Rosary.”

A different timbre, a tone of religiosity and professional piety now impregnated the bishop's voice as more clearly and loudly than before he intoned the preliminary prayers in a new hush of respect from the crowd. Many of the more fervent were kneeling on handkerchiefs and little squares of matting brought specially for the purpose; others, standing with heads
inclined, unselfconsciously fingered their beads. In a great unintelligible roar the crowd gave the responses, “HolyMaryMotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.” There was in these blurred invocations, one felt, such mechanicalness and so little of concentrated piety it was like being present at a series of verbal gymnastics.

“How's the old bish? In good form?” whispered Desmond appreciatively. He giggled and gulped softly. “I've dragged half the boarding-house along with me.”

“Are they the boarders?” Elsie spoke louder than she intended, and turned her head in the direction of the trees. Rhythmically antiphon and response continued.

“Yeah. Two meat-packers, a road-digger and a teacher from across the river.” Desmond blew his nose loudly and wetly, then as far as possible inspected the result. “They're not R.C.s, but I told 'em the bish would put on a good show. God, you've got to go to something. Half the town's here.”

Jon bent over to squeeze Elsie's arm, thinking without fever, “She's mine,” and in the contagion of Desmond's profanity, sniggered.

“When that mike broke down it was better than a show. Did you spot the panic?”

They giggled happily together in their illicit joy. Desmond groped in his coat pocket and produced a bottle of nose-drops which he proceeded to insert with
much throwing back of head and gasping. Elsie turned away nauseated and looked at Jon's empty profile, uncharactered by darkness or laughter. On her left she could still hear Desmond busily blowing forward and dragging the air noisily back up his blocked nostrils, gluttonously sucking at the air as if his few words had exhausted him. She was shaken by a spasm of anger that she should be trapped between such a pair, but knew in the same moment that all her years lay behind without friend or meaning and that she must fulfil this duty to herself—to stock the ones following with some company, however bankrupt.

Jon was tall and clean and astonishingly upright over everything except liquor, to which he so dedicated himself that he was almost always either belligerent or apologetic. This vice was a constant threat to his position as bank-teller, for he drank overmuch at parties when other staff members were present. Apart from this, however, the fact that he had little brain or aptitude for his work seemed to militate not at all against his retaining the position, for in small towns the social standing of one's father and the school one went to were of far greater importance. He had once, he confessed tearfully to Elsie, visited the local brothel. Elsie, hoping in some ill-defined way that this would paint him as less callow and a person with definite impulses, even if they were unworthy, felt a helpless disappointment when he added that he was drunk at
the time and taken more or less against his will. More, more, thought Elsie bitterly. That I could see you one night striding strongly to your damnation in the tiny cottages at Rising Sun. That you should have no one and nothing to blame for your sin. That you could achieve sin and contrition and penance entirely on your own.

She felt, as all women do even in the earliest years of puberty, a cold and fully developed maturity that frightened her. Under her thin cardigan she shuddered. Jon put a large clumsy arm round her shoulders and gave her a hug. Desmond sniggered, sneezed, and was silent.

The crowd was now responding without its former vigour to the fifth decade. Two electricians who had been working for ten minutes on the lights were suddenly successful and the bishop, his sallow face lit up once more for the crowd, moved heavenwards through the concluding prayers. From under the mango-trees came a soft, but audible, ironic cheer at which many people on the crowd fringe turned round angrily, righteousness rather than religion being piqued. The little muscle twitching on the bishop's cheek was still playing its message, but less frequently.

“Just in time for the collection,” Desmond complained.

“What's that?” asked Elsie.

“The lights. I said the lights are just in time for
the collection. Wouldn't do for the plate to go round in comparative darkness. Let there be light.”

“But you needn't give anything, need you?”

Desmond swaggered slightly and sucked mucus back loudly.

“No compulsion. Not at all. But I like to do my duty.”

He grinned uneasily, hoping with the gaucherie of a twenty-year-old that his friends would notice his casual way with money; angry, too, that the lights had established his spiritual obligation. His mother had been widowed for years and had run, mostly unsuccessfully, a boarding-house in Toowoomba. His salary as teacher on first appointment was pitifully meagre, but he carefully darned elbows and reinforced the heels of his three pairs of socks before he wore them. He walked two miles to school each day rather than catch a bus, changing from sandshoes to leather brogues when he arrived in order to save on boot repair. And sometimes, but not often, he sent home a pound note to his mother. He had indeed the pride of his years and Elsie, who watched him, despising, could not know that the gingerish down on his spotty chin and cheeks was his own temporal victory. His voice still broke painfully in excitement and his skinny neck with bobbling Adam's apple had all the pathos of a featherless young bird.

Half a dozen men in surplices had come up behind
the stage during the Salve Regina, and as the crowd blessed itself and thankfully rose to its feet they passed among the faithful with collection plates. The bishop watched for a moment or two, smiling indulgently upon his children, then stepped down to his car. The priest who had first introduced him remained behind to receive the collection. No one lingered. The crowd thinned very quickly, and an elderly man in surplice soon approached them and rattled his plate. With aplomb Desmond tossed in four shillings. A battery of comment greeted this action. “Just chucking the stuff away, boy.” This was followed by a hoot and much laughing from the group along the bench, and Desmond grinned, self-conscious but pleased.

“Oh, shut up, Harry!” he called, mock-glaring at the men beneath the trees, and less than half willing to be annoyed. He tugged impulsively at Jon and Elsie. “You'll have to meet these fellows. They're not too bad really.”

But Jon felt an unaccountable impatience well up and, seizing Elsie's arm roughly, he turned her towards him.

“Come on,” he said softly enough for Desmond not to hear, “let's get out and grab a coffee. I don't want to meet that crowd of hicks.”

August

T
HE BUS
turned out of the town into the western suburbs beside the river. It was after nine and the streets were quiet and as empty as the bus on its outward journey. Over the backyard fences the clumps of banana-trees hung limp penniform flags among the scarlet shoutings of poinsettia. Bougainvillea washed spinily over trellises. Now and again they passed a woman cycling into the town to shop, or laggard groups of children late for school, but still dawdling. Another bus jerked by on the inward run. Within the yards of the tiny brothels by the causeway, two girls moved along the lines with armfuls of washing. Elsie, watching them until the bus had passed beyond, remembered one of the women who had worked there during the war years. She had met her at a university seminar in Brisbane. An honours graduate in classics from a southern university, she liked her job, viewed it as dispassionately as might an office worker view hers, and in her spare time wrote exquisite quatrains in German and French. She had published two charming books for children.

Jolting and rattling, the bus pulled into the straight road with Mount Stuart pasted blue-green against an opaline sky.

Now, with the awareness that this was her last trip to Pimlico along the baking roads, Elsie felt aloof from the very act; it was completely dissociated from those five-o'clock journeys when, sapped by the day's struggle with the grubby congeries of children, she sagged into a corner seat, eyeing the stone-coloured, stilt-raised houses with distaste. Now the familiar potholes, bus-stop trees, and corner stores were landmarks she was seeing for the first time. Perhaps it was the hour at which she was moving back to Buttling's, nine instead of five, that gave everything this intangible newness. The driver, who also performed the functions of conductor, had looked at her with surprised recognition when she had paid her fare; and she, fearing one of those pointless conversations, had gone right to the back.