SHE was short and slight and, at least in profile, very attractive. Mid-twenties, I guessed. Close-cropped blond hair; a tiny silver stud in her ear; blue jeans and a check shirt. And she was ever so pale.
Not English county pale — light cream and a blush of peach. None of that. Nor sick and sallow pale. She was opaque pale. Hers was a bland neutral paleness that neither admitted nor reflected nor glowed with any light at all. An eerie, static paleness that evoked an oriental theatrical mask. A lifeless whiteness that shocked with its stillness. And its mystery.
I hadn’t noticed her when I boarded the plane, nor for the first fifteen minutes or so as I re-immersed myself in John Grady’s struggles on the Mexican border. Cormack McCarthy imposes a tighter grip than any seatbelt.
It was when I succumbed to whisky and biscuits and soapy cheese that I first saw her. She had the aisle seat, directly opposite mine, and the young man next to her — not much older than her — was suited and sedate, seemingly unconnected with her. The blanket on her lap straggled across the seat divider onto his arm, as he gazed into nothing. He was either too preoccupied with his mental meanderings to move to the vacant window seat to his left or, perhaps, there was some association between him and the girl. Not that either of them revealed, by their actions or inaction, a connection of any kind.
When asked if she would like a drink, she merely shook her head at the stewardess and returned to the sketch pad that was tilted towards her on crossed knees. It was a foolscap pad or, rather, it was foolscap high and foolscap wide. A foolscap square pad!
She must have sensed some intrusion into her self-containment because she turned her head, very slowly, and looked directly at me. That full frontal glance — that was seconds that seemed like hours — only compounded the mystery. It was a glance that gave nothing, betrayed nothing. It was not a glance that revealed interest or disinterest or distaste or anything else that amounted to an emotional response, whether positive or negative or neutral. Those blue eyes saw me and far beyond me. The eyes were sisters to the mask that was that pale, blemish-free face. No warmth, no iciness; no fear, no joy. Ultimate clinical detachment. No rejection. No hostility. Indeed, neither acceptance nor friendship had been sought. Her glance was stark — bloodless — in it implacability.
It was a very good drawing
She broke the glance and my eyes dropped to the sketch pad. She was well advanced with a pencil drawing of a corner of a kitchen garden or orchard. It was where a path ended at a small shed with bits of timber and bags of fertiliser spilling out of the doorway. The derelict door, one hinge long gone, had fallen against the adjacent paling fence in which the many gaps had been filled by the inevitable blackberries. The limbs of an old apricot tree leaned in from the left and some lettuces were going to seed, bottom right.
It was a very good drawing. The balance, the composition, was right and, surprisingly — given my assessment after the exchange of glances — it was a warm, comfortable drawing. And the more I took that drawing in, the more I recognised it as one of my corners. One of my private places. It was my corner, my dunny — the old two-seater — of more than forty years ago. The same harrow tine still hung from the door where it had once served as a latch. The top board on the side of the dunny was still just ever so slightly off centre. The edge of the cart wheel could be glimpsed through the blackberries. Some old pieces of fencing wire — shaped to hang and dry rabbit skins — still hung from a rusty nail on the side of the dunny. There was no doubt. It was my corner of my farm of my childhood.
And what had this girl-woman been doing there? When? Why?
Twenty two yards, Old Pa reckoned. From the back door to the dunny. A cricket pitch. I put it at twenty eight steps in summer and shorter than a cricket pitch in winter, when big fast strides were required to beat the wind that came off the Bluff.
And what does this girl-woman know about that? She wouldn’t know a lot about cricket and certainly doesn’t look the type who would dash to the dunny.
We all used “jerries” at night — chamber pots — and emptied them down the paddock in the morning. Then washed them at the tank. Except Old Pa. He emptied his out the bedroom window, under the lemon tree, as soon as he got up. Mum complained about the smell and reckoned the lemon tree theory was a fallacy. But Old Pa kept doing it. Old Pa was lucky that Granny wasn’t alive. Granny would have ticked him off.
And this girl-woman has been to this place or knows it, somehow. Yet she hardly oozes familiarity with jerries and two-seaters perched over cavernous holes.
The dog kennels were over the fence, behind the dunny, and next to the workshop where Uncle Sid kept his tools. Bounce was the best dog. We all cried when Bounce died, even Old Pa and Uncle Sid. We didn’t cry so much when Dulcie died because Dulcie was named after a friend of Mum’s who Uncle Sid didn’t like much. He just did it to nark Mum. Brothers and sisters can be like that sometimes.
And this girl-woman is now part of it. Why? Who is she? We didn’t think of something like this happening. Not to all the private things we shared.
The dunny wall was covered with old newspapers with stories about Roy Cazaly and Don Bradman and Billy Hughes and the depression. It was hard to read all the stories because I couldn’t see very well with the door closed and, if it was open, Bounce would come in and lick my knees. That’s the sort of thing you have to put up with when you’re a kid growing up in the bush.
And what would this ghostly girl-woman know about all that? When was she there? Has she sat on our dunny , door open or door closed? With her bloomers around her feet, like Mum?
All the puddles iced over in winter
Opposite the dunny — over the fence, across the other side of the orchard — was the track down to the dairy where Old Pa milked the cow and made the cream. All the puddles iced over in winter. I would test the ice on the way down to the dairy and Old Pa would squirt warm milk into my mouth, straight out of the cow’s teat. I would test the ice again on the way back to the house. A lot of the ice would break and I would get home with muddy shoes and wet socks. As she pulled my socks off, Mum would always ask “What would your father say?” Actually, Dad would say very little because he was away. Dad was dodging German bullets in North Africa.
And here is this girl-woman who may have walked that track and tested the ice on my puddles. She may also have tasted squirted milk but not from Daisy, the old Jersey. Daisy died before we left the farm and Uncle Sid buried her over the other side of the pond.
It was beyond the pond — about a hundred yards or so — where the creek tumbled down through the trees and on, then, to the big river about five miles away. When Dulcie — the real one, not the dog — came to visit Mum, she would bring her children. Jamie was OK but Tess was a bore. We played down at the creek and Tess always wanted to play Mothers and Fathers and make imaginary cups of tea. Jamie and I preferred Doctors and Patients when we could inspect each others’ “parts” and occasionally undertake minor operations. Tess wasn’t too keen on that but a couple of liquorice allsorts usually did the trick.
And now this implacably white girl-woman has intruded herself into those salad days. Fifty years on and everyone knows everyone’s business. It was too late now — much too late — to plead that she not tread on my dreams. She was already stomping all over them.
The dunny was actually in a direct line between the kitchen door and the Front Gate but much further away. Many cricket pitches. It was about a mile and a half from the House Gate to the Front Gate, over the hill and across a couple of culverts. It was behind the big pine tree, near the front gate, that I used to toss my Oslo lunch. Mum broke new ground in our area. She discovered the Oslo Lunch in a magazine, or at the doctor’s surgery, and packed one for me every school day. A bottle of milk, peanut butter sandwiches, massive hunks of cheese and a few pieces of fruit. This was the stuff of which Vikings and Paavo Nurmi were allegedly made. But not me. I traded off marbles and tadpoles for sausage rolls and lemonade and, on leaving the school bus late in the afternoon, I hurled the Viking victuals behind the big pine tree. The problem was that Uncle Sid — mystified that Bounce and Dulcie always disappeared behind the pine tree when he collected the mail late each morning, just before lunch — decided to take a look at what was attracting the dogs. The dogs didn’t even get a roar from Uncle Sid. But Uncle Sid did tell Mum about the fate of her Oslo lunches. I got a proper walloping from Mum.
And that is a special story, a very private story. It’s something that this girl-woman over the aisle couldn’t possibly know about. Or could she?
Secrets are important to us
And yet, this lady to my left must surely know that secrets are important to all of us. Like the special cyphers and codes of all our days, not just those of our youth. The nudges and the nods; the sly winks and the special smiles; the tags on trees and cryptic notes. Even Tess was part of all that. Tess was a bit of a bore but she was also part of my rituals, as were Mum and Old Pa and Uncle Sid and Jamie. Bounce and Dulcie, too, in their own and different ways. It is surely the enigmas — rather than the hard facts, harsh realities, raw data and other fancy contemporary truths — that nourish the imagination and constantly readjust the bubbles in our spirit levels. After all, there was a lot to worry about in those days. Just as much as there is today. War and wool prices; footy and foot rot; whether, as Uncle Sid asked, “….the bloody vet will arrive in time to save that ewe in the bottom paddock”; and whether I could finish in the dunny, with the door open so that I could read the walls, before Bounce came in and slobbered all over me. I don’t make a lot of noise about those private matters. They may not be all that special but nor did I ever see them as public property. It is thus a bit disconcerting to discover that someone else has been where I have been and that part of me is also part of her. And yet, why not? She has every right to her particular codes and rituals, even if they overlap with mine. And any overlapping would be modest because she wasn’t there with Mum or Old Pa or Uncle Sid or Jamie and Tess or Bounce, Dulcie, Daisy and the rest. At some other time, briefly or for an extended period, she shared the physical setting of part of my world. That’s not much, I suppose. Maybe I shouldn’t get too precious about it.
Inevitably, this reverie was interrupted by more pragmatic matters — announcements about seatbelts and landings and the availability of hire cars. As the process of disgorgement commenced, there was no movement from the object of my concern. She and the man to her left stayed right where they were. She continued to sketch, seemingly unaware of the action around her. Coats were donned, briefcases retrieved from overhead lockers, farewells nodded and on she went — sketching and inscrutable. I hesitated. I wanted to make contact — ask questions, perhaps even get answers — but the fear of rejection left me mute. And then I was caught up in the stampede to rejoin suburbia.
I paused at a window in the terminal, staring down at the plane I had just left. A police car pulled up behind the plane. My companions emerged from the rear stairs and were whisked away.
And I still have no idea who was handcuffed to whom.
I would like to think that he was handcuffed to her but I reflected that it really didn’t matter very much. I find mysteries are mostly easier to live with than certainties, especially these days.
And, besides, it was a very good drawing.
Nick Evers
