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RITES OF
SPRING IN GLEBE, circa 1968
Sue was fifteen and a dancer. She'd escaped Beatlemania
and other teenage
epidemics, to join Margaret Barr and her Dance Drama troupe in a
church hall
on Bridge Road, near the park.
Margaret Barr was a hump-backed old lady who did not look like a
dancer
until she moved; her hands could describe a poem.
Sue was a nubile maiden, sprouting like a blade of grass to
Stravinsky's
Rites of Spring from the floor boards of that old hall.
The leading male was Greg, a satyr from the forest. Fined
boned and
slippery with sweat, he'd spin and leap across the hall, while
she unfurled
herself on the floor. His sweat rained down.
Sue touched a drop of it with
her finger, and later tasted it.
***
"My place, after rehearsal on Saturday night."
Greg was inviting her to a
party. He thought she was older. "Can you
come?"
He lived in a once-was-a-shop, down the hill from Dance Drama.
A den of
iniquity, some said. Her parents would not let her go, so she
lied.
"I've been chosen," she preened, "to understudy
the leading female role in
the Rites of Spring. It'll be a late rehearsal, but don't
worry. I'll get a
lift home."
***
At the party she drank alcoholic cider and danced to In-A-Gadda-Da-
Vida.
Dust billowed from the straw matting. The music reached its
climax. She
sneezed and peed herself. A hot steaming gush. She
couldn't stop it. It
wouldn't stop.
She fled the party. They were laughing at her. She
could hear them. The
drums and their voices pounded in her ears as her feet pounded
up the hill.
Behind the church hall were toilets, sometimes locked, often
vandalised.
You had to be desperate to use them. There were no lights,
so she felt her
way. The female one was locked, the male wasn't. She
squatted in the
stinking dark, tried to relax, tried to pee. But the walls
started to bend
and then everything tilted. Bile flooded her throat and
she vomited.
She crawled out of that toilet and sat on a step in front of the
hall to
wait for the world to stop spinning.
Hours later when she was steady enough to walk again she
remembered her
purse, which was in a bedroom on the first floor of Greg's
place.
It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius when she returned.
Her puddle of
shame had dried and there was a pall of marijuana smoke hanging
under the
ceiling.
She crept up the stairs. The door was ajar. She
stepped in, turned on the
light and there was a flash - two pairs of buttocks - before she
turned it
off again.
"Go away. What the fuck do you want?" Greg's
voice, husky with passion.
"My purse," she answered.
"We moved it. It's in the next room," said
Robert, Greg's understudy.
The End
© Pippa Kay
.
GRACE
CROWLEY: 1890-1985 (approx.)
She was one of the most important modern artists in Australia,
and we,
the heirs to her estate, donated her paintings to the Sydney Art
Gallery. She was my Great Aunt Grace.
The "Great" was a family joke
because she was so small. She loved to be called
"Great".
We knew nothing about her art, but we
knew her in three places:
her house called "Blue Hills" at Mittagong, her
rooftop apartment in
George Street at The Rocks, and her unit at Manly.
"Blue Hills" consisted of
about five acres of garden with the main
house and a small studio, which was once a gardener's cottage.
We were
never allowed into the studio. The main house was Modern; Great
Aunt
Grace always had the newest and most modern furniture and
gadgets
possible.
"She lives on carrot juice,"
my father complained, when she served
up her vegetarian meals.
We sat cross-legged on the floor.
There wasn't a normal chair in
the whole house, or a proper table. There were however,
bright cushions
in basic colours and window seats with padded benches and coffee
tables
topped with colourful hand painted tiles. And paintings on
all the
walls and on the ceiling a huge painting of grey overlapping
squares.
Her friend Ralph Balson had painted it, and a smaller framed
version
hung on the wall. I would lie on my back or do
handstands to study
them.
We nursed our salads on our knees while
Great Aunt whipped up
another pint or two of carrot juice with her juice extractor: a
noise
like a jet engine in the kitchen.
"That's why she's so small,"
my father continued. "She's bound to
be anaemic. A woman needs red meat for protein and
iron." I soak up
these words of wisdom like haemoglobin soaks up oxygen. My
father, a
doctor, has mentioned this before in his talks to me about the
my
imminent puberty and the dangers of pregnancy.
In the wardrobe my Great Aunt hangs all
her clothes inside out, so
they won't get dirty - a habit from her childhood.
They're inside out
on the clothesline too, in case the birds do something nasty.
My father
scoffs, but I think it's practical. Great Aunt wore Modern
clothes:
"Bohemian" my father called them, black stockings and
shifts with large
bold patterns, and flat soled shoes, or hand-painted clogs.
Around her
neck were beads, bright unnameable stones, heavy and textured,
that I
like to touch. My father did not approve. A woman
should wear more
feminine clothes like my mother, who wears frocks that show off
her
narrow waist and high heeled shoes to show off her ankles.
I know little of my Great Aunt's
background exept that she was born
a grazier's daughter on a property near Barraba in north-western
New
South Wales. They were wealthy and her brothers
followed their father
and raised sheep while she went to school in Sydney to learn
about art,
and then to France where she studied under the masters.
She returned to
Australia and shocked them all with her new Modern Art.
"In those days," said my
father, who was embarking on a career in
psychiatry, "women were prone to hysteria and pychosomatic
illness.
Your grandmother was paralysed for months when she was eighteen,
and
there was no physical cause. Grace was jilted by a beau
when she was
about the same age, and I don't know that she ever recovered.
She
doesn't seem to be interested in men." He shakes his
head in a
sympathetic but disapproving way. I realise, when I'm much
older, that
he was trying to explain that Grace may have been a lesbian,
something
my father felt would need a solid explanation based on
psychological
trauma and Freudian theory.
The rooftop studio at No. 229 George
Street in the Rocks, was in an
old terrace building and up six flights of stairs. It was
close to the
Art School where she taught when she was younger. We
rarely visited
Great Aunt there, because it was a private place, like her
studio at
Mittagong. There was much in her life that she kept
private. Once when
she was ill I went with my father up those stairs. I
waited on the roof
garden, inhaling an exotic mix of potted herbs and fumes from
the busy
street below, and watching the ferries dart in and out of the
wharves at
the Quay.
"It must be all that carrot
juice," said my father, as we descended
the stairs. "She's remarkably healthy for a
vegetarian. I don't know
how she manages, I really don't. Up and down these stairs
every day."
One Christmas she studied my husband
with interest and declared she
liked his long hair and beard. "Hair like they used
to wear it when I
was a girl, but it went out of fashion and now it's back
in." And she
listened to the Beatles and the Moody Blues on the our new
stereo
headphones and declared it was the best music she'd heard in
many
years. New music, that reminded her of when jazz was new.
She was
tipsy with champagne, giving the carrot juice away for the day.
Many
of her friends were gone or going and she was turning to her
family more
often. She was "eighty-something" according to
my father.
In 1972, she was forced to move out of
George Street because the
buildings were to be demolished for the Rocks redevelopment.
My father
and brothers and I helped carry her furniture and paintings down
those
six flights of stairs. Before this move she had destroyed
any of her
work she was not proud of, because of her fear that after she
died
someone could pick up one of these pieces. She'd be
ashamed if it
wasn't her best work.
A home unit in Manly seemed too
ordinary for a Great Aunt. It was
new but there was nothing Modern about it. There were two
bedrooms,
lounge/dining and kitchen, a lift instead of stairs and a
picture window
with a view of Manly Cove and walls - blank walls.
"I want to put up all my
paintings. I want to be surrounded by the
things I love to see," she confessed to my husband,
"but the light's not
good enough and I need good lights to see them properly."
She
possessed many valuable paintings; not only her own, but
also paintings
by her her friends: Ralph Balson, Rah Fizelle and Frank Hinder.
And so we erected track lighting on the
ceilings of all her rooms
and paintings were hung from all the walls. She prepared carrot
juice
and vegetarian patés and mousses with a newer, quieter
kitchen gadget,
and we sat cross legged on the floor to eat. My six year
old son was
taller than her and we told him she was his Great Great Aunt.
My son
thought this was a "Great" joke, while Great Aunt was
tickled to have
achieved "double-greatness" in one lifetime.
On the coffee table was a bowl of
fruit, so shiny and polished, so
like a painting you wouldn't dare touch it. Her fruiterer
from George
Street continued to deliver the fruit, even after she'd moved.
He'd
catch a ferry across to Manly once a week with the shiniest,
most
colourful fruit he could find, for his best and oldest customer.
She died of old age in her early 90s,
with a bowl of fresh fruit on
the table and her paintings on the walls. It was some days
after her
death before her body was discovered. Her fruiterer
raised the alarm
when she failed to answer the door.
In the last decade of her life, Grace
had regularly met "the girls"
for breakfast at the Wentworth and then visited the Art Gallery
of New
South Wales. Daniel Thomas, the Curator of the Art Gallery
often met
her and showed her the latest exhibits personally.
She donated her paintings to the Art
Gallery when she died because
of their value, and because she didn't want her
"grand-grand" nieces and
nephews to fight over them. The Art Gallery,
paid the "gift duty"
required by the taxation office for our donation, and thanked us
with a
small plaque acknowledging our gift, beside Great Aunt Grace's
paintings.
copyright Pippa Kay
RED STEW
This is the sworn Statement of Mr B. Wolf, formerly a lodger at
Granny's
Cottage, Forest Road. Interview conducted by Mr Plod
in relation to
the mysterious disappearance of Ms Granny Hood.
Let me see, on the night in question I was in drag,
a gold lamé
number, off-the-shoulder, just so, and fishnet stockings.
My legs are
gorgeous, you know, after a wax.
I didn't want to get the outfit dirty so I wore Granny's apron,
and her
bonnet, just to be cheeky. Sets off my high cheekbones
marvellously, if
I have to say so myself.
Mannie was coming to dinner and I had the house to myself, so
I was
doing my vegetarian stew. You've met him? All
that woodcutting does
wonders for the physique, doesn't it?
The stew was bubbling away in the oven when there's this knock
on the
door. I assumed it was Mannie so I opened it. But
instead I'm
confronted by this horror story. It's sort of fat and
pudgy and wearing
a red number. I can't abide red. Hideous.
Great sweeping cape and
hood on her. And hooked on her arm, a basket. I tell you I
shuddered,
from the top of my lace bonnet to the tips of my stilettos.
She comes barging into the cottage, like she owns the place
mind, and
starts rattling on about my big eyes and big ears and big teeth.
Hmpph! She should talk!
She's sniffing around the living room. Her eyes are
twitching.
'What's cooking?' she heads for the kitchen.
'Stew.' I strike a pose in the doorway, blocking her entrance.
'Let me through,' she screams, 'I bet you've got Granny in
there.'
'No, she's not,' I say, 'She's playing bridge with the girls.'
This red bundle doesn't believe me. 'No, I meant in the
stew. Granny's
in the stew.'
I was appalled. Me? I'm a strict vegetarian. I
eat only herbaceous
foods, fruits and berries from the forest.
Next thing she's hitting and kicking me, so I step out of the
way and
she tumbles into the kitchen skidding across the floor like a
blob of
raspberry jelly.
Everything spills out of her basket too and the lino's awash
with blood
and gore. There were sausages, steaks, mince meat, and on
top of it
all, tomato sauce, splattered on the floor, walls, everywhere.
Mannie comes to my rescue. He scrapes it all up off the
floor for me,
including Ms Ridinghood. She takes off. Mannie and I
stand in the
doorway and watch as she flits through the forest, like a
blinking
light: now you see her, now you don't, on-off, on-off.
Mannie wrapped his arms around my shoulders and we kissed, and
in no
time we'd forgotten all about it.
Dinner was delicious, by the way. We ate the lot.
No, I don't know where Granny could be. Maybe she stayed
out with one
of her friends.
Yes, I know there's blood stains in the kitchen, but I
think I've
explained them. Ask Red. Her father's a butcher.
....................................................
signed B.B. Wolf.
copyright Pippa Kay 1997
THE
COCKROACH
"He's a cockroach." She lit another cigarette, and
blew the smoke
upwards where clouds were billowing against the nicotine stained
ceiling. "Always scurrying about in dark
places. Hiding from
something or someone, that's what I reckon."
I had introduced myself as a journalist, doing an article on the
cockroach, for The Morning Sun, and I have a rolled up paper
with me,
which she seems to accept as identification. In fact I'm a P.I.
In my
pocket, disguised as a glasses case I have a camera, and the
cord to
take a photo runs down my sleeve. My client is a
hell-raising MP who
has been making a lot of fuss about pedophiles recently in State
Parliament. The cockroach is a judge, and I've followed
him to the Bum
Steer Bar, a gay haunt in the Cross.
The cockroach is wearing a dark suit and tie and drinking soda
water.
He's found a shadowy booth and buried himself in the corner.
Alone.
Betty, which probably isn't her real name or sex, is the
barmaid.
"I take it he's a regular?"
"Sure. Most nights. But that's no secret. It's
well known that he's
gay."
"So what's his problem? He's not here for the drinks,
and I don't
think he's enjoying the music. Is he waiting for
someone?"
She nods, drops ash on the bartop and wipes it up.
I look around the bar. Someone I recognise is near the
stairs. A bent
copper.
"What's up those stairs?" I ask.
"Rooms. For sex. For druggies, but he's not a
druggie." She shrugs
her shoulders and looks back towards the cockroach and sneers.
"Watch
this."
I follow her eyes. The cockroach emerges from his cavity
and, head
down, does a dash towards the stairs at the back of the
bar. I leave
my stool to follow him. He speaks for a moment to the bent
copper, who
turns towards me. The copper's gun glints under under his
jacket, as
the metal catches a flash from my camera and he moves towards
the
toilets under the stairs. I start up the stairs after the
cockroach.
There's no lights beyond the landing. The corridor is full
of closed
doors. I peer into the gloom. Empty as far as I can
see, but I can
hear a scuffling. Missed him again. I slap the
newspaper in my hands.
Downstairs I see the copper stuffing a wad of fifties into his
wallet.
I track him outside, keeping my distance. In the lane it's
raining. A
group of young boys follow him as he re-enters the bar by a back
door.
They're wearing green garbage bags, bare legs, bare feet - and
shivering. I wonder if their parents know where they are.
On the wall opposite is an ad for insect spray: "When
you're on a good
thing, stick to it."
© Pip Kalajzich, 1997.
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