we're all making our own sense of things
‘Mrs Gray who has (sic) organising her first David Jones parade, taking over from Mrs Vial, says: ‘People place a lot of importance on being on that VIP list. For some people, it’s a very important part of their life. If they’re not seated at the DJ’s parade, they feel it’s a reflection on their standing in society.”
Devlin, Rebekah and Rhiannon Doyle
‘It’s your party but we’ll come if we want to, say the A-list gatecrashers’
The Advertiser. Saturday April 22 2006, p 48
She wishes she had picked the underwear up. He is probably used to it. But still.
‘Do you want normal tea or would you prefer herbal?’ she asks. It is a household joke made before she can think.
‘I’m not usually too fussy,’ he says. His voice is soft and leaves a trail across her soul. His hair is blonde and he leaves the tap running as he walks back and forth to his truck and he wears boots which look like they have never been cleaned.
She will joke about him at dinner parties in months to come and say he’s the kind of boy would make any mother proud. She will use her own mother’s inflections when she speaks and two of her friends will know exactly what she means.
On the one hand, this lecture about atrocity crimes and global indifference sounds really interesting.
On the other hand, that photo of Gareth Evans pretty much sums up why I’m not sure whether I’ll go. People reveal the strangest things about themselves, do they not?
In exchange for the two gorgeous children, Adelaide’s mother-in-law had given Adelaide five Woman’s Days and a New Idea.
Adelaide had allowed herself a momentary break from her other worthy pursuits to wallow in the glorious magazines. But it’s funny the places your brain will race while you are reading about Lleyton and Bec and Angeline Jolie.
Adelaide remembered, for example, that on a visit to her own grandmother’s many years ago, her grandfather had given her a similar sized stash of magazines.
‘Hide these from her until she’s finished her jobs,’ he said. ‘But not behind the television, she’ll know to look there.’
And here’s the thing: Adelaide did it! She did as her grandfather asked. And then she got them out again when he had left for his very important job.
And here’s another thing: Adelaide knew that this was something should not tell her mother.
And here’s the final thing: when Adelaide’s grandfather came home that day he felt the back of the television to make sure it had not been on. It was something Adelaide had not known.
Adelaide believes she was six or seven at the time.
Adelaide lives a pretty much anonymous life in the city of her birth. In truth, she does not know someone who knows someone, and she has no influence over anyone of import.
She does not know:
when Jimmy Barnes will next be in Adelaide;
how much INXS tickets are likely to cost;
when Chloe Fox and Leon Bignell will wed;
Lleyton Hewitt’s address.
These last two she would certainly keep to herself even if she knew.
There are much better sources of information on Chris Schacht, Angus Redford and KG.
Why anyone would be looking for that kind of stuff here she really can not understand.
The sasmee railway park is open one Saturday and one Sunday per month, but she can not remember whether it is the first Saturday and third Sunday or vice versa or even whether it is the second or the fourth.
There are no patterns for child’s coathangers here and Adelaide offers no medical advice. She is not even really sure what an aorta is.
Who knew there were so many people on the hunt for an ecological dishwasher. Adelaide really doubts that there is such a thing. Depending on your definition of ecological of course.
Yes, success is the best revenge. Or at the very least you will be doing something productive, even if your motives are less than admirable.
Adelaide extends her apologies to disappointed googlers, but it isn’t entirely her fault.
Grace, Jeff Buckley
Unencumbered by children, but carrying one piece of recent Very Bad news from a friend, plus that bloody phone call had come, Adelaide and her lover went out.
‘I can’t quite decide.’ Adelaide looked up from the cocktail menu and, quite accidently, straight into the eyes of the Lovely Waiter. ‘Perhaps…’
‘The lychee martini is very good,’ the Lovely Waiter said. And quite coincidentally they were the very next words on Adelaide’s lips.
‘I just need to tell you we don’t have the mint. But that’s really just garnish,’ the Lovely Waiter said.
‘That’s okay,’ Adelaide said, ‘mint just gets caught in your teeth.’
‘You’re a shocking flirt,’ her lover said when the Lovely Waiter had gone.
And at the moment when her lover said I’ll have a coffee now please Adelaide should not have said and I’ll try the mango daquiri.
Adelaide has studied Chinese in China, Spanish in Guatemala and French in Port Pirie. And just this afternoon she has uncovered her copy of Winnie ille Pu bought ten years ago with the sincere intention of teaching herself Latin.
She has scrabbled through her endless store of mental to-do lists and scrubbed teach self Latin off.
Because she remembered how much she loved the days she’d spent at her grandmother’s, she made the drive.
They would meet half way, but still it would be a four hour drive (return).
She packed bags and bikes and helmets into the car. She packed snacks. Apple, dried peach, cheese and a freddo frog.
‘Are they for us?’ the children asked when they saw her packing the frogs, but they would not stop for a hug.
She took no notice of the roadside markers as she drove because if it can happen once it bloody well can happen again. She flicked the windscreen wipers on then off, on then off again.
One of the children slept.
The other one said ‘are we nearly there’ and ‘what does soon mean’. He picked up his books and he asked ‘what does w.h.e.r.e. spell’ and when they played I-spy she couldn’t convince him that drink doesn’t start with g. She remembered her own mother telling her that ceiling doesn’t start with a ‘s’.
They got to the roadhouse first, so there was time to kill, and the children said ‘you said kill you said kill‘. She said to them ‘no, you can’t have an ice cream until you’ve finished your chips’ and killing time cost twenty dollars all up.
She said ‘we ate one Christmas tea here, because the car broke down,’ but the children didn’t understand.
She saw the people in the road house smile when the children called ‘Granny, Granny’ and ran to wait at the door. And nobody cared that the children squealed when their Pop turned them upside down and tickled them under their arms.
Her mother-in-law smiled at her and they hugged. She was sorry now for all the times she had scoffed when her mother-in-law said goodbye, thanks for coming, drive safely, ring me when you arrive.
They moved the things from her car to theirs (let me get that, love) and they buckled the children in.
Her little boy wiped his eyes when he said goodbye and that was something he’d never done before. She brushed his cheek with the palm of her hand. And then he looked at his Granny and smiled, and she remembered the days she had smiled that way, and that’s why she was here.
And when she drove away, out of the roadhouse and onto the road, her head thumped and her arms ached. It was Lucky Oceans on the radio and she drove all the way home at 95.
‘Although I am still mourning the loss of his mullet,’ Adelaide said.