At the mid-year work show, the bosses’ wives smile at her, then kiss her cheek. They wear perfume which doesn’t make her sneeze and they say and how are your boys then they smile.
She says oh beautiful, yes, growing up and into the silence she says the oldest one started school.
School, started school. They shake their heads, and they are all at once looking into each other and into themselves and the silence between them is shared.
She walks to the bar, and she chooses a bottle of wine. She says four glasses please and hands them around to people she barely knows.
The young ones smile politely at her and as the night wears on they say he’s a really good boss, I’m not just saying that and they show her their diamond rings. Their eyes flick from her face to her hands then back to her face again, but she has long since stopped explaining there is no engagement ring.
She no longer explains the pair of earings, molded black and gold and stored in her knickers drawer. Coveted, then bought, from the Melbourne Street Banana Room. It is a shop they wouldn’t know, because, like the holes in her ears, it has long since closed.
I love the new site.
Everyone is upgrading and I am feeling very jealous. May have to make a change ourselves at some point…
What a cracker of a post to start with, and noice new digs.
…and for my next trick I will work out how to get the comment moderation to stay off. Asking nicely doesn\’t seem to have worked.
Beautiful new digs. However, unlike Cristy, I am not feeling jealous of everyone’s noice new homes — because I know that if I tried to change anything or set up something new I would made a mega hash of it. “Code”? What’s “code”?
Do you know, ThirdCat, I think that bio of Sophie van Rood (who was so almost my astrological twin) (ahem: day, not year) is wrong: I think (no, I know) the original Banana Room was in the East End of Rundle Street, way back when it was still completely run down. The banana storage room was attached to the East End fruit & veg market. I mean, can you imagine the stately citizens of North Adders permitting the storage of bananas? She probably moved to Melbourne St in 1974.
I know this because I once bought a silk nightie at the original shop. Oh, oh, the Banana Room and Miss Gladys Sim Choon — back when the latter was full of proper Chinese things like real cheongsams and real fireworks, and not plastic handbags and dinky cheap shoes for 12 year olds.
Ain’t nostalgia grand?
Beautiful new digs. However, unlike Cristy, I am not feeling jealous of everyone’s noice new homes — because I know that if I tried to change anything or set up something new I would made a mega hash of it. “Code”? What’s “code”?
Do you know, ThirdCat, I think that bio of Sophie van Rood (who was so almost my astrological twin) (ahem: day, not year) is wrong: I think (no, I know) the original Banana Room was in the East End of Rundle Street, way back when it was still completely run down. The banana storage room was attached to the East End fruit & veg market. I mean, can you imagine the stately citizens of North Adders permitting the storage of bananas? She probably moved to Melbourne St in 1974.
I know this because I once bought a silk nightie at the original shop. Oh, oh, the Banana Room and Miss Gladys Sim Choon — back when the latter was full of proper Chinese things like real cheongsams and real fireworks, and not plastic handbags and dinky cheap shoes for 12 year olds.
Ain’t nostalgia grand?
Yes, PC, you are spot-on, one hundred percent correct. I first visited the Banana Room in Rundle Street, when I moved here from Port Pirie, and she came and showed me how to move the things along the rails so that I didn\’t damage them. I tell you what, I thought I had arrived. I bought a pair of gloves which I wore to my college ball.
I reckon she moved to the Melbourne Street place in the very late eighties. That\’s why I wrote Melbourne Street Banana Room, to distinguish it from the Rundle Street place. But I didn\’t read the bio notes properly before I linked to them! Do you know what? I assumed because it was the Powerhouse they were right. Shit. Do you know what else? Because this isn\’t blogger, I could edit your comment so no one ever knows that you knew. Oh, the power. But then, that would make it even worserer.
Tomorrow, or the day after, I will fix that link. Also, I will write to the Powerhouse. Shit, shit, shit.
If only beta blogger had tried to seduce me over. I was traumatised enough by the disappearance of my account when I signed in with my google email. I don’t know about code either. Plus I have an aversion to the label things; they don’t entice me, probably because it would require that I make a decision. For myself, I don’t really like the way a whole string of categories looks either. ‘Uncategorized’ messes with my head. Boy, for someone who doesn’t like categories/labels I’m very a.r.
Love the new look, very fresh.
They are the best earrings. They make me think of the story of the Monkey’s Paw. I’d wear them on dark nights.
Did you watch that thing last night on the HayBeeCee with Jeremy Irons and Helen Mirren?
Bad news about Mary Queen of Scots, it seems (how did you manage to be descended from her? I presume she had kids?)
It really does feel like people move when they go to a new address. First the cubbyhouse was over there, now it’s over here. This only partly overlaps with ideas about people’s actual geographical locations.
They are my favourite piece of jewellery, &D
elsewhere, I suspect people mangled the lineage and that we come from much less venerable stock. People will believe what they want to believe when it comes to families.
Laura, you’re right. But the unpacking doesn’t take half as long, and with blogs there are none of those boxes that you just keep moving from one shed to another. Especially since beta blogger didn’t let me import anything.
I so need to update my blogroll! Love the earrings too. I don’t have pierced ears myself so I admire earrings on others.
Love that funky tunnel banner.
I can’t move. Ever. Even just adding a new link to my sidebar causes my whole blog to go comatose.
I like those earrings. They’re noice, they’re un-ew-zual, they’re different. (Roolly roolly different).
PS. I’m craving bananas now. So, you know, thanks for that.
The banner comes with the template. I\’ve done barely anything. It\’s simple. Really.
Suse, try and think of it this way: bananas are over-rated. Although I understand this doesn\’t work for everyone.
Mary Queen of Scots did indeed have a child, so you could well be royalty. **warning possible Elizabeth 1 spoiler** The ending of the Elizabeth show on ABC should explain things.
I have never understood an engagement.
No, neither have I. Especially when you ask ‘when are you getting married’ and they say ‘in three years’ or some such. Still, if there’s one things that shows a small amount of DNA makes us all very different, it’s weddings.