This article was first posted in 2016.. in light of the points raised by the Russian philospher; Aleksandr Dugin when interviewed by Tucker Carlson just recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIULmTprQ6o , we have to interrupt their doom and gloom prognostications about the decline and fall of The West, by drawing their attention to the “elephant in the room” that was not mentioned but overcame just such national and social denigration and has now risen to be the best managed and operational nation in the world…of course, we are talking about China..and it obtained this achievement solely because it dealt most thouroughly with the malignant disease we in The West will neither recognise, nor confront…I am talking about the destructive managerial disease of the entrepreneurial, speculative middle-classes, whose only loyalty is to the stock exchange and whose only obligation is to their own insatiable greed and covertness of all that is good and sustainable.
In this discussion on the whys and wherefores of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”, I will not be wanting to condone the crazed killings by a rampant mob. At the same time, I am not of such a naïve nature to believe that mammoth shifts in politico/ socio direction in a short period of time in any state will be done with a soft hand inside “kid” gloves. Recent actions in the Middle East by many Western / Asiatic military powers have demonstrated the sometimes callous nature of political expediency. Though I do doubt the numbers of victims recorded specifically against Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” on the logic that there being no accurate account save western propaganda, and the fact that around 7-10 million were killed in the civil war, the number tossed about of 8 mill’ would result in TOTAL war again on a grand scale, with ALL civic production at risk or even shut down completely, resulting in total anarchy and the overthrow of the govt’ anyway. The number used may just as well include natural attrition and other calamities (famine, natural disasters etc.) that arose from a degree of lack of infrastructure chaos that a recovering population from the war years (2nd. and Civil) could well have suffered regardless.
The fact that the Chinese Communist Govt’ stabilized and developed through those times finding food clothing, shelter and employment for over 1 billion citizens and China has now become the largest economy in the world would in itself demonstrate a popular loyalty to a social system beyond what could be enforced in any country by any military in any epoch of history. I doubt that if one was to strip the shirts off the keen Chinese tourists and students who frequent our cafes Uni’s and estates, you will find the unmistakable welts of a Communist Party lash!…You have to admit; for all the supposed chaos..something worked and worked bloody well !
The difference between an action set in train by most Western countries and Mao’s China is a difference of arithmetic…Most western countries had as many as approx 200 million persons, whereas China had and now has more than one billion peoples. Our country has a degree of trouble containing the “political enthusiasm” of just over twenty millions…and most of them politically pig-ignorant!
To govern, contain and manage that many people demands a more firm and even severe administration.. especially after still recovering from both a brutal foreign invasion and a particularly brutal civil war and having to deal with many agents provocateurs and saboteurs from an irate and vengeful enemy just off-shore being financed and protected by THE major western power.
Mao had his hands full keeping a displaced population stable and compliant enough to do the central government’s bidding…as I wrote ; the simple arithmetic of population numbers forced their hand. We have all seen how swift an agitated football crowd becomes an out of control unruly mob in a very short period of time.
There are several ways a govt’ can be destabilized. The most subtle is by moving people of biased accreditation or of biased class influence quietly into high positions of authority and bureaucratic control with as little attention and un-noticable placement as possible. There are only two types of persons that can be used to achieve this and they are both of the professional class ; high educated and high-status.
The high-educated are advantaged by having a broad over-view of civic and political needs via a (presumed) thorough reading of history and societies. But unfortunately, as education makes its indelible mark on a intelligent mind, it also creates a degree of isolation from those of the general populace around it lacking in such opportunity that it must civically manage and draw up policy for…The next stage is that it does by necessity distance the self from that which it must make rules and policy for and so it becomes an elite clique that exercises a power aloof from the powerless. The elite quickly becomes a cabal for it’s own security which soon becomes a tyrant and then, if not interrupted; a dynasty / party of control. We have seen or heard of this step by step procedure with certain types of management.
One can easily view such cliques and structures evolving and growing in the workplace factory-floor or in committees or even in simple public social media blogs..Such cliques of power in a population of over a billion people is more than just annoyance, it is deadly. I am reminded that China lost circa 10 million people in the civil war and it’s wash-up. There could not be a chance for that to happen again.
There is an old adage that ; ‘The hand that rocks the cradle , rules the world’..I will add another truth to that one in that : “The hand that instructs acumen with the abacus and slate rules the state”.
Mao used the power of “mob rule” to instigate his “continuous revolution” it was as successful in a social objective as it was destructive to some of the intellectual elite. As much as a glacier carves spectacular valleys , the icy surface glimmering like a thousand dawns rising ,its massive force is grinding all beneath it to a fine powder.
Yes, it was all about power..Mao’s holding onto power through his preferred elite. As an individual he was vulnerable, but as leader of the sole power base, he was invulnerable ..as long as he held a tight rein on the obvious sources of rising discontent : The un-corralled middle-class intelligentsia.
The Roman writer : Pliny The Younger, when governor of Bythnia implored his emperor : Trajan to permit the incorporation of a fire brigade for such emergencies as required. The emperor dis-allowed it on the grounds that the forming of and regular meeting of such groups only leads to trouble and dissent as he had seen in the past. Indeed, it was common practice in the capital ; Rome, to find a centurion on every street corner to prevent the illegal gathering of five or more persons..having learned that it only takes one armed and trained legionnaire to “contain” a hundred unarmed civilians, the Roman authorities were able to leave little to chance.
The “containing” and directing of one billion people takes more than chance…it would take an iron fist in a chain-mail gauntlet if and when trouble arose. We have seen here the swift movement of regal power when Whitlam was removed from office by an elite intelligentsia unashamed to use crude methodology and raw power to achieve it’s end. How then can we condemn a state such as China from keeping a firm grip on its many provinces with its many challenges?
The West is now governed by those elite cabals of both education and wealth..There can hardly be one “free-state” that has as it’s leader a person elevated by high morals or deserving merit…all is factional…all is economical…all is principle…all is negotiable, on the other hand, we now see a China risen deservedly proud and deservedly enriched by the hard work and on the shoulders of a conscientious working class base. and while many like to gloat that there is now in China a new “middle-class”in charge, I would contest that assertion by claiming that this new ruling class is the working class risen to claim the rewards of their labour.. and certainly, there are now many wealthy people in the China mix, but I think we can agree that with Chairman Xi Jinping and the China Communist Party in firm control of the levers of power, this time there will be no “overstepping the mark” by any degenerate aspirants!
Hello, followers and readers, I have not been busy posting things here on my WordPress blog because I have been busy doing editing and re-writes for my post; “Songs of the Murray Mallee”, as it is being serialised in a hard-copy community magazine. This has been going since March and is now in the third part of a (hopefully) long-running serial that comes out in the monthly editions of the magazine.
The original post of “Songs of…” was a one long continous epic poem in 4 parts, but I have decided to add certain prose pieces to the epic so as to create a mythological storyline alongside the poem. This was done to give dual depth to the piece..ie; to allow myself to write in poetry of the trials and tribulations of the early pioneers and their families from their first arriving and settling the country alongside the indigenous people here already, and to concentrate on the later threads of post The Great Depression influx of different ethnicities that came into Sth Australia during and after the 2nd WW.
I want to develope a mythological-historical storyline of the European settlers and their journey in establishing themselves and their families alongside, but not part of the indigenous peoples with whom they came into conflict with…sort of parallel with the indigenous peoples here already for many thousands of years, but of our own ancestors journey, because it has to be accepted that such is the reality..like it or not..and the European settlers are not going anywhere soon..if at all.
So what I believe is needed, is instead of the continual mea-culpa cursing of what has happened, we : the European descendents of those pioneers acknowledge the hard work and suffering of OUR ancestors and give suitable credit to those people and lift ourselves above a state of continual apologising for what has gone before (while accepting that so much wrong and injustice has been done to the indigenous peoples) and hold a dignified respect for where we have come from and what we, as a community have achieved..and to meet face to face the indigenous peoples as equals and make a respectful peace with the past.
In doing this poetic epic, I want to create the feeling of a mythical journey that our ancestors travelled over mallee flats and down river with certain characters representing the place in history best reserved and in respect of the many characters who lived and developed communities in this country in those days.
Here are the first hard-copy publications of The Mannum Mag that is serialising the piece.
At the lower end of my gently sloping back yard there is a pear tree. It was planted eight years ago by myself and my wife..who is now sadly departed..a long debilitating illness that drained energy and the sensitive attachment to the outside world from my body and emotions. The tree is a concorde pear, we both liked the long, feminine pear shape and flesh, we would watch through the growing of the fruit and throw a bird net over the tree, which fortunately was yet not too big, to keep birds from pecking the ripening pears. The pear tree was the one central fruit tree in our backyard that we cherished together and in Bronwyn’s last days, she would frequently ask after the pear tree and I would reassure her it was healthy and bearing fruit..and she would smile and squeeze my arm and in a breathless whisper say..: “That is a good thing.”
But that was three years ago now and I am just coming out of a deep grieving for the many years we spent together..it is early Autumn and the pears are ripening wonderfully. I frequently go down to the back garden and pick a pear, cut it in two and taste the juicy, delicious fruit and the memories come flooding back..but now the memories are no longer of deep sadness, but rather reflective of the many good times Bronwyn and I had together.
It was on one of those moments when I was at the pear tree and had just eaten into the second half of a pear that I heard a call to me from over the next door neighbours fence. A young woman stood there at the fence..when I say “young”, I mean younger than myself and I am fifty-five years of age, so I would reckon the woman to be around late thirties or so..and, well..so much younger than myself.
“Hello” she called..her voice was clear, soft and inquiring..I turned, surprised, for though I was aware that the neighbouring property had been purchased from a long time vacant, I had up till now no interest in wondering just who had purchased it.
“Hello” I returned..then an inquisitive “what can I do for you?”
“That pear tree..what type is it?” she called…I didn’t quite catch what she had asked so I went to the fence and asked again what was it she had said..
“The pear..what variety is it, can I ask?”
“Oh..” I pointed to the tree “It’s a concorde pear”.
“It’s very good..you have a lot of fruit on it…I have a pear tree too, though it hasn’t any fruit on it at all..as a matter of fact it looks rather tatty compared to yours.”
“Both trees were planted at the same time..as a matter of fact, our tree was given to us by the couple who used to live there where you are now..they had bought two for the price of one in a deal at the nursery and they only wanted the one, so they gave this other one to us.”
“Well, you must have the green thumb then, because I have been here two seasons now and there’s been barely a pear in both.” The woman complained.
“I’m sorry to say that I can’t claim any credit for our pear baring so well..it was my wife, you see, who looked after the tree.”
“Ah, yes..I heard about you losing your partner..I’m sorry for that.”
“Thank you for your concern, but it was several years ago now..and..if I may correct you there on one point..I prefer the term “wife” rather than “partner” as whenever I hear that term, I immediately think of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in an old movie they did back in the sixties…”Partners”..a terrible movie and..to my mind a terrible title for the relationship of marriage…” I worried if I sounded a tad too lecturey, so I added.” If you’ll excuse me for saying so.” And I gave a humble bow.
“Oh no..don’t apologise” she laughed..and I must interject here to remark that that laugh was such a delightful shock to myself…a sudden song..if I can call it that..a woman song in a woman lilt of voice..a music I have been denied of for these several years while I mourned my dearly departed wife..so much a shock that I felt myself draw in a gulp of air..The woman continued..” I’m certain that we get caught up in these changes of terminology that the modern world thrusts upon us rather than those of our own choosing…so..”Wife” it will be in future.” She finished with a decisive nod of her head. She then proffered her hand to me with ; “Sophia” she simply said.
“Joseph..” I replied and we shook hands.
“So tell me…Joseph..” she asked “Was there some special fertilizer your wife used?”
Here I was a little reticent to reply, as my dearly departed was particularly singular in her application of suitable fertilising of this particular tree…other parts of the garden she would apply a common compost or shop-purchased fertiliser..but as mentioned before of my wife, Bronwyn’s opinion that the pear was a female tree, she would delicately apply at selected times her own urine to points around the circumference of the root system…and certainly, this mode of application had the desired results of having the pears bear so profusely and so deliciously..what can one say?..but then to try to explain such a delicate matter to a total stranger is the most difficult task..I opted for diplomacy.
“My wife..Bronwyn, was her name..she..she was of the opinion that organic was best…sooo..considering that one of the best sources of nitrogen, phosphorous..and other goodies..AND..Bronwyn would make quiet comment on the usefulness of the female oestrogen levels in a woman’s urine……” and I pursed my lips and left the conclusion to my new found next door neighbour to work it out.
“Ohh!…so she pissed on the ground around the tree!?” and she laughed that music again..damned if I wasn’t embarrassed by the openness of the woman’s talk..
“Yeah..well…I suppose THAT is the crude terminology if you want to say it like that..but I can assure you that my wife took a more delicate approach to the subject..” and I went to the pear tree to select a fruit to give this cheeky neighbour a taste of the result..
I picked what I saw as a beautiful, ripe pear..looked it over for flaws and satisfied of its quality, took it back to the fence where Sophia stood and showed her the fruit..then taking my folding knife from my pocket, I started to slice the pear in half lengthways..
“That’s an interesting knife you’re using.” Sophia remarked
“It’s French..a French kitchen folding knife..we have a full set in the kitchen..my wife preferred them to the normal type…she said the curves fitted into her hand better.”…I had completed the cut and offered one half of the pear over the fence to Sophia..
“Thank you, kind sir..” she said with a curtsey and a smile..took a bite and leant forward so the juice wouldn’t trickle onto her skirt..her eyebrows raised and she spoke..” What a wonderful taste!”…
“Yes” I agreed “It’s almost effervescent “..
“Mmmm..quite tingly” Sophia agree.
“My wife…. Bronwyn…used to say that the pear was the original fruit Eve offered to Adam…She said that the pear was a female tree.” And I bit down on another mouthful of the pear.
“Huh..I never thought of that!” Sophia exclaimed and took another bite herself..then asked me if she could see the folding knife…I handed it to her over the fence.
“Ah, yes…I see…it does have a comfortable feel to it..your wife must have been a good cook..” Sophia bent down to read the brand on the blade..”Le Savonyard”…she read.
“Yes…It’s an old knife..we’ve had it for years..I prefer it to a standard pocket knife..they are a bit too twee for what I want to use it for..” and I reached my hand over the fence for her to give it back..Sophia went to pass it back then snatched it away..
“What if I want to keep it!?” and she laughed that sweet woman laugh and the music of that laugh rolled around the leaves and twigs and flowers of the garden and thrilled my hungry ears..it had been so long since I enjoyed a woman’s voice, that falsetto trill and then the mocking tease that women are so good at..and now this sprightly fortyish redhead had suddenly put a song back into my heart..I don’t think Bronwyn would begrudge me..no, not at all..Sophia then handed the knife back to me..I didn’t…couldn’t say a word..but as I took the knife back, I knocked a paling on the fence and it fell away..I caught it and leant it against the fence..
“Oh, that’s a bother” I said “I’ll have to get to and fix it before some stray cats use it for a thoroughfare”.
“My cat, you mean”..and Sofia smiled.
“The white one…Is it yours? “ I asked..
“Yes..I mostly keep it inside, but in the evening, I let it out to do its cat business in the yard..it prefers the “organic” method.”
Cheeky thing, I thought..but then, I had nothing against cats or dogs or any animals for that matter.
“Perhaps I’ll just leave the paling here then and let your pussy wander further.”..I wasn’t sure if she got my double entendre and she didn’t let on..but anyway, the conversation had about exhausted itself so we talked of food and dinner to prepare etcetera, excused ourselves and went inside.
Several months had passed since I met Sofia over the side fence..we had chatted on more occasions and she had even come through the fence where it was broken so I could show her the garden. It was in walking with this quietly confident women around the garden that my wife had so meticulously planted, paying close attention to certain plants in regard to colour, height and emblematic flora presentation, that I became aware just how isolated from pleasant company I had become over the years as I cared then grieved for my Bronwyn..and it was when we reached a particular spot in the furtherest part of the garden beds, where there stood amongst low ferns and shrubs a stone-cast Japanese garden lantern..I confessed to Sofia the pact I had made with my wife for after she had passed away.
“It was under this lantern, that I buried some of Bronwyn’s ashes.” I softly reflected.
“Some?” Sofia queried. I stood there with my hands in my pockets while I explained the pact.
“ When Bronwyn was in her last months, she wrote for me some instructions for her funeral..and one stipulation..or rather, request was for myself..and only known to myself..to retrieve her ashes. Take out a small measure, place it inside a golden locket I gave her when we first were going serious and bury it under this Japanese lantern..It was to represent her heart so it would forever remain in her beloved garden…or at least as long as foreseeable..the rest went to one of those alcoves at the cemetery..for the family to go to.”
“What a lovely gesture as a memorial” Sofia quietly spoke.
“Yes..I come here to make a connection to her spirit come every new moon…But I am afraid the garden is falling into neglect these days..” and I looked around to the overgrown plants. “Perhaps the time has come to let the regret and sadness lie and begin the regrowing of the garden”.
“A garden is nature’s microcosm of the rebirth of the world”..I looked at Sophia in amazement.
“You know..Bronwyn said something almost the exact meaning…She said that women had a contract with nature to rebirth our world while men had a contract with the world of materials to build and maintain a safe living environment for both women and nature to thrive.”
“Well..it is a trueism that women are more joined in common union to each other..through common practicality than men.”
I turned to gaze carefully at this gentle person standing next to myself, thinking I was beginning to know her so much better than our first meeting over the fence-line and I wanted to get to know her more..
“I’d like to invite you to dinner at my place some time..if that’s alright with you..NOT, I might add to flirt or confront, just to get to talk to you as a person…a situation I have fallen out of practice with these last five years..I cannot promise good conversation, BUT..I can promise a good meal..THAT I had plenty of practice with cooking for both my wife and myself all that time.”…Sophia smiled..that was a good sign..
“Alright”, she said “And I for my part will try not to complicate things either”..and it was my turn to smile.
“Just give me a couple of weeks or so to clean and tidy the place up…I’m afraid the bachelor’s life has crept into and onto many surfaces.”
And with that promise, we parted.
A week later there was a new moon and as was my usual routine, I made my way down to the Japanese lantern at the back of the garden to join in silence with my departed love..I have a rock there which I sit upon and while not really doing anything of either spiritual or practical, I just sit in idle contemplation of the backyard…I had been going through this ritual for so long now that the deeper spiritual connotation was somewhat lost on me and I was even wondering if I should continue the practice..perhaps it was time to let the dead bury the dead..
But just as I was thinking this morbid thought, I detected a movement in the backyard next door..in Sophia’s backyard…indeed, after a little concentrated gazing, I could see it was Sophia herself. She was dressed in a long white cotton shift that went to her ankles. Her hair was loose and free..She walked with slow, light steps to her pear tree..I shifted my position silently as I could see she had some intention and wasn’t to be disturbed. I watched in dumb fascination through that gap in the fence where the paling had fallen away as Sophia then squatted next to the pear tree and with her dress lifted to show her white hips and long white legs, she placed her right hand between her parted legs and squatted there..I stared in fixated curiosity and then I heard first the sound of the pooling and then saw in the full moonlight a singular jet of shining urine spray from between her legs onto the soil next to the pear tree..and in the soft moonlight, for just the briefest moment as she came to the end of her action there and was doing a couple of bobs on the balls of her feet to finish the lot, I caught the flash of moonlight on the innermost part of her thighs and onto that most precious part of womanhood..my eyes caught or at least I believe my eyes caught a picture of her vagina with her two fingers spreading the lips of her labia so as to..I presume, make the discharge of urine more cleaner and easier..I turned away then lest she would spy me and believe I was some sort of degenerate trying to take advantage of a woman’s private functions.
Sophie finished her deed and then returned to the house..I sat there for a little while longer in disturbed contemplation at what I had just witnessed..not for the action of the ablution, but rather in the sensuality within myself..as a man..to those commonplace but private actions of a woman..I felt I had never really known this fellow creature that I had both co-habited with and joined in sexual reproduction with to form our family..Perhaps this whole life thing was a tad more complicated than I first thought..
That flickering glimpse of Sophia’s vagina instantaneously threw me back to a moment in the early days of my marriage to Bronwyn. I was in my early thirties and Bronwyn in her late twenties. We had one child who was now three years old and I had thought for some time that Bronwyn was preparing herself for a second child..we had not discussed it in any depth, but it was an understanding that two children would be the ideal.
It was a summer night and Bronwyn had showered and went to the bed while I took my turn in the shower..I had come out and was nakedly finishing off drying myself while Bronwyn lay there stark naked herself on the bedclothes looking all the while like she was waiting for something. I stared at her quizzically and innocently asked;
“What are you waiting for?”….without a word, Bronwyn slowly and sensually opened her legs wide to show to me that most glorious treasure desired by the eternal host of mankind..her vagina opened to me like a flower opens to spring..it then appeared to blink at me..or was it a cheeky wink..as she thrust her pelvis a my gaze..but whatever it was, I can tell you most assuredly that no parade-ground soldier ever stood to attention smarter or faster than did my male member……
“You.” Bronwyn whispered..and on that night, I firmly believe, our second child was conceived.
Around a month after I had Invited Sophia to dinner, I was ready to follow through with the deed. Many years before, when I found it had become my lot to do the cooking for two, I was advised by the Greek wife of my boss to immediately purchase a copy of the “Tess Mallos, Complete Middle-East Cookbook”…take it home, study it and ..to paraphrase my boss’s wife…”Follow the ingredients and instructions; TO THE LETTER!”…and a more wise and utilitarian instruction I have never heard!
The dinner I had planned for the night was a simple yet exotic and tasty dish..I had consulted my “Bachelor’s friend” (as I call the said cookbook) and chosen “Psari Savoro”, fried fish with rosemary and vinegar..
The fishmonger at the market served me several choice fillets of butterfish, which I followed the instructions and coated with the appropriate ingredients and shallow fried, then taking the fish from the pan, I placed the cooked fillets in a dish and draining all but one quarter cup of oil from the pan, I added the garlic and rosemary, cooked them for a few minutes and sprinkled in three teaspoons of flour and stirred till it was lightly coloured….of course I did this cooking while Sophia was sitting at the table sipping on a chilled sauvignion-blanc from the Adelaide Hills…she had even consented to try my own preference of dropping a couple of ice-cubes into the glass of wine to super-chill it which makes the taste so much more sharp and tingling to the palate…It was when I removed the pan from the heat and poured in the vinegar that Sophia gave a cry of fright as the vinegar sizzled and spat high up over the pan..we both laughed then and I knew the evening, which I approached with trepidation was going well..I stirred in some of the drinking wine and returned the pan to the heat until it was bubbling..I then took it off , added some salt and pepper and poured the sauce over the fish…I served the dish up with a side dish of Greek salad and we sat down to a delightful meal, first toasting our new found companionship.
With the meal finished and the sweet of Baklava served, we sat back in our chairs and sipped the suav’-blanc..
“ The Baklava was bought”…I confessed “my culinary skills will only stretch so far”…Sophie smiled wryly and complimented me on my overall hosting effort.
“I did wonder on how you would do the dinner and I have to say it was an absolute delight” and she tilted her glass in my direction…I thanked her and repaid her with a compliment on her looks and dress for the night..
“Your dress and deportment make my efforts look a tawdry sham, Sophia…your hair looks dazzling and I yield to your beauty..I am besotted!” and we laughed together..a joyous laugh that brings two people closer and more intimate in the conversation which we parried and shared, agreed and contested in mutual enjoyment as the night progressed and the wine ran freely. It was toward the late hour when I felt I had to say what I wanted to say all the while…I placed my glass on the table, crossed my hands and spoke gently and with what I hoped were conciliatory words.
“Oh!” Sophie smiled “it must be serious”….I returned her smile and said;
“You remember I said that every new moon, I go to sit near the Japanese lantern and take in the night with the memory of my wife?..” I paused..I wanted to get this right..” well..that last new moon a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting there in the dark, not thinking of much at all..when I saw you go to your pear tree and …..fertilize the soil there…I apologise for my bringing the subject to your attention in this way and I have no opinion on your behaviour..your life is your own to do with as you please…but in seeing you do that action, like my wife used to do the same, awoke in me, as a male, the great distance I..and I cannot help but feel ; WE men and women, have let grow between our genders..a dualism of body and mind and I do, do believe now, that I ought to have paid more attention to what my wife extolled me to take seriously; that the pear tree was a symbol more than just a fruit tree..the tree is the bearer of body and soul of us all…” I drank down a little more wine to moisten my now dry palate and I was hoping I had not spoilt the evening with a lot of babble.
Sophia looked to me placed her head in a cradle-cup of her hands whilst leaning on the table and softly replied…
“I saw you go down to the memorial in your garden that night, as I have watched you go there other times and I could see there a man caught in a past difficult to release…I saw you sit there in silence looking sad and forlorn but I felt you were ready to come out of your shell and I wanted to be the one to touch your sensitivity..to bring you into this new time..so I did the only thing I could think of that was in common with your Bronwyn, yourself and myself..I cannot say what made me think of such a thing except your mentioning it when we first met over the fence..I wanted you to see me..I wanted you to know me..for I am not a forward person, but I do have feelings toward you but you had to see the intimate self of myself to either accept or reject me and I made the decision then and there to show that most vulnerable self to your gaze.”
WE both sat there in silence for a while and then I broke the silence with a wry smile and by asking Sophie that since the pear tree was female and in need of a woman’s “touch”, would she then mind sharing that vulnerable part of herself with my pear tree once in a while?
Without a word, Sophie rose from the table..she took my hand and encouraged me to rise also..I was about to ask what she wanted, but she pressed her index finger to my lips as a signal to not speak. She then led me to the rear door of my house to go out to the garden..I was both enthralled as to what was her intention and what was her motive. Again I was about to speak and she again touched my lips gently to silence me..we walked hand in hand to the bottom of the garden..to the pear tree which is where we halted..then the most sweeping sensation of warmth flooded my body as I watched Sophia slowly release my hand with a caress of my fingers..then she lifted the loose cotton smock dress she had on to her waist and proceeded to take down her underwear which she let down to her knees, then taking my hand once again, she lowered herself to a squat in front of the pear tree and gently encouraged me to kneel beside her..we did all this in absolute silence save the wind rustling the leaves of the trees and sweeping over our bodies and hair to tossle and tussle our senses.
In this position, of Sophie squatting and myself kneeling beside her, Sophie guided my hand with my absolute obedience to her vulva and with her hand over mine, she cupped her vulva with my hand.. I suddenly awoke to the soft gentleness of the woman’s genitalia in the palm of my hand..the warmth and moist fleshiness of that most pure part of a woman..that birthplace of every person ever born into the world..all the while, Sophia gazed tenderly into my eyes and caressed the side of my face with her other hand..I could say she looked right into my soul..the wind lifted her rich, red hair into cirrus-like wisps and swirls and I was beginning to wonder on just who was this woman creature here with me..then, pressing my middle finger with her own on top, she bade my finger enter her vaginal opening and pushed it up inside of herself to the second joint..she held my hand there pressing against her vulva and I could feel and sense the warmth of her body inside and out..the male desire within, to join with her in sexual ecstasy was beginning to demand of me, but she sensed my want and shook her head in a negative command and clasped my hand tight as to say “No..let it stay just as it is”..and it was then I became aware of her ultimate intent as I felt another warmth spread over my fingers and my hand..OUR hands..for she still covered my hand with her own and I knew that Sophia then was allowing her warm urine to trickle out over our hands and down onto the earth and down to the roots of the pear tree and..oh!..the sensation of the feeling as Sophie just fixed her stare at and into my eyes while we stayed there with our bodies joined in this anointment of the earth and I almost swooned with the knowledge that here in this one woman was all women..and here in this one action was all life enacted that had emanated from the natural source of man to women to nature and with the passing of the warm urine…back to Earth..back to nature back to the essence of life itself and for only the second time in my life, the first being in joining with my wife, Bronwyn in the ecstasy of first sexual contact to then grow our family together..this..I knew was the natural order of things..the only true order of life itself..a life for me that was about to change now forever.
Je T’Aime..
A Brief Encounter.
Yes, well…I’ll tell it to you..in strictest confidence..if only to reassure myself that it really happened..and it almost didn’t happen…we nearly walked right past each other, it was the scent of a particular perfume that caught my senses and I turned just to recognise that shape of face and corner of eye…it’s strange how some things stick in the consciousness…that look I saw in the street there was exactly the same one I saw when we said goodbye to each other some…oh..what would it be….forty…fifty years ago…
“Eve?” I said.
The lady in question turned her surprised person to me and her eyes had that questioning look for just a moment, then..
“Jack?….Jack Kirchner….well..I never..” and she smiled the same smile I remember from all those years ago.
“Evie James…”I reassured myself “ I never thought I’d say that name again around here”…and we moved to give the regulatory hug…and I have to say there and then it felt like a continuity of that brief encounter we had back in our teen years.
“Eve Harbin, these days, Jack.”
“Oh..of course…I should expect so..some fortunate chap would sweep your heart away back in those days.” And I smiled in sincere well-wishing.
“Not that lucky, I’m afraid..he died in a car accident..”
“Oh dear…that’s bad luck…damn car accidents…so sudden too.”
“Yes..well.it was fifteen years ago…so the “suddenness” has worn off a bit…as has the sadness”..and Evie tilted her head in acknowledgment of the passage of time. “And you, Jack..you still married to Meg.?”
“Oh…no..no..” and I exhaled a breath “Actually never even got married.”
“Oh..” Evie seemed surprised “The date was already set when we said goodbye at the station”.
Here I gave a little guffaw at the faded memory of that hurt.
“Well, the date, the cake and the guest list had been set, but the bride hadn’t been.”
“What happened?” ..I made a grimace and let a laugh out..
“Got left at the altar….Meg never turned up…seems she did a runner with the church organ player…who was also the mechanic at Stiller’s garage…”
“Oh that is so terrible..” and she touched my arm in sympathy..
“No, no…he was shithouse at both jobs..so it was a relief for the whole town”..and I laughed..”But it was better it happened before any children came along, eh?..and I’ve about gotten over it by now….just give it another dozen years or so and it will be all forgotten.”
We both laughed out loud at that one..and too right, too..I had long gotten over the “passing” of Meg.
It was low afternoon and I was making for the “see-saw café” for an afternoon cuppa before driving back to the farm and since we were just there outside the same café, I suggested we could have a coffee there if Evie would like.
“Eve”…she said and ;”Yes …why not..that would be lovely on such a glorious day”.
I ordered a couple of café lattes and we grabbed a table down the back away from the noisy clutter of the street tables…
It felt so very good right from the start..her company was so comfortable to me I became enthralled and we talked of anything and everything and laughed at the lot…
“I’m retired now from teaching”, Eve said “but I still do some part time work when needed to replace an absent teacher…strangely, with the year twelves, it always seems to be on a Monday…they must party something terrible over the weekends , those young people…I’m employed as a “relief teacher”…more like “detox” I say!” and she laughed that beautiful, sweet laugh that I so recall…and of course I laughed with her.
“So what’s been happening with your life?” Eve asked.
“Well…as you know or at least can see..I stuck around the farm until mum and dad passed and then took it over…and no..I never did marry..I lost some skin off that last effort…and you know these places, I lost some cred’ as well…so I just put my head down and my arse up and got stuck into farming…then the impulse seemed to pass and I lost interest in that side of things….” We both drank from our cups..” ..and here I am….still” and I smiled a wry smile.
“Well, you’ve kept yourself in good shape” Eve made a nod of her head in respect..I was flattered.
“I’ve never was one of the boozing crowd..and never smoked, so that helps…and the work on the farm keeps my weight down..”
“Oh that dreaded thing.”Eve pshawed “I have to go to a gym every now and then to keep THAT beast at bay.”….Here it was my turn to deny any negative appearance and to compliment Eve on her still enchanting looks…and indeed, I didn’t have to fib on that subject, for the passing of years had not been detrimental, but rather enhancing to herself..for a mature woman gains a certain sensuousness in the process that is denied those younger..it is a “knowing awareness” of her sexuality and confidence to use her female attraction in a manner of her own choosing..to those of her own choice..her eyes said it all.
I continued…
“Had a bloke in suit and tie at the last stock sale ask me how I keep in shape..’You do weights, running?’..he asked…work, I replied…and he stared at me like I was taking the mick.”….and again Eve laughed out loud…I was getting used to this lovely woman..
“What’s happened to the district since I been away?” Eve asked.
“Well…the weather’s got a tad less predictable..the old families more predictable..especially when it comes to considering the climate changing…but there has been a shift in the makeup of the farming community now.”
“How so”.
“Some other nationalities have come in and taken over some “old family” spreads.”
“Oh..like what nationalities?”
“Well..I have an Italian neighbour now…Cesarino..though we call him Ron…too many syllables otherwise…you know..and there’s a English chap…sorry!..I was corrected by him recently…he’s a Yorkshire man born and bred…”
“Well that’s a miraculous change for this area…used to be Australian – German to the bone..How do they fit in?”
“Ah…no worries now…we’re all multicultural now…”
We finished our first cup of coffee but were so having a good time we ordered another.
“But that Italian told me he hit a language hurdle when he first came to Australia in the late sixties..it seems after he arrived, he ended up at Adelaide Railway Station with all his luggage and no one to help cart it to a taxi..so he looked around and saw these men in cap and uniform walking past so he thought they were porters and he called to them…trouble is, the word for “Porter” in Italian is ; “Facchino”..and it sounds just like that too!..so he’s there calling out “Fuckino! Fuckino!” but no-one is coming to help him until two police turn up and arrest him for shouting abusive language in a public place!”….and we laughed and laughed..oh how sweetly lyrical is a woman’s laugh when let loose..how deeply penetrating into my soul was that laughter..I felt myself falling into something soft and embracing..falling deeper and deeper..I looked into Eve’s face and I could see her blushing..so I could presume…tentatively..that she was feeling the same..so I continued with my relating of the migration adventures of my “new” neighbours..
“And the poor Yorkshireman was wandering around the city centre just after he arrived in the country, just to familiarise himself with the habits of the citizens of his adopted land and he too was at the railway station and he saw the “Cowley’s Pie Cart” parked up there by the steps..curious as to what pies these people were gathering to eat and being quite familiar with the many varieties of pie back in his homeland, he approached the counter of the van and asked of the obviously very busy attendant there what was in his pies?…The harassed gentleman behind the counter paused for the slightest of moments and then tersely replied..
“If I told yers, yer wouldn’t eat ‘em!” and moved to serve another customer…”welcome to Australia!” I added…and we both chuckled at the recognisable idiosyncrasies of our country.
Well…there was more of this gentle banter and chatter until we noticed the afternoon had slipped past and the shadows outside had grown longer..so we decided that it was best to call a halt to the café experience and get on with our business…I had yet to get home to my empty house..
Outside in the street, we again talked of light pleasantries until Eve pointed down the street and said that her car was parked that way…and by chance my van was also in that direction..I had parked it off the street in a vacant lot near some storage sheds..it is an old van, The Sandman, and not too flash looking..but by jingo..it has served me well..
“Here’s me” I said pointing to the van at the back of the lot.
Eve turned to gaze to where I gesticulated..and when she saw the Sandman, she drew in her breath, held my arm and leant into me and gasped..
“Not THE Sandman!…still?..you’ve still got it after all these years!” and she left me to walk toward it..when she came to the old van, she stopped and gently reached her hand to it..touched it and turned to me..
“You still have it..after all this time…” I stood near with my hands in my pockets, a little shamed at the feeling of a frugal attitude I had adopted over the years.
“Well..yes..it’s a bit worse for appearance “ I apologetically replied “But the old girl just keeps on going…getting to the third time around the clock now…but she just won’t die..so I just keep putting new boots on her…a lick or two at this and that and she just keeps on going..they’ll probably have to shoot her when I pass away.” And I giggled at that prospect..But Eve just silently walked the length of the van..not taking her hand from the body-work, but trailing her fingers along the curves of the door so I continued my lame talking..
“Of course she needs a new coat of paint, but I cannot bring myself to spend the cost of a spray job on her…and anyway..there’s history in that old paintwork..
“I’ll say”..Eve replied..and then squatted down to look closely at something behind the front bumper bar…she rubbed a bit of dirt away, turned her lovely, smiling face to me and with her finger called me to come to her..I squatted down next to her to see what it was that she was looking at..Eve rubbed the dirt away more, then licked her finger and wiped it over some faint scratches there…and the letters..E.J. with a small heart pierced with an arrow followed by J.K. ….I looked and stared at that old notation, blinked several times and looked to Eve…who had a mile-wide smile on her face..
“I knew you’d go spare if you found someone had scratched your precious Sandman back then, so I scratched it here where you wouldn’t see it straight away…but I did hope one day you would see it…appears I was too secretive!” and she laughed..
I have to admit I had never seen it..and I was flabbergasted that I had been so denied the pleasure of knowing that here, in this small deed, was proof that I was indeed loved at one time..even if it now be redundant..there was a time when such assurance would have graced my heart with a gladness so welcome..I was speechless..fortunately, Eve could fill in the vacant seconds of talk with her pleasant voice.
“So all this time you didn’t know?…well that’s a shame..but then, neither of us knew where our lives were heading after our short time together…and then I went away to teacher’s college and the rest…as they say…” and Eve stood up and dusted off her hands..I slowly rose to face her..I could feel a strange heat rising in me..a warmth of longing I had not felt for so long..here was this delightful woman whom I had let go for little more than a folly of desire.
“Well, Jack..I s’pose I better let you go…if I recall this is shearing season and you must be busy..” and so we hugged again and Eve turned to go…to walk away out of my life again…I…I don’t know what made me do it…I’m not a forward kind of man…perhaps it was a desperation not to let go this last chance of holding such a pleasure to my soul…but as Eve turned and was nearly out of reach, I suddenly reached and held her arm…she turned to me with a questioning look in her eyes…but I was speechless…speechless…all I could mumble out was a “I…..I..” and then as suddenly, like Eve had likewise made a decision in her mind, she came to me without a word and we embraced tenderly and our lips touched..at first ever so gently..a brushing over each other’s..as if exploring the possibility then pressed harder until all abandon was let go and we kissed with a passion from our young days…I pressed against Eve’s body as she leant against the side of the van and oh..it was so good…so fine…so sweet and welcome…Eve made a little noise of contentment and I had to join her in the delight.
When we drew away for breath and reflection to gaze into each other’s eyes, seeking reassurance for what we…and I have to say “we” now, considering what followed..silently, mutually consented to.
Taking Eve’s hand, I led her to the back of the van and opened the back up…Eve held to me and whispered…”In the back of The Sandman….how delicious”..and we both giggled..
It was fortunate today I was in the town to pick up a couple of large tarps I had repaired and two new single-bed mattresses for the cabins to house the shearers who came from further away when they stay for a couple of days at the farm…
“Mattress too!…tell me you don’t have a mobile bar tucked away here too!”
“No..no bar…and the mattresses are for the worker’s cabins…I just picked them up today..” Eve smiled to me most affectionately, we kissed again and climbed into the back of the Sandman van.
At the closing of the back doors, a new, quieter, more secluded space enclosed us..I spread the new mattresses..of high density foam covered in a patterned cloth…evenly on the floor of the van..the tarpaulins I had repaired were folded neatly behind the driver’s seat and their canvas and straw scent gave the impression of a loft of a hay barn and lent a scented atmosphere, cramped as it was, to the location…
“It’s just how I remember it.” Eve laughted softly..for we still held the moment in “secretive pleasure”…which indeed it was..for this was certainly not planned…and the roughness of our situation gave thrill to our intentions…of which it has to be said that our age and experience let us proceed with deliberate intent and it was no time at all before Eve had removed her jacket and was preparing to take off her top when I stopped her..
“Eve…let me…please..” and I took her hand away from the zip at the back of her top..Eve was wearing a pants/matching top of a dark, soft flecked material with a zipper at the back…She smiled shyly and let me proceed..
I looked to the zipper and noticed the small curls of hair on the nape of her neck..I couldn’t resist placing a soft kiss there as I unzipped her top..I then with both hands eased the top away from her arms and folded it and placed it over the seat in front…We again embraced and kissed passionately ..my fingers unclipped the hook and eyes of her bra and it sprung a little as it’s elastic eased..I gently drew the straps from over her shoulders and removed the brassier from her body, noticing as I did so the soft flow of her breasts fall from the underwear..the bra I also placed with her top.
Eve’s breasts were the full, soft breasts of a mature woman..a woman who had fed three children from those breasts..so ample, so full, so warm and yielding yet at the same time softly firm and rounded..the mark of beauty of the mature woman..not the pert hardness of a young woman’s, but better by far..the soft glow of beauty of all that is meant of a woman..all that mother nature granted as a mark of desire for a man to embrace…and embrace I did…I first kissed Eve on her lips then let my head lower to kiss her breasts, Eve caressing my neck with tender touch..First the right one and then to the left..running the tip of my tongue around the areola to then take the nipple into my mouth to gently run my tongue around and up the side of the nipple and to softly suckle the nipple itself…so firm and yet so malleable so I flicked it several times with my tongue before drawing away to keep on with my undressing of Eve.
I unclipped and unzipped Eve’s pants and with her assistance, I took them down to her ankles and removed them entirely, folded them and placed them over the other items on the seat..that left only her underwear to remove..a soft shade of apricot to match her brassier..mostly plain but with a band of lace around the hip..with both hands at Eve’s hips, I eased her underwear down and removed it one leg at a time..I gathered the svelte cloth into one of my hands..amazed how small such an item folded into..a mere slip of cloth to cover that most pure part of a woman..I looked into Eve’s eyes and pressed that underwear onto the side of my face-cheek, placed it with the others and leant in to again kiss Eve..my left hand cupped her breast and we fell into each other..for more passionate kissing…then Eve pressed my chest away and said..
“Now it’s my turn..” and she smiled as one who was about to take a delight.
There.. in the half light of the umbra glow of a setting day, naked as the day she was born, was this curvaceous, beauty of a woman undressing me..to say I felt both flattered and excited would be a gross understatement…the male in me was burning an inferno to reach out and ravish Eve..but no..no…I would never do such…and I have to say that the restraint I was showing gave even more excitement to the moment and I took time in my awareness to make note to myself to mark this exact moment to take a mental picture to preserve this most exacting and beautiful of moments in my life..
Eve undid the buttons of my shirt, her long fingers deftly but slowly, as if making a show of the action twisting the button with her fingers and her other hand easing the shirt cloth over the button..all the while looking deep into my eyes…her experienced hands moved from button to button until she could remove the shirt from my back…her fingers running a soft touch over my back as she did so..thankfully still firmly muscular from the many years of physical labour on farm and land. I lay back so Eve could in her turn undo my belt, un-clip then unzip the fly of my trousers…I lifted my buttocks from the mattress as she took my pants down..and in doing this my male member…my cock, sprung upright in a sudden flick that took Eve by surprise and she uttered a short involuntary yelp..followed by shaking laughter and she fell onto my shoulder, tears of delight coming from her eyes..
“Oh..Oh..that did surprise me..” she gasped..” I was NOT expecting that…no undies?”
“No”..I apologetically said…”I can’t stand too much clothing about my person..so I never wear them…except when I have to visit the doctor or other “administrative locations” demanding a bit of decorum…I hope he didn’t frighten you” I added mischievously.
“Oh no…”He’s” and old acquaintance of mine…after so many years of marriage, he would wander into and out of my life like the obscure relative…though I have to say in this last decade or so he has made a stranger of himself..” and she smiled that beautiful smile and bent to kiss me again on the lips..she then completely undressed me and pushed me back onto the mattress.
Eve then traced with the tip of her tongue down my chest, her left hand pressing against my breast while she lowered her head toward my belly…I will leave your imagination to fill in other details of her delicate touching and caressing of my erect penis..sufficient to relate her taking of me in that most personal and intimate of sexual choices that both excites and dominates a man. We did after a moment of such ecstasy move our bodies in position to allow intimacy of encounter most enjoyable…
We joined in this love-making for a short time until I felt the want to excite Eve to climax and so I took moment to ease myself down her body, my tongue tipping along her breasts, down her belly till I breathed heavy on her mons Venus and then took the liberty to kiss that most treasured of part of a woman to a man..
I first breathed softly onto the lips of her vulva kissing them gently and repeatedly with a soft affection..Eve touched my hair and caressed my ears as I did so…I then let some saliva flow over the hood and labia lips to allow my tounge to move easily through the soft folds of her vulva…so with such tender touches of my tongue, I sought for and found that singular, tender place that most excites a woman..and it was to this place that I concentrated my intentions with soft, gentler yet pressing action of my tongue until after a surprising short time, I could feel Eve giving in to her body’s surrender to her climax and she started to make sighing sounds and to arch her body in time to my movements…Eve started to groan softly and she suddenly reached to feel for and found the leather belt of my trousers and placed it between her teeth so as to bite down and not raise Cain with her ecstatic cries…I could feel Eve coming to climax as her pelvis made a slight ‘crick’ and she held my head in a clasp and pulled it tight into her shuddering body until my entire mouth was filled with vulva, labia and my tongue firmly loving that most sensitive part of the woman!…her teeth biting on that leather belt so that only the softest of whispering whimpers escaped her lips..
After a short time in this position, Eve’s forceful tremors, soft cries and her grip eased and that was my cue to reverse my action and make my way up her body repeating the actions I made in coming down to once again take a missionary position to feverishly thrust my now rampant penis into her body…Let no man try to describe with weak words that feeling when the erect cock first enters a woman’s body..for to try to do so would be a blasphemy on Nature…and insult on the delight of the moment…sufficient to sigh and groan in indescribable delight and unlimited ecstasy…
It was after a short time of forcefull thrusts with Eve’s legs clasped around my body that I too came..I ejaculated into Eve’s body with a surge of uncontrolled male energy…I came…and came…and came…surge after surge until surely I was completely emptied and wasted…my body limp and exhausted..my breathing deep and panting..both of us totally rested in our crying ecstasy…we fell to our sides and embraced in delighted euphoria..kissed and lay silently and ecstatically exhausted..and there we relaxed in each other’s embrace..I had unfurled the softest tarp..the one I had repaired that covered a nice mahogany sideboard of my parent’s that I had stored in the shed..the tarpaulin was of a softer weave than the others..I unfolded this tarp and we covered our naked bodies and after soft kissing, fell asleep in each other’s arms..
Of course it was quite late and very dark when we awoke and we dressed and stepped back out into the night…Eve came close to me and we again embraced as lovers now and exchanged contact details with trembling eagerness to again get in touch to continue this budding, delightful relationship…
I drove back to my farm that night with the elation of a man wholly warmed by lovemaking, but now, with intent and direction..perhaps for the prospect of a love returned.
Pearl.
The tide had ebbed.
He was strolling down the still waxy sands, she, with her two frolicking children, aged three and five approached from the opposite direction. Suspended from a coarse, frayed piece of rope gripped in his hand, was a glass net-float. It swung, pendulum like as he walked. As they drew near to each other, their eyes met and their gaze held one another with that curious cognizance that lingers longer than is usual with strangers. A search not timid nor wanting but rather, as with like minded travellers in new lands, a polite familiarity in each other. The wide open sands of the tidal beach allowed plenty of room for personal space. The older child, a boy, saw the glass float, its surface sheen reflecting, with rhythmic precision of the swings, a shaft of evening sunlight into his eyes. He ran over and touched it, open mouthed, wide eyed and with the innocent inquisitiveness of a child.
“What is it?” he asked, his fingertips palpitating over the glass surface.
“A float, a glass float off a fishing net” the man continued to explain. The other child approached with the mother, its tiny arm clutching around the mother’s leg.
“Where did you find it?” The boy persisted.
His query remained unanswered because the man gazed at the woman who in return exchanged greetings with her eyes. He held out his hand.
“David MacKinnon”. he announced. She took the tips of his fingers lightly.
“Suzanne”. she replied with the natural caution of omitting the surname.
“What is it?” she asked. one hand waving across her face to chase away flies. The bridge of her nose pinched in a wrinkle.
He held the orb up by its rope, looking for all the world like a severed head with the bits of straggling seaweed.
“A glass float, rather old though.. they use plastic ones now.. or styrene foam..”
She didn’t remark on the information, just stared at the orb as it gently turned on its rope axis this way then that like a mesmerists fob watch, the “oily” aged glass swirled marbled with rainbow tracks.
“It’s almost… like…a pearl!” she delightfully exclaimed. there was a pause as he gazed.
“Why.. yes, yes…I suppose you could say that”. the thought attracted and attached itself to his mind. “But then it’s only appropriate to find a pearl at a pearl-fishing part of the coast.”
The little boy reached up to spin it around, but his hit swung it against the man’s body….he lowered it to the sand and let the boy roll it around…it had no value to him.
“I dug it up back there” he motioned toward a dark hulk of a wreck of a boat back up the beach, its rusty skeleton softened by a cluster of mangrove fronds over it.
“Maybe it’s from that boat?” she remarked.
“Maybe..but that’s not a fishing boat, its a pearling lugger.” he said.
“How do you know?”
“By the sweep of its’ deck, ….oh, I don’t know really..I’m just guessing…a feeling rather….it’s the way they used to build them”.
She laughed gaily.
“Well perhaps that is an old pearl.” she said pointing to the float “After all, I bet they don’t make THEM like they used to!” and they both joined in the friendly levity.
They stayed there together as the children played with the glass float. he looked intently at the children.
“I have two children myself.” He announced vaguely.. “A boy and a girl…”
“Oh…how old?”
“Seven and eleven.” ..
She nodded.
Here was comfortable ground and a chance to talk to another human being after that interminable drive up from Perth, with every town a seeming thousand miles from the next and oh! the dreadful endless road and the tedious bitumen.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“To Perth.. home ….And you?”
“We’re off to Darwin…to a new home….or at least we hope to call it that for the next couple of years.”
“I’ve just come from there.” (as if it was just up the road).
“Oh.. what’s the place like?”
“The tropics are beautiful this time of the year. It gets very oppressive in the “wet”….yes, I enjoyed it there.”
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m a carpenter.” he replied.
She smiled…for there was something secure about a carpenter, the thought of his hands smoothing over a piece of wood…the trueness of his eye, turning the wood, gauging the grain with a sureness of judgment to match and make….a workshop strewn with curled shavings, the odours of Pine and Fir resin…joss-sticks…sandalwood? ” Yes, a carpenter must have a patient touch” she mused.
“Are you driving straight through?” she asked.
“No…not tonight..I’ve just arrived..” he pointed to a distant campervan…
“I’ll book into a caravan park for the night. Get a bit of a clean-up.”
“There’s a nice one just up the road a little…at the edge of town, we’re camped there ourselves for the night too.” She gave this information over lightly, without invitation.. just as information.
“I s’pose that’ll do then…I’ll give it a burl..Gosh!..look at that sunset!” they both turned to face the ocean. the sinking star shimmered and quivered into the lapping mercury of sea. He snorted humorously.
“It’s a pearl too”.
They both stared silently.
“Yes.” she softly murmured “It’s quite divine..”
David turned to see the children frolicking, their stretched shadows flickering over the waxy sands…
” …and we live our lives in the shadow of the divine..” he said.
The caretaker showed an informal interest in his booking as there were few people staying there that night.
“Just find yourself a park over there near the ablutions block an you’ll be right”.
As he steered his van to the site he saw again the woman outside a station-wagon. She was with her two children.
“Hello!” he called, “Do you mind if I park nearby for the night?” and he smiled.
“Suit yourself it’ll be good company”.
They crossed paths to the showers later that evening and after more small talk agreed to sharing a coffee after the children had gone to sleep.
The sweeping silence of the night lent a comforting familiarity to the talk and it wasn’t long before they were sharing confidences and laughter.
“Yes, I did meet some real characters up there in Darwin there’s some beauties, especially in the building trade.”
“Tell me about one.” she leant over the little table in the van, her face supported by her fist under her chin.
“Ahh!..they’re too crazy”.
“No, really, tell me.” there was a tenderness attached to her inquiry.
He rubbed his fingers over his brow as he pondered, aware all the same of the purring sensuality in her voice, an early indicative sign that men interpret as woman’s intention and act instinctively. He sat upright and began.
“Here’s one….There was this bloke I knew up there…a Kiwi fellah…a contract painter…any how, he was telling me he done this big job for a wealthy family, the whole house, inside and out….a couple of months work..and they didn’t pay him…couldn’t get the money out of them….rich people can be the worst payers….and him with all the material costs, all the paint…and the other blokes he had working for him…a fortune..and it was sending him broke but he got this other job…with another wealthy family. He was up on a ladder painting the cornices with this dark, crimson paint one day and thinking of going down the tube what with these others not paying and thinking one thing an’ another an he didn’t know how he did it but he dropped his pot of paint!…and it fell outside the groundsheet!…all over the white carpet!….”Holy shit!” he cried “I can’t afford to pay for that!…” and he was just about to panic when the woman’s poodle walked past (he knew she wouldn’t be far behind)….He quickly grabbed the dog and threw it onto the spilled paint and cried in an exaggerated yell…”You little bastard!” ….the woman came rushing into the room ,threw her hands up in the air ….”Oh Pickles!…oh you naughty dog, I’m so sorry,..I’ll…. I’ll pay for the paint ”
Suzanne laughed as she threw her head back.
“Oh the rotten bugger!” she cried.
”Yes, I guess so…though I suppose he had to do something and I daresay the insurance would pay for the carpet…”
They both giggled a bit more, then a silence fell between them, and within that silence there rose in each of them a warmth of companionship and familiarity so they both knew the others desire, but the restraining codes of society held them yet apart. Instead, he pursued the desire with some small-talk.
“Huhm….and what are you going to do in Darwin?”
“Me?…oh..I work in jewellery shops…an assistant….so I suppose…” she left the answer open to the inevitable conclusion.
“Jewelry…” he repeated, his eyebrows raising swiftly. “Then I may have something that will interest you.” and he turned to reach into a drawer on the side of the van.
“Just a minute” she said, her hand raised and lay familiarly on his shoulder “I thought I heard one of the children…be back in a minute.”
When she returned. David had a small, dark wooden box on the table. It was very ornate with chunky carvings, of the chest-type from Thailand, only smaller, about ten by six inches. Suzanne pulled her stool up closer to David, her hair brushing over his shoulder, she noticed the “goose-bumps” that arose and she smiled to herself.
“And what has he got in his little black box?” she smirked…He chuckled.
Lifting the lid gently, a chamois bag was revealed, he lifted it from the chest and placed it between them on the table. Dave slowly untied the soft, woven cotton pull-string that choked the neck of the bag….slipping two fingers into the opening, he eased the bag apart wide. In the tarnished glow of the mozzie-candle, lay, like the waxen orbs of many tiny eggs in a nest, a regular bounty of…pearls!
Suzanne pursed her lips, for they were indeed attractive, and in this light, their buffed skins took on a living glow, like the promise of an egg about to hatch! she put her hand forward as if to touch, but David, not noticing her movement, had placed his own fingers into the burnished silvered cache. As he lifted the pearls up and let them fall dull-tacking back into the fold, he looked to her face . It was intent on the pearls, the dancing flame of the candle light lapping into and onto the soft features of her face, a face not yet drawn with the lines of care nor bitterness, a face still open and serene..David pondered on his own features, were they as easy to read? were his eyes still capable of showing impromptu emotion?…but he quickly dropped these introvert thoughts.. he longed to touch her…would she allow….?
“Where did you get them?”
“From a Melville Island local….they call these “roughs”, as you can see, they aren’t nicely rounded. but they are still pearls…”
“Why did you buy them ?” Suzanne asked, not taking her eyes off the luscious hoard.
“I liked the look of them.. the feel of them.. the sound as they touch each other….”
“Were they expensive?” she asked…he laughed.
“No…” then softly, almost dream-like he ran his hand through them again. Suzy placed her hand on his shoulder…he gazed at it, then rubbed his hand over hers, they smiled together.. she turned her attention back to the pearls.
“Why do you keep them?”
“I keep them because of how they feel.. because I like how they feel.”
“I have to ask…it’s the way you run your fingers through them.”
He looked to her eyes to gauge his answer, to feel out her capacity for a simple truth…a male truth.. for there are some secrets neither men nor women would share with each other.. her eyes answered him encouragingly. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, she pressed her cheek against them..but how does a man reveal that named desire for the untouchable, impermissible part of a woman that he is both slave to and yet feebly jealous of without himself sounding feeble, or foolish in a description for that most powerful sexual part of a woman.
“They remind me…” he paused in trepidation, to consider, then spoke , the timbre of his voice firm, but softly tender ” I sense…they remind me..of..a woman’s cunt.” His eyes moved away from hers to the pearls as if in apology for using such a vulgar noun, even though his pronunciation of the word was rather a reverential tone than cutting slander. But how else could he say it in truth?..He once again dipped his fingers into the pearls, their satiny surfaces making a sound like…like silver….He continued ; “sort of velvety-smooth…and pleasant to touch, a sense of moist….but these, of course, are dry..” he picked one pearl up, pinched between thumb and forefinger….he rolled it gently around the ball of his fingertip….”and by themselves, like this, they are like a woman’s erect nipple….almost firm yet…so gently pliable”.
David spoke in a detached but tender tone. Suzanne was at first taken aback at David’s description and she watched him closely, looking to detect any trace of the lecher in him, but no, while certainly he could be called a sensualist, there was not that oleaginous sleaze that is attached, film-like, to the seeking voice of the degenerate. No, he had used the description as such because in the circumstance there was no other with the strength of emotion to encompass the fierceness of that strange male hunger.
Suzanne stretched her hand over his to touch the pearls with her fingertips. The smooth opalescence of her skin in vast contrast to his tanned workman’s hands….and as she dabbled them into the glistening bag, his hand moved to the inside of her thigh….Her head came forward to rest in the crook of his shoulder, his lips sought her ear….his other hand moved down the spine of her back to lift up the base of her blouse, his touch had found her so warm..he felt his hunger for her body rise..and oh to touch that forbidden place and then to be encouraged to go further..David sighed . He freed the clasp of her bra and slipped his hand to cup her breast….her lovely breasts, so full and voluptuous he squeezed the nipple gently as she softly gyrated her hips to his caresses…
“Mmm, “she cooed….”I see what you mean.” she spoke as she fingered the pearls.
“You know?” he teased.
She smiled.
“Oh…just a wild guess..” and she pulled back arms length with her hands clasped at the back of his neck.
They sat looking at each other for a full minute without speaking, the insect-candle sending its whisper of citrine scented plume curling over their heads. David placed his hands on her hips.. it was settled, and it seemed as if some enormous overbearing weight had lifted from their hearts to be replaced by a freedom of movement liberated from the constraints of the dualism of civilized human – spiritual animal!
Suzanne moved her hand down and felt his erection…
“All rise to the power of the beast!” she laughed quietly…he chuckled with her…”how good a carpenter are you?”
“Oh…fair to middling I always try to put my heart into my work.” he smiled.
She worked his zipper down and released his “beast” from its “cell”.
“Mmm..with a bar like this you should be able to jemmy any door!” they both laughed heartily but softly, then again a small silence…Suzanne gave his penis a gentle squeeze, noting again that soft, silken feel of the hardened flesh…with the oh so gentle undulations along its length…she felt a rising anticipation for it to press against and then to enter the opening of her vagina slowly pushing in deep up to its full length…..her breath deepened at these thoughts she had…David’s words on the beach reverbetated in her mind..” … and we live our lives in the shadow of the divine.”
“Will you stay the while ?” and David patted the cushion of the seats….”It folds down to a double bed.”
She felt a sudden flush of colour rise to her cheeks, a warmth of emotions that she had not experienced since her teens when her body was master over her mind…before the demanding constraints of social convention had enslaved her desires.
“Will she stay the while?….” Suzanne repeated his request. She looked into his eyes, she leaned toward him, her breath quickened, their eyes held till the hiatus was broken by the gentle touching of their fingers intertwined….
A kiss! a kiss!
The first glimmer of dawn sweetened the charcoal sky as Suzanne changed into top gear and headed up the highway toward her ultimate destination, the memory of parting still warm on her lips. They had made love on awakening and she had left him there in the park and drove away so as to get a good start before the children awoke. A kiss and a wave of hand the last time she would see him….oh yes!..also the pearl! The pearl David had given her as a momento. She took one hand off the steering wheel to feel into her breast pocket…there it was!
She took it out, held it up in front of her eyes and gazed at it, its polished husk glowed like a moonstone….but wait!..the moon!…there, suspended in space on a lightening horizon was the full moon, as polished and opalescent as the pearl itself! a compliment to each other! she smiled as she thought of that morning’s quiet love-making in the bed and ahead of her lay the interminable road. She glanced back at the children still asleep and then, smiling wickedly, took the pearl and dexterously slipped the treasure down inside her panties to place it strategically and comfortably between the still moist lips of her vagina.
The perfect act.
It takes four different personalities to make a relationship partner..: The one for material security..Another for personal/emotional security…then another for intellectual compatibility so that leaves the fourth…perhaps the most demanding and important..; the lover…the sexual personality..
Of the four, three are provided via a pragmatic, realistic application.
The fourth can only be realised through the idea of a desire..and desire has infinity in its make-up..it can last forever..but it is like a wild beast and you have to hold it tight to your spirit..like a wild horse on a lead-rope..if you are distracted by jealousy, spite, possessiveness, it will see that weakness and break from you..only supreme passion will hold it to you in full flight.
I sometimes wake in the early hours of the morning with such a passion and I imagine someone I want to hold and share that passion, like that wild beast wanting to satiate its desire…it can go on for quite some time..and I imagine ourselves making love..with the body in full consent, it is now the mind’s turn to subject itself willingly to the body’s every desire..the mind becoming servient to the body’s sexual desires…unstoppable..unresisting.
The perfect act.
Somewhere..
Between the soul and the Divine,
Between that love you seek and the love you find,
Is a place of absolute beauty,
Is a place concealed and undefined.
You may not physically touch this place,
Like you may not touch the divine..
Only worship the possibility,
When there is no possibility..; only desire.
You cannot intellectualise this place,
Like you cannot intellectualise grace.
And like grace..once you think you have it,
You’ve lost it.
It is an avalanche of emotion..an ecstasy so nice,
It is a want of devotion, comes at a price.
You can never find this on the cheap rack,
You can never keep this with a half-filled cup.
And you ask ; do I desire thee?
What can I say to you..does the eagle the sky?
And you wonder; will I touch thee?
I say yes..yes, there, I will touch thy..
In that place with no name, no shame..
In that place where unfeigned lovers go,
Between love and the soul, between the soul and the divine,
Not of your body..but that subtle beauty in you..
Not of this world, but where pure delight is held.
not your body..but that subtle beauty within you…
not your body..but that subtle beauty concealed within you…
Where there is no name, no shame..
Only the Concealed.
It was a generous act to let me sleep on the sofa at her place..we had long been attracted to each other, but circumstances allowed no capacity to carry any ambitions further..but a job opportunity in the country nearby, allowed the generous favour of letting me bunk down in her lounge..and there I would lay quietly listening in sensuous impatience to her movements as she went about her preparations for bedtime..I was not to learn till later when we finally had the chance to come together in a relationship that on those nights of the short time I spent there sleeping in her lounge, she made it a point in her undressing to do it as quiet as possible so I would have no chance to either actually hear or to imagine I was hearing her taking off her clothes..taking off her dress, her underwear…but as I replied when told of this infamy..it didn’t stop me imagining it..not at all…in fact my straining both my ears and my passion TO HEAR of that wonderful feminine virtue to a man..I over-imagined the entire act..
I remember that affair I had when in my twenties and it started with me brushing her long, thick dark hair….slowly, gently with my other hand trailing through after the brush….it was so beautiful that hair…that touch…she was wearing a nightgown and as it turned out nothing underneath..and we were talking while she brushed her hair..and I suddenly asked ;
“Can I do that…let me brush your hair?”…at first Diedre…”Dee” as I came to call her later…demurred a little..
“Do it carefully..don’t pull on it if it tangles…” of course I promised..and indeed I made certain to take extra care while I performed this extraordinarily delightful experience..for how many women would allow a man to touch one of the most precious of her glories?
Diedre handed me the brush and we settled ourselves on the sofa with her back between my knees while I took those long, thick locks of hair in my left hand and followed through most, most gently with long strokes of the brush…of course I had an objective in mind..I too am servant to desire…my male desire..and as it turned out, both our desires, for it was but a short time of this intimate brushing of Dee’s hair that she let herself settle back into my crotch and I placed the brush on the floor by the side of the sofa and with my kissing her on the crown of her head, I slipped my hands down, under her dressing gown to cup her warm breasts…and so it began.
…we had a lovely affair for some time..
Unfortunately, as I mentioned above with those four conditions for a relationship, I could not fulfill some of those necessities…and myself being most aware of my shortcomings in that area, I slipped out of the relationship before it could descent into an acrimony of disappointment..perhaps I was more of a coward than I then realised..but I plead the innocence of youth and a desire for adventure in the world that a settled life could not satisfy.
But there was a time in that relationship where we touched that place between the soul and the divine..it does exist, that precious place, that ecstasy that can be reached either through a loving moment of embracing or through a moment of passionate sexual activity…it was the latter in our case that we reached the height of ecstasy of sexual pleasure..
I had completed a job up north on the mines and was returning to the city, to stop and see Diedre on the way through..She had shipped off her no-account boyfriend for the weekend to some motor-racing carnival so we could have some time together. But this wasn’t just a “dirty weekend”, for we did have deep affection for each other and as I said, it lasted for quite some time so the night ahead was a planned thing with dinner at home, some wine and then to a bath to soak those long weeks up in the bush out of my pores…
I had chopped some wood for the fire so it would be going strong by the time we finished our bath…and that was the start of the pleasure of the night..and it was a fun night in that we giggled and laughed our way to it and through it…love on a high-note…The bath was one of those square ones so we both squeezed into it…and we played with the soap suds and teased each other with our toes exploring each other’s genitals in a playful way..all laughter and fun as we soaped each other with thick lather of the aromatic soap…and I have to say that the lathering of a woman’s body is a sensuous thing..while the male body may have hair on chest or face, women have that soft, smooth run of flesh that lets the hands slip and slide over the curves and valleys of that most delightful shaped body..what man would not lay his pride and manhood as trophy to the feet of such beauty if called for…no greater reward could be given than the loving favours of a particular woman one is in love with..
After the bath, we stood before the fire towelling each other dry..a most delicate action to be sensitive to those particular parts of the body that need close attention…on the male, particularly, it takes a gentle hand of a woman in drying those most delicate appendages of his manhood…a rough hand cannot give confidence…fortunately, Diedre had that most gentle touch of the caring woman..after wrapping one towel around my shoulders, she used another towel to caress dry my lower limbs and trunk..then to move to very carefully dry those most delicate parts…and with a cheeky smile and partially open mouth with her tongue playing teasingly upon her lips, she slowly and silently dabbed at my genitals with all the care and affection of a lover…
After Diedre had finished drying myself, I hooked the towel around my waist and proceeded to dry Diedre in turn…she had her hair wrapped in a towel around her head and another towel around her body at breast level…it was this one that I removed by the light of the glowing fire..and by the living gods…is there even in paradise a more gasping sight of evolved beauty than the body of a woman in full feminine glory..can simple words of adoration give justice to a man’s gasping of breath when confronted suddenly with such purity of beauty..it was that sight that drew the breath into my lungs in a wholesome inhale that filled both my body and my sight with gorgeous delight at this vision before me…how can something be so beautiful?…oh woman..I die for you..I die a thousand deaths for you..
“Diedre…you..you look so beautiful..”
“ You think so, Christopher, that’s nice…then let me be beautiful for you…I’ll be your beauty..”……how does a man reply to such a gift?..except to kiss that most delightful woman with unspared passion..and kiss we did as we knelt there on our knees in front of the soft glow of the fire…
I dried that extordinary body with all the care and affection that I could give…I dried her shoulders and arms, then moved to her breasts that were full and soft..large enough to be dropped but full rounded and pert with lovely tan areolas and erect nipples..I put gentle attention to those twin delights, then moved to dry her belly and then pat dry her vulva and Mons Venus…taking the towel away for a moment to apply a gentle kiss to that soft copse above her pussy..the drying done, we settled before the fire in loving embrace and proceeded to make preparation with gentle touching for the lovemaking soon to come.
And that was to start sooner than I could imagine as Diedre lay me flat on my back and reached for a small opaque blue bottle that I soon discovered contained aromatic body oil….warmed in front of the fire, I let her drizzle oil over my chest and stomach which she then proceeded to gently rub evenly over all my body…using both hands to caress the oil over my penis and testicles, her hands slipping over those parts with tender euphoria of feeling..I repeated the same application of the body oil onto Diedre’s body with all the delight of a male’s pleasure to touch a woman’s body.
With oil generously applied over our entire bodies, back and front, we slithered in laughing joy over each other, our limbs like slippery tentacles entwining around and over each other and we were kissing in a delightful enthral of passion and sensuality.
This writhing on the rug went on for a while before we decided to move into the bedroom onto Diedre’s queen-sized bed…there were black sheets and pillows there and we fell onto those cool cotton sheets in giggling ecstasy, still slippery with oil and arms and hands all around and over each other…
It wasn’t too long before we fell into position to make love..Diedre’s arms around my shoulders and her legs over my back embracing me in a clasp…it was no action needed for my erect cock to find its way to the entrance of Diedre’s vagina…the body oil and mutual enthusiasm all that was needed to introduce the one to the other…coupling was ensured, and then gentle copulation followed..at first with the cautious entrance of the erect penis into the vaginal passage until full insertion is completed..then a pause for both bodies to become familiar with the intrusion of the male member deep inside the woman’s body…for it is a moment desirous of tender meditation and contemplation, this action of copulation…no need to hurry the moment..let gentle touch of penis to vagina take place…THEN..the slow repeat of withdrawal and insertion with familiarity and heightened pleasure for both parties..
I could feel my cock all around and right along its length being caressed inside Diedre’s vagina…no words can describe such feelings..no words can possibly do justice to even imagine that sensation..
“Can you feel that?” Diedre asked.
“How so?” I asked in curiosity…then I felt it!…with her vagina she could tighten the entrance muscles to tighten around my cock as I moved it in and out in gentle pulses…
“That’s amazing!” I admitted..and indeed, the action hightened the sensation.
“I can do it better if you ride me from behind..” she smiled at me and I fell into that deep, deep pool of serene adoration…
We moved into position for me to enter her from the rear..in what is called “doggy position”..and indeed, Diedre was as true as her word as I could feel her vagina tighten and loosen around my pulsating cock as I rode her in a more and more vigorous passion..indeed you could say Diedre was “milking” me…her hands holding onto the vertical bars of the bedhead…my hands in tight grip on her hips..my body crashing onto Diedre’s buttocks with sloppy sounding delight and her gorgeous bottom-flesh rolling in waves with each delightful meeting..and her vaginal muscle contracting and tightening in coordinated unison to the rhythm of my plunging penis, until I could feel that surge of heat telling me that orgasm was about to happen and happen it did with an ecstasy uncontrolled and euphoric..one after the other..after the other..after the other…until I literally fell from her buttocks in exhausted ecstasy…Diedre quickly moved into position on top of me where I could apply my mouth to her vulva as I licked and caressed her most sensitive part with wonderful glee…while Diedre played with my now half erect and exhausted cock…the entire sense now one of body-fluids and gentle giggling until Diedre started herself to come with forceful thrusts of her vulva onto my only too willing mouth until with cries of ecstasy she lowered herself fully along my body in groaning relief and smiling delight…
It was while in this position, post copulation, in resting euphoria that I realised that we were held in a different place than just resting..we had entered that mysterious place that holds lovers in a state of passion and euphoria, sheltered from intrusion from the outside world..we were here alone in a kind of bubble of peace and tranquility…soaked in our own body-fluids and sweat and smeared oil and saliva…completely awash in ecstasy with no inhibitions or reservations, to envelope ourselves in absolute perfection of lovemaking and sexual decadence….a perfect act of submission….the perfect act.
Portrait of Oracles/Mystics. By Ernest W. Appleby. (19th century)
The Last Dream of Jonothan Andrew Potter.
Jonothan clipped shut the lock on the double doors of his workshop…he then paused with one hand still clasping the large padlock..he was looking at that lock…but in truth, not really looking at it, but rather in deep contemplation..if asked of what, he could not say..it was just a momentary fixated stare at everything and nothing…he woke from the trance, shook his head and made his way to the parked Ford sedan and drove home to his flat on the ground floor of a three storey block of units in the suburb of South Brighton.
The usual habit of Jonothan when arriving home from work was to go to the fridge, extract a can of beer, sit in his big lounge chair strategically placed at comfortable distance from the television, and with remote in hand search through a familiar mental list of channels until he found something satisfactory to contemplate while he tossed down two cans of beer before a sketchy meal of supermarket purchased pre-cooked was heated up in the microwave oven.
This night was little different from a legion of others that fell one after the other in a repetition that would be considered a futile, boring existence except that it was a lifestyle totally fitted to one such as Jonothan Andrew Potter as his social life circulated out from his workshop where he met customers, salespeople and varied people who made their way to the big double doors of “Centerline Tooling” a one man show for precision manufactured tooling instrument repair and service.Since the early morning, Jonothan had been feeling “off colour”…and it was with a heavy head that he fell into his chair that evening, his ill feeling sedated by several aspirin along with a third beer to settle the dull ache in his head..it was in this state and with a half consumed lasagne in its packaged container while he being serenaded by a streamed repeat episode of Midsomer Murders that Jonothan dozed off into a deep sleep….a sleep vividly coloured by strange dreams.
This sleep was to be Jonathan’s last sleep as he would pass away this evening.
If we look to the small coffee-table to the right of Jonothan’s hand, we will see two things that were instrumental in the ending of this night. The first of interest is a wad of final notices held in a bulldog clip…these final notices were from..in descending order of dates..the landlords of a) the leased workshop space informing him that if due rent was not paid by the end of that month, he would be void of the workshop and a padlock put on the big double doors..b) the landlord of his flat there on the ground floor where he now sits was arrears in rent and if such were not met in sixty days (dated one month previous) he would be evicted according to regulation…etc, etc…the other final notices were of lesser importance to having a roof over his head, but still would be disconcerting to his well-being, coming from the household energy provider, telephone and internet provider and gas supply…in short, Jonothan was snookered..
For several months there had been no work save the odd small cash job that didn’t really even cover food and petrol bills..the world of disposable technology had caught up to him. So when Jonothan came home from the workshop that evening, he took several cans of beer from the refrigerator, settled himself in front of the television and with a decided, set look on his face proceeded to settle the question of his situation.
Which brings us to the second thing of interest on that coffee-table, a white plastic tablet bottle labelled with a particular type of sleeping draught that he had persuaded his GP. That he badly needed as work was so busy, he needed to sleep solidly so as to be able to meet all his contracts…Regardless of the GP’s reticence, Jonothan had obtained those tablets in the white plastic container that now lay on its side devoid of contents…the last of the cans of beer sat half full next to the white, empty pill container…it would soon go flat.
But for the while as sleep took temporary command of Jonothan’s mind, he started to dream..
He dreamt he was sitting on a short column of sandstone somewhat at the edge of what appeared to be training arena for a young man riding a bay horse..the boy was quite young and being given instructions by an man dressed in a long toga, who gesticulated with each instruction of heel and toe necessity of where to touch the horse’s flank…Jonothan lifted his eyes to see on a plateau in the distance, above a white city bathed in brilliant sunshine, a temple that he could easily identify by its famous name..The Acropolis..except in this dream it was complete and shining brilliantly on the plateau above of what he was now certain was Athens..He showed not the least wonder as to why and what he was doing in this place..all was as it should be.
Jonothan stood as the young boy on the horse rode over toward him ever so slowly…they faced each other and the boy turned in the saddle, pointed to a small temple at the edge of the training arena that Jonothan hadn’t noticed before and said..“You have to go there..” and that was all he said.
Jonothan was surprised at this instruction as he had never met either the boy, the man or had been to this place before but somehow it all seemed normal and natural that he should obey the boy’s instruction..as he got closer to the small temple..really not much larger than a wealthy family’s mausoleum..the man too pointed to the door of the temple and said..
”you’re late..they’re waiting inside”..
Jonothan opened the solid door of the temple and entered..and the room had changed already to a square with beige coloured flat, plain walls and ceiling but with four doors of normal size in the centre of each wall….the big entrance door had disappeared..and when Jonothan turned around, there were four people standing, one at each of the doors..yet he had not heard nor seen any of them enter..All four wore the long togas of ancient Grecian personages…all this seem so normal and not at all out of place. Jonothan looked to each in turn and then asked.
“Why are you here?” for he thought they all looked familiar..
“Because you’re here”….one answered..and Jonothan was surprised to see a young woman of around sixteen years old..then he recognised her as the young woman he admired way back when he was an apprentice and would catch the morning train to work and she would be there three stops before he would get off..and for one whole winter and into the spring, they stared at each other across the baggage-car compartment, filled along with all the other workmen standing there in dead-pan silence…but they only had eyes for each other. Unfortunately, their mutual shyness stopped them even saying hello and after that summer she never came on the train anymore..Jonothan was heartbroken.
But now here she was..in full life..in exactly the same dress as back then..white stockings, red shoes, short , white woollen skirt, a red jacket over a pale top with her long-strap small red handbag slung over her shoulder and an extremely cute red beany over her blonde hair…Jonothan was enthralled to see her again.. he made move to go to her but another voice spoke to him..
“Jon?”….Jonothan turned to look behind him and there stood a woman in her thirties..of short stature, very curvaceous with a bob of thick, red hair..
“Diedre!?” Jonothan answered. “ I thought you were gone a long time ago…I was twenty five years old.”
“And I was thirty five..but that didn’t matter…at least not to me.” And Deidre gave him an exaggerated wink. “but then you ended it by going away from me.”
“You were married…to a policeman…he could’ve killed me if he found out.”
“I wanted a child!” Diedre protested..”..and now here we are…it’s still not too late, Jon’…you can stay with me now”…Indeed, she looked as inviting as the first time he had met her all those years ago..
But then another voice called his name..
“Jonothan Potter!” the voice of the nun was stern and chiding..” Jonothan Potter!..you know you are forbidden to play in that drain!…come here!…this instant..stop dawdling and come here!” Jonothan could see the cane in her hand..he had felt that cane before……and since..in another place..with another woman..Maria Rosa was suddenly there in place of Sister Mary Joseph..and instead of the flowing robes of the nun’s habit, was the tight, black leather-lacework of a corset that allowed little to the imagination but so much to the excitement of the moment..
“You know what you must do, Jon..let’s have no more whining and complaining..you have done wrong..”
“Hold your hand out!” Sister Mary Joseph scolded…Jon held his hand out and swiftly felt the cut of the cane across his naked buttocks…it was very painful..but in a soft, sweet sort of way..in that he knew he was paying the debt of his sins..so he kept his hand there while Sister Mary Joseph again brought the cane down and then suddenly there was Maria Rosa with nothing on bar that lace corset..an intense yet sympathetic, almost pitying expression on her face looking down at Jonothan as she brought the cane down in strategic, measured strokes..each with a “whip” sound as it cut through the air..Jonothan writhed in ecstatic pain under the professional domination of the dark-haired beauty of Maria Rosa..and as he knelt there in contrition on his knees, Sister Mary Joseph was whispering sweet words into his ear..and there were the Stations of the Cross on the walls all around the room
“‘Look!” she said, “look how they laugh and mock our Lord Jesus……..” Jonothan’s eyes all wide and staring at the horror of the gore and blood on the crown of thorns and the leering faces of the torturers. His hands clasping and wringing in fear and horror…He clung to the habit of the squatting sister as she related the means of cruelty inflicted on the body of the Son of God as “He suffered for our sins here on Earth…He suffered for us..” her eyes alight also with the self-inflicted emotional pain of the scenes she described. The young nun then proceeded to instruct Jonothan in the ritual of the journey through The Stations of the Cross..she would say the Leaders chant :
“We adore thee O Christ, and bless thee.”
Then she would ask Jonothan to repeat after her..:
“By your holy cross Thou has redeemed the world”.
Then Sister Mary Joseph softly told him a little maxim of life ; “As a child, we sometimes feel alone..sometimes others do not stand up for me when I am picked on and afraid..so help me Jesus to be strong and protect me in thy light”.
On the habit of Sister Joseph, he touched to feel the heavy-starched white cloth parts of her cowl as she cooed , as with a lover’s breath, the corrupting words of indoctrination into his ear, wondering why it was so sharp…he knelt by her side and felt the heavy wooden beads of the Rosary belt that wrapped around her waist then dangled down the side of her habit-skirt..He was mesmerized at the large, pendulating black cross that swung against her breast as she leant down to him, now voluminously exposed under the loose cloth to his enthralled vision.
Jonothan looked up as the caning had stopped and he was met by a woman in a long gown who informed him that there was a person here who claimed to be his mother…
“who are you?” he asked…
“I am your Aphrodite”…the woman answered and gave a little smile.
Jonothan looked to a dark side of the room that had now become circular with a row of Doric columns around the perimeter…an aged woman in soft knitted clothes approached him and he was now dressed again. His mother reached for his hand and frowned at the welts left there by the cane… completely ignoring those other more salacious welts on his backside…no mother would ever consider her child would indulge in such behaviour.
“Oh dear..this is no good..no good at all”..she cooed..then reached into the pocket of her skirt and produced a round tin, golden in colour with close-knit writing on the cover, but with one familiar identifying brand word emblazoned …
“Rawleigh’s”..then the words “antiseptic salve” under it..
Jonothan’s mother praised the lid off the tin and that familiar smell of the ointment once again wafted to his nostrils..how could he ever forget that comforting scent..for hadn’t it been the mainstay of home remedy for cuts and scratches all his childhood..
“Here we go…” his mother again cooed “let’s put some ointment on these scratches..” and she applied a generous amount of the balm on the welts..then, taking up an old bed-sheet, she proceeded to tear a narrow strip off it until she held a length of the cloth of about one and a half feet in length and about two inches in breadth…she held the strip and then ripped it down lengthways for several inches to make two tails..this bandage she wrapped around Jonothan’s hand and with the tails, ran them in opposite ways around the hand and tied them in a nice precise bow at the back of his hand..She inspected her work and then looked lovingly into Jonothan’s eyes..
“You’ll always be my brave little man..always..” and she stood, looked down at him then turned and walked away..
‘Wait!..wait!” Jonothan called after her..he made to follow, but the woman in the gown stopped him..
“You can’t go there yet..” she spoke..
“But I am here..I am here now…” Jonothan pleaded as he saw the other women turn to walk from the room back through the four doors.
“Not quite…you still have one hand in your other world..you could yet return there”
Jonothan was aghast at the prospect of confronting yet again that abhorrent world of anguish and pain..endless, endless work and worry, while here was everything that ever mattered in his life..condensed into this one room..these few people..He flung his arm out in frustration and cried ;
“NO!…NO..I will not return to that horror!”
And if one was present at the chair-side of the dying Jonothan Andrew Potter, you would see his left arm suddenly shoot away in spasmatic jerk to knock the ashtray from the arm of the sofa with the still glowing remnant of his last cigarette onto some screwed up bills due from several of the aforementioned complainants..these in turn after some short time caught fire and the accompanying smoke gave warning to a passing tenant of the floor above who saw the danger of a fire in the very flat under his own and so called both the fire brigade and the police in quick succession…in consequence of the discovery of the current occupant of the flat in question unconscious under suspicious circumstances, the ambulance attended post haste to Jonathan Andrew Potter’s inert body..
After initial conclusion that sleeping draughts had been consumed, the medical officers immediately applied CPR to revitalise his breathing…in this they were successful..but only for a moment as the body of Jonothan again went into arrest and once again the ambulance officers revitalised him to once again see him fall back into relapse..they continued this until a doctor appeared on the scene..
“Damn if I can make it out, doctor”..the ambulance officer complained..”We no sooner get him breathing again when he goes back into a death spiral..”
The doctor applied all his skills to bring life back to the body of Jonothan Andrew Potter, but it seemed as if the Gods themselves were working against them..and he for the last time slipped away into a final deep exhale of breath and sank into the stretcher..the medical officers and the doctor looked in despair at the corpse..then one spoke for all.
“It’s almost as if he didn’t want to even try to come back”. Another said.
“Look at his face..you’d think that was a smile on his lips.”
Jonothan rested with his arms around the woman in the long gown..he was weeping in joy, for surrounding him in the big room were the women he treasured in his past world..now to be together with him forever..
“Thank you.” He murmured into her ear. “Thank you.”
“It’s alright…it’s alright..you’re here now”. The woman replied.
Gethsemane.
But there was no going back on the decision of the court that the property in question was forfeited to the Mayor of the “Koinótite Magdalenia”..Commune of Magdalenia…the decision was final and the substantial legal costs awarded against her.
Jessica Andropolous sat at the family’s kitchen table in a Melbourne suburb as she read the letter of judgement sent to her from her legal representative on the Greek Island of Cephalonia in the Ionian sea. Jessica cursed the name of that Mayor with every curse known to her rather young twenty eight years!…She also cursed the legal representative she had arranged when there on the island as she now had grave doubts that he was not working in unison with that Mayor….she then reflected on the situation and cursed, albeit more leniently, her grandparents for their oversight in leaving their home on the island to the mercy of the laws and care of locals of a past era..laws that had been changed in their absence of fifty years to suit the likes of the Mayor of the Commune di Magdelania, and locals who had in many cases since passed away.
If we go back to those fifty years hence, we will not be surprised to see a desperate people seeking migration to Australia after a particular brutal world war and then a particularly cruel civil war that decimated and all but destroyed so many villages and families..destroyed the local food production so that the times came to be called “Megalos Limos”..”The Great Famine”..which resulted in the Greek diaspora in Australia.
It was in this surge of migration that Jessica’s grandparents arrived in Melbourne with their entire family and posessions, leaving behind the house (then of little value), and in subsequent years of establishing themselves with a new home and gardens and work a-plenty..Then the marriage of their children and the coming of grandchildren, the old life was all but forgotten, as was the old house on the esplanade of the village on the island of Cephalonia. Forgotten also was the payment of dues to the local commune and also the upkeep of the house..then, new laws were made to allow reposession of property in arrears from both lived-in attendance and maintenance by the absent owners that allowed the commune to on-sell such property to whomever would repair and make good such property so as to maintain enough rental houses for tourists to the island each summer. It was on this legal provision that the Mayor of the Commune of Magdelania came to take posession of the ancestral home of Jessica Andropolous..and there was now nothing she could do about it.
The shock of this reality first came when Jessica, on holiday to another property the family had on another island, thanks to the marriage of her parents, decided to travel to take a look at the old house mentioned in the family discussions. Upon her arrival and finding the house in quite good repair but with a solid padlock on the front door, Jessica took the opportunity of asking of a passing local the reason and owner of the padlock..She was shrugged off with a walking away gesture and told to “go ask the Mayor”. Jessica enquired at the local council about the circumstances of the property only to be informed of the above written situation..The anger in her person became palpable and ignoring the inquiry of the receptionist, stormed into the Mayor’s office right up to his desk to confront him with her outrage.
“How dare you confiscate our family property!” Jessica demanded “You have no right to presume ownership on something that is not yours by deed, title or payment!”..each point made more relevent by the stabbing of her index finger on the Mayor’s desk-top.
The Mayor, at first surprised at this invasion of his quiet space, recovered his composure to lean back in silent appraisal of this young woman’s….this attractive young woman’s accusations. After Jessica had finished her tirade, there was a hiatus of heated air while the Mayor resumed his position of leaning over his desk.
“And what property is that?” the Mayor asked. Jessica did not know of the exact address, being instructed by her father that it was the third house on the right from the street leading from the fisherman’s wharf… so she described it as best as she could.
“The house with white walls and bright blue window sills on the esplanade..it has two geraniums in pots on either side of the front door”.
The Mayor “Ah’d” in recognition of the said house on the esplanade near the fisherman’s wharf..He then settled back in his large chair.
“What makes you presume you own this property?” he quietly enquired.
This question was so outside of Jessica’s immediate understanding of her family’s ownership legality that she was dumbfounded as to its meaning..she remained silent with her mouth slightly agape.
“I mean, since when has your family last set foot upon this island to attend to the repair or upkeep of costs to both the commune and the house in question”. the Mayor continued.
“It isn’t a matter of how much or when,” Jessica had regained her footing “It is a matter of fact that our family has owned that property for five generations!”
The mayor gave a chuckle..
“Is that all?…five?…”
Jessica was outraged by his nonchalance..
“How bloody many does one need!?” She cried..”..three, four, five..it doesn’t matter how many, that house is still our property!”
The Mayor merely smiled back to Jessica and replied with that secure confidence of a native upon his own homeland and soil..
“Very well then…if it is your property, take it back to Australia with you…go on…pack it into your little bag with your duty-free perfumes and Gucci purses and take the ”bloody” thing back with you!”..the Mayor was himself starting to become excited.
“Don’t be absurd!” Jessica retorted..”It was here when my family lived here and it will stay here with me.”
“Oh…oh…” the Mayor began satirically..”when YOUR family was here…but they have not been here for many a decade..have they!?” he had stood now and was thumping his desk…Jessica stepped back a little, shocked at this sudden change in demeanour.
“No..but that was because they were forced to leave”…
“And who “forced” them to leave?…did my family leave?…and the families you see living here in this town…on this island…..did they leave?”
“…Well, no..I suppose not….but..” Jessica tried to explain..
“And was your family the owners of “the property” that far back they can recall when Cephalonia was part of the Roman province of Achae?” the Mayor making inverted comma signs to emphasise his sarcasm..Jessica could not even interject..” ..or when Cephalonia was captured during the Norman invasion of the Balkans in 1185?…or when the mythological Cephalus helped Amphitryon of Mycenae in a war against the Taphians and Teleboans?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Jessica interjected..”I have no idea who or what you are talking about…and I don’t care…I just want you to return our family home to us immediately..as is out right!”
“Your right….YOU are RIGHT…you don’t know…you don’t know your own island’s history, its mythology, people and its laws…in that quarter, you are SO wrong…the house was forfeited to the commune for neglect of both maintenance and rates..it was forfeited to the commune which in turn offered it for sale to recoup losses and I purchased it according to law and I restored it to a liveable condition, according to law and my ownership…so the house is no longer your family’s…it is mine..and now I am a busy man so I will say good day to you, Miss and wish you a pleasant stay on the island…” …and here the Mayor suddenly brightened up..he went to a drawer in his desk and extracted a key…he held it up with flamboyant gesture to Jessica…”Here is the front door key to that house that once was your family’s but now is mine…I let you stay there for the duration of your visit to show there are no hard feelings between us two..” and he came from behind the desk and pressed the key into Jessica’s hand….
In coming around the desk, Jessica could suddenly see that the Mayor had a limp..and looking to his feet, she could see one shoe had a much thicker sole than the other..
“One leg shorter than the other..he’s a gimp”..she disparagingly noted…” ..a chip on his shoulder”.. Jessica considered throwing the key to the floor in anger, but her calculating mind held her temper in and she clasped the key in her hand and without so much as a thank you or a goodbye, she stormed out of the office.
Jessica’s attitude and sense of entitlement came from growing up in a wealthy middle-class environment..true, her grandparents came to Melbourne with little more than the clothes on their backs..but with all the desperate ambition and drive necessary to take opportunity when it came their way and with enormous effort and hard work, they built a moderately wealthy lifestyle for themselves and their family…an “upwardly mobile” marriage of Jessica’s father into an established middle-class family gave that family the necessary contacts and where-with-all to speculate in property investments which was very successful in an era where massive migration demanded a massive expansion in building and commerce…Jessica grew up in want of nothing, attended the best private schools and graduated from a sandstone university with honours in business studies…she drove around in a red, sporty car, dressed in the height of fashion for her age group and attended social parties and lived the ”sporting life” of a young person without a care or responsibility in the world.
Jessica was an attractive, presumptuous, vain, entitled, young woman.
So Jessica wouldn’t take this loss lying down. After numerous phone calls to her parents and acting on their advice, she sought legal representation and had an injunction drawn up against the Mayor which she delivered personally with prompt and pompous performance to himself as soon as it came through.
Of course, in true Mediterranean nation’s fashion, such legal matters take time to work through the systems, so Jessica envisioned being“in situ” on the island for several months while this matter was sorted out..This gave the Mayor the opportunity to study his adversary in close quarters and it was after allowing a “cooling-off” period of a month or so that he decided to make his approach to Jessica.
It has to be mentioned at this juncture that the Mayor..Signor Stavros Antonis, to use his name, was a bachelor of fifty seven years, childless with no remaining relatives alive to give him support or comforts..He was a stylish dressed man of moderate weight that reflected his success and status…Stavros was well aware of his position in the community and valued his reputation therein..so it was with cautious anticipation that he one day approached Jessica at a table at an al-fresco café to make his pitch.
“May I?” he inquired to Jessica..who hadn’t noticed his approach, being too engrossed in punching with delicate manicured nail a message onto her mobile phone..she looked up and frowned.. “Please”..the Mayor opened his arms..Jessica relented and pouted her acquiescent displeasure.
“As you can see,” began the Mayor after settling himself at the table..”these legal journeys here can take much time….and money…” there was no response from Jessica..the Mayor continued..”of course, even while such matters proceed before the courts, the litigants can meet and ..perhaps come to some sort of arrangement mutually satisfactory to both parties.”…Jessica, on hearing these conciliatory words lifted her sun-glasses to the top of her hair and looked squarely at the mayor.
“Go on..” she prompted.
“I am in a position to offer you a very favourable settlement proposal for this entire situation…I am also in the position of needing help to resolve a unresolvable problem for myself.”…Jessica was by now intrigued..and the word “favourable” did interest her most keenly..”As you have probably heard around the usual gossip pools here on the island, I am a single man, in a good job, with a certain status of wealth and property…but also with neither kith nor kin to inherit my life’s work.”
Jessica leant onto the table and with her face supported in both hands smiled at the mayor..
“And?” she simply said..
“Well, my proposal is this…put simply…I want a son…” Jessica immediately sat bolt upright and whipped her sunglasses off her head..
“You what!..” she said aghast..joining dots faster than a printer’s press “ ..surely you don’t think…expect…” she didn’t finish saying what she wanted to say as the Mayor hushed her with his hands in a pressing down motion and shushing sound with his lips…
“You are not giving me a chance to finish..listen..I am not asking for your hand in marriage…heaven forbid..but I am in a fix..I cannot in all conscience to myself marry a woman on the island as I am already too well known as “the cripple”..consequently, there is no woman of respectable standing suitable to my station who would want to marry me, for here, in my world, the affliction carries on into the social status of the person carrying such an affliction.…and I cannot have a child with just any woman here as the families are so intertwined any inheritance I left the child would be fought over and dispersed till there was little left to show for my efforts these last forty years…but you…with your exiled family have no remaining connections to the island save that one property..You are young, obviously healthy and I could secure your financial future with the signing over of that house and perhaps more property if you could deliver to me a son from my bloodline.”
The Mayor, having made his proposal sat back to await Jessica’s response.
It didn’t take long..
Jessica threw the remains of her daquiri over him and stormed away.
By the same time the following week, Jessica was back in Melbourne extolling her outrage at being even considered in such a proposal by that…that “old, crippled gimp!”…
Back on the island of Cephalonia, the Mayor was drawing up his proposal to Jessica in a water-tight contract that he proposed to send…NOT to Jessica..but to her parents…for Sig. Stavros Antonis was very aware of the value of what he had to offer to the family of Jessica…a family well informed and well endowed with the same consciousness of kind appreciation of their universal middle-class values…for both lived by the adage ; “Every dollar has a value and every thing of value has a buyer”…Being the Mayor of a local administration gave Stavros insight into the machinations of petty greed of your average aspirant..He was not mistaken as to this insight as far as Jessica’s family was concerned…and after the failure of legal contesting of the ownership of the family house on the esplanade of the town on the island, the options open to the Andropolous family had shrunk to absolute zero.
So the hefty envelope from Cephalonia, with covering letter and contract enclosed arrived with a degree of surprise one Friday morning at the Andropolous household…Jessica’s mother, Elena opened the package and proceeded to read the contents of the covering letter…she had read the first page and then called for her husband to come quickly and read this.
Such attractive proposals put forward by the Mayor in the contract made the parents of Jessica draw breath, for along with an amount of “liquid asset” ie ; money, there was proposed to bequeath upon the passing of the Mayor half a dozen properties well located upon the Island…several of substantial size and status…The parents of Elena were well familiar with the value of such properties on such a Greek island…the holiday rental renumeration alone would be sufficient for a person keen on the indolent lifestyle to retire on and not work another day in their lives.
It was with a certain amount of suppressed anticipation that they approached Jessica with an opinion of sensible evaluation of the Mayor’s proposal, reasoning that their now aging daughter, with no marriage prospects on the horizon, nor any apparent intention of settling down from a frivolous social life of partying and casual relationships that embraced and disposed of boyfriends with such abandon, would look upon such financial security as an opportunity of securing her future with little more effort than what she already applied to her already frenzied lifestyle…after all, did they not inculcate in her as she grew, the core ingredient of her permitted social life pivoted on the value of money and collateral..if she didn’t understand this basic truth of their class, then all their own and that expensive private school education was a waste.
After Jessica roundly rejected the proposal, her parents reflected that indeed it looked like their efforts and her schooling was a waste.
Two weeks had passed since the Mayor’s hefty proposition had come and been soundly rejected by Jessica in spite of her parents coaxing to at least consider the proposal on the merit of the property offered as compensation…Two weeks since Elena had read of the generous offer of the Mayor if he could but have a healthy son delivered from their daughter via artificial insemination…He would leave it to the parents to perhaps persuade Jessica of the advantage of the offer.
After the initial refusal and outraged rebuttal of Mayor Antonis’ “offensive” offer, Elena had stopped her husband following Jessica out of the room with a firm grip on his arm and whispered quietly for him to “Leave this to me, I will talk to her mother to daughter…woman to woman.”..and she patted her husband’s arm and went to cook the dinner.
It was two weeks gone now and Elena had not mentioned the proposal…but she had been giving it much thought…very much thought..
“Jessica!” Elena called from her walk in wardrobe of the master bedroom as she saw Jessica walk past in the reflection of her mirror..”Could you come here for a minute please?” Jessica was still suspicious of her parents attitude, but she was softened now after the two week interlude. Jessica entered the spacious room to see her mother seated at her dressing table looking over her shoulder in the mirror..” Could you help me clip this necklace on please..the clip is so tiny and my old hands are a bit stiff.” Jessica deftly clipped the necklace on and straightened it around her mother’s shoulders..her mother gazed softly at the reflection in the mirror of a dazzling necklace of half a dozen medium sized emeralds set in platinum with a surround of fine, small diamonds set in small teardrops held by platinum clips…the cut stones glistened and sparkled from the surround of small lights on the make-up dresser mirror…
Elena sighed..
“Such beautiful stones!…I always feel as precious as the emeralds when I wear them..”
“Why are you wearing them in the middle of the day?” Jessica asked “Are you and dad going out tonight?”
“Oh..no..” Elena sighed and gazed at her reflection and flicked the fringe of her hair “I just sometimes like to come here and open my jewell box and try some of my jewellery on…it takes me back to when I was so much younger…as young as you, my darling.” And Elena opened a small velveteen side panel in the large jewellery box to reveal matching emerald and diamond earings..these she placed carefully on the open lid of the box…the whole of which was covered with soft, red, chamois leather..”They are beautiful aren’t they Jessica?..” Jessica was silent but totally enthralled by the shimmering jewels in her mother’s jewellery box..a sight that Elena was cunningly savvy of..Elena shifted a cluster of soft, glowing pearls from covering a small engraved silver plate on the inside of the box lid..she stroked that word and spoke it out to Jessica…
“ ‘Gethsemane’*…I had that name printed on the lid as I like to think this as my garden…my garden of jewels where I come to adore..not a garden of sorrow, but rather a garden of worldly delight.” Elena turned to Jessica and in a light encouraging tone said.. “Come, sit here in the chair and I will try this necklace on you..I do believe it will look delightful against your young skin!”
There was little resistance from Jessica to the suggestion, and as she sat in the chair, Elena unclipped the emerald necklace from her own self and placed it around the more delicate neck of her daughter..she had no trouble now with the tiny clip..and indeed, those sparkling jewells literally danced and spun with light in the eyes of Jessica…
“Look at that!” Elena praised..”Just so beautiful…but here..let us put the earings on as well..” and with the clipping of those earrings to match the necklace, a picture of feminine beauty was complete..Elena rubbed the shoulders of Jessica gently ..”I knew it…they suit you to the core…you know, Jessica this necklace is my favourite and most valued jewel…”
Jessica touched and fondled the valuable gems and in admiring her reflection in the mirror, she then quietly admonished her mother..
“This is about the Mayor’s proposal, isn’t it?”…Elena was taken aback by her daughters astuteness, but not really surprised, as a matter of fact, it pleased her..after all, the fruit, she noted, doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“In a way, yes..”Elena agreed. “ I wanted to show you the true value of a secure life”.
“But I don’t want children, I don’t want marriage…ever..”
“And you don’t have to have marriage…and you don’t have to have more than one child..but to have a child that will secure your financial future into old age is something to at least consider..after all, a single mother these days is no stigma at all..it can even be an advantage to a woman as it secures you an undeniable status in the community and with the financial security that comes with it, you are relieved of the tiresome burden of a husband.”
“ But he is so much older and a gimp!”
“The shorter leg is from a motor-cycle accident in his youth, so it will not affect the child.”
“What child?…I haven’t even considered his proposition.”
“Jessica..I was just twenty years old when I had our first child..three by the time I was your age..you are nearing thirty and have none at all and by all appearances look like not having any in the near future…are you expecting to live as a spinster with us the rest of your life?..like a fixture on the wall gathering dust and slowly losing your good looks until there is only the mascara and foundation creams left for you to make yourself pretty?..like one of those old and wrinkled Aunts who after all ironically end up baby-sitting such children of their relatives they themselves never had..” Jessica remained silent..Elena’s voice took on a sterner tone..” Look at me, Jessica..I am growing old..my skin is soft and flabby..it takes me over an hour to “decorate my face” so I feel glamorous enough to wear those jewells you have on..You have the natural beauty of your young years..use them while you have them..secure your future and you can rejoice without worry in many more long years of beauty.”
This argument from Jessica’s mother was but a part of the debate for and against raging inside Jessica’s own head..she could see the reasoning and profit behind the logic, but to actually commit the action of having a child by that man made her sorrowful and filled her with dismay..She turned to her mother and spoke.
“I know how this will be a comfort to you and dad..to see me secure and to retain the property on the island..and in truth…I am not adverse to having a child..but then to have to raise it and look after it…..oh mum…if I must do this then I will for your will..but if there is some other way I could pass on it, I also would like to..” tears welled in Jessica’s eyes..Elena cuddled her shoulders..
“Oh Jessica..I would never press you to do something you didn’t want to do yourself..This decision must be made by yourself…but I can reassure you the raising of a child, any child, is a whole family affair and this family is solid and all-embracing…so if you do decide to have the child, we will be at your side to raise it, feed it, dress it, and school it..”
Again Jessica repeated her sorrow and dismay and again pleaded with her mother that if there were any other way she would like to take it…but if that was the best for herself and the family, then she would bow to her fate.
“How many properties is he giving for the child?” Jessica asked.
“A half dozen…at the moment” Elena answered..” But with some negotiation, I think we could lift it to a dozen..”
“ A dozen properties on Cephalonia!” Jessica replied amazed “ That would be worth a fortune!”
“And who else is he going to leave them to…he has no-one else..and the gift of a son would be as a gift from God in his eyes.”
“Do you think he will sign over more property, mum?”
“With a bit of persuasion, yes…I believe he will…always remember, Jessica, there is infinitely more hunger in the buyer than in the seller..”
“Well, at least I won’t have to sleep with him…we can use artificial insemination”..
Here Elena went quiet and took up a position sitting opposite her daughter..she placed both her hands on her knees and started to speak..
“We…your father and I, have ascertained that Signor Antonis has around two dozen properties on Cephalonia, in several towns and villages…if you play your cards right, my dear, you may be able to secure his signature for all of those properties..”…Jessica’s eyes widened.
“ And how am I to do that!?” she exclaimed.. Here again Elena leaned in closer to her daughter..
“Jessica, you are enough of a woman and experienced as a woman to know that men will yield all their senses to lay with a woman…and if the woman is clever enough, she will tend his desires like one tends flowers in a garden…for with men, once the flesh is so fierce…so willing for the woman..then the mind of the man is weak….then you make your judgements”…Elena continued on a line she had thought out so many days before..
“We will book you a room in a fashionable hotel in Athens..nice but not too expensive or the Mayor will think you wasteful. You invite Signor Antonis there to discuss the means and the clinic of choice of pregnancy… and you will have dinner there with him.. and there in your space, in your time and conditions, you will, after some wine and conversation, offer him an alternative to artificial insemination…much less expensive and more immediate and so much more enjoyable..A natural method of insemination over a period of time sufficient to when pregnancy is obtained..and when he is most agreeable to your sight, mood and capacity, then you can up the ante on the proposal “with the condition of…” trust me.. he will not refuse one so beautiful as you, Jessica …don’t forget, he is the one in need..here, I give you this necklace and earrings as a gift to wear on the occasion…they are better suited to a young neck…yours is beautiful..mine now has wrinkles.”
Jessica stroked the precious jewels and smiled her pretty smile into the mirror…Elena also smiled and stroked the shoulders of her daughter..
“Yes..You are right, mum..they do look beautiful on me.”
Six months later, after serious negotiations concerning the naming of the child..Stavros’ father’s name first then the choice of Jessica’s with a hyphened surname…this time Jessica’s family name first…and the prospectus was signed and delivered to both parties…
There was but one detail left in regards as to just how many properties were to be secured in the exchange…the signed contract listed a dozen…but a one-word SMS from Jessica, from an exclusive hotel in Athens the day after an arranged meeting between Signor Stavros Antonis and Jessica, was received by Jessica’s mother , Elena, while at her dinner with her husband and her sister and their family…the SMS said a one word code previously arranged between mother and daughter…
“Done.”
Footnote * :
Gethsemane
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a Garden called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
The private love affairs of Mildred Scrygmore.
Mildred was born with an odd shaped body, THAT was the starting point of her life’s dilemma…sort of like a cube with arms and legs sticking out of it…also, of course, a head…and while the body held little attraction, her head, ie ; face, hair and shape was quite attractive…one of nature’s ways perhaps, of mocking a person’s chances of ever holding down a love affair on the strength of appearance alone.
As indeed was the case as Mildred grew from child to adult…Having survived the torture of childhood school teasing with mocking nicknames like ; “The Cube” (shortened, as students do from “the cube squared”) and various personal slights, she sought to obtain trade skills to allow her to live an independent life away from either relationship and poverty. Mildred trained to become a hairdresser..a skill she triumphed at and a way of life that allowed her to work and eventually buy premises of her own..It was in this salon that catered for both women and men that Mildred established the confidence of an independent woman..even..after some number of years in the trade, being able to employ another hairdresser to assist in a growing clientele.
Neither the language of love nor the physical contact of such entered Mildred’s life in all the years of growing and maturing into middle-age, save a couple of rather fractious, failed affairs that ended sadly..not badly, as they were too tragic in both male compatibility and consideration..but sadly…The fact that also being an only child, lent the obligation of caring for her aged parents when the time came for their needing to be housed in a unit at a care complex…Mildred occupied the other bedroom in the unit and commuted to her salon from that address for many years until her mother passed away and her father was left in her care with his several health problems until he too did pass on..so neither social life nor love-life was a serious consideration.
In this period of enforced duties, Mildred’s salon grew in clientele and she prospered so that Mildred herself could cut back on her clients and refer some that she was not so enamoured with to the hired employee hairdressers…In this manner, Mildred was left with those…mostly men… whom she liked to touch and to handle their hair and even could flirt with in that harmless hairdresser to client way, the conversations flowing in a jocular way from the weather to the cost of cocktails in the local hotel..in this manner, Mildred honed her client base down to a selected number of men whose ages varied from their twenties to a more genteel sixties and even one man in his early seventies..Josef..of Slavic nationality..who held a warm place in her heart for the candid but soft flattery he spoke to her about a respect for her professionalism and his concern for her health…a subject most pressing on Josef’s own mind as he advanced down the path of aging.
It was after a trip and fall on the footpath outside the salon one day, that resulted in a broken wrist and six months recuperation from the required activities of her trade, that Mildred first conceived of the idea of using her male clients as “captive”, close contact stimuli for erotic sensations..an idea grown from a resentment of her enforced loneliness and the perceived future prospects of any love affair actually happening..Mildred contemplated the dangers of discovery if caught in the action of such desire…but remembering the training back in her apprenticeship days of how to avoid “the touching male” customer and how some men would use the closeness of the hairdresser to surreptitiously press an elbow or forearm against the body of the woman attending to their hair..the training went to great length to train the female hairdressers on how to position themselves so as to avoid the situation of such harassment ever arising…body positions were practiced when in close to trim eyebrow or moustache…or when holding the head back to check symmetry of the beard cut..such training allowed Mildred to contemplate body positions to allow her to move into the personal space of the male customers without their being aware of her manoeuvring..after all, the hairdresser was one of only a few people permitted by the person themselves to touch and caress without protest or complaint those most sensitive parts of the head and face..yes…it was time for Mildred to take some lovers of her own choosing.
The selection of Mildred’s ‘lovers” was done with great care..after all, was this not to be HER choice for Her pleasure at Her convenience?…So after judicious consideration of a choice between seven or eight regular male customers, Mildred honed the number down to three..three carefully chosen lovers that she would manipulate to gain erotic satisfaction from in the most subtle means.
Mildred chose Janus, a cheerful hipster of dubious actual qualification but effervescent enthusiast who made his living contributing to the “Gig Economy”..a living not actually of any particular use or productivity, but allowed him time and space to pursue his social adventures with on-line dating which were in truth, his primary raison de’ terre for existing. Mildred’s choice of this particular young man gave her the pleasure of “using” him unwittingly to satisfy her own hedonistic pleasure..a cruel yet just reward.
Janus had the virile energy of a young man in his mid-twenties..he was full to the gills of chat-up and enthusiasm for what he saw as a bright and promising future in his chosen employment of on-selling sports apparel via an online outlet that had its own web address which he called his “virtual department store”..He complemented this career with enthusiastic attendance to a local gym to..as he proudly showed to Mildred..develope his “abs” and “biceps”…even encouraging Mildred to give those biceps a squeeze of appreciation..which she did with raised eyebrows and affected enthusiasm…so quite often, coming to the salon from a “workout” and shower at the gym, he would have fine beads of perspiration on his forehead as he sat in Mildred’s barber chair and instructed her on what he thought his haircut should finish as.
Mildred trimmed his eyebrows to suit his vanity and there, noticing the film of perspiration on his brow, she spoke to him in a gentle but commanding tone..
“Just tilt your head back a shade so I can check if I got your eyebrows equal “… Janus of course obliged and allowed Mildred to take his head in both her hands and bring it back to rest on her breasts..quite un-noticeably to Janus, who could never perceive that a woman of Mildred’s age or stature would use him as a sexual object..
Mildred, with his head sitting on the soft cushion of her bosom, proceeded, under the guise of straightening Janus’s eyebrows, to stroke with her index fingers both eyebrows as if to straighten the hair, when in fact, she was gathering on her finger tips a film of perspiration from his brow…having achieved her intention after several strokes, Mildred straightened up Janus’s head and reassured him of the balanced look of his eyebrows..and while the vanity of the young man bade him examine his face closely in the mirror, Mildred turned her back to attend to her trolley of instruments and products there and in this action, she placed her index fingers one at a time in her mouth to suck off the film of sweat onto her tongue that she had gathered from the young man’s brow..she licked her lips upon extracting her fingers so as to savour the taste of Janus’s salty sweat..she then contemplated to herself whether his semen would have a similar salty taste..a subliminal thrill of desire warmed her body at the thought of vigorously fellating Janus, to then have him ejaculate into her mouth..
This fantasy was of no discomfort nor was it disconcerting to Mildred, for it was just that..a fantasy that had no possibility of happening nor any repercussions to either disgust her, Janus or anyone else on the planet, and having long ago come to such comforting conclusion, Mildred allowed the most extreme and outrageous fantasies to cogitate through her thoughts as she daydreamed at work on those men in her salon or while laying comfortable in her warm bed at any hour of the night…her world of erotic desire was her own to think or feel as she pleased.
The second male on the list was a man of approximately the same age as Mildred, if not several years older..an engineer by profession, very meticulous in habit and sartorial dress..his regular visits to the hairdresser coincided with his regular appointments in the city with allied professional persons..Mildred chose him for the comfortable security he radiated from his person, also the exacting certainty of his opinions on many subjects reminded her of her father when she was a younger woman..so Mildred would pay close attendance on his demands for the haircut he preferred..and in turn, Eric…for that was his name..would trust Mildred most emphatically to attend to that exact fastidiousness..so much so that he could sometimes be observed with eyes closed to be in a kind of dozing trance as she moved her fingers about his scalp..a pleasure attended to and taken advantage of with more than passing enthusiasm by Mildred.
For Mildred, this was a different level of erotica..not so much as blatantly sexual, as was her thoughts with Janus, but on a differing pitch..with Eric, it was more of a personal touch / feel thing, his person being of such similarity to her father, she deigned to feel a sexual desire rather than a comforting reassurance via just running her fingers through his hair and over his cranial skin..and it was through this touching, that Mildred felt such a warm inner glow that allowed..nay…PERMITTED her to fantasise about the male body in general..and with Eric present and in total acceptance of Mildred’s handling of his person, she felt a command of her passions that in the time of her father’s actual living, she rarely had..his presence in either person or personality dictating, if not actual discipline, then a subliminal control of obedience to his own generation’s moral behaviour..now here, in her own studio, with her father now actually deceased but with this living effigy in HER control in HER chair and in such a situation to be impotent himself in a controlling sense, she could command his attention and yet still retain her own psychologically comforting sexuality toward men. In this manner, Mildred had finally overpowered the dominating influence of her father.
“ I have a meeting this week with the minister for transport” Eric spoke “there is opportunity for my company to bid for several overpass bridges for the new East – West bypass..so I am counting on presenting my best physical appearance to the authority…I trust I can count on you, Mildred to do me well..”
“ Well, Eric, “ was Mildred’s syrupy reply “ I can only say that knowing your style of cut so well by now, I will do my best…now you just relax here in the chair…yes..you can close your eyes and I will attend to you as best is possible.” And she finished with the laying of her hand familiarly on his shoulder in a reassurance much as she used to do when attending to her father as he sat invalided in his lounge chair while she saw to his comforts in the last years of his life under her care.
It was in the touching care of her father, that Mildred became so aware of the different textures of the skin of a person..from the neck to the actual torso, she noted the differentiation of texture, softness and sensitivity of tissue to touch..Mildred extrapolated this knowledge with experimentation on her clients..that is, where to touch on the head or neck…even the ears..to get a certain response, how to manipulate a flinch or reaction with just a stroke or gentle touch here or there…such knowledge gave Mildred the power to generate a more accurate and scintillating control over the men in her chair.
Eric grunted a pleasing affirmation and settled back in the salon chair..let Mildred tuck in a tissue around his neck with her usual tender touch and with her fingers in one deft stroking sweep around and up his neck, closed his eyes and let her get on with her job.
Mildred gazed at the reflection of Eric in the mirror with his closed eyes and she smiled a comforting smile to herself as she sprayed a hushing mist of water over his hair while she Welsh-combed it through tenderly with the fingers of her right hand..she was now in charge.
The third man was a more risky proposition..Josef..a retired cabinetmaker of senior years, but with a thick head of hair that perfectly resembled what could be described as Slovakian genius gone mad!..Josef would telephone the salon in no fixed timetable and in a panic beg a place in Mildred’s busy schedule so as..as he says : “Rid myself of this incessant growth that is intent on consuming my entire head!”..he was funny, chatty in a rather subversive way and his voluminous, wavy hair and beard, gave Mildred plenty of time to “work her magic” on his person..Josef was Mildred’s favourite by a long way…and though he was aged quite a few years above Mildred, she could ascertain that his body, through many years of physical labour, had retained a manly physique that was still firm to her touch..indeed, when the haircut and beard trim was finished, the resulting change of appearance from “wild man of Borneo” to handsome silver-hair gentleman was remarked upon as both extraordinary and rather pleasing by any other women there in the salon on the day..and so it was with him that Mildred was most provocative in her erotic touching, leaning in on his person in such a way so as to rub her lower body against his extended elbow under the hairdressing cape..or she would press her breasts against his shoulders and the back of his head as she pulled his head back to trim his voluptious beard..Josef allowed these close contact intrusions by Mildred because..as Mildred herself figured, he was of such an age that he not only would let her be so familiar with his person, but quite correctly, he being now alone in the world, would welcome her chatty, touchy – feely attendance to his person.
This apparently satisfactory arrangement went on for quite some time, even several years as Josef was only in the habit of having a haircut every three or four months in the year..but then one day, as Mildred was trimming the moustache of his beard, and in doing so was pressing her pelvic Mons Venus a bit too sensuously against his protruding elbow under the hairdressing cape, Josef turned his gaze onto Mildred’s eyes, and in gazing back into her all consuming stare into his own eyes..as she was wont to do as part of her sensuous consumption of his person, he very quietly and softly said..
“Mildred” (while others were in the habit of shortening Mildred’s name to “Millie”, Josef always addressed Mildred with her full name) ”..you are pressing your pussy very firmly onto my arm..is there something you wish to tell me?” and he held her gaze in fixed stare into his own eyes. Mildred froze at the shock of being found out..even apparently so obviously found out..and was about to plead innocence, when Josef moved his other arm from the side of the cape and brought a finger to her lips to silence her.
“ You are a very professional worker” he started in hushed tones so as not to draw the attention of the other hairdresser in the salon..who, fortunately was a loud chattering woman who barely stopped for breath in her talking.. “ I have been aware for several years of your..attentions to my person while I sit here in a state of a “captured quarry”..and if I might quickly reassure you..a most welcome diversion for myself in your attentions. But I have to wonder to myself that here is a very professional woman who must be very aware of protecting her body from close contact with the men she attends to in her salon..after all, such contact could draw unwanted advances from some ..certain types..” Josef paused in his confiding whispers and held Mildred’s gaze intently… he continued while Mildred maintained her posture of appearing to trim his beard, the battery trimmer humming a noisy overture to his words..” so I have to ask myself..is this action of Mildred pressing her soft pussy against my arm a deliberate act that satisfies her own desires…and I have to confess to myself that yes, I am convinced that it is so…am I correct?”…Mildred returned her deep stare into his eyes and without saying a word, nodded ever so gently…Josef returned her nod and gave Mildred a slow wink, then gestured for her to put her ear close to his lips so he could whisper to her..
“Go out to the back room, remove your underwear and undo the one button there in front of your pussy..then return to the other side of me..and we will move to please us both…” and Josef’s eyes and Mildred’s eyes remained locked together in deep concentration.
All this secrecy was done under the shield of noise from the battery trimmer held in Mildred’s hand..
Mildred paused at this request from Josef…she paused and thought a moment, for here was the crossing of a line…an action that would have continuous consequences once she committed herself to Josef’s desires….but then she suddenly realised..was this not her ultimate desire also..to be quietly and secretly seduced, in her salon, secretly in front of her employee and customers by this “anonymous client lover”..for however much she knew Josef, he still would remain strictly as a client while in her salon..
Mildred stopped the noisy trimmer, placed it slowly and carefully with the others in her utility tray and with a whimsical smile to Josef, went out the back of the salon and did as instructed
Cruel Madonna.
It was a month now since he had first gone to her, and his perceptions of her had shifted from that initial phase of blind adoration to a more abstract collation of her little mannerisms.
Malcolm was twenty-seven years old, an illustrator-painter who, like most artistic types that arise from the ranks of the working class, made his living from menial labour: Malcolm worked in a shop selling pizzas! His illustrations were sometimes commissioned by obscure magazines and he also sketched houses for real-estate agents’ catalogues. He never associated with any ‘artistic’ set, in fact he winced at the pretentious grouping of that elite class. Instead, he spent his spare time nurturing the skills for his temperamental dedication to his craft that helped him to produce, for his own needs, a creditable portfolio of water-colours, sketches and pastels which he kept in a room of his small flat at The Bay. Now it was high summer, the acres of beach thrilled to the delightful squeals of childish glee and the shoreline oozed that faintly sulfurous tang of heated sea-water that flares the nostrils and excites the brain! Like a beacon to the idle and dispossessed it lured youth to that sandy expanse, the gentle lapping of waves playing a sweet tune to the laughter and cries of a delightful seraglio!
Malcolm stood under the kiosk verandah. He had come to buy drinks and an ice-cream for themselves and her children. He paused under the shade of that portico and gazed out with his artist’s eye over the road to the sea. All was opposites; black to white, sand to bitumen, light to shadow, silhouette to glare, diamond to iron. The shadow of the verandah cut a sharp, precise line edge to the bitumen footpath. The sun was at its zenith, there was no blurring of shadow to light, just a clear-cut concise line to demark one from the other.
He grimaced as he stepped bare-footed out onto the waxy bitumen, then juggling drink and ice-creams, danced with a fire-walker’s jerky step as he tiptoed swiftly but painfully across the scorching road. With each placing of his foot the hot road ‘bit’ and the sun seared down onto his sea-salt dried skin so it raked across his shoulders like a harridan’s claw! But oh! that lovely sea air and the cries of happy children, a gull banked spread-winged against the azure sea; a collage : a fixed image in his mind – another time will recall…Pausing momentarily under the shady boughs of a small tree on the edge of the path to the beach, he gazed hungrily at the long white of sand sweeping north to The Bay with the ‘stretched’ optical illusion of the seashore and esplanade buildings all a-wobble in the rising waves of heated air. He inhaled ecstatically…
a sigh!…
“Sometimes (he reflected for the words) …there is too much of nature and not enough of human,” he sighed.
“Malcolm,” she called…
He turned and went down the path to the expectant faces crowded under the beige ‘moana’ beach-shade. As he came close to her, she turned her gaze upon him, stunned, he stopped for a moment to admire her flawed beauty, flawed, for a small scar penciled over her left eye from a motor accident in her youth, but still so beautiful for her obvious Irish features and that calm patience that seemed to weigh down on motherhood as an accepted fate.
Malcolm stared at her for that moment and a thought arose in his mind:
“I’ll have to paint a portrait of her” …he decided all of a sudden… “a portrait of a Madonna!”
That evening he broached the subject of his painting a portrait of her.
“Uh huh,” …she responded calmly… “with or without any clothes on?…and will there be any paint on the brush?” she finished with a wry smile.
“With clothes on, of course!” he answered defensively, “…and what do you mean by ‘paint on the brush?’ ”
She smirked cheekily..with worldly knowledge of men more sophisticated than she let on.
“Oh, you would read of those men that were always looking for “photographic models” but there was never any film in the camera!” ..and she tossed her blonde tresses back carelessly and laughed and her eyes sparkled for that worldly absurdity and naivety of men’s hunger for the female nude.
Her laughter awoke insight in Malcolm just at that moment ( for isn’t it always only given in fleeting moments? ;…a spice scent on a zephyr sent…a stranger’s eyes reflected upon a window pane in passing….should one stop? wasn’t that….? no, moment gone!) and he realised that encompassed within that feminine physiognomy of beauty are all the genetic instructions for confounding the male of the species; all the wilyness of thousands of years of the socially bludgeoned “faithful servant,” against which the male has but one advantage : physical strength, brute strength and in degrees does a man grow weaker and more feeble, in the same measure must women lose their youthful allure..yet their character grow stronger..the man cannot win, must not win!
For the next few weeks he worked at the portrait, the portrait he had fixed in his mind from that afternoon at the beach. Sometimes he would paint from memory of her; at other times she would model, draped with a silken cloth so he could capture light and shade within the folds of the cloth as it curved over her shoulders.
It was at these sittings she would tease him, not taking seriously that desire of artistic creation sought by Malcolm; the artist, but already unknowingly possessed by herself ; the woman.
“Some native tribes would refuse photographs to be taken of themselves as they feared it was stealing their spirit…” she coyly said… “Are you trying to steal mine?” she smiled.
“Don’t smile and don’t joke,” he commanded…”Madonna’s are too sacred to be flippant” and he bent close to the canvas to touch a little paint. She took this moment of his lack of attention to re-adjust, stealthily, the soft cloth draped over her breasts so that between the folds gentle, one erect pink nipple and a blush of oriole protruded proudly, she settled back poker faced and waited….he looked up again, palette aslant, brush poised…his brow knitted but for a moment at something different about her pose…then he saw…her left eyebrow rose ever so slightly, ever so slowly….he placed the brush and palette on the table and turned to her.
“That’ll be enough art for today,” he spoke quietly.
Her hand reached out and lifted a long stemmed rose off the side table. He sat close to her. Her hands cupped and cradled the pale, pink rose, its long stem lay across her garment, she lifted it gently to inhale its scent, his fingers softly flowed through her voluminous hair. A petal fell silently onto the folds of soft cloth; his eyes followed its descent, one eyebrow arched:
“Of jealousy….despair?” he teased.
Her lips formed into a confident smile:
“And why not?” she toyed.
” ‘Tis woman’s privilege…” he answered gently, she settled back into the soft pillows on the couch.
“And man’s pleasure?” she coaxed.
“Ah!…” and he bent down to kiss her, at the same time taking the rose from her hand and dropping it onto the floor, as it touched the tiles, some petals fell off exposing the rich , rosy heart of the bud inside…
The finished portrait bothered him, it was all there but it was dead, flat, strictly two-dimensional and if one thing killed the portrait it was the eyes…the eyes, the eyes…try as he might, he was unable to excite in that Madonna the life needed to complete the picture. He made visits to the art gallery to study portraits of past masters, but to no avail, he looked over prints of other Madonna’s by Da Vinci, Titian, Raffael…. They had captured that serene beauty, that silent power of the patient pose. What was their twist!? Were the skills of those past ages so much greater than now? Was his talent that much inferior that given the same subject, same material, where they produced gold he could only master clay? Was it a greater affiliation with the artistic psyche, something which modern man has traded away along with so many other emotions?
Malcolm stood awed before these other portraits, just so much history now, yet greater than our own feeble posturing at art, he flung the prints to the floor, bitter and frustrated at his own failings.
“What is art now,” he asked himself…” but a whore modern man satiates himself upon when he tires of the fight….” he pursed his lip thickly, sulkily then spoke again. “Sometimes we admire it….sometimes we are it,” and he threw himself down on the couch and stared fixedly at the portrait of his Madonna.
After dinner that night they sat talking to each other at the kitchen table, small talk of minor events of the day. The children played in and out of the kitchen, they played chasing games, dressing games and guessing games, they played continuously and as Malcolm talked he worked combination after combination of eyes over and over in his mind and applied them mentally to the portrait much as a police officer would do with an ‘Identikit’ portrait. He started pondering on a line of thought in his conscious mind.
“Could it possibly be that modern woman defies depiction in that once seemingly ageless style of motherhood?” he mused. “For here is a ‘single mother’ with three children, would the pressures of money, food, clothing, housing and then our relationship place such a heavy burden on her life as to extinguish all illusions of naive innocence?”
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Oh,” he moved his arm, “of how you manage by yourself, with the kids….then me.”
She gazed at him squarely with deadpan eyes.
“Sometimes you silently scream, sometimes you softly soothe, and then sometimes you go a little mad!”
She turned her head and narrowed her eyes for just at that very moment, the youngest child reached up from behind the chair in playfulness and pulled her long locks of hair. She resisted, he laughed and pulled harder.”Sam,” she spoke threateningly “if you don’t let go at once, you’ll – be – dead – meat!!” and as she spoke these words she turned her face down to him and her eyes narrowed cruelly.
Malcolm gasped as he witnessed this little scene …for there, contrasted against that Irish beauty of face, the long tresses of golden hair and soft mouth were the threatening eyes..; there in an instant, alongside the wily eyes, the loving eyes, the caring eyes, the worrying eyes, the killing eyes…these were the eyes of his woman on the canvas, as changing as a chameleon’s colour, one moment as warm as an autumn sunset, then as cold as polar ice!
These were the eyes of a modern Madonna…a more worldly Madonna….a cruel Madonna!
The porter made his way from seat to seat checking and clicking the tickets of the passengers of the 12.30 pm. train to the southern suburbs..It passed through the flats onto the hills stations to finish at Marino Rocks.
Annette clicked open her purse to extract the return ticket to Brighton from the side pocket there…upon extracting the pink slip of paper, she noticed a similar one still in the pocket..She took this one out as well, examined the date of “ 3 May 1951” and satisfied herself that she handed the current dated one to the porter..
“The sea is nice there at Brighton this time of year.” He spoke as he clicked her ticket.
Annette said nothing in reply, but just nodded her head in agreement…The porter moved on down the aisle between the seats…
“Tickets please. . . “ he repeated.
Annette placed the current validated ticket back into the purse pocket, she gazed at the older ticket and noted the date as of one month previous to today’s date…she silently admonished herself for being so neglectful as to leave the ticket in her purse…She screwed the ticket up and dropped it to the floor of the carriage. Upon closing her purse, she caught a glimpse of the newspaper clipping she had cut from the day’s paper miscellaneous column..Annette knew the wording by heart, but she kept the cutting as a sense of reassurance of the appointment she had arranged.
Annette ran through the message again in her mind..:
“Letter OK, sweet..meet at B..first date mentioned in letter..If anything happens ask for letter at B….Blue eyes.”
She secured the catch on her purse and placed it in her lap and turning her face to the filmy window of the carriage, she saw the reflection of a young, but not so young now woman, with wavy brown hair above a pale, powered face with, she hoped, a not too dark a shade of lipstick on a pair of pert lips..There was a furrow of concern on the brow and the eyes looked wary.
She turned her head away quickly as if she had seen something she would rather not think about and proceeded to turn the plain, gold wedding ring on her finger.
“ It’s not unusual” Doctor Short had said..”Young married couples do sometimes take a while to conceive..I’d give it some more time and just let nature take its course…perhaps a quiet evening or two at home with a favourite record on and a glass of sherry…..or two..” and Dr. Short smiled his warming, ‘confidence giving’ smile…Annette just nodded in agreement and said that her husband preferred beer.
But it had now been three years and still no change.
The short , terse discussions Annette had with her husband on the possibility of one of them being infertile always ended in her being reassured that HIS side of the family never had any such problems and ..no…he did not want to go to the doctor and get “interfered with” when he was certain the problem did not rest with him..and that was the end to it.
The Italian lady next door, Elvira, laughed when told of Annette’s dilemma..
“Back home we had a saying that there were no infertile men in the village…and certo..if a woman could bear children, then there were children…because after a certain time passed, the parish priest was called in to “do his duty to God’s handmaidens” and he would hang his walking cane over the entrance doorknob while he “administered the faith” to the lady of the house and if the husband came home and saw the cane there, he would keep walking up to the bar and play a hand or two of briscola, take a whisky or two, before making his way back home respectfully.”
Annette dismissed those notions as typical of peasant village women thinking…an outcome much too public and open to ridicule for a lady of Anglo descent…There were ways other than gross serviceability…discretion was the hallmark of civilised society…of a refined woman in today’s world.
Annette stepped onto the platform at Brighton and made her way to the exit ramp. She paused at the top of the ramp and gazed over the road in front to a little corner store-cum-post office there on the “Old Beach Road” that led to the seashore. As she gazed at the empty scene, a man of around thirty-five years stepped out of the corner store..he stopped to take out and light up a cigarette with a personal lighter that he replaced to an inside pocket of his suit..Annette recognised him and gave a small noting wave which he cautiously returned….she crossed the street and without touching, they proceeded to walk to the beach.
At the beach, the man spread a checked wool blanket that he took from a parked sedan in the road above the sands. Annette removed her gloves and shoes and made herself discretely comfortable on the blanket.
“Nice to see you again.” The man spoke “This being the third time in as many months, will this be a regular thing?” he teased and touched her forehead as he brushed away a tuft of fringe of her hair.
“I’m not sure.” Annette replied..” Circumstances may prevent us meeting again.”
“What do you mean?” the man sat back from his position close to her..He cocked one eyebrow questioningly.
“I may be pregnant.” Annette spoke plainly. The man raised his eyebrows and with wide-eyed anxiety asked..
“Heavens…what are we to do..I mean…I can’t…”
“No..it’s quite alright,’ Annette touched his arm reassuringly..” I wanted it to happen..I wanted the child.”
The man looked bewielded and a bit dazed..
“Well..that may be good for you…but I am already married with children…I thought this was a fling for both of us…I can’t manage another family.”
Again, Annette touched his arm reassuringly…
“No..I will not trouble you about the child..as you know I too am married..but we…my husband as it now turns out…couldn’t have children..couldn’t give me a child..so I took the opportunity of our relationship to have one with you.” Annette gently smiled..” I needed another child….”
“Another child!?” the man stared and thought..” Then …then that time several years ago when we first met….?” He didn’t finish what he was thinking..
“Yes” Annette smiled again..”He’s two now and beautiful…thank you.”
The man was thinking now…:
“So that’s why you wanted a recent picture of me when we first wrote?…so you could see if I was a close match to your husband?”
“Of course!…It would not work otherwise..I mean how would it look if you were a flaming red-head, or a swarthy Mediterranean type?…How stupid would that be?”
“And your husband doesn’t know?”
“Of course not..he thinks he’s shooting bullets not blanks…and I had to make a decision soon or it would start to come back on one or the other of us…after all, there are expectations in society …you know”
“Yes…the stigma of a barren woman or a man who only fires blanks…terrible”…
The man leaned back against a rock of the breakwater and took out and lit another cigarette..
“It’s why I got back in touch with you in the paper.” Annette softly spoke.
“Yes..right..I was rather surprised..I presumed you’d forgot all about me…was delighted to read your request to meet again, though.. but you would risk your marriage for the sake of having children?”..and he blew a stream of smoke into the soft air of the Autumn day.
“He broke the contract!” Annette blurted out..and then in a more condescending tone..” and he didn’t want to have tests done..he didn’t want to know if it was himself..no man does..so this way we both achieve our goals…even you” and she smiled coquettishly …The man drew on his cigarette and returned her smile.
“In that case..I suppose so”..and he drew on the cigarette again..” And so we continue to meet..Blue eyes?”
“Blue eyes?” Annette queried.
“You remember when we first communicated through the paper and I asked what you looked like for when we first meet?”
“Oh yes”..Annette clasped her arms around her legs as she sat thinking of the time. “ I didn’t know how to go about these things…it was only chance that I spotted that column…miscellaneous..in the paper and I read several of those people..mostly men..lonely men looking for ‘lady companions’.” Annette giggled.
“yes…” the man reflected..”It was a new thing for me too..I was lonely, coming down every month from the north on business…A man can end up a drunk or worse when he has too much time on his hands….a mate in the same game as me put me onto it…took some Dutch courage to kick it off though” and he gave a laugh.
“ You didn’t give much away…but you did say you have blue eyes…..and wavy hair.” He touched her soft locks. “ but you never did tell me your whole name”.
“And neither did you..and it best remain that way…for truly, if I am pregnant, and I do believe I am..we probably will not be meeting again…I don’t want any more children..two is enough.”
The man stubbed out his cigarette..
“Yes..well…that may be for the best all around..It could get sticky if it gets out..for both of us….I wouldn’t want my wife to know..and our four kids is plenty for me..”
“Oh…” Annette replied lazily..” She probably already does..or suspects at least”..
“Nah..she doesn’t have a clue…she’s miles away..up north”..and he stared out over the sea.
“Oh..she’d know ” ..
“How?” the man asked…”Would you tell her?”
“How could I ..I don’t even know your real name…No..it’s you men…when you are satisfied in that way….you walk about like a prancing Tom-cat”…and she smiled..
“Are we that easy to pick?” he grinned…
“Of course…how would we women not know…after all, it was US who invented sex…do you think Adam would have eaten the apple without Eve?”…Annette threw her head back and laughed. The man grinned and looked at her affectionately..
“I’m beginning to worry about you..You’re dangerous..But what of today?…here we are..?” and he looked at Annette with a cheeky grin.
Annette lowered her eyes in a vampish manner and replied..
“I suppose it doesn’t hurt to make certain of a good job done..” and she touched the side of his face affectionately.
“Come”..he said..” I have a car waiting for my lady”…and they gathered themselves up and made for the parked sedan at the top of the stairs.
Annette paused at the foot of the steps and he offered his arm to steady her as she put on her shoes..she turned to the man and asked..
“ Can you give me your name?…Not your first, your second name..and when the child is born, I can let you know…in the miscellaneous column..”
The man turned and smiled at Annette ..
“Paul”. He said..and he held out his hand….They walked to the car..just like any young couple.
Ten months later a short sentence appeared in the miscellaneous column of the daily newspaper..:
“ Package arrived safely..much joy..”Pauline”…”
The following week on the usual day they would communicate Annette read the confirming note in the miscellaneous column..:
“ Sweet…letter OK…if ever needed..write again, Blue eyes…”
The Rider to the Sea.
Ah, youth!…a time of plenty..so much to want, so much to desire, so much to love…yet one had the feeling of so much to lose..so much to lose..there was never enough of anything, least of all patience..
Adam reached out for the handful of peaches out far on the branch. He quickly picked these and shoved them into his bag, it was now full. He clambered down the ladder and strode over to his bin. This was the last load for the day, the bin was now full. The overseer nodded his approval and checked it into his book. His third bin for the day, not bad, he was no gun picker but it wasn’t bad. A wave of fatigue swept through his leg muscles as he leant against the bin. Sweat flowed cleanly down his chest, his hair sticky and stringy from the heat and fuzz from the fruit. he felt tacky all over.
“What a day for Chrissake” He spoke to himself as he sat on the trailer.
“Ok boys, let’s go home”. The overseer had hooked up the trailers that carried the bins and started the tractor.
The pickers flung their ladders on the empty trailer behind and clambered aboard, the dust thick and yellow in the air.
“You still going to Sydney tomorra’ Jim?”
” K’noath, can’t see me stayin’ here another week can you”.
“He’s got the hots for his wife already.” Someone called out.
“Oh yeah, if you’d felt it once you wouldn’t be here even.” Jim retaliated.
The tractor slowly- bumped and twisted through the orchard. Adam clung sleepily to the edge of the trailer, gently rolling…Life, small moments of awakened senses, aware: Daylight bright, the clatter of loose leaves dancing and whirling over the road in the buffeting wind of a passing car. Long strands of gum leaves hanging low and hot in the humid afternoon, with skinny shadows stealthily creeping like thieves from the glaring sun.
The banks rose steep from the river’s edge and the water flows faster with soft swirling eddies clipping the far bank and ripples fanning out from projecting arms of sunken logs, like drowning swimmers grasping for the sky, scratching, clawing.. A long white sandbar swept smooth around the bend with scattered leaves over the grit and heavy gums leaning long fronds into silent waters of the Murray River creeping past in the afternoon.
( A.E. & J.B. Cameron. Fruit growers. Blockers: Owners of vast acreage of fruit trees. Peaches, pears and apricots. Pickers employed every season. Seven am – five pm, an hour for lunch.)
Adam was a nineteen year old picker…working the seasonal crops.
“Hey Casey, comin’ for a swim before tea?” …Ear cocked for an answer from the next room. A creaking bed, he’s there.
“No, I’ll just have a shower.” Another creak of his bed. He won’t even shower, Adam knew.
“Well alright ,but it’ll be nice…cool and fresh..”
“Yeah, so what.”
Adam left him there…
Dust and insects filled the yard between the dormitory and mess shed, with its rattling pots and pans and the cook’s yells and songs crackling between the weatherboard walls. The sweet-smelling trees all around the compound. Crowds at the showers, sticky men jostling each other, towels and dirty shirts and shins and bristly chins, water overflowing on smooth cement sheen floor, muddy puddle by the door. A singer; Gerry….”0′ Gerry boy, th’ gurls of Cobram are calling….” Then lost in the roar of the motorbike coasting the long straight into town. A quick trip through to the river in the hot afternoon, his shirt sticking to his back, small insects glued to his chest with the dried sweat.
Adam parked his motorbike at the top of the riverbank on the dirt track. A path cut down the edge onto a flat lowland of sand built up over the years. Tall gums and shrubs between, all thick and scratchy down to the river’s edge. He placed his helmet on the sand, stripped to his shorts and placed his shirt and shoes with the helmet.
Halting at the river’s edge, he gazed up and down, then slipped quietly into the water. The smooth liquid washed up his back and filtered through his hair, its soothing coolness cleansing the sticky sweat and insects from his skin then washing away with the current swiftly flowing. He dug his hands down into the sandy bar, floating motionlessly, body pointing upstream with water slipping around, caressing, soft… Every few moments he ducked his head below the surface to come up again with a swish and shake the lanks of hair off his face, the droplets flicking away with a splash on the smoother surface of the river.
A large grey log jutted out from the bank on the far side. He decided to swim for it. But the river was swift, so he crawled with his hands digging in the sandy bed upstream a little to allow for the drag, then with six deep breaths, struck out for the far shore.
The river grabbed him straight away as he swam, its liquid fingers grasping at every portion of his body, trying to pull him down the busy stream to a far away ocean…a body riding the river to its mouth…a rider to the sea!.. The thought of just letting himself be taken like a leaf on the water crossed his mind, the thought of being supported by the river’s strength and coasting slowly down the ribbon of wide water to the rushing sea. He stopped for a second feeling the deep waters.. Nothing below him: He sank a little and came up again spitting and swishing his head to clear his hair. Nothing below him, he thought as he struck out again, his feet churning steadily behind him.
Nothing below but hidden depths of liquid, soft flowing liquid’ deeper down below, lovely warmth …( he thought of Jennifer ). A Willy-wagtail alighted on the log just before he reached it, to wag its tail a couple of times and then dart away as he swung an arm over and hauled himself up to rest. Adam lay on his belly over the warm log, his legs dangling in the cool river, the rattlings and scratchings of scrub animals and birds in the vicinity a relaxing tonic for his tired body…his memory switched to a story his mother told him about the river when she was a child..about a man who drowned and his body washed up on the bank of the river and they were told not to go near there to look at the drowned man washed up on the bank of the river but they did go there on the way to school and they saw the drowned man all bloated and bumping and bobbing against a log on the river bank, surrounded by a mass of oranges all a bobbing there with the drowned man…oranges dumped in the river when the orchards couldn’t sell their excess fruit..and they would pluck one of those oranges each to take to school..but not this time and never more..for the drowned man’s eyes had been plucked out by the little creatures of the river..” ..eyeless in Gaza before the mill with slaves..” Samson Antigones..and they ran and ran away from the drowned man…but they couldn’t run from the memory..
A new sound pitched high above the others pierced his ear, squeals of delight and giggling laughter. Girls, young girls, splashing in the river up by the bridge. He looked to them, all white in the surrounding bushland, their bodies springing about with youthful energy, purity to think of. Tender youth not yet caressed with a lover’s gentle touch, young voices never lowered to a lovers ear, whispering lover’s desires.
Adam lay quiet, the water rippling about his feet softly. He listened.
” Julie, I’ll race you across “.
“Bet you won’t “. Two girls splashed in, a glimmer of white before becoming submerged in cooling water.
” Hey, wait for me!” A third racing across the sand, her legs flashing with carefree running, the line of her swimsuit seen for a moment , gone into the river, laughter, splashing, voices, a moments desire quietly breathed the afternoon air, river water flowing down deep, deep down clinging, touching, Adam closed his eyes…he desired…
“Jennifer”..he mumbled …. lost….
” Do you like it Adam?”
” Mmm, more than anything.” Her hand moving over his body, searching, feeling…her finger trailing along his spine, sending thrilling sparks to his muscles..
” Do you like that,..hmm,..do you feel that?”
“Ah…Now where did you learn that trick?”
” Do you like it?” Her hair brushing his cheek, soft whispers into his ear, the song of Circe..her arm under his over his back, her palm open flat, warm in the small of his back moving softly, gently, her voice, he remembered the tone perfectly, right in his ear, she was inside his brain, sweetly tacky. Gone, lovely woman, lovely life. Nineteen.
” Do you love me Jenny?”…Nineteen….gone..
Adam slipped back into the water, kicked off from the log to swim back to the sandy bank, striking furiously at the water with each stroke, harder and harder, self-derision tearing into him. He finally dove deep to cool the heat in his head, deep in the river, the deeper you go the cleaner you become, it’s a game, you see, and the one who swims deepest and longest wins.
His lungs ached as he burst the surface about thirty yards down from his clothes. He gulped the air and swam the rest of the way to the bank.
The Sun dried his body, soaking right into his skin as he lay on the warm sand. He flipped his shirt over his eyes to shade them, only the heat now touched his body, the river moving gently away, quietly shifting…humming..water, the essence of life: All life emanates from the sea. The heat warmed him while the river swayed his thoughts slowly. as a limb in a breeze, rolling wave upon wave ….drum .. “ . . . rolling drum we lay down gently with the wetness drum of the sea drying in sunshine…. children! laughter trilling in our hearing mind…She is here too, her finger brushing down drum along our closed eyelid so gentle, the laughter, her person here beside us, touch removed why? Opened our eyes to see her but she wasn’t there…soaring drum ache of desire rushing longingly through our body… Oh that it were only possible for us…. for us…we lay back down in the warm sunshine the wetness drum of the sea drying in the sunshine wave upon wave rolling O…”
Adam woke suddenly, he had dozed off for a few minutes, restfully, He collected his things and started back to camp.
The evening meal was being dished out when he arrived, so he dressed and stood in line with the rest of the pickers to collect his serve. The mess was empty of any sound other than the clatter of eating utensils employed in the consumption of food.
After dinner Adam lay on his bunk, hands behind his head and staring at the water-stain pattens on the ceiling. Casey stopped in and placed his shoe on the edge of the bed while he tied his shoelace.
“You comin’ to town, Adam?”
“What for?”
“Jim’s leavin’ you know, we’re gonna have a cupla drinks”.
“Yeah, I might be in that. When are you leaving?”
“O, a cupla minutes, you better hurry, Pete’s drivin”…
Adam raised himself lazily and reached for his shirt.
“I’ll be ready in a sec”.
“Meet you outside then, ok?” Casey tromped on down the corridor with his heavy steps echoing through the dormitory.
Pete screamed the car on the dirt road through the orchard and careered onto the bitumen heading into town. All along the left side of the road were peach trees heavy with fruit, their branches supported with crutches of forked branches of other trees. Jim talked of his wife, house, and car he had left in Sydney. He drolled on in his boring monotone in tune with the humming of the car motor, Pete just mumbling; “Yes” or “Oh yeah” to Jim’s comments. Adam sat quietly in the back of the car, the sun heating his face through the glass. Bright spots of fruit, the green of the leaves flicking past; harlequin. A man appeared for a second, on a tractor towing spraying equipment, mist fanning out from the rear of the machine. The afternoon finishing slowly as they bumped down the long straight.
The town appeared up ahead, Jim talking continuously, quietly, to no-one in particular…just his usual meaningless babble about his wife, kids, and home…the suburban dream slowly turning into a nightmare of endless debt, remission, work and more debt. Small snatches of his talk filtered through Adam’s observations of the world around him…
Big gums flash past…”You come here to get away from home, to have a good time, save some dough for the little luxuries, you know”..outskirts of town, all the neat gardens, then the rubbish gardens, trellises of creeping plants being watered by an old lady….”You buy these little knick-knacks, to keep you happy. . .” shoe stores, hardware stores, deli’s with cracked glass windows..a town swinging on the survival of the fruit industry…”…..doing nothing but work and you end up a slob, like Casey here, only joking son, but just hanging around, waiting for the next season..the next job..” residents of the town shuffling along permanent footpaths, ancients, middle aged, youths too soon to look as ancient as their grandfathers….”… property clinging like..like leeches on your time as years slip by..” …no-one really gives a shit for Jim’s woes…
Pete pulled the car up at an hotel with ugly stone facade and arches plain, brown painted wood angular cleaved.
There were crowds of bawling blockers, pickers, packers from the sheds..red-faced from too much grog.. “It’s weird if you ask me, a body just can’t seem to win with this life.”
A chord was struck in Adam by those words, simple as they were, the mere babble of a selfish man, they were a prophecy so clear for the moment. Of course, living, being alive, nineteen…nineteen!..that’s what matters; life, those places he’d been, all alive, still there, waiting for his return to pass through to newer places, towns on towns, states on states, countries, people, over seven billions of them in this world, all living, a living breathing world of people. World, so round, whirled, world so round, those girls at the river, youth just starting to live. The joy of revelation cooled his head and cleared all cluttering thoughts from his mind, a new energy flooded through his body.
Jennifer is gone…so be it..so be it.. Let life begin again!
Loose leaves danced flittering along the footpath with each eddy of wind around the buildings, their clatter of slight sound a moments awareness.
“C’mon Jim, wipe that frown from your ugly puss, the first round’s on me”. The four of them pushed through the throng of drinkers to the glittering bar all a clatter of glass. The evening was alive with light. “Ah!…Here’s the boy!”..a cry from a friend at the bar..The silent river cruising steadily between steep banks to the sea..the mad whooping from a room full of rolliking drunks…riding a wave of booze-filled reverly…riding to the sea..
Down, down..the Murray River flows..down to the sea…John Millington Synge..we are all riders to the sea!!
A pasta meal of fusilli ai ferri.
That was it, the “Decree Nisi” had come through, the “estate” divided down the middle…but the ex got the Family Ford, the big Blackwood dining table, most of the kitchen utensils and the family dog….she could have the dog..a hairy, aggressive Jack Russell bitch…she could have the dog!
A full year and a bit had already passed since that final separation, and now the divorce was finalised..I hadn’t even seen the ex for more than six months..I didn’t want to…the memory of so many trying years was enough to turn me away from ever wanting to see her again!
I retained the house as it was central to the final straw of that marriage..Meg didn’t like the house…or the postcode..both were too “low brow” for her..but then I suppose my enrolling in a mature entry course at the university to study Roman History/ Classics didn’t endear me to HER wishes of continually attending ad-infinitum many New Age Workshops run by this Eastern suburbs Guru tosser that while being rather vague about just WHAT was her central philosophy, knew for certain the value of modern currency!
But anyway, I kept the house…or rather, the bank let me stay in the house for the duration as long as I kept up repayments…I was having trouble studying at the university AND keeping up with the mortgage…There was only one thing to do…choose between Classical Studies and the mortgage…I put the house on the market.
This involved the necessity of preparing the property for the inevitable open inspections..now, I am not an expert on the subject of property desirability, but I do know that a vase of pretty flowers always makes the most drear room look so much brighter..and since it is an old adage that ; “A house without a woman is like a lantern without light”..flowers it would be.
I told you that the family car went with the missus, so I was reduced to Shank’s Pony for the short trips to the shops and the bus for the trip to the University..now it happened that right next door to that bus stop was a house that had in its front yard the most brilliant display of sweet peas I had ever seen..so bright!..so brilliant!…and totally overflowing the trellises and beds it was displayed in…I had to have some! I had seen the incumbent of that house pull into her driveway several times as I waited for the bus..and we did exchange smiles at different times..ok..I’m not a sorry looking character, I have kept my shape and condition from those many years as a carpenter in the building trade..and the lady in question was quite a looker herself..; rich, full, dark hair past her shoulder, full woman’s body, Italian, I thought..around fortyish..soft breasted with those Italian hips that would fill out with ageing…but for now SO rounded and full…a delight!…I had never seen a male attached to either the woman or the property.
So it was with some anticipated pleasure that I knocked on the front door to ask if I could please have some of her gorgeous sweet-peas to grace the front rooms of my house.
I was not disappointed.
Maria-Rosa ( for that was her name I was to learn) opened the door a little and instantly “looked me up and down”..having satisfied herself that I was relatively harmless and recognising me from my standing at the bus-stop, she smiled and with a sensuous wry tone said..
“Hello..fancy seeing you here…let me guess..you’ve missed your bus and you are asking for a lift to town?”…and she broadened her smile with the tip of her tongue protruding cheekily between her teeth. I gave a bit of a giggle at the instant humour.
“A lift to the university would be good, but no..not now…I have come to ask if I can have a bouquet of those lovely sweet-peas you grow in your front yard to put into my front room..”
“Entertaining, are we?” Maria-Rosa inquired.
“No…selling up.” I gave my truncated reason.
“Oh…” Maria-Rosa’s face dropped a little..”..that’s a shame, I was beginning to set my clocks to your standing there at the bus stop”….The lady had a sense of humour that I found much to my liking..but I was here “on business”…
And those multi-hued flowers did wonders to brighten the place.for Maria-Rosa was more than generous and clipped off enough stems with her secateurs and gloved hands to let me place a vase full in both the lounge and the kitchen..not only once, but several times over the period of ‘open display’ times…
My house was on the edge of a park and a path wound past my front fence across the expanse of parkland..I was not far from Maria-Rosa’s house and sometimes she would make her way across the park to the delicatessen over the other side..One day as I was turning over the soil under the hollyhocks, Maria-Rosa leant on the fence…
“I thought you didn’t have any flowers?…these look nice”. And she stroked the hollyhock stem.
“Yes..they are nice, but better here in the garden as a show than inside..Your sweet-peas are so bright and delightful..thank you very much.”
“Well, perhaps you can thank me by inviting me in for an afternoon coffee?” Maria-Rosa smiled..and of course, it seemed like a good idea to myself also..We sat at the kitchen table with our instant coffees and Maria-Rosa had a good squizz around at my kitchen, which I thought was neat and tidy..ready for inspection.
“Your kitchen smells funny”. She commented, with her nose wrinkled.
“Oh..” I was surprised and sniffed the air several times.
“I don’t mean it stinks” she explained “I mean it smells stale and…uncooked in”..
“Yes, well..I have been avoiding cooking here as I don’t want to dirty the place up before the inspection”.
“How many inspections do you have?”
“Once a week.” I replied.
“So what have you been eating?” Maria-Rosa inquired..I had to drop my eyes a tad shamefacedly at her question and hesitatingly replied..
“Maccas..among other things”…….Well…the look she gave me!..she then trulled her fingers on the table-top and looked at me disgustingly..
“Why cannot you men look after yourselves?…” she leant toward me “Look, I’ll do you a favour just this once and invite you over to my place for dinner tonight…the kids will be with their father for the weekend and I will cook you up a good pasta meal..you’re looking thin and underfed…” She stood to leave..”bring some wine..” she commanded, then raised her eyebrows in mocking inquiry and asked ; ”Shall I wash my cup for you too?”…and she smiled that beautiful smile she has and touched the side of my face affectionately with her hand..”Addio until this evening…six o’clock sharp!..and hey..”and she waved her finger “no funny business.”
At precisely the appointed time, I knocked on Maria-Rosa’s front door…there was a pause of several seconds, then a shout from inside.
“ ‘Round the back!”…
Upon that exacting instruction, I looked for the gate to the back yard and made for it unhesitatingly. Upon entering Maria-Rosa’s back yard, I was instantly overwhelmed by the sight of a profusion of home-grown vegetables..all that could be named of the season of local fruit and veggie shop produce was growing in that back yard..
There were thick, dark fronds of cavollo nero, still heavily laden broad bean plants looking toward the end of their season leaning over rows of lettuce interspersed with herbs of basil, coriander and several other unrecognisable condiments..New, half grown tomato plants hovered under halos of bamboo bracing stands ready to stake-tie the growing stems..Be-headed artichokes towered next to a side fence of wooden palings, a well mulched bed of asparagus stems pushing their inquisitive phallus skyward carefully kept separate from other plantings over the eastern side of a garden path, while fresh plantings of what must be the Summer vegetables filled the remaining area of a carefully tended garden…I was impressed..and I instantly recalled and recoiled from a disparaging comment made by an Australian teen I knew back many years ago who wrinkled her nose at the suggestion of growing one’s own vegetables..
“Oh no!…only wogs grow their own vegetables!”
“Hello!..” I called toward the house..Maria-Rosa’s head poked out through some sliding doors.
“C’mon in.” she gesticulated with her head “I’m here in the kitchen..”
I entered through those sliding doors into a world of wild, sensuous aromas, heavy with voluminous smells of heated olive oil, garlic, onions and tomato sauces…a steaming stainless steel pot of water stood slowly on the boil awaiting it’s burden of apparent pasta that I could see lying nearby on a cutting board.
But this wasn’t your ordinary spaghetti pasta that you can buy for a couple of dollars down the supermarket…these were obviously the home-made job…thick as and with what looked like a hollow centre…
I put the bottle of chianti (I had presumed on her nationality in a rather gauche way, I admit) on the side bench of the kitchen and went to gaze at the pasta there. Maria-Rosa picked up the Chianti bottle, turned it around and touched the reedy-husks type wrapping on the body of the bottle..she didn’t exactly wince at the pastiche of the product, but I could sense the scorn!…
“This is too good for now, let’s save it for another occasion…” and she placed it on a high shelf..”here, I have a bottle already opened…it is home-made by Franco, an Italian friend I know…he has really perfected his style…” and she poured some dark, rich wine into an ordinary drinking glass with fluted sides..” Salute!” she cried and we chinked glasses…I could see that Maria-Rosa was a no-nonsense woman…and as a recently semi-retired carpenter tradesman, I was very impressed with her “workmanlike” manner..
“What sort of pasta is that?” I asked.
“ It is Calabrian fusilli ai ferri..Maria-Rosa replied..what we in Australia would call “knitting- needle fusilli” it isn’t the same as those short corkscrews of dried pasta that most manufacturers produce. These are spaghetti noodles with a hole in the middle, created by rolling and stretching the dough around a very thin dowel…or perhaps a knitting needle..I use the long piece of a metal clothes hanger that a friend cut for me”.
“And you make it yourself?” I stupidly remarked..Maria-Rosa paused in her action of placing an onion into a small muslin bag and frowned at me…
“Of course I do…I have to..no-one else is going to do it for me.” And she relented her frown and turned it instantly into a broad smile to me..”Tonight I am making it for you”.
“Oh..I wouldn’t expect you to go to that much trouble for me.” I protested.
“But I am not doing it JUST for you…I am doing it for US both!”…that smile again..”If I am going to cook, I am going to enjoy WHAT I am cooking…eh?” and she pointed to a chair at the end of the kitchen table she was working on and upon my seating pushed a shallow plate of antipasti toward me..” Here nibble on these while I prepare the dinner.”
My word!…upon that large, shallow dish were several delicious looking helpings of home prepared hors d’oeuvres…there were artichoke hearts in olive oil, small bocconcini balls, some flans of chargrilled capsicum also in olive oil, broadbeans uncooked but prepared heavens knows how but tasting so wonderful!..there were olives, both green and black..small cuts of proscuito, rolled around small asparagus pieces and several other un-nameable treats that just washed my mouth with saucy flavour and thrilled the senses with promise of delight..there were slices of ciabatta bread to soak up the flavours of the olive oil and I was left wondering if this is the appertiser, what foundation of paradise would the main course be!
“don’t fill up on the hors d’oeuvres” Maria cautioned..content that I was gorging on her creations “leave a little space for the pasta”.
“But this is so beautiful!” I exclaimed..
“No…you must not say “beautiful”..in Italian, we do not use that word to describe food..that word is used to describe a beautiful object or person…like a woman…for food we use the word ; “buono”..: “good”…for food is good..good food is good for you..it is just that ..good.”
“Well then THIS food is very “buono”!”and I smiled to Maria…we smiled to each other. Maria-Rosa leant close to me and plucked an olive from the dish and slid…yes..that is the best description of her action..she slid that olive between her soft, red lips and while looking into my eyes closely, slowly masticated the olive then let the pip drop from between her lips onto a side dish…I did note that gesture most carefully.. after all, I convinced myself..I’m not a slouch.
“But tell me why you put in such work just to give a meal to a neighbour as myself?” I was indeed intrigued at the obvious spread of preparation in front of me, for while I appreciated the effort, I was quite amazed that Maria would make such an effort just for me.
I sat there in my chair for an extended silence from both of us after I had asked that question…Maria-Rosa’s face displayed little emotion and she kept at the preparation of the meal..she did turn to me after a short time and just looked to me and gave me one of those elusive smiles that women are so good at…what did it mean?…that sort of smile..
Maria-Rosa then took a medium sized red onion and placed it into a small muslin bag with a tie-string and placing it on a stout chopping board, took up a wooden meat-tenderiser mallet, smashed down on the onion in the bag several times with some force…She then opened the bag, extracted what looked like the skin and husk of the onion and tippled out the now shredded pieces of that onion…she had “cut” the onion without using a knife!…I had to admit I was amazed…I had never seen such a thing before.
“Why didn’t you just use a knife?” I asked…
Maria-Rosa again gave me that elusive lift of her lips…then she leaned upon her hands upon the table and explained the whole business of the meal and her and me.
“Do you know that in Italy..in Calabria where my grandmother came from..pasta is called the meal of love..because everybody loves pasta…everybody..but it has another connection where my people come from..My Nonna told us about the men of the village there on the coast whose working life was as fishermen…They would leave their homes and go to sea on the trawlers for months at a time…it depended on the catch as to how long they would be gone…plenty of fish meant a short season…less fish, longer out at sea…there was no point returning with an empty hold..the village depended upon those fishermen for both food and pay.”
Maria-Rosa then became busy with her hands breaking up and stripping the vegetables with her fingers while she spoke..never once did she pick up a knife to cut the food..even with the soppressa salami, and the cheese, she broke a large piece off and crumbled it in her fingers..all the sauce preparation and condiments were measured and done with only her fingers..
“Turns were taken by the old people to watch from the cliffs to see if the boats were returning..and when the cry went up that the boats were seen coming over the seas, great preparation was made by the women to welcome their husbands and sons home..and the food that was most prepared was pasta…and my Nonna always cooked the one meal to welcome my grandfather home..for as my Nonna said of those times and I suspect it is still relevant for these times..perhaps even now to yourself..When men are away from the home and their families for such a long time, living in cramped and wild conditions..catching, killing, gutting their kills, blood and guts and waste all around..not that clean or conducive to love and affection..living among only men..they go back to a wild state and become detatched from the needs and comforts of home life..they become brutal..as is their nature..so my Nonna..and the other women in the village welcome their men back into the life of home and family.
And it was this meal of fusilli ai ferri..that re-introduced her husband to the joys and comforts of home..and she cooked it with the touch of love…that is, she would not use a steel blade to cut the ingredients, as the taste and smell of steel was so familiar to those fishermen with all the fish they would cut and clean, they were sick of even the sight of it…and she showed me one day with a piece of chicken..she tore off a piece with her fingers and fed it to the cat, who gulped it down..she then cut a piece off with a knife and offered it to the same cat…and the cat smelt it and refused it as she could smell the steel..so to prepare the food with just your fingers, was to do it as an act of love..So also tonight, I prepare this meal for us with my fingers as I am making it for the love of good company..for is it not good and proper that a woman should enjoy the company of a man as much as the man for a woman?”…and Maria-Rosa smiled again that beguiling smile.. Maria-Rosa had already prepared the ingredients for the sauce and was adding such to a concoction of scented delight would make an alchemist writhe in ecstasy!
“You see so many food dishes served up that look very photographic and tasty, but in so many of those well-presented meals there is the one important ingredient missing that makes all the flavours an eating delight..and that is love..one cooks for those one loves with love..” and she then placed her index finger to her lips and licked the silken sheen of olive oil off it..she saw me look at her in this action and paused with her finger still between her lips..then spoke..”There”..she softly said.. “you will get to taste a modicum of me with each bite, but I am only to be satisfied with just gazing at you..”…again she teased me with her cheeky eyes.
I suddenly realised Maria-Rosa’s objective for inviting me to share this meal with her..this sultry woman, this gourmand of gorgeous sensuality was using the food, the preparation of , cooking, taste, smell and feeding to me as a vehicle of seduction….this Italian beauty was seducing ME with the taste and language of cooking..between the rich odours of the food, the appertisers, the sights, colours and the second helping of that rich, fruity wine, I couldn’t think of a better way to be seduced..”Press on!” I subconsciously concurred..and it was in this soporific state that I first noticed the music in the background…a soft but rhythmic beat along with a kind of soft wailing chant by some women..
“What is that music?” I asked Maria-Rosa.
“The Tarantella…a cultural thing of the region..the music accompanies the dance of the Tarantella..” and while Maria-Rosa tended a shallow pan of hot oil, she explained to me “The Tarantella is an excuse for women of the village to display their young bodies to potential men of the village…their suitors…the theory is that having been bitten by a Tarantula spider, the only way to rid oneself of the poison, was to dance in a voluptuous frenzy till in a state of delirium to drive out the evil poison..”..Maria tippled the onion into the pan and stirred the sizzling pieces…”Of course, in the process of dancing, the young lady would contort her body to show all her best curves and attractions to the man, particularly to her chosen man, watching…perhaps to even make him jealous of the other men seeing her body and so drive him to a frenzy of want of her…which, of course, he couldn’t have unless he wed the lass”…Maria-Rosa then threw in some more ingredients into the pan…I could see small pieces of the sopressa and the pancetta and along with these she tippled in a measure of whisky..she let these cook for a while to, as she explained, let the alcohol evaporate..when the meats were crisp, she added some peeled tomatoes and a rich paste-like tomato sauce she had preserved from the last season’s crop..Just watching the dexterous actions she was using to control the level and sight of those cooking ingredients was mesmerising…add to this the warmth of the wine and the soft-heavy drumming of the music of the Tarantella, I could feel myself being lured into a sensation of embracing delight.
To the simmering pot of boiling water, Maria-Rosa added the pasta..and from that deed, instantly switched back to the sauce and added some fresh porcini mushrooms that she had soaking in water..she stirred this sauce and waited for the pasta to cook..
I took this moment to examine this womanly delight here with me..and I couldn’t help but compare those dancers of the Tarantella to the svelte Italian body of Maria-Rosa..for I could now see she had prepared herself just as diligently as she had the ingredients for this meal..her tights sculptured her legs a curvaceous delight from the delicate, leather sandals that graced her slender feet to the firm, muscular thighs that disappeared under a light cotton shirt with a tail that modestly covered a full bottom and sweeping hips just made to be held in tight embrace…the shirt was buttoned just high enough to let the décolletage reveal the full, soft volume of her breasts and cleavage did draw my eye to that most inviting of a woman’s treasures..her long hair falling around and sometimes into that deep attraction between her bosoms…and I have to admit it was a difficult job to drag my gaze away when it seemed Maria-Rosa was doing her level best to display those choice mammaries to me.
Several times during this period of concentration on the cooking of the meal, we would top up our glasses of the rich wine and smile affectionately to each other..I could see where the evening was heading.
After the pasta was cooked “al dente” Maria-Rosa drained it and added it to the sauce..she mixed it in well and added basil and diced provolone…she let the dish rest to melt the provolone..then divided it so I had the greater measure…which she delighted in letting me see the favour to myself..and to the separate dishes, she then added the grated pecorino with a sprig of basil and placed that sumptuous feast in front of me…the scents that wafted from the meal into my nostrils was both sensational and sensual..
Maria-Rosa marked well my reaction and then whispered in a most instructive manner..
“Mangia!”
I confess to filling myself with that meal and then accompanied the taste with another glass of Franco’s wonderful fruity wine..I was totally consumed by the entire process of what had passed since first arriving at the kitchen of Maria-Rosa..and whatever her intent for this evening, I was fully prepared to satisfy her every demand and that demand was soon to transpire, for once the meal had been fully consumed, the residue sauce scooped up with spoon and finger from my plate and I fell back into my chair with that glass of vino in a most, well almost satiated appetite, I could see Maria-Rosa smile again that ever beguiling smile to me so that it lingered so sensuously on her lips for such a long moment that I could be certain she had a finale up her sleeve
And then it came just as the street lights turned on and one could become aware that the noises of the suburb had ebbed and mellowed so that a kind of peace descended over the penumbra of light.
Maria-Rosa looked to me with the hunger of a loving woman in her eyes, tossed down the last of the wine in her glass, placed it upon the table and leaned over to me to kiss me on the lips and to whisper into my ear..
“And now, caro mio..to bed…”
The Last Ecstasy of The Forbidden Fruit.
I am one of the religious assistants at the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sacred Hearts in the Parish of Mariden..Actually, I am a Seminarian.. a priest in training..My name is Brian Hurley..I have the job of approaching anyone I see in the church on days of confession to assist them if they need comforting after their penitence and to offer them a tract of comforting words we have printed up for such occasions. I can also take them to the little café we have prepared off the side of the church proper and offer them a cup of cheer and words of comfort if needed…I have been voluntarily employed in this enviable position for three years now..and I am thankful every day for the opportunity to give the help of Jesus to those willing to let him into their hearts.
It was in the application of this most fulfilling duty that I approached an old man in row three of the pews from the front…He was sitting in deep concentration so I quietly asked if he would like some help with his sentiments..
“Please”..he replied “ I am concentrating on my thoughts before I speak to Father O’Brien in the confessional and I would like some peace..thank you”..
Of course, I apologised most profusely as I believed he had come FROM the confessional and was resting after his penitence..and I humbly made my way out of his personal space. But I could tell from his speech that he was from an Eastern European bloc nation..and from his body shape Slavic, I was thinking. It was later, in the small café that I again saw the old man..sitting at a table near the window in silent, pensive thought..He had a cup of coffee in front of him that he sipped from in a desultory manner. I again approached him to again apologise for so rudely disturbing him earlier..I was armed with a cup of tea and several biscuits on a side-plate to make my approach more congenial.
“May I join you?” I asked…The old man looked at me in a fixedly manner grunted and motioned with his hand to the seat opposite..I smiled my cheery “hail brother well met” smile, sat and used the sugar bowl to spoon in a serve of sugar to my tea…I offered my hand and my name..he looked at my hand like it was a sticky sweet but gave his name…he refused the offer of a biscuit.
“Millitich”..he spoke the Millitich word with heavy pronunciation on the “ ‘tich “ ending so it sounded “titsch”..the one name being the only one offered.
“Oh..right..” I responded “Is that a Hungarian name?”
“Serbian” he replied.
“Oh..Slavic “ I encouraged.
“No..it is Serbian..I am frrom Serbia.” I was chastised.
I thought it best to take a familiar approach..
“I’ve seen you here quite a few times lately, but not in church on Sundays..do you have another church you go to?”..I was quite aware that some parishioners will go to a distant church to take confession, reasoning that no-one will recognise them when they go..sin, it would seem, doesn’t necessarily always follow the guilty. The old man placed his hands in his ample lap and leaned into the table.
“Why would I go to your church on Sundays?” his thick accent slowly inquired.
“Well…this IS a Catholic church..and you DO go to confession..so I presume. . . “ I left the answer in the air.
Seeming to have resolved a dilemma in his mind concerning myself and my interest in his company, Millitich rested back in the chair and looked at me a long time before answering..It was like he was “sizeing me up” as a possible confident..I could feel my grin go from “cheezy” to “cheese-cake”..it wasn’t going well..this old man was hard work. He inhaled heavily through his expanded nostrils and spoke heavily and meaningfully.
“I do not go to your church, Mr Hurley, because I do not believe in God..I am an atheist.” I have to admit this flippant bit of information flabbergasted me.
“A..an atheist” I replied in a vague way trying to regain my balance. “But you go to confession.” I probed.
“You are again mistaken, Mr Hurley..you see me go into the “confessional box” (he made inverted comma signs with his fingers around the word ; confessional) so you presume I am taking the confession..but I am not..I am going to the box to give information to the good Father O’Brien.”
I was now not only surprised, but intrigued.
“Information?” I automatically responded “of a general topic…like on the weather, for instance?”
“Personal”..Millitich pouted toward me.
“Oh well..then that can be like a confession.” I cheerily replied.
“Except I have not sinned, Mr Hurley…I have done no wrong thing TO confess..I am simply informing the good priest of my thoughts…which..while they may be sometimes of a…colourful nature, are of no consequence to himself or the God above.” And he raised his eyes to the church ceiling. I pressed on, with a degree I have to admit, of pique..for here was this old man, uncivil to me along with little care or apparent faith in my church or my Lord Jesus, yet he is brazen enough to front the most private of places where a person can seek the ear of The Lord to have their sins washed from their souls..yes..I was offended.
“Well…if it is of no consequence to God, why go to the confessional at all..why not just make an appointment with Father O’Brien and speak with him in his office?” I must admit my voice became a tad inquisitorial at the end. Millitich sat silently, heavily, like one of those paintings of an ancient Chinese emperor you’d imagine..He sat there in deep silence while he contemplated his answer..when he did it was more than I expected..his words pouring forth with all the crushing fierceness of beans cracking and crunching in a coffee-grinder..
“You’re a rather impertinent little man, Mr Hurley…who do you think you are..coming to my table uninvited..”his lip curled as he gazed at my side-plate of biscuits..the one remaining shortbread looking now quite lonely and pathetic “With your tazza di te and your little biscuit…..We talk of love, Mr. Hurley…a love that the good father could never consummate and I with my age can no longer contemplate..we talk of a love only I can tell of and only I can share with the priest behind the screen.. I go to the confessional because there, what I say the priest cannot reveal..and conversely, what I tell the priest I am sworn by my own want of privacy..or else I could tell any inquisitive stranger…like yourself, MR. HURLEY”.
With that last emphasised naming of myself, the old man rose and made his way out of the church.
I cannot begin to tell you how deeply offended I was..I could feel my cheeks huffing and puffing from anger of the arrogance of that old poltroon! I sat at that table in low temper for quite a while longer as I plotted to hear just what those two were discussing in the confessional…I justified my contempt by wondering if old Father O’Brien..Father Stephen O’Brien.. was coming down with senile dementia and this Millitich chap wasn’t taking advantage of his failing mental capabilities. So I made it my objective to find a way to listen in to their conversations… It was the thought of but a moment to resolve to place my mobile phone in recording mode near the ceiling vent of the confessional the next time this Millitich blasphemer made a visit..and if that Slavic chap was up to mischief, well..I’m downright going to do something about it!..I cannot stand by and see my faith mocked..
So I made it my business to keep a wary eye out for our MR. MILLITICH and then to place my listening device over the ceiling vent of the confessional where I would be able to record every word, cough or mumble of these two conspirators!
It was another fortnight before I spied Mr. Millitich making has way toward the church nave on confession day…I quickly made preparations with my recording device placed strategically..I would later retrieve the phone and listen in to all they said.
Well…I retrieved the phone after Millitich had left and I played the result…Heaven’s knows what their previous conversations were like, but this one wasn’t that exciting..but it looks like we will be seeing less of Mr. Millitich now, if what he said is true…here, I’ll let you listen in…:
“Good morning Stephan”…
“Good morning again Saavo…how is your health?”
“About as good as it will ever be, Stephan…and yours?”
“God will provide…”
“Doomed like the rest of us oldies then.”
“Well, Saavo…I do not have the luxury of distraction that you cultivate..I have this…flock..of recalcitrant sinners to deal with…it is they, I suspect, who will put me in the ground before any disease.”
“Ah yes, Stephan…The saints and the sinners of Christendom…I believe your Jesus became a victim of the same sentiments.”
“Inshallah..”
“My turn to laugh!…but I suspect you may have a fifth column in your congregation…I think Mr. Hurley suspects me for a communist agent trying to turn you to the dark side.”
“Mr. Hurley, Saavo..is of the middle-class, his parents wanted a doctor, lawyer and a priest in the family..kind of like “criminality with insurance”…and typical of that class, he suspects everybody of something, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was listening in to our conversations.”
“Well, Stephan..we have a saying in our country..: ‘doctors, lawyers and priests…one will ruin your health, one your pocket and the last ; your soul’…I may have inadvertently given him cause last time I was here…he was getting somewhat nosey about our “confessions” and I told him we talked of love.”
“He wouldn’t know what the word entailed…even his love of God comes with a rider written up, no doubt, by his brother the lawyer…and speaking of such, tell me Saavo of the latest turn in your affair of the heart…does it progress, is it true..is it a false love?”
“Now you are mocking me, Stephan..you know I had no choice in the pursuit of this …arrangement”.
“Not at all, Saavo..in fact, I envy you the freedom to move about in public un-noticed as you constructed your seraglio of desire…I, with my cassock am far too visible to be able to gaze too long at the opposite sex without contempt being heaped upon my person.”
“Have you not one or two delightful nuns to assist you in your imaginings, Stephan?”
“Bite your tongue, Saavo and say a dozen Ave Marias for penance or I’ll have Mr. Hurley flog your hide with the in-house flagellation whip for your blasphemy!”
“Well..Father O’Brien…I do beg your forgiveness..but I pity you your imposed celibacy of body and mind…especially the mind..for I would have passed away if I had not discovered this outlet for my desires…But I have important news regarding my “love affair” with the delightful Alessandra of the “Spiked Echidna Café”…”
“Oh…tell me..did you finally make a fool of yourself and confess your affection to the embarrassment of the poor woman?”
“No…I was all for continuing our secret “affair…” “Saavo!..for shame..you can hardly say “our affair” when the lady in question had no idea you were using her person and personality to construct this imaginary liaison with her.”
“Wait…let me explain, Stephan…as it turned out, it was less imaginary than I thought..after all, there is more to this world than your philosophy can explain, my dear priest..As it turned out, I was there at the café last Tuesday, enjoying my usual short black..being served at the table by the adorable Alessandra..we exchanged as per usual the daily pleasantries, myself stealing and storing the memory of the inflection and tone of her voice as she spoke for later reminisce..and I thanked Alessandra with using her full name…though she allows others there to address her as “Alex”….Alex, do you mind…a beautiful name like Alessandra to be “Aussified” into a mockery neither male nor female..but there it is, Australia; the common denominator…but on to Alessandra..I remember once when I had cut the back of my hand and I had one of those wide, cloth band-aids across it..Alessandra saw it as she was taking my order and asked what had happened..I told her and to my surprise, she took my hand in both of hers, her right hand flat supporting my injured hand palm to palm..I recall how warm was her hand…why are women’s hands so soft and warm even when they do hard work? Her other palpitated over the cloth plaster..she looked at where the wound was , then to me…to me quite intensely she looked and she asked ;
“Does it hurt, Saavo?…”..of course I replied that it did when it happened but it is alright now..but she repeated as if she had not heard me..”Does it hurt, Saavo?”…..I just looked at her and did not answer but took my hand away from hers..they were so warm…but now, Stephan….now I know why she was asking..what it was about she was asking..it was not about my wounded hand, but about the hurt in my heart..for you are very aware as are all us aging men who know there is little hope of finding another defining love affair as we head into eternity…never more to have our hunger for the delights of a woman to caress and fill our senses with their lyrical voices and sexual perfume..it is a cold lonely ride on the ferry across the Styx I am sure..with only Charon for dubious company…why, when there is still the furnace burning fierce in the body must a smothering social obligation of the “Grandfather Image” of some revolting Walt Disney type character be the only model for us older men…that or the curse of being shunned as a “dirty old man” for harbouring those desires that once were not only natural, but expected of the male…who can stop the speeding train once it is shifted into motion…who has the right?…
Anyway, Stephan…I had my coffee, collected the days reflection of the delightful Alessandra and I turned to go, Stephan….I turned to go and just then a lady at the table next to us shifted her chair and so my foot caught in the chair leg and I started to fall…I grabbed for something to stop but there wasn’t anything there..all of a sudden I was clasped and held and gently lowered so I only fell to my side…it was lucky..it was fortunate and I looked to see and thank my saving grace and there she was…it was Alessandra who held me…
“Are you alright?’ she asked and I could see by the look in her eyes she really was concerned..but I was too shocked…not from the fall, you understand, Stephan?…not from the fall but from the fact that here was my “lover” embracing me and asking after my wellbeing.. I couldn’t talk, let alone give a sensible answer..
“Is there any pain…does it hurt?” Alessandra asked…her eyes just there, her voice almost a whisper into my ear.. and I could feel myself falling…going into a faint, a swoon.. and all I could see was her face and the ceiling fan spinning slowly, rhythmically overhead, blowing wisps of Alessandra’s hair as she leant over me, her hair dropping either side of her face shielding us from the view of the people around..as invisible to me now as the silence was so solid and palpable..and I cannot be sure if I fainted away or dreamt it, but I sense I replied to her..
“Yes…yes, Alessandra, it hurts like never before”..
“Does it truly hurt?” she asked again and I saw now that she was not asking after my physical self, but after my deeper self…and it was at that moment we touched…not physically, you understand, Stephan..nor of the heart or soul as they say…but another place, another part..a part of ourselves that has no name…but beauty…an un-named beauty that is so pure between a man and a woman..and I then realised she had known of my want for her from a long time ago..and so I looked straight into her eyes and replied..
“Yes, Alessandra….it does hurt….it always hurts..”
“Yes, I know”..she said in a whisper “ It hurts for me too”.
“You have to be more careful of yourself, Saavo..” she softly spoke “You must take care…” and I as suddenly awoke from my trance and became aware of the noise and people around me.
Well with Alessandra’s assistance and some others I was helped to my feet, dusted down and I went to go on my way…I turned one last time to look to Alessandra and her eyes said it all..
“Take care of yourself, Saavo..” she said.. and I nodded my head toward her in silence and with abashed eyes, I turned away.
“So you see, Stephan.. unbeknown to myself, and all this while I have been…”manufacturing” my little fantasy of an affair at a distance…my own liaison amoureuse a’ distance.. Alessandra has been playing this same game with me…Why ?….I confess I do not know.. ..But I do know that I will keep up the pretence..and I suspect Alessandra will also..what choice do either of us have, the public will crucify us if we did otherwise…it’s a cruel world, Stephan..a cruel world.. But I will not be gracing your confessional any further, Father O’Brien..I have no more need to ‘confess’ my fantasy”.
“Are you sure, Saavo that you can hold to such secrecy?”
“I have to, Stephan…I have to..it’s now part of the contract we have made between ourselves..we cannot..dare not reveal ourselves…but yes..I..for my part will hold true..I WILL hold true to Alessandra”…
“Goodbye Stephan…and good luck to both of us.”
“Well…goodbye Saavo…and best of luck…and Saavo…on your way out, perhaps, for me, take Brian Hurley to a pew, humour him and please..say a prayer for this old man”.
Illustration for “Cybernetics” ; Boris Artzybasheff..1950.
Smart Tech’ or just; “Smart Aleck”?
This age of “smart-phones” or “clever computers” doesn’t enthral me that much..sure, these new inventions can be called innovative, but I still reckon the invention of the grease-cup where you turn the cap to force grease into the needed lubricant place as equal or even better in a more practical sense..after all, where would we all be if the wheel, ANY wheel, stops turning?
So I don’t revere the goings on inside my desk-top computer, as long as the bloody thing does what I expect it to do without the outside interference of some anonymous, malicious, distant techy deciding to re-invent the wheel and suddenly change the applied program that runs the bloody thing, I’m happy. After all, my carpenter’s tool-box is chockers with hand-tools that were invented more than a millennium ago and still function most admirably..so why “fix” something when it ain’t broke!?
But ah..the IT techies are the new high priests of this age…My wife bought an Apple smart-watch to assist her in her health counts; heart-beats, exercise measurements etc..So down we go to the Apple store in the city..STORE!!..more like a basilica of immense proportions and ceiling height, with large, flat oak tables much like altars, where the appropriately garbed acolytes, with just a touch of the fingers on a secret location on those oak tables and up popped electrical service points, from whence was dispensed the blessings and dispensations of “Apple Corp’” with a communion-like efficiency to the congregated penitents.
I ask; Why all the theatre?…it’s not some magic show, it’s just a shop after all..Tommy Johnson’s “4Square” store back in my day sold just as much stuff there displayed clearly in glass cabinet or open shelf..an’ if’n I asked for threepence of mixed lollies, you can be sure he dispensed such fairly..and would occasionally throw in a big “gob-stopper” for a special treat!
Mind you, unlike the regular religious establishments that rely on the power of a heavenly host to grace the patrons with a sense of security in their place of worship, this sacred locale had a heavy hoofed bloke of rather solid proportion and appropriate brutish phiz to “squizz the clientele” just in case. In contrast to the younger folk dispensing Apple technology, who most likely were recruited from local university pools of IT graduates, this “bit o’ rough” was more likely recruited from the pool-room of a Hindley Street “university of hard knocks” back-bar!
The one young presbyter who served us, brought out from the inner sanctum of the “cathedral” a small oblong box of tightly encased soft, white paper and laid it reverently before my wife with a pointed finger instructing her, and only her, to fold back two cardboard tabs…this done with trembling doubt, that soft paper unfolded as if by magic like a lotus flower opening, revealing another smaller even more whiter box within..again two tabs were instructed to be folded back and the wide-eyed acolyte then lifted the snug-fitting lid of this second package to reveal (almost with a drum-roll!)……..”It’s only a bleedin’ watch-band!” I cried in a much too loud voice….there was a rumble of gasping from so many nearby congregationalists, that I felt like I was back in my altar-boy days and had committed a sacrilege on the holy host of the Lord Jesus Christ!…
It was then that I thought it best to vacate the hallowed hall before the aforementioned “heavy” bore down on me with pontifical chastisement, to let my wife be baptised into “The Faith” and go wait outside in the shopping mall and mingle with the peasants in the real world.
And hey…..there’s some pretty strange peasants there in that mall on a Wednesday afternoon!
A sampler taste of the colour and texture of living past and present in The Murray Mallee.
Two stories and four poems by Helen Tuxford and Joe Carli.
Joyce Delivers the Flowers.
“Joyce Hartingdale .. Secretary” the writing on the triangular wedge of wood prominent at the front of her desk was written in bright, gold paint. It was there the first day she came to the job at the office situated at the front of the “Shoebridge Furniture Factory”. A job she had come all the way from Manchester, England for…well…it was not just the job, but she had applied for the secretarial job while home in England, fresh graduated from the secretarial college where she had seen the advertisement seeking young ladies to come to the Australian colonies for a bright, fresh life…or at least that is how Joyce saw it… and she took it.
The telegram from her mother back in Manchester sat on the passenger’s seat of the Morris Minor 1000 sedan she was at that very moment driving out to the country town of Kanmantoo so as to attend the funeral of an obscure uncle who had just passed away.
“ Uncle Stan has died”. The telegram started “ Funeral at Kanmantoo Ch of Eng 1pm. Fri. Chance meet family..go!” ..and it was signed : “Mother”.
Joyce, having no friends before she came to this new country, was keen to make contact with those distant relatives her mother had told her lived in the country there..and what better way to introduce oneself than at a funeral..She had her Mothers telegram handy as a note of introduction when she arrived at the church.
It was nice of Mr. Shoebridge to allow her the day off to attend the funeral, and considering that she had only been employed for one month, it gave credibility to how high her secretarial skills were held in the office. In fact, the whole experience of her new life in the antipodes was working out just fine..the weather was much to her liking, the job was a breeze considering her long years spent in training in the cold corridors of the Manchester college and her flat in the western suburbs by the sea was so comfortable with its own little patch of garden that she had every intention of planting out with her favourite flowers just as soon as time allowed.
It was the thought of that flower garden that brought her thoughts right down to earth with a crash!
‘Flowers!” she exclaimed out loud.. “I haven’t brought any flowers!”
The suddenness of the arrangement for attending the funeral, the buying of clothes and instructions of how to get to Kanmantoo from the kindly young man next door threw Joyce’s thoughts for flowers right out the window. Now here she was, out in the countryside, barely a few miles from her destination and only now has she thought of flowers..What could she do?
Fate, at this desperate time had smiled upon Joyce, she decided, for there, not one yard from the verge of the road, was a veritable paddock full to the wire fence of the most brilliant, beautiful purple flowers, resplendent in their fulsome healthy bloom..
“They must be a native species” Joyce concluded as she pulled to the side of the road, for she had never seen such resplendent flowers before. She gathered a bouquet of these blossoms before she threw caution to the winds and gathered a large number more..
“Why not?” she reasoned “be generous”…and she rummaged for a slip of ribbon in the glove-box and tied the volume of flowers into the most bright, fulsome bouquet. “This’ll make a splash!” she pouted in satisfaction…and though she could not add a card of identification of the gift of the flowers, she consoled herself that it would take little effort to enlighten anyone who asked.
Upon arrival at the Church of England chapel, Joyce was obliged to find a park away from the gathering at the front and park the car around the side of the little church. It was apparent from the glimpse she saw of the minister at the door, there was intent to soon start the entrance to the ceremony. Hurrying out of the car with her huge bouquet, Joyce saw the side door to the church ajar and peeking in, saw the coffin on the bier with many bouquets of flowers on top…she quickly slipped into the empty church and placed her bright purple fronds amongst the dahlias and gladiolas and other blooms there, snuggling her generous purple bunch right on top in the middle..Satisfying herself the bunch was secure, she hurriedly slipped out and made her way around to the front of the church to try and meet some of the other mourners there.
As Joyce made her way around to the front of the church, she couldn’t help but notice here and there along the fence-line of the church yard, those very same flowers that she had gathered into her bouquet and placed on top of the coffin and she was wondering if she had been a tad overzealous in her gathering so many into a bunch..
“Coals to Newcastle.” She pondered…
Joyce moved close to a couple and smiled..they smiled back..and she just coyly introduced herself as ‘Joyce’ ..a distant relative…a niece..The couple smiled back. Then Joyce tried to break the ice a bit with some light conversation about the purple flowers along the fence-line.
“Those purple flowers are quite pretty now, aren’t they?”
“The Salvation Jane?”…the lady replied.
“Oh..is that their name? ..I..I didn’t know…from the city, you see…” and she smiled her secretarial smile..” A lovely name…most suitable to the occasion, one might say.”
“Hrumph!” the lady snorted ‘Good job old Stan is no longer around to hear you say that!..’Patterson’s curse’ he called ‘em..a blight on the district!”
“Oh..they troubled him?..Was it hayfever?” Joyce inquired.
“Hayfever!?”..the lady pulled her shoulders back ”Hardly…You mustn’t know what old Stanley Knowles did for a living all these last twenty five years..he were the council weeds and pests control officer..it were his life’s ambition to rid the district of them purple curse!”
“But they are everywhere..” Joyce quietly exclaimed..”He hardly was a success story then.”
“You can blame that on those lot over there” the lady motioned to a group apart.
“And they are?” Joyce now wide-eyed asked.
“The local Bee-Keepers and Honey Distillers Cooperative…Every time Stan pushed for greater effort and funding to really get stuck into the Patterson’s Curse problem, they’d come out swingin’..’cause they depended on the flowers in any off season and drought..But they weren’t deep enemies for all that and now they come to pay their respect..as neighbours do.”
An awful realisation of doom was starting to descend upon Joyce and she was almost at the point of making a dash around to the side door of the church to remove her bouquet from the coffin when the minister made a call for the friends of Stanley Knowles to come gather inside the church for the service.
It only took a little while as the congregation settled into the rows of pews in the chapel that someone noticed Joyce’s bunch of Salvation Jane (Patterson’s Curse) sitting proud as punch on the very top of the collection of funeral wreaths and bouquets on the coffin of the local council’s recently deceased weeds and pest control officer. Things moved pretty fast from that moment on.
A cry of exclamation heralded up to the rafters and it took only a little guess before the obvious conclusion for this gross insult upon a dead man’s reputation was laid upon the shoulders of the ‘Bee-Keepers and Honey Distillers Cooperative’ and the rest, as is so often recorded in moments of public disorder where accusation and abuse colours what should be a sombre celebration…is history.
Joyce did not wait to see the outcome of the fracas, but at the first cry of outrage, she deftly slipped out of the chapel doors and hastily making her way to the trusty Morris Minor 1000, she was already in third gear as she shot out of the gate onto the main road back to the city. The introduction to the country cousins would have to wait till another day.
J.C.
*
The Mower.
Wait until the poppies bloom,
She said.
She loved to see them flowering,
Red and green, upon the bank.
Though the grass was high,
And needed mowing –
Who would have thought,
It would be her last request.
They were only a little wildling thing,
That flowered and died
Within the day.
But oh,
How tender green their leaves,
She said.
How frail the petals,
Dark the heart,
Opening to the sun;
(And thoughts of sacrifice
Are never far away).
The years have been too many,
Since her smile lit my way.
Yet still,
I’ve never had the heart
To mow there since,
Until the poppies bloom,
And have their day.
And somehow it’s not spring until
I see the scarlet petals on the grass.
H.T.
The Story of Hannibal / Hannibal’s Tale.
This children’s story has it’s origin in two events. The first was in my wanderings as a much younger man trying my hand at opal mining…not so much mining, really as ; scratching around. In amongst those months of loneliness up in the desert, I had as a “pet” companion, a mouse that I caught one day eating at a packet of biscuits…I named him “Hannibal” and I kept him/ her in my top pocket fed on bits and pieces of crumbs .
The other part is filled by an old miner who lived in a “dugout” hole in the side of a hill a couple of miles away, like the pic below.
He was quite old then and his “dugout” in the hill contained only a big iron-frame bed and one small picture hanging precariously on the cave wall..It was a painting of a sailing clipper-ship that he assured me was the very ship he sailed in to Australia so many years ago. The “dugout” he lived in had a big hole in the roof that with the bright moonlight shining in, would give the super-white alunite walls a kind of blueish-phosphorous glow…quite a sight with he there on the edge of the bed talking of ships and seas while we were both in the middle of a vast desert!
Spinifex hopping mouse.
Rodent.
The spinifex hopping mouse, also known as the tarkawara or tarrkawarra, occurs throughout the central and western Australian arid zones, occupying both spinifex-covered sand flats and stabilised sand dunes, and loamy mulga and melaleuca flats.
When old Charlie took me in as a live-in companion, I was living out in the sticks…most of my life had been a close encounter with the seedy side of life..a pretty hairy existence. So I was quite happy to be nothing more than a “conversation piece” to a lonely old man while I got my room and board , along with regular meals free of charge.
It took me a little while to get used to his house and habits…some of those older folk have habits of doing things that have taken them dozens of years to perfect. But I didn’t mind, he was always quiet in the mornings as he come to the breakfast table…just saying ;“ Hello Hannibal”..that’s the nickname he gave me..He reckoned that anyone as tough and resilient as myself deserved a heroic name! He didn’t really expect too much conversation, and sometimes he would even ask me something and then answer for me as well.
Sometimes he’d take a piece of rock out of his pocket and ask;
“What do you think of that colour, Hannibal?” and he’d answer himself before I even had time to think..” ..well I think it’s nice…a bit on the pale side, but it will scrub up well”.
I think it was just the fact of having some company there that cheered him up, and sometimes we would do things together ..”I want you to stick close to me today , Hannibal..I want you as close as my shirt pocket.”
On some days, he’d take me with him to work..
“Today, Hannibal, we are going to drive a little way along the east ridge..I think we might find some colour there”…and if it wasn’t too much of a tight squeeze on the drive, he’d take me with him for a bit of company, keeping up a running commentary of what he was thinking while he worked. It was often quite entertaining and I didn’t have to contribute to the work or the conversation at all as he told story after story…he didn’t even expect me to laugh.. though they could be sort of funny at times, I think he would have been shocked if I did laugh!
At night, he would cook up a nice little dinner and I would get my meal from the best bits…with all the trimmings of a yeast bun dessert, or a biscuit .
At bed-time he would see me to my room with his “Tilley lantern” , and make sure I was safe and comfortable for the night before going to his own bedroom…all in all, it was a very nice billet for the several months I was with him.
Eventually though, he had to let me go..I am afraid some of my nocturnal adventures had got the better of me and I came home with my three tiny babies…and he had to rename me ; “Hannibelle”. Old Charlie said he was too old now for the pitter-patter of little feet, and I had to find a place of my own.
He read out a letter his sister wrote to him to say she too had; “… found another nice “home” that HE could go into when he was ready..after all, he wasn’t getting any younger..” and he sighed and shook his head .
“Hannibelle” he said ; ” I’d rather live in a hole of my own choosing..if they don’t mind “.
Old Charlie has since left the district to go to another mining town , because that was his life ; he was an opal miner you see?..and he had to let me go my own way..after all, he couldn’t be expected to take a Spinifex hopping mouse and all her offspring with him in the inside pocket of his old jacket, could he?
J.C.
If I Looked Back.
Life was good,
When I was young,
My sky was always blue,
The world seemed sane and right.
The rain upon the iron roof,
Was a comfort in the night.
The times of drought,
And times of plenty,
Had their day.
All had enough (but not too much),
And wars and famine,
Strife and want,
Seemed very far away.
Flirty glances,
Boozy parties,
Music full of life and hunger.
When men ( bless them ), were blokes,
And girls were sweethearts, lovers,
Wives and mothers.
So much to learn,
So much to know,
Realms of history,
Knowledge, mystery.
So many paths to follow.
The future
A road untravelled.
A baby’s smile,
And lullabies,
The growing years
That passed so swiftly.
Bricks and mortar to build a dream,
Amongst the rock and sand.
Precious lives,
And precious times.
Time echoed,
In the old, worn brown hills,
Fading into night,
On the face of the ancient cliffs
Dyed gold in the storm’s strange light.
And the river,
Yes, the river,
Changeless, changing,
Ever flowing.
Oh, when I was young,
The world was fine –
Then I turned thirty nine,
And that’s another story.
H.T.
*
A Sixpenny Secret.
A Sixpenny Secret.
It was a simple little ditty,
Mum would chant to me,
When I would fall from my trike,
Or would come to her with a scraped knee..
Well..I WAS a little tacker then, seeking sympathy,
And Mum would comfort me with these words,
In a humming melody..;
“A penny for your thoughts,my dear,
Threepence for a song,
Sixpence for a secret,
A shilling if you keep it long!”
And she would wipe the tears with this balm,
And press a coin into my palm..
But it was never a shilling,
And that was in the telling..
For I would invariable whine,
“This is not a shilling, it’s just sixpence”,
“And” she would ask; ”how many sixpences in a shilling?”
“Two!” I would answer keen and willing,
“Correct..” Mum would tap my nose and say,
“Then, Mr. Smarty-pants, I’ll owe you another some day”.
*
It is so many years ago that Mum has passed away,
Gone, her comforting words..now my life too, is closing, aye..
I went to where my mother rests, to clean and dust the grave,
For so many leaves and twigs, had there in time accrued,
And a couple of buckets of white gravel also needed to be spread.
It was while immersed in this work, that little ditty I recalled,
Took a while to get it straight, as to me she had then told,
And I repeated it quietly as I attended to her grave..
“A penny for your thoughts, Mum,
Threepence for a song,
Sixpence for a secret,
A Shilling if you keep it long!”…..
And at the end of the job, I placed a five cent piece,
Under the new-spread gravel where she rests in peace..
“It’s only five cents, mum,
And since there’s two in every shilling,
And because I am still that Mr. Smarty-pants,
You’ll understand when I say,
It looks like I’ll have to owe you one, on some other day..”
freef'all852 
