Horrible Roger had smeared red jam on Zidra’s seat during the lunch recess. It wasn’t until all the kids started laughing when she got up to go home that she’d realised something was wrong. Even then she mightn’t have known if little Lyn Cross hadn’t told her. The humiliation! How she’d blushed at the discovery and that had made horrid Roger laugh all the more. ‘Started your periods, have you?’ he’d said. While having no idea what he meant, she knew it couldn’t be nice. And there was no way she could wash the jam off either, with the toilet block being out of bounds once school was out. If Lorna were here she would have sorted out Roger. Now there was nothing for it but to take the long way home, creeping along the back lanes so that no one would see her with the red sticky mess on her tunic.
She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to go home today. This afternoon Mama was giving two lessons, one after the other, and wouldn’t have any time to spare, no time even to listen to the story about Roger. Then there’d be all that thumping on the piano, that endless ping-ping-ping-ping-ping up the keys, and ping-ping-ping-ping down again. Five-finger exercises were so good to develop coordination of the hands, Mama said, but she didn’t think of her daughter’s ears. If Zidra didn’t get home until after the piano lessons were over, she wouldn’t even notice.
Zidra hung around for a while in the school playground, until Miss Neville came out to tell her to go home. Soon after, she heard the sound of Mrs Bates banging out scales on the school piano. Pianos everywhere; she’d rather hear the birds any day. That’s what Lorna had taught her, how to listen to the bush. How to hear the music that was all around you, music that you just blocked out unless someone told you about it. If only Lorna were here; she’d make Zidra’s jammy skirt an excuse for an adventure and not a retreat.
She trudged along the back lanes leading down to the lagoon. Once or twice she thought she heard a sound behind her and turned to look, suspecting Roger might be tracking her, but there wasn’t a soul about. No one to see her, no one to taunt her; she’d be able to sponge the stuff off her skirt in peace.
She hid her school-case in the spot near the bridge that she and Lorna had made their own, and took off her shoes and socks. Avoiding the few sickle-shaped jelly fish beached on the edge of the lagoon, she waded into the water. A wet handkerchief would surely do the trick. The sticky mess on the back of her skirt came off easily; maybe there was still a bit of a mark but that was probably just from the lagoon water.
Through the cool clear water, her feet were visible and appeared bleached to a stark white. Blue veins stood up prominently on the top and the edges of her toes were a ruby red. Distorted by the water, her legs appeared shorter than in reality. Wriggling her toes, she dislodged some of the brown slime covering the sandy bottom. This swirled around and sank again, some of the particles settling on her feet. She felt more alone than ever before. If she stood here long enough, her feet would become invisible. She might become invisible too, or turn into a discarded log like that old tree trunk lying at the water’s edge that Lorna claimed had been left there by some long-ago flood.
Eventually she stepped out of the water and dried her feet on her tunic skirt. It was too early to go home; her mother would still be giving lessons. Instead she’d walk along the edge of the lagoon; maybe as far as that spot where Stillwater Creek trickled into the lagoon and Jim and Andy had baked those potatoes in the days before the total fire ban.
After the last customer had left Cadwallader’s Quality Meats, George and The Boy began the evening liturgy. The Boy had performed his ceremonial duties with greater efficiency if not devotion since his pay rise several months ago. Today he was even more zealous than usual and by ten past the hour George was ready to go home. Normally he’d return by the back lanes but today he decided to leave by the front door.
It was then that he saw it. Someone had stuck a label on the flank of the painted cow adorning the top of the shopfront window. Peering up, he could just discern the writing on the label. Batty Beattie. If he didn’t view the painting as a portrait of his wife he might have smiled at this but as it was he felt only annoyance. The cow was much too young for this sobriquet.
He unlocked the shopfront again and went out the back to fetch a stepladder and a pail of water. Standing on the stepladder, he could just reach the label. It peeled away easily, but then he discovered that it had been attached with a couple of pieces of chewing gum that were unwilling to part company with the cow. Although he tried sponging the gum with water, it wouldn’t come off. Something must be able to remove it but he couldn’t think what. Not methylated spirits because that might remove the paint. Brown paper and a hot iron, he was almost certain now he’d heard Eileen recommend this. If she hadn’t disliked the cow so much, he might once have asked her to do it. Perhaps late at night; she didn’t like making an exhibition of herself. But it was impossible to ask such a thing of her now. They were barely speaking to one another, although the exchanges they did have were of exquisite politeness, and he’d tried so hard lately to see things from her perspective. These days she refused to talk about the scholarship at all. If he raised the matter, she stonewalled him, and when he tried to explain that he understood what she was going through she’d simply laughed in his face. How can you understand, George, you are a man, she’d said. As if being a man was something to be ashamed of.
After descending the stepladder, he inspected the painting from pavement level. The two dabs of gum didn’t look so bad from this distance. A couple more spots weren’t all that noticeable on a Friesian cow. It would have been worse if he’d commissioned a painting of a Jersey all those years ago. Maybe he’d leave well alone for the moment. Better than having to discuss the matter with Eileen. It was possible anyway that the paint might come off with the gum. It wouldn’t do for the cow to have holes in its flank.
He felt upset nonetheless. The cow had been without blemish and the comfort of it lay in its perfection. So disgruntled did he feel that he decided to stroll down to the lagoon before going home. The river was always soothing and maybe a quick look at his boat would calm him. Although it hadn’t calmed him a few weeks ago when he’d found the dinghy was lying the wrong way up and the bailing can was missing. He’d put a padlock on the boatshed doors after that.
You never used to have to worry about locking things away. Nothing seemed quite the same as it used to. Nothing was safe any more. Not his boat, not even his cow that was in full view of half the town. After crossing the bridge over the lagoon, he headed along the track to the boathouse. The bush was drier than ever. No longer sparkling in the light, the leaves of the scrubby trees drooped sadly, quite still, and the sparse undergrowth was a uniform drab olive. The path was baked hard, and littered with the detritus of the bush; the twigs, nuts and dead leaves that took so long to decay but that would burst into flames with just one match.
After several hundred yards, out of sight of the settlement, he stopped and stared at the lagoon. A flock of pelicans floated at the water’s edge. Most held their heads high, necks fully extended. Three or four had turned their heads a full one hundred and eighty degrees and buried their beaks into their feathers. That’s what he’d like to do. Bury his head in something soft and cocooning that would obliterate his unhappiness.
Beyond the pelicans, on the western side of the lagoon, folds of land fuzzed with bush dropped down to the path just above the waterline. Further back, the bush had been cleared for farming. Behind this, the tall straight trunks of a forest of eucalyptus trees looked like nascent telegraph poles topped with broccoli heads.
At this moment his eye was caught by a movement near the water’s edge, not far from where Stillwater Creek entered the lagoon. It was a girl sprinting towards the town. After a moment he recognised her. The Latvian girl Zidra was running so fast it wouldn’t surprise him if she turned into a bit of an athlete, like Jim and Andy. Not so long ago she would have had Lorna with her. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to six. Perhaps she was late for tea as he might be too if he didn’t get a move on. The boys were at cricket practice and he’d promised Eileen to be home in time to feed the chooks in Jim’s place. He was going to have to hurry. An angry Eileen on top of everything else would be too much. Tea at six o’clock sharp, that was her rule.
He turned back the way he had come and so he missed seeing Bill Bates walking, ten minutes later, along the same path as Zidra.