Читать книгу Forever Baby: Jenny’s Story - A Mother’s Diary - Mary Burbidge - Страница 11

Look at this flash new diary, a present from the dear departed Geraldine. In years to come, connoisseurs will look at it and say, ‘Ah yes. That was 1995!!’ A familiar date. Am I missing something? Ann’s birthday, perhaps.

The only hectic part of the day was between arriving home and serving tea, and even that could have been worse. Ant could have come. Ron could have come earlier. As it was, there was Julie comparing notes of Queensland with Elizabeth and Rosemary, Servas travellers from Stuttgart, Southern Germany; Jo waving a phone message to ring someone about billeting Servas people for the International Conference; Jen in the pool; hungry quacks and clucks from the back yard; Annabel distressed; Philip ringing to say Ant was coming round because it looks likely that he'll be turfed out of the Rooming House unless he agrees to pay $5/day for daily cleaning (maggots having been something of the last wriggling straw); Lynette arriving for a referral because her voice is still husky; salmon patties to be made even though Jim was watching a friend have her eyebrow pierced instead of coming home for tea; and I've got a life to live too you know.

I told Elizabeth and Rosemary that the beach was just down the end of the street, and they took the hint and disappeared for an hour, and we eventually sat down to our salmon patties, Andrew entertaining the guests with wine and patter. His talk is so idiomatic, has so many figures of speech, so many rapid-fire alternatives and options built into his questions that their eyes start and their mouths hang open. But at least he talks. Once he comes home I can retreat into comfortable silence. They're both nurses and met while working on a German Christian kibbutz in Israel. They fly home on Friday after five months travelling in Australia.

There were a few Fawlty Towers moments – Andrew went to call Thoz in. "Hünd!"; Andrew at tea, "What were you doing in Israel? Digging in the gardens? Nursing? Shooting Palestinians?"; and Jo at tea time, "Yer, Steph reckons all the Arts students are radical feminist lesbians." "Ah, I think it was 'druggies', not 'lesbians'." I checked later on their forms. Yes, they live together at home. No offence taken, chat continued and they went to bed after tea, before Ron arrived.

Jo washed up. I got on with my life – a letter to Georgie, a phone call to Kate Veitch about judging the CAA-SSC (Yes!!), a phone call to Nan about her normal ECG, and tidying my papers into the three trays I bought today for putting under the seat near the computer.

The rest of the day was spent at WHRC doing nothing much and feeling nothing much (those two 'nothing much’s are quite different). A bit of shopping broke the day up. No luck with a vibrator for Jen, but I got my paper trays and a $75 pair of binoculars for Lil (from a pawn shop, but new) and some hose fittings.

Andrew had a good day, collecting data, and anecdotes about someone new. He worked hard and came home late. Jo’s going to write something to explain that Aborigines in Alice Springs don’t live in the Todd River, drinking grog, because they choose to. She’s given up her room for the visitors and is sleeping in Annabel’s room. Annabel rushed off, upset, to stay with Sarah.

I thought of two little maxims – rules, aphorisms, truisms, whatever. The first is, The longer the hypotenuse, the shorter the short cut, and the second is, If you don’t have anything to look forward to, you'll never be disappointed. Lynette said that’s a very pessimistic one, a very bleak view of life, but I realised that my high frequency of disappointment (like daily, almost) for the last two years stems from my creation of things to look forward to. If you send things off and there’s a chance of a wonderful reply in the post, each bundle of dreary mail is a disappointment.