Читать книгу The Paradise Stain - Nick Glade-Wright - Страница 12

Rosie’s days, with Mrs Gorski the home care lady, were lots of fun. Yetta had become surrogate grandmother to Rosie since Sarah had passed away. Even though she didn’t understand some of the old lady’s words, she loved to hear Yetta talk about a magical place called Poland a long way away on the other side of the world. Sometimes she fell asleep whilst Yetta described little anecdotes about her childhood there.

Mrs Gorski, whose white hair was usually tightly braided like a fancy loaf of bread, had even said that Rosie was grown up enough to put her hands out to hold the skeins of knit ting wool while she rolled them into balls. Once they made a pompom together, by winding colourful lengths of wool around two hollow cardboard sandwiched discs, lots of times, until it was tight and then cut around in between the discs very carefully. The fluffy ball appeared like magic.

‘Yetta, can you sew it on my beanie, pease?’ Rosie had asked. Yetta did, and Rosie told her Mummy later that afternoon it felt funny wobbling on top of her head.

Mungo kissed his family goodbye and left first, his little statement that, although he was only a self actuating musician, it was indeed a real job that required discipline and a regular starting time. And with some assiduous application mixed with fearless creativity, he would one day bring home more than just a few dollars he earned from the weekly gig at Night Owl the nightclub for experimental music. There were also the ‘mate’s rates’ piano lessons he gave to a couple of his friends’ kids at home, on his days with Rosie while she was sleeping.

‘Eeni maru, goodbye to you, crochets and quavers, tickle your tum, have a nice day and be good to your mum,’ he sang with a marching beat to a giggling Rosie as he lowered her to the ground and headed out to the Red Devil, a twenty plus year old Volvo stationwagon. As he drove towards North Hobart, where he and his muso accomplices were renting a first floor warren of gloomy rooms, ideal for their experimentation and recording, clear blue exhaust smoke puffed up into a clear blue sky.

Melinda gave Rosie a bath in a large plastic tub she placed on the kitchen table, more for fun than the wash. The old claw foot bath they’d picked up at a salvage place looked as if it might need a few more goes with some strong bleach and scourer before use. Mrs Gorski, punctual to a tee, was due to arrive in ten minutes.

Melinda was wrapping Rosie in a towel when she became aware of someone approaching the front door. She’d left the door open so the house could breathe the morning’s fresh warm air. She recognised the visitor’s looming form as their neighbour who had moved next door a week before, an AC/DC fan, as they’d found out the first night she’d moved in, a raspy nicotine voiced single mother of three young boys.

Standing in the open front door, the woman’s silhouette sucked the light out of the day. After a quick rap, and before Melinda could reply, she stepped into the passage. Her eyes wandering around as if she was a prospective house buyer and she had come to inspect the premises.

‘Can I help you?’ Melinda said guardedly.

But then, seeing that the woman was carrying a three or four year old on her hips quickly dispelled any fear of threat. The woman looked as if she wasn’t quite ready for the day. Her lank black hair was dishevelled and her blotchy mascara had been trying to remove itself for some time. She took a last drag from her cigarette and flicked it expertly backwards along the corridor and accurately through the front door into the garden. Faded black jeans hung from bony hips, and her bra less flaccid breasts were squashed shapelessly beneath a blue sleeveless truckie’s wife beater.

Melinda thought that in a gust of wind her ears would surely jangle with the lineup of piercings. One protruded from the side of her lower lip, and another in her eyebrow looked inflamed. Her shoulders and upper arms were a battlefield of clumsy, smudged tattoos.

Her child, already with crudely shaved head, tufted mullet in the making and shifty eyes, was attempting to reach a comfort breast through the side of her shirt with a grubby hand. Wearing spent Ugg boots the woman scuffed casually towards Melinda as if they were old friends meeting up for a morning joint.

‘From next door, darl. Lippy, to me friends.’

‘Yes, we saw you move in a while back. Hi, I’m Melinda. And this is Rosie. How are you settling in?’

‘Yeah, all right for shit ’ousing.’ Lippy peered into the kitchenette giving it the once over, ‘Looks noice ’ere.’

‘Thanks. We had to do a bit of renovating. My husband’s just gone to work, I’m afraid.’

Mungo and Melinda had agreed that referring to each other as husband and wife sounded too much like ownership. ‘It’s the dissolution of self,’ Mungo had argued, more protectively of himself when they’d first decided to live together. It was as much to do with the idea of Melinda earning money as a teacher whilst he struggled with his musical creativity, and knowing how her father thought of him as not contributing financially. It used to bother him each time he drove off to the studio.

Melinda and Mungo had devised their own union ritual, inviting family and close friends, and had made promises to try harder to understand the other person when things inevitably got bogged down. In the meantime they wanted to show the people they cared about how much they loved each other at this particular point in time. How long it would last was not the issue but getting pleasure from the moment. To begin with, Barry had thought the whole thing nebulous and hippy, but to his surprise it seemed to be working.

This morning Melinda thought the concept of having a husband gave her a bit more clout. This woman looks as if she could hold her own in any bar fight, she thought as her neighbour approached. For now the term husband would be adopted as a protective mechanism.

‘Yeah, I seen ’im. Is ’e a poof or summit? Never seen a bloke wearing red trousers neither. Talks funny too.’

It was impossible to take offence at Lippy’s manner. She was unpretentious and authentic, Melinda observed, like so many of her students at the Polytechnic who’d also been scraped from the same mold. Melinda relaxed a little and smiled.

‘My husband’s just one of these arty types, a muso,’ Melinda replied lightheartedly, lifting her eyebrows to give the impression she was siding with Lippy. Better to deal with an ally than an assailant was her rule number one when dealing with difficult students.

A turbulent existence had clearly stunted this woman’s formal schooling and her remark was simply about a man she had observed being unlike anyone she had experienced before.

That’s all. Melinda’s grandfather had advised against any form of backchat if they were to get on in this jungle. He should know. He had been as much a fixture in the area as the street signs, most of which were unreadable because of graffiti. A bit like the old man himself, she’d often thought.

As Lippy entered the living area and began looking around with wide, inquisitive eyes, Melinda speculated about whether the woman’s frown was ingrained or whether she was concentrating on the objects to judge if there was anything of value worth stealing at some later date.

Lippy suddenly snorted with bewilderment. ‘Jeez, you got a pianna!’

‘Mungo gives lessons to some young children on Thursdays.’ She smiled outwardly. ‘They can go on a bit. You know, a bit hard on the ears. Might be a good day for you to do your shopping!’ she added slightly apologetically but trying to be conversational.

‘Thas if fuckin’ Cenna Link giz us what’s owin’. Tryna get money outa three fuckin’ fathers is … ’ Lippy stopped, puffed air, clearly sick and tired of banging on about them. ‘Better go, eh? Cute kid. My other two are probably tryna burn the fuckin’ house down, little bastards. Nice to meetcha, Mel. See yas round. Bring pianna man round for a drink sometime, eh?’

‘I’ll let him know. Bye then.’

She could quite understand why Lippy had such a nick name. Rosie had fallen asleep in Melinda’s arms, snug in the thick white bath towel. Melinda kissed her daughter’s forehead. She looked so content, so serene, so … not wanting to meet the neighbour. ‘I know your trick, you little poppet. If only we adults had that sort of audacity.’

Rosie, too young to go to crèche quite yet, adored these Mondays with Mrs Gorski, as much a loved member of the family now. And Melinda, unlike most of the staff at the Polytechnic, also loved Mondays because first up she had a free line, giving herself time to prepare the pottery studio for her Licorice class at ten, filled with Allsorts of odd bods.

Yetta Gorski, stocky, smooth leathery face with a strong jaw line, a mother of five, now grown up men, exuded warmth and a selflessness that had been fashioned out of privation. Her late husband Leszek, once a miner on the West Coast, who departed his dusty world with an incurable lung infection, left her early to raise their brood on her own. She never remarried, she never complained. Now that her boys had flown the coup her ingrained need to nurture was even stronger.

Melinda would fantasise about getting Yetta together with her father whenever he became maudlin. Complete opposites she knew, but it was the pampering he could have done with. And Rosie, well, she became the sweetest granddaughter Yetta Gorski still didn’t have from her boys.

Yetta, dead on time, came bustling into the house carrying a cane basket containing her knitting, a dogeared Romance novel and two bottles of home brewed beer for Mungo. She hadn’t been able to give up the practice of brewing even though her lads had disappeared interstate to the WA mines. She always had a few bottles in the fridge for their returns. When Rosie had her naps, Yetta found peaceful escape in books whilst knitting at the same time, an action that had become a wholly automatic function of her anatomy.

‘Hi Yetta. Rosie’s gone back to sleep. Don’t think she was too impressed with the woman next door.’ She chuckled. ‘Just sauntered right in to introduce herself to us. I’m sure she’s not a danger but just for a while I’d keep the front door closed.’

‘Yes, I will keep my eyes wide.’

But there was something about the woman, an inclination for violence maybe? Exacerbated by the brazen way she talked about her own children, and even Mungo? Or am I just prejudiced? Melinda wondered. She’s pretty scary with those tattoos round her neck and arms, and that voice.

‘I’d better get these breakfast things cleaned up before our young lady is demanding my full attention. Now you get your self off to those little terrors at school,’ Yetta said firmly.

‘Little! If only. Most of the boys tower over me. I’ve got the class of regular kids mixed with the special needs today. It really is like a mad house sometimes.’

‘But you couldn’t do without it; is that right?’

Melinda just smiled.

Attending the School of Art had been an exasperating time for Melinda. Whenever she opened the kiln door after a firing, and the magic of metamorphosis was revealed, her highly anticipated creations never seemed to come out as she’d wished.

She had dreamed of having a career as a ceramicist, exhibiting her highly acclaimed textural slab built constructions in swish galleries. But ceramics was a competitive field and the cost of setting up kilns and workshop at home was prohibitive, so teaching became a realistic alternative. Not completely letting go of her dream she kept her hand in by demonstrating techniques to her students.

One day, she kept reminding herself.

It wasn’t always simple at college, now a polytechnic, some thing else later no doubt. In the last couple of years classroom teaching had become more complex and arduous with the addition of special needs students to the mainstream classes. And on top of that there were more qualified art teachers than available positions, so Melinda found herself in front of Home Economics classes for half her time. Cook’n to the students.

She took pleasure from the fact that both her subjects were about mixing ingredients, ovens and metamorphosis. Melinda told Mungo she was an alchemist where basic elements, like mud or flour, could be transformed into astounding creations. She hoped her students would transform similarly, emerging from their grey and sticky capsules triumphantly as brightly coloured winged creatures. Another dream she endeavoured to keep alive.

‘They’ve all got character, Yetta, and most are shameless when expressing themselves. A bit like our Lippy next door! One lad’s in a wheel chair as he has cerebral palsy. Mason he works the chair with one withered claw of a hand controlling the steering knob. I kid you not but the other day I was setting the kiln temperatures, the rest of the class had gone to a break, and bold as brass he wheeled alongside the drying bench and with his other hand managed to swipe two or three drying pieces of work belonging to other students onto the floor.’

‘Mm, that seems shameless enough. How do you discipline that?’

Melinda shrugged. ‘No idea really. Most people treat him as if he’s invisible because they don’t want to feel uncomfortable communicating with him.’ She smiled naughtily. ‘He can sound a bit like a mating whale. So the other kids make empty platitudes, then move away. It’s not easy, and can be very frustrating, but he’s had a lifetime of being alienated simply because of other people’s social embarrassment. It doesn’t seem fair to be born with that sort of life sentence.’

‘Possibly his special need is to get the rage out of his system, hence the pot smashing.’

‘For sure. The depressing thing is that it’s hard to tell who’s neediest sometimes. Autism, Asperger’s, Down syndrome, they all require specific ways of interaction, but it’s the so called normal mainstream ones, real deadshits some of them, excuse my French, who have no physical or mental disability that cause the most trouble and are hardest to deal with. And we teachers are the jugglers trying to keep all their different needs airborne at the same time.’

‘For you I should sew one of those pointy hats with bells on!’ Yetta laughed. ‘But maybe all they need is an old fashioned firm hand and some motherly bosoms to be cuddled in.’

‘You’re not far off the mark. The mother of one of my students is in Risdon Prison, but unfortunately for the lad his father’s firm hand is a lot more than just that.’

Melinda suddenly shuddered at the thought of Tony Macey cuddling up to Yetta. A six foot lump of a boy, volcanic acne, and self esteem lower than his pitiful IQ, who thinks that wiping wet clay into girls’ hair is hilarious, even a possible career option.

‘Yetta, I’ll be back around four thirty. Stay safe.’

‘Off you go now. You have no need for worry.’

Of course I have no need to worry. Melinda picked up her keys and left the room.