Goose Girl by Joy Dettman

Author:Joy Dettman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2000-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Stare, stare, monkey bear.

Everybody knows you swear.

You’ve got dirty underwear.

Carol was speaking, going ten to the dozen, but Sally was away. She shook her head, shook her mind back to the moment. ‘She’s in England? Raelene?’

‘I think she’s still over there. She went right through school, you know, then went on and did psychology. Then she got a job in England, so her parents went back too. They were poms, nice enough, but after they lost their son, Raelene was like their whole life to them.’

‘Little Jamey. They lost him?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have known. He got leukaemia. They kept him alive until he was thirteen, which was about the time Rae finished uni. Then he died, so they sold up and left. I’ve got their address somewhere if you want it. I wrote once, sent a few Christmas cards. I never was a letter writer like you and Rae. Come in for a coffee and I’ll see if I can find it for you. Mum’s home, and old Nan is with us too since old Pa died.’

‘I won’t . . . not today.’

‘How’s your mum going these days, anyway?’

‘She’s . . . she’s really good. Really good these days.’

‘I never knew her, of course, but Rae’s mother told Mum a bit about it. God, I’m that pleased to see you. I’ve been going nuts here. It’s a real madhouse with four generations under the one roof. My girls share with Nan, and Jake is in my room. I’ve got to get myself a place of my own, but I sort of can’t decide where I want to live. We used to live in Croydon when I was married, but if I go back then I won’t have Mum to look after the kids after school.’

Sally looked at her watch. She’d turned on a talking machine.

‘Where are you living?’

‘Melbourne. South Yarra. And I’ll have to keep moving, Carol. I’ll call you. Your mum would still be in the book?’

‘Yeah. They’re the original stay-puts. Couldn’t move Mum and Pops out of here if I put a bomb under their beds. Me and Leo wanted them to go in with us in a milk bar a couple of years back, but no go. Just as well they didn’t, really. No money in them. We went broke, then we broke up six months back. Which is a bit sad, but that’s the way life goes, isn’t it? I’m going mad here, though. Stir-crazy. I’m thinking of putting an ad in the Melbourne paper, getting some other woman with kids to share a house with me. I could work the night shift and she could do days. Share the kids. Have you got any kids?’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Not married? You’ve got to be thirty. Really?’ Sally shrugged, looked away. ‘God. Looking like you do, I thought you would have had to drive the blokes off with sticks. You always were pretty, though. You know what Raelene’s mum used to call you?’ Sally shook her head. ‘She used to say you looked like poor little Alice, locked outside of Wonderland.

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