Jack’s house was frenetic with activity. The barbecue was today, and Jean was in a flap getting Daniel, Simon and Jack to see to the last details. Daniel had already set up trestle tables on the turning circle, covered with butcher’s paper. Jack had laid out green and white serviettes on them, as well as hung streamers between the trees and porch posts, from which Simon had tied the balloons he’d blown up. Jean had busied herself, cooking indoors.
There was still the pile of junk near the shed, much to Jean’s chagrin, but Daniel hid much of it with carefully positioned wood partitions, and stacked-up bales of hay. Jack finished laying out the plastic plates and cutlery, supplemented with crockery from indoors. Jean placed covered meat trays on a special table reserved for food. And Simon enjoyed the more exciting job of building up the woodpile for a great big bonfire to end the night.
Daniel fired up the barbecue (a steel plate on Besser blocks) and threw the first half-dozen snags on it.
Jean gave one last inspection of the results. Nodding with satisfaction, she poured Daniel and herself champagne in two fluted plastic glasses.
Jack eyed Jean balefully.
‘All right,’ she capitulated, ‘you can ask Mel!’
Jack whooped. Jean seemed to have softened after hearing Juliet was going away.
‘And Juliet?’ He figured he’d push his chances.
Jean paused. ‘And Mrs Jeffries, too, if it isn’t beneath her.’
Daniel winced.
‘Thanks, Mum.’
Jack scampered off towards the stile between the two properties, Simon watching enviously, worried he might never have a girlfriend himself. Daniel nodded at Jean with thanks. She snorted and turned away.
It was late afternoon and the barbecue was well in progress. With Jean being on the school council, several teachers were present: Higgins, Miss Jackson and Miss Ashton, the school librarian. The other guests included many of Jack’s classmates and their parents. Of the kids, among them there was Glen, Noel, Michelle, Kate, Fatty and Michael. A couple of Simon’s classmates were also present: Troy and Adrian.
Most of the men were gathered by the smoking barbecue in their shorts or slacks, talking loudly and drinking from their beer cans, discarding the pull-rings in the fire, and taking it in turns to char the steaks, snags and chicken legs and wings, while their cigarettes helped fuel the cloud they were ensconced in. The women were more spread out, on the chairs, under the trees, or inside doing the washing up, drinking either the punch or Porphyry Pearl, topping up the coleslaw or tomato, onion and cucumber salads. The kids were glugging soft drinks and eating the adults’ food, enlivened with more exciting fair like fairy bread.
Although politics was usually assiduously avoided by the adults, today it dominated, with rather heated argument. The opposition party had blocked supply of budget Bills in the Senate. Whitlam was being forced into calling an early election. His unprecedented reign of instituting progressive policy seemed destined for an abrupt end.
Jack and Mel stood slightly apart from the gathering, the shared, and rather more prosaic, thought perplexing their minds: no music!
They made their way into the gathering, only to collide with Miss Jackson’s stringy form. They ran the other way, this time pulling up in front of Jean. She had just come from the house with a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
‘Jack! Go and give your teacher this.’
‘Miss Jackson?’
Jean squinted. ‘Yes, of course Miss Jackson.’
‘No.’
Jean’s open mouth started to take the shape of a word, but Daniel got in first. ‘It’s all right, Jean, I’ll take it.’
Always making excuses for the kid! Jean eyed her husband piercingly.
‘No, Daniel,’ she said firmly. ‘I told Jack to do it’.
Jean shoved the hot chocolate in Jack’s hand, a splash falling on the soft part between thumb and forefinger and slightly scalding him.
Jack looked at the brown liquid sloshing in the mug.
‘She’s… she’s a dalek,’ he muttered. ‘A dalek!’
Jean shot a glance at the other guests. Kate’s mum was closest, but she was fortunately preoccupied in filling up her plate with potato salad, and taking to Mrs Harrow.
Jean leant in close and spoke between gritted teeth. ‘Jack, take it to her. Do you hear me?’
Mel tugged gently on Jack’s shirt. Pouting, he followed her in the direction of Miss Jackson but halted after only a dozen steps.
‘I won’t, Mel. I just won’t. Nothing will make me give it to her.’
Mel hawked her throat and spat in the mug.
‘I’m doing it.’
Miss Jackson turned sharply then looked relieved to see Jack was merely handing over a drink. He and Mel removed themselves to one of the piles of hay bales that were hiding the junk, and took their watch.
Miss Jackson blew on the skin of the hot chocolate.
‘Oh, look, a marshmallow,’ she murmured to Miss Ashton.
Miss Jackson took a swig before hearing Jack and Mel guffaw. She watched them run away.
Not having any other classmates their age to play with, Simon, Troy and Adrian settled on lining up the little kids to play Red Rover.
‘Pick me, Simon!’ yelled Noel.
‘No, pick me!’ cried Glen.
Fatty was fuming. ‘I wanna be captain,’ he wheezed.
Troy laughed. ‘You always wanna be captain, Fatty.’
‘Yeah,’ said Adrian. ‘I’m captain.’
‘Well, who’s the other captain?’
Troy looked at Fatty like he was the dumbest kid in the world. ‘Me and Simon. You know how it works. Right, line up, you lot.’
The kids formed a group. Fatty tried to make the point that if one side could have two captains, why not the other, suggesting he share captaincy with Adrian. He was drowned out by derisive laughter.
Simon made the first choice. ‘Noel.’
‘Cool,’ said Noel, not believing his luck at being chosen first.
Adrian pointed out Bill.
Whilst Troy and Adrian were picking teams, Simon turned to Jack, a surly smile on his lips. ‘Wanna play, Jack?’
Jack examined the kids already chosen and those squirming on the spot wishing they’d at least be saved the indignity of being picked last. True to form, Mel had the same sly expression on her face. The two nodded at each other then shook their heads firmly in the negative at Simon.
Mel tapped Fatty on the shoulder. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Fatty,’ he said.
Mel gently shook her head. ‘No. What does your mum call you?’
Fatty stared at her a moment before mumbling, ‘Shane.’
Mel gave him a wink. ‘Shane, Jack and I have better games. I’m picking you first to join in. But everyone can play.’ She touched Jack. ‘You’re it.’
Shane bellowed at the top of his lungs, ‘Chasey!’
Mel took Shane’s hand, and they ran off towards the concrete water tank. Simon, Troy and Adrian watched as the other kids also forgot the game of Red Rover and chased after them. Jack touched Adrian on the hand.
‘You’re it!’
Adrian tried to swipe him back but Jack snaked out of the way.
‘Uh, uh,’ he said, wagging a finger. ‘Count to twenty, remember.’
Jack fled in the direction of the barbecue, presently manned by Michael’s dad. Simon petitioned Troy and Adrian to hold their ground, but Adrian quickly counted the last five seconds and touched Troy.
‘You’re it!’ yelled Adrian, fleeing.
Simon grabbed Troy’s arm before he, too, could abandon him. Troy looked down at his hand in Simon’s before laughing and snatching it away.
‘You like me too much,’ he said almost inaudibly, and was gone.
Simon stood still a long moment, a tremble in his every joint, before distractedly helping himself to food he knew he would never be able to eat. Nothing was certain anymore for him except this fact: somehow Jack was to blame for usurping the usual rights of passage. Somehow Jack, three years his junior, was the first to get a girlfriend. That bloody girl!
Spitting out a slice of fairy bread, he passed by Miss Jackson and Miss Ashton. Miss Jackson was helping herself to the punch, with Miss Ashton whispering in her ear.
‘Marcia, I’m sure Jean could make you another hot chocolate.’
‘Hot chocolate! Lydia, am I a child?’
Miss Jackson sculled the punch, then wobbled, backing into the fold-out table on which the punch bowl rested, nearly sending both flying. Miss Ashton dragged her friend away, but not before Miss Jackson had filled another glass, managing to slop much of it on them both.
Bloody adults! Simon sat down on a hay bale, leaning back on a few more piled behind him, feeling their prickly texture and taking in their sunny smell. He leant back further and nearly got swallowed in a gap between two bales. Peering through, he could see Juliet standing alone, looking awkward, an undrunk glass of punch held delicately in her hands. Behind her, Jean was talking to Mrs Holroyd. Simon adjusted his position to spy Daniel approaching the two, holding a plate of crisps.
Jean, one of the few adults not discussing politics, was halfway through a comment to Mrs Holroyd but with her eyes on Juliet. ‘See what I mean, Jane? How she dresses to the nines? Can’t be all that hard being a single mother, after all.’
Daniel held up the plate of food. ‘Care for something else to chew on?’
Jean started at the uncharacteristic sarcasm in her husband’s voice. Jane Holroyd waved away the food, and Jean did likewise. Daniel’s eyes sidled across to Juliet who was affecting profound fascination in the failed rose climber he’d made for Jean.
Mrs Holroyd leaned closer to Jean. ‘And tell me about this girl of hers. My Glen says she’s a real upstart, always talking in class.’
‘Well,’ said Jean, warming to the theme, ‘she hasn’t been good for Jack, I can tell you.’
From the corner of her eye, she spied Daniel putting down the plate of food and walking up to Juliet with a glass of punch of which he’d availed himself.
‘His father’s made him dreamy enough as it is…’ Jean mumbled.
Mrs Holroyd followed Jean’s fixed gaze to see Daniel clinking his glass with Juliet’s.
Daniel wished he were meeting Juliet at the stile bridging their properties, not here, not in front of all these small minds and prying eyes. Goodness knows he’d had scant amount of her company; he coveted every second for himself.
They mutely sipped their drinks.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Juliet, breaking the silence.
‘I know,’ said Daniel. ‘Looks like the bastards are out to get him. Whitlam had made me proud to be Australian again.’
Juliet smiled. ‘Yes, that too. But I specifically meant the way I spoke to you on the phone the other night.’
Daniel nodded. ‘It’s okay. It was all true.’
Juliet glanced down at her glass, neither knowing how to proceed from that remark.
‘Juliet,’ Daniel at last ventured, ‘Jack says you’re very ill.’
Simon, who was still sitting the other side of the hay bales, sat up straight and tuned in.
‘If there’s anything I can—’
Juliet cut Daniel off. ‘No.’ She softened her tone. ‘It’s terminal, Dan. I’ve been given three months.’
A part of Daniel caved in on itself, bringing down the rickety roof of his self-possession and exposing a soul until then mostly successfully inured to the elements.
Juliet merely smiled at his pallor and turned to behold the beautiful sunset now cupping the hills to the west.
Trusting his voice at last, Daniel asked, moved, ‘Why come back here?’
Juliet remained focused on the hills, as if in their dwindling light was an answer to her own imminent dissolution. She finally faced Daniel, fixing his eyes.
‘Because I couldn’t get out of my head a boy I met as a girl in a magical garden.’
Daniel’s heart stopped. Had she always felt the same way too, then?
Juliet sighed. ‘But now I think that could never have happened.’
His heart beat again, faster to make up for the lost ones. Sweat pricked his brow.
‘Mel?’ he stuttered.
Simon’s eyes screwed up tighter on hearing that girl’s name. He swivelled round to peer through the narrow gap in the hay bales.
Juliet sipped the punch. Usually, she would have found its sweetness unpleasant but now its sugariness was a hit, a rush of life.
‘Dash will look after her.’
Daniel understood finally. Dash was Mel’s father. He blurted before he could stop himself, ‘She’s your love child!’
Juliet sipped the last of her punch. Daniel remembered his own glass and quickly drained it before taking hers and plonking both down on the hay bale. His glass rolled off the other side and hit Simon on the head. Simon caught it in his lap so it wouldn’t smash on the ground and perhaps bring them to his side of the barricade.
Daniel reached for Juliet but, with an immense effort of will, stayed his hand. If Mel was Juliet and Dash’s love child, what then of that comment about a boy in a magical garden, the very garden he had painted them in, which she couldn’t get out of her mind?
She turned a flushed and tear-stained face to his, a secret raging under that eloquent and beauteous countenance.
‘Oh Daniel, I wanted a kid with a wonderful man and it turned out they’re hard to come by. I inquired after you but…’
She glanced at Jean.
Daniel then knew the second secret just as instinctively. How had they lost that, their silent communion? When the two were kids, it was as though they could read each other’s minds. A gift only now could they reclaim. Dash was not a rival. Not at all. Because…
‘He’s gay,’ whispered Daniel.
Simon’s eyes opened wide.
Juliet shot Daniel a pained glance. With the pall of suspicion over Dash, she knew how some prejudiced minds conflated homosexuality with child abuse.
The news roiled Simon’s stomach. For a brief second, he glimpsed a loathsome affinity between him and that teacher. He pushed it away, chiding himself for his weakness and instead forced glee to animate his features. Mr Rush gay—wait till he taunted Jack with that!
‘I think Dad was gay,’ said Daniel mournfully. ‘And… poor soul… he could never tell anyone. Mr Rush—I hardly know him—but he seems like a very good man. A self-possessed man. A man anyone would aspire to be like. I know Jack admires him greatly.’
Daniel’s magnanimity touched Juliet to the core. She realised then, that when her final lucid moments came, she would not think of the accolades, the prizes, the good reviews or even standing ovations she had received in the course of her career. No, those final images would consist of a tableau of faces that had been most dear to her in life—her deceased, doting parents; her darling Mel; Mel’s darling Jack; and the two men she held in the highest esteem, men she saw as kind, intelligent, and above life as much as they were mired in it, including this man she loved with her entire being, standing before her. A man with whom she had never even shared a kiss.
She took Daniel’s arms. He gripped hers in turn. Jean, who had been trying to focus on her conversation with Mrs Holroyd, could no longer pretend she wasn’t distracted, and hurried towards them.
It was urgently important that Juliet know Dan’s feelings on the most recent crisis to come between them.
‘Dan, about Dash,’ murmured Juliet, ‘I take it you don’t believe this—’
‘Daniel,’ interrupted Jean coldly. ‘I’m sure it’s time you took another plate round to the guests.’
Daniel looked at his wife as if she were an alien. She recoiled from his profound scientific detachment. His eyes slipped off hers and onto the other gossipers watching them.
‘You know, Juliet,’ he said, still embracing her. ‘You and Mel coming here… well, it’s been the best… well, the best thing…’
Juliet let go of his arms, but he still fervently gripped hers. She glanced round, painfully conscious of their audience. Daniel at last became aware of them too.
Something got lost in his voice.
‘…for Jack, I mean,’ he concluded quietly.
Letting go of Juliet, Daniel picked up a tray of lamingtons and stumbled off. Juliet stared at the inquisitive throng before making her way to the nearest children’s voices. She would find Mel and leave. Or leave Mel if she wished to stay. But either way, she had to get out of there.
Simon climbed up the hay bales, then jumped down, landing beside Jean. He tugged on her arm excitedly.
‘Hey, Mum! Where’s Jack?’
Jean glared at him. ‘How the hell should I know?’
She headed to the house after throwing a defiant glance at those still staring. Simon didn’t think he could recall a time in recent memory when his mother had snapped at him like that. He balled his fist and set off in search of Jack.
He approached the shed that Daniel and Jack spent so much time in of late. His hunch was a good one, for Jack came running round the corner, colliding with him.
‘Umph!’ they cried.
Jack was the first on his feet. ‘Are you it?’ he asked.
Simon shook his head impatiently, standing also and dusting the dirt off his trousers. ‘No.’
‘Well, you are now!’
Jack hit Simon on the shoulder and tried to run off but Simon grabbed him by the waist.
Jack wrestled with him. ‘Let go! Twenty seconds, remember!’
Simon pulled Jack in closer, digging his fingers into his brother’s arm.
‘Simon!’
‘Shut up!’
Simon pushed his face into Jack’s. ‘You know who Mel’s dad is? Mr Rush!’
Gauging Jack’s expression, this was old news. Simon felt a surge of disappointment but quickly rallied. He’d see the effect of that other, better secret.
‘Well, you won’t know this: he’s a poof!’
Jack tried to lean away from his brother’s hot, acrid breath. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Mr Rush, that perv that touched you. Well, he’s a poof!’
Jack struggled but his brother was too strong. Jack had heard that word before, used by the older kids at school, especially Troy—but he didn’t yet know what it meant. He started to yell. Worried the noise might bring the adults, Simon shook him hard and pushed him against the side of the shed.
He twisted Jack’s arms till they stung with pain. ‘Say it, Jack: Mel’s dad’s a poof.’
Jack began to cry despite himself. The last person he ever wanted to cry in front of was his brother. He felt a hot shame turning his skin red.
‘Say it, Jack, say it,’ taunted Simon, desperate the words would act as an exorcism on himself.
Jack stopped crying suddenly and beheld his brother with absolute hatred. ‘All right, Simon, Mel’s dad’s a poof. Mel’s dad’s a poof.’
They were just words: stupid, meaningless words.
Simon eased his grip, frightened by the state he’d got his brother in. He looked round; surely an adult would come any second. He no longer wanted to hear those words. Their incantation hadn’t worked; Simon was still possessed.
Jean turned down the record player Daniel had brought out of the shed on Jack and Mel’s insistence. Was that a kid yelling, was that…?
Jack had Simon’s arms now, holding him in a heated embrace. ‘Mel’s dad’s a poof!’ he spat in Simon’s face.
‘Jack, shut up! You’ll get us in trouble.’
Jack threw Simon against the shed, surprised he was the one now doing the overpowering.
‘Mel’s dad’s a poof!’ he continued to shout. ‘Mel’s dad’s a poof! Mel’s dad’s a…’
Jack’s mouth shut in an instant for there, standing behind Simon, was Mel, staring at him with hurt and base betrayal writ large across her vulnerable face.
She burst into tears and ran, nearly knocking into Jean and Daniel. All the anger drained out of Jack, replaced with regret.
He pushed Simon to the ground, and chased after her. With a sickening drowning of his soul, he now understood what that word meant, and he knew he would never ever utter it again.
‘No, Mel, wait!’
Simon got up, beholding his father and mother. He was about to say, ‘See how he pushed me!’ when their expressions silenced him, for it wasn’t just his father that stared at him with horror, but uncharacteristically, his mother, too.
Simon saw that her face matched his for guilt.
Jean quickly trawled back through events. Had Mel heard something of the words she had been saying to Mrs Holroyd, the way the two had been rubbishing mother and daughter alike? Why had she ever said Jack was a sissy? What if he was? Or what if… Simon!
Jean stared at Simon, tears stinging her eyes. Yes… that was why she had been so brutally supportive of his every sporting and physical endeavour—she’d nursed an unconscious terror for him. The way he looked at Troy – Troy, whom she could see felt nothing but disgust for her son.
Mel could hear Jack gaining on her. She ducked behind the hay bales, and weaved between unsightly tractor engines, rusted scarifiers and other farm detritus. She noted an old fridge lying on its back in the long grass that had grown up around it.
‘Mel? Mel?’
She opened it up and jumped inside. The lid fell shut.
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