The Fine Color of Rust (22 page)

“What happened?” I ask when I'm sitting on the bench next to her feet.

“Nothing.”

“What did you do to them?”

“Nothing.”

“If you didn't do anything, how come I'm being told you're a bully?”

“I'm not a bully! They started it.”

I reach up and hug myself against the cold. “Did you call them bush pigs?”

“No! Well, not before she called Jake a bush pig after our lesson about feral animals. He got upset so I joked about it to make him feel better.”

“And what did you do to that girl to make her call Jake a bush pig?”

“She can't even speak English properly! She said the essay I read out in class was a lie and her sister said I was big and fat. She smells and she's always got those brothers tagging along.”

I'm having trouble finding anything to hang on to here. “I think we'll have to cancel your trip to Melbourne. If you won't be honest, I can't trust you to be in charge of Jake. Maybe when you've grown up a bit.”

Oh, hell. I believe I heard my mother speak through my mouth. I accused my child of being immature and threatened to punish her unless she grows up. My hands reach up and tug at my turkey neck. I look down and see, with despair in my heart, that I am wearing squarish sensible shoes.

“Melissa?” I heave myself up backward to sit beside her on the table. It's time to be straightforward. “Don't do it anymore. I don't understand what's going on and I don't care. Don't be mean. That's all. Don't be mean. If someone's mean to you, come and tell me. Don't be mean back. Don't call people names, don't tease them, don't try to scare them.”

“Mmm.”

“No nasty notes. Don't encourage Jake.”

She stares down at her shoes.

“I mean it, Melissa Boskovic. I am so ashamed that my child is a bully. Those kids have come from a war zone! You should be helping them.”

Tony told me once that his great-grandfather migrated to Australia during the gold rush. It's only dawning on me now that the name Boskovic might actually come from the region of that war zone. My kids could carry the same kind of blood as the children they are tormenting. When Helen and I were watching TV reports of the war and the ethnic cleansing, we talked about how we might behave if we were in a war. Would we be cowards? Would we be able to kill someone? War must make you do things you never imagined. Now that thought only makes me feel worse about my children, brought up in a safe, quiet country town and still behaving like bullies. What is their excuse? What is mine for raising them to be like this?

Melissa's voice has risen an octave. “They started it! It's not fair. I get the blame and she's the one that said I'm a liar and everyone believed her and not me!”

“What did you say that she would call you a liar?”

Melissa flushes. “Nothing.”

“I'm warning you, young lady. I want the truth, or no trip to Melbourne.”

“I said my dad was a spy who was undercover.”

Tony an undercover spy? In the middle of these terrible negotiations, that nearly makes me laugh. “I see,” I say in my most serious voice. “And is that because he's not around?”

“Yes,” Melissa mumbles miserably.

“But most of the children in the school don't have a father around.”

“Yeah, but they're losers.”

“So are we losers too?”

“No!” she shouts indignantly. “That's the point!”

“Don't you realize that bullies are losers? They're the real losers because everyone's scared of them. No one respects them and absolutely no one likes them.”

She turns her head and looks off into the distance.

“I won't have it, Liss. You stop this rubbish, or I'll come to the school myself and make you apologize to those children.” I can see the tremor of horror that goes through her at the idea of me turning up in her classroom. “Will you promise to stop? To stay away from that girl and those children and not say nasty things to them?”

“What if they say something to me? Or Jake? What am I supposed to do then?”

Biff them, is what I want to say, because I hate the idea of anyone being nasty to my children. But that is exactly what a bully might do. And I am supposed to be the adult here. “You ignore them, and you walk away. And if it goes on, you tell me or your teacher. Clear?”

Melissa nods, still looking off to the horizon.

Maybe it's one of those situations you get into where you can't see a way out until someone tells you to stop. Two weeks of holiday are coming up. Even that might be enough. Kids move on, forget their enemies, and turn them into best friends.

“And, sweetie, you do know you're not fat, don't you?” The girl's comment is obviously why Melissa wouldn't change into her bathers and swim at the waterhole that day, and why she's been wearing winter clothes in the hot weather. I'd thought it was some weird fashion thing. It had crossed my mind that she might be anorexic, but her continuing enthusiastic appreciation of food of any kind eased my mind on that issue. “That girl only said you were fat to make you feel bad. She was retaliating, that's all. You're not fat at all.”

“Really?” she says, hesitantly.

“Your grandmother told me she thought you were a skinny thing, and she never lets tact or flattery get in the way of her opinion.” I put my arm around Melissa and pull her close. “Remember when she told us that we looked like escapees from Outer Woop Woop?”

She nods.

“And the time she thought Jake might be retarded because he couldn't tie his shoelaces? He was only three.”

She nods again, and giggles. “And when she said you looked like an English sheepdog after you spent all that money on a haircut in Melbourne.”

That smarts. I'd forgotten that particular remark. I'd thought my new cut was rather stylish, and I'd been practicing a sultry look from beneath my feathery fringe until we went to visit Mum.

“OK then. Now come with me while I get Jake out of that damn toilet.”

She jumps off the table, no doubt relieved that our little chat is over.

When we reach the toilet block, Melissa calls from outside.

“Jake, let's go! We're ready to go home.”

“Am I in trouble?” His high voice echoes around the concrete walls.

“Only if you don't come out immediately,” I answer. A boy-toilet stink of ammonia clings to the block. I hope he doesn't smell like that when he gets into the car.

“Liss, I want Jake to understand what I've told you. You have to be an example to him. All right?”

Melissa nods. Her sandy hair is whipping against her cheeks. Her eyes are red.

I remember how hard school is, especially when you are growing breasts and having hormone storms. In Patsy's class one girl tried to bleach her moustache because the other girls were laughing at her and she ended up in hospital with a blistered lip. Every day for a month in grade seven someone put a note in my desk with a description of another of my horrible features. “Your nose is so bent they named a hairpin after it.” “Your hands are so ugly they won't serve you in shops.” I kept up a brave face at school and went home and sobbed every night.

YESTERDAY I DROVE
down to Melbourne, dropped the kids at Patsy's house, visited Tammy, and did a wee in her toilet that blows air up your bottom to dry it, then drove back in the dark. This morning I set to cleaning the house thoroughly, giving it a scrub like it hasn't seen in years. Twenty minutes later, I am exhausted. I need to ring Helen. I've been a cow and I have to make it up to her.

“Please forgive me. I was worried about the kids and I was being a bitch. No wonder they're bullies.” I take a breath. “Let's go to Halstead tonight and have dinner and a bottle of wine. My shout.”

“I don't know. I'd have to check with my therapist first.”

“Helen, please. I'm so sorry.”

Silence. I wait. The house pulsates with the germs I've failed to destroy, the dust lurking in every crevice, the piles of dirty washing.

“Don't ever say that kind of thing to me again, Loretta.”

“I won't. I won't, Helen, because it's not true and I didn't even mean it. I'm really sorry.”

If she could see me now, flooded with shame, she wouldn't need to tell me not to do it again. After Tony left, it was my
friends who pulled me and the kids through. Friends like Helen and Norm. And without them, I'd have to play bingo or join the CWA to pass the time. I'll do anything to keep them on my side.

After a rattling bus ride from Gunapan through the slums of outer Halstead, Helen and I end up at the Taste of India. We order lamb korma and butter chicken, which are suspiciously alike except in color, leaving us with the impression that there is only one taste in India, before walking to the pizza and pasta place in the mall for dessert. Helen pops the champagne cork and we toast each other, finding our lame jokes hilarious and laughing like we've had too much to drink. We toast again.

“Good evening, ladies. Your menus.”

The last time I saw Bowden he was chatting up girls at the Gunapan waterhole, wearing jeans that were way too big for him and a grubby singlet that showed off his skinny white arms. His nose was scarlet with sunburn, and when he stopped squinting to glance around at me he had white lines around his eyes where the sun hadn't reached.

“Hi, Loretta,” he said as I walked by on my way to deliver a tube of sunscreen to Helen.

“Mrs. Boskovic to you, Bowden,” I replied.

“Bowie to you, Mrs. Boskovic,” he muttered.

I was tempted to give him a clip over the head until I noticed his family a little way up the hill.

“Hi,” I called up, smiling and waving. Not that I thought Bowden's father would ever hurt me, but even an accidental bump from someone with shoulders that wide could break your collarbone.

“Thank God you're here,” Helen said, grabbing the cream from my outstretched hand. “I've completely destroyed the
effect of the facial I had yesterday and gained ten more years.”

“I don't think smearing your face with yogurt and laying slices of potato over the top can be called a facial.”

“It's the poor woman's facial, Loretta. And I had no cucumber.”

That was last summer. Now here is a brand-new Bowden, standing beside our table in ironed black pants and a white shirt, with a snowy napkin draped over his forearm and a pencil moustache so narrow and perfectly shaped that I think he might have drawn it on.

“Could we have the dessert menu please, Bowden.”

“Ladies, please call me Bowie.” He's using a voice much deeper than the one he uses to order a hot pie and sauce at the milk bar. He saunters away and pushes through the swing door to the kitchen.

“So. Have you heard about the mechanic?” Helen leans in conspiratorially.

“Merv Bull?”

“Yes, Merv Bull,” she answers impatiently. “He had a date with Maxine.”

“Maxine?” I keep smiling, trying to hide the glum face underneath. When I went to see Merv Bull for my wiper blades I thought I felt something. A flutter. A hint in the way he looked at me, the way he said I was welcome to a tune anytime. I read all kinds of innuendo into that line. So I was going to get tuned, I mean get the car tuned, except that Terror learned to open the gate latch and ruined everything. She somehow found her way to the alpaca farm and started cozying up to the alpaca herd. I thought it must be some kind of identity problem. And who would blame her, living with us? But apparently goats need constant company. Norm never mentioned that when he delivered our lawn mower. I
ended up taking in another goat, Terror's sister, whom Melissa immediately named Panic. So the money I had set aside for some well-earned tuning went on extra feed costs. Now it looks like I've lost my chance at a thorough tune-up.

In the Merv Bull stakes, Helen had positioned herself at tight odds, thanks to a split radiator hose, a dud alternator, and a full service, including cleaning the fuel injectors and adjusting the computer.

“It's cost me a fortune, but I think he's about to ask me on a date,” she told me a couple of weeks ago. “Kyleen was the odds-on favorite because she's so pretty, until she accidentally ran over his dog when she was backing her car out of the yard.”

“Oh!”

“Don't worry, the dog's OK. Those heelers are built of steel. The car bounced off the dog, only gave it a fright. Merv had been shouting and waving at Kyleen to stop and she'd thought he was waving goodbye so she took her hands off the wheel to wave back. That's when they heard the yelp. Kyleen said Merv wasn't so friendly after that. So I think I'm closing in. Probably four to one now.”

Things have obviously changed since then.

“Maxine. Who'd have thought.” I can't deny I'm disappointed. A whisper of hope was thrilling me for a moment back there.

Bowden appears and produces the dessert menus with a flourish, before backing away to stand against the wall with his hands demurely locked in front of him as if he's the maître d' in a five-star restaurant.

“Is he making fun of us?” Helen whispers.

“I believe so. No tip for him.”

“He'll really miss that two dollars.”

We call him over and order the tiramisu to share and, when Bowden is gone, Helen pours us a sobering glass of water. The only other people in the restaurant are an older couple sitting near the wood-fired oven that's shaped like a clay igloo. The man is red and sweating. Outside the windows of the restaurant, the Halstead mall is lit by thin light. Neon brand names flicker feebly in shop windows, and every now and then kids in groups push each other past the window.

“So do you think Melissa will stop what she's been doing to the foreign kids? What about the girl? She might want to complain.”

I tell Helen about getting the cruel notes when I was at school. “I didn't want revenge. I wanted to pretend no one had ever called me ugly.”