secret, her years of search for her mother. She could not bear these girl voices, the jollity ringing in theirmouths. They were giggling at her ignorance and she felt stricken and ridiculous.
In the mines, said Ernie, men feared the creeps . The earth shifted and a rain of gravel fell, the timber cracked and strained and splintered at the stope, and for each miner there was blood-hurtling and an urgent wish to flee just as his knees buckled in pure terror and gave way under him. Once he saw a mate sucked backwards into a shaft by a sudden rush of air. For each miner this understanding: they worked in graves.
She remembered this now. The forms of collapse and burial.
She had wagged school for three weeks before she could face them again.
Â
But now Moira Ahern has offered to teach Anna the art of French-kissing, and it is an irresistible offer â so sexy, so French.
Iâll be Nev, said Moira, and you be Beryl.
They are sitting on the bed together, with Beryl instructing. Moira slides her hand to Annaâs breast and places Annaâs hand inside her panties, and when she kisses she makes a melancholy and moaning sound, so that Anna wonders if this is part of the act of French-kissing or some merely eccentric and cinematic addition; she wonders too at the pleasure of this hand upon her breast, which is so much more than the kiss itself, so compelling, somehow, and so sweetly furtive; and at Beryl there, watching her play-acting a second Beryl, engrossed by her own double re-performing with a simulated Nev.
Closer, said Beryl. You have to be closer.
So they wedged themselves further into the entanglement of their Australian French-kiss, found that particular curvilinear of film-star epiphany, and kissed, and kissed. When Moira at last disengaged her face was beaming.
I think you need more practice, she instantly announced.
Later they lay sideways on the bed, six-legged, thinking of England. Anna had never in her life imagined leaving her own town, but both Beryl and Moira had identical futures constructed elsewhere. First they would go to the city, where they have TV and big shops and dripping boys on the beach, and then they would go to England and become secretaries with piled hair and lethal high-heels.
London is where it all happens, Beryl declared. No more deadshits. Or gutless wonders. Or mingy bloody dickheads.
It snows all winter, added Moira, and men open car doors and have really clean fingernails because they all work in offices. Or drive red buses.
Lovely, said Beryl.
Lovely, echoed Moira.
Anna tried to triplicate, but simply could not. Instead she wondered what France was like, with kisses like that.
Kisses like that.
Â
Victoria exploded. Kisses like that!
She was hugely entertained by Annaâs story. Later, when she calmed down, she asked Anna again about her mother. But the young woman, suddenly sad, would say no more. She had surrendered to alcoholic declension; she was sliding towards sorrow.
Â
Victoria said: Let me tell you about 1936, my alchemi cal year. Transubstantiation! LâAge dâOr ! She laughed.
Reichsführer Hitler was already trampling over Europe, Spain was about to homicidally ignite, but Victoria had just met Jules and was blithely self-obsessed, and politically unaware. In June of 1936 the International Surrealist Exhibition was held in London, at the New Burlington Galleries. It was an unusually hot summer and Victoria described it mischievously, as if it were a series of scenes designed by Magritte. All across the city men in black bowlers and dark suits were crumpling, concertina-like; women were removing snow-white gloves and fanning them fingerless at crimson faces; children were entirely hectic and out-of-control. Ices were everywhere licked, drinks everywhere guzzled, and the insides of stores and public houses buzzed thick with the mosquito whine of endless complaining. Oh the heat, they would whine, the heat, the heat: Victoria mimicked
In the mines, said Ernie, men feared the creeps . The earth shifted and a rain of gravel fell, the timber cracked and strained and splintered at the stope, and for each miner there was blood-hurtling and an urgent wish to flee just as his knees buckled in pure terror and gave way under him. Once he saw a mate sucked backwards into a shaft by a sudden rush of air. For each miner this understanding: they worked in graves.
She remembered this now. The forms of collapse and burial.
She had wagged school for three weeks before she could face them again.
Â
But now Moira Ahern has offered to teach Anna the art of French-kissing, and it is an irresistible offer â so sexy, so French.
Iâll be Nev, said Moira, and you be Beryl.
They are sitting on the bed together, with Beryl instructing. Moira slides her hand to Annaâs breast and places Annaâs hand inside her panties, and when she kisses she makes a melancholy and moaning sound, so that Anna wonders if this is part of the act of French-kissing or some merely eccentric and cinematic addition; she wonders too at the pleasure of this hand upon her breast, which is so much more than the kiss itself, so compelling, somehow, and so sweetly furtive; and at Beryl there, watching her play-acting a second Beryl, engrossed by her own double re-performing with a simulated Nev.
Closer, said Beryl. You have to be closer.
So they wedged themselves further into the entanglement of their Australian French-kiss, found that particular curvilinear of film-star epiphany, and kissed, and kissed. When Moira at last disengaged her face was beaming.
I think you need more practice, she instantly announced.
Later they lay sideways on the bed, six-legged, thinking of England. Anna had never in her life imagined leaving her own town, but both Beryl and Moira had identical futures constructed elsewhere. First they would go to the city, where they have TV and big shops and dripping boys on the beach, and then they would go to England and become secretaries with piled hair and lethal high-heels.
London is where it all happens, Beryl declared. No more deadshits. Or gutless wonders. Or mingy bloody dickheads.
It snows all winter, added Moira, and men open car doors and have really clean fingernails because they all work in offices. Or drive red buses.
Lovely, said Beryl.
Lovely, echoed Moira.
Anna tried to triplicate, but simply could not. Instead she wondered what France was like, with kisses like that.
Kisses like that.
Â
Victoria exploded. Kisses like that!
She was hugely entertained by Annaâs story. Later, when she calmed down, she asked Anna again about her mother. But the young woman, suddenly sad, would say no more. She had surrendered to alcoholic declension; she was sliding towards sorrow.
Â
Victoria said: Let me tell you about 1936, my alchemi cal year. Transubstantiation! LâAge dâOr ! She laughed.
Reichsführer Hitler was already trampling over Europe, Spain was about to homicidally ignite, but Victoria had just met Jules and was blithely self-obsessed, and politically unaware. In June of 1936 the International Surrealist Exhibition was held in London, at the New Burlington Galleries. It was an unusually hot summer and Victoria described it mischievously, as if it were a series of scenes designed by Magritte. All across the city men in black bowlers and dark suits were crumpling, concertina-like; women were removing snow-white gloves and fanning them fingerless at crimson faces; children were entirely hectic and out-of-control. Ices were everywhere licked, drinks everywhere guzzled, and the insides of stores and public houses buzzed thick with the mosquito whine of endless complaining. Oh the heat, they would whine, the heat, the heat: Victoria mimicked
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