Jacaranda Blue by Joy Dettman Page B

they spent every day together. They went to church together, crapped on at parties together, saving up all their hate until they got home. Then they screamed all night.
    He didn’t listen any more. The same shit got said, year after year. It got boring after a while.
    His old man slept in the sleep-out now, and his old lady tossed down pills and whinged about him sleeping in the sleep-out. She looked about sixty. If he’d been his old man, he would have been sleeping out in the sleep-out too, or sleeping some place else. His old man was only forty-seven, but he looked fifty.
    Saint Stell wasn’t too fat, or too grey. ‘Wow!’ he said. ‘Radical.’ She hadn’t screamed, or put up much of a fight. She’d sort of flaked, accepted his visit as she might have the coming of the holy ghost.
    He giggled.
    With her head under the Packard, he’d been able to watch himself in the paintwork. It was something else, like doing it in front of a mirror. He hadn’t wanted it to end, and he’d lasted longer than he ever had with Kelly.
    â€˜What are you laughing about, Tommy?’
    â€˜Just thinking of scones,’ he said. ‘How long it takes them to cook.’
    â€˜You can cook something for dinner tonight, if you like. Go home early and get it started.’
    â€˜Hire yourself a maid.’
    â€˜You used to like cooking. You used to make biscuits with Aunty Stell.’
    â€˜I used to like a lot of shit,’ he muttered, then added, ‘I might just knock you up a big batch of scones and surprise you.’ Again he laughed, and Marilyn laughed with him.
    Mrs Wilson put the magazine down, paid for her purchases and left as two more customers came in. With the supermarket and the liquor store, his parents had the town wrapped up. If you looked at the average hick in Maidenville, most of their money went on food, drink and smokes, he thought, as he filled two more shelves, waiting, waiting, until his mother got busy checking out an old dame with a trolley full of pet food, and his father was tied up selling grog, then he walked to the telephone and dialled Templeton’s number without even looking at the numbers he’d written on his wrist.
    â€˜Hello,’ Martin Templeton said.
    Thomas stood blowing into the phone until the image of the fat old fool, standing there, going red in the face, got to him. He had to cover the mouthpiece while he giggled.
    â€˜Hello. Who is this? Who is there?’
    Thomas knew old Templeton wouldn’t recognise his voice, he was past recognising much of anything. He wanted to heckle him. Say something. No fun in it, unless you did something. He blew a raspberry.
    â€˜Templeton here. Who is this?’
    â€˜Templeton?’ Thomas said, keeping his voice low and using his American accent. ‘Ah yes. Are you the Templeton on the main road, sir?’
    â€˜Yes – ’
    â€˜Then you’d better get off because there’s a road train coming through fast,’ Thomas said.
    The old bastard slammed the phone down.
    â€˜Got you, fat stuff. Got you a beauty – and I’ll get you sooner or later, Aunty Stell.’

An Ill-Planned Escape
    Stella had been aware of the red light on the dashboard for minutes, but had not realised its significance. The windows were down, allowing the wind to whip her long hair, knot it, cleanse it. And she had felt cleansed because she had found a focus. Escape.
    The car was different to the Ford. Things were in different places. ‘Fuel gauge?’ she said, and her foot sought the brake. As her father said, it was dynamite. A touch and the tyres grabbed, but they were on the narrow bitumen – if not, she may have lost control, rolled the car, ended it all on the Dorby Highway. Carefully now, she pulled off to the side and turned off the motor.
    The hum, the noise of the wind, the grey blur of passing land had lulled her, allowing her mind to move away to a future