Chapter 13: A Real Flat - September, 1961

I got two full day’s work with Frank in the weekend. Cricket was due to start the following week, and School Cert was approaching fast, so the chance to ‘earn a quid’ was welcome. Besides, I now had a car to insure, maintain and run!

I thought of ringing Pauline after we finished and cleaned up on Saturday, but I was still feeling a little hard done by and slightly shitty. I talked to Frank after we picked up fish and chips on the way home. He wasn’t particularly sympathetic.

“So you agreed to try fucking in your new car, and got interrupted. Pauline got off and you didn’t, and even though she was up for more when you got home, you got shitty. Pauline has pulled away, and it might be about what happened and how you reacted, or it might be about something else. How ya gunna find out?”

“I’d like to sort it out, but I still feel a bit pissed off with her.”

“How come?”

“She bailed outta the study group and Mary’s World without saying why.”

“Bullshit! I don’t believe it’s that that’s twisted your knickers and neither do you!”

“She was all keen to go out in the car and do it and it’s still bloody winter, and then that prick started blowing his horn – and not just a little toot, he fucken leaned on it, and I was just waiting for a light to go on in one of the houses, and I’ve told her I won’t do any more outdoor shit until Summer.” My words tumbled out.

Frank was relentless. “Yes – and how long did it take you before you told her that?”

He was right -Damn him! My pissoff was about what I hadn’t said and how long I hadn’t said it for. But I still felt like punishing Pauline. “I still don’t feel ready to call her. I guess I want to punish her.”

Frank laughed. “You should punish her until you are sure that you have suffered enough!”

That ‘got me’, and I spent Sunday planning to ring Pauline after work. I did, but it didn’t go well. On reflection, I should have started the call by apologising for acting like a prick. Shoulda woulda coulda! Instead, I led off by asking her to explain her absence from our Friday study group and our Mary’s World shift. Bad idea!

“Mind you own fucking business! If I was your girlfriend, I might owe you an explanation. But if I was your girlfriend, you’d treat me that way!”

“I’m sorry! That came out wrong. I’m concerned about how you are. I was shitty on Wednesday because I was uncomfortable with the prospect of cold public sex but I went along, and then when it all went wrong and the horn woke up the whole neighbourhood, I blamed you and got shitty. I’m sorry!”

“You fucken should be! I don’t feel like talking to you right now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I settled for that, hoping for forgiveness and wondering how the Monday study group would go and whether Alison and Robyn would also condemn my behavior. In the event, it was all okay. Alison asked what had happened that had upset Pauline so much, and I made a full confession, sincerely apologising for my behavior and finishing with “and I come before thee truly penitent and resolved to sin no more”. I got my laugh before we got down to work, listing the ‘noble gases’ and explaining their inert behavior. I presumed I had been forgiven.

We didn’t have any formal arrangement that Pauline would stay after study group on Monday nights, but for most of the middle term, she had stayed for tea and the night. This Monday she didn’t, and the ‘goodbye hug’ I shared with her and Robyn and Alison when we finished was very slightly tense. I was slightly disappointed, but I let it be, resolving to just see how things went later in the week, and transferred my attention on to what I might cook for tea.

I was genuinely surprised to see Judith Steven arrive with Emma, since I was just expecting Frank home for tea. I had noticed that they had been getting on very well when I had bought my car from her the week before, but I had no idea why Judith had appeared now.

I had been thinking about cooking the last of the wild pork sausages, but the women shooed me out of the kitchen and cooked the lamb’s fry they had brought with them. By the time Frank came home and washed up, they had obviously catered for four, and the meal was ready.

Over it, they got down to business. Emma kicked off. “How would you feel about having Judith as a flatmate?”

I didn’t know and said so. “I don’t really know. “I’ve never had a flatmate before.” I turned to Judith. “You sold me a really nice car, and you laughed at my jokes. That’s a good start.”

Judith smiled. “I’ve never flatted before. I lived at home until I was fifteen. Then Dad got a job in Oz, and Mum and Dad and John went to Brisbane. I was sitting School Cert, and I didn’t want to lose the year, so I stayed and moved in with Grandad.” She paused and looked quite sad. “He had a small stroke when I was sixteen, and he got old very quickly. I stayed to look after him.”

Emma looked at me. “She’s been running a household for nearly ten years. She’ll bring a woman’s touch to the place.”

Frank was slightly affronted. “What’s wrong with the way it’s touched at the moment?”

Judith jumped in “Nothing! Well not much anyway. But if you’re going to be living over at Emma’s, there’ll be a gap, and I can fill it.” I had a random thought to the effect that Judith’s arrival would provide gap that I would be happy to fill, but I had just enough sense to keep my mouth firmly shut. At least at that stage.

It seemed Frank was impatient to move matters along and have Judith decide whether she wanted to move in. “Do we have a deal?”

She smiled “Nearly. Two pounds ten for the room, but you’d need to throw in the phone for that. I’d pay my own tolls. I’m calling Brisbane pretty regularly, so that’s lots.”

Frank looked at Emma. She nodded. “Okay, power and gas and food in a ‘kitty’ with David and whoever else we get. Emma can give you a hand to work that out if you need it. Buy your own booze.”

“When can I move in?”

“Next weekend. We’ll have my room cleared out by then. Rent runs Saturday to Saturday in advance. Two weeks bond.”

“So Next Saturday I come up with Seven pounds ten, and two ten every Saturday after that?”

Judith shook hands solemnly with Frank and grinned at Emma, before turning her attention to me. “Can I bring over stuff from the kitchen at Granddad’s?”

I thought about the size of our kitchen and the small space available. “What sort of stuff?”

“Spices, pasta, rice, cooking oil, baking stuff, cooking utensils, some pans.”

I must have looked doubtful because Emma cut in. “If there isn’t enuff space, you’d be better to throw some of this out.” She gestured around at our existing culinary setup. She was right, most of it was second or third or fourth hand.

I decided to take what Frank on other occasions referred to as ‘agency’. “Okay, bring what you want, and we can sort out the stuff that’s here and give what we don’t have space for to ‘the Sallies’.” I was on a roll. “So we split the power and gas fifty- fifty, same for the food until we get in a third.”

“Agreed.”

A further thought. “How come you aren’t going in with Emma and Frank?”

Judith looked at Emma in some puzzlement, Emma explained. “Haven’t offered it. That space is taken. Lizzie and Kate referred another couple who also want to rent separate rooms.”

There was a bit more conversation, and Judith said her goodbyes, while Emma and Frank retired to his room for (as he put it) ‘a last time here’. I went to bed, a bit disappointed that Pauline hadn’t stayed, and concentrated on hearing nothing.

It was in fact the last time for Frank and Emma in his room, and by Wednesday they had moved Frank’s clothes out, along with all of Emma’s stuff which had migrated over the previous twelve months. Half the towels and tea towels, half the bed linen, and all the laundry powder and dish detergent were also gone.

Pauline didn’t show after her Wednesday night drama rehearsal. We had no arrangement, but I was nevertheless disappointed. I kept thinking of ringing her on Thursday, but had no idea what to say, and I remembered our rather unfortunate phone call the previous Sunday, so I put it off until it was too late.

Cricket had started with a hiss and a roar, with three quite intense practices that second week of term. Mr Smythe not only drilled us on specific skills, but this week he worked on our fitness. I coped with that well, but I missed Pauline, and I needed to talk to someone.

I didn’t have a chance to talk to Frank during the week, he ate at Emma’s every night, but I buttonholed Aapi on Friday morning. He wasn’t particularly informative, and denied getting any inside information from Alison, but he did have an opinion of his own. “Pauline was pretty hurt. I know she said she forgave you, but perhaps she’s waiting for you to ask her to stay over.” I resolved to bite the bullet during Friday study group.

That actually went alright. I grovelled between discussions of gerunds and gymnosperms, and Pauline agreed to come back to my bed after our shift at Mary’s World. We all travelled downtown in my car. I squeezed Robyn and Alison into the back seat, with Pauline in the front. I was a bit anxious about what might happen after we had dropped the others off at the end of the night, but Pauline didn’t suggest any al fresco adventures and seemed quite happy to come back to my bed.

Our reunion was certainly very tender, and our mutual regrets about my hurtful behavior and her retaliatory withdrawal might have masked the deeper dysfunction in our relationship. Sure, we were not boyfriend and girlfriend, however temporary, we were friends who had sex, and we were certainly having some very tender and loving sex, but there was still something that wasn’t quite right between us. I dropped Pauline off at her drama rehearsal in the morning, and just before she got out of the car, she turned to me.

“Just checking – we are both free to get sexy with other people, and we might or might not choose to talk about that?”

I nodded, wondering why she had raised that topic just then, but this was neither the time nor place to try to explore whatever was or wasn’t happening. “See ya Monday.”

I got a couple of hours paid work with Frank, and then showered and drove proudly to my first game of cricket for the season. When I say ‘proudly’, I mean I drove into the school grounds and parked next to the Cricket pavilion. During the week, any boy (except Prefects) who had the temerity to drive to school (even parking nearby) risked a very uncomfortable interview with the Headmaster.

Maureen Farrell was there again. That wasn’t unusual. She often came to watch Chick, and would provide a wealth of technical observations and advice to anyone interested. What was unusual this week, was that she was all over me again. I had experienced the ‘full court press’ from her before, but after a single meeting that wasn’t even a proper date, she had told me she was too young to be in a relationship and pushed me away into the ‘friend’ category. I was confused. I was also just a very little tiny bit pissed off. I didn’t feel well treated in our last encounter, and I had no wish to have Smythe remind me I was ‘there to play cricket’ and tell me to ‘pull my head out of my arse’ again.