Frantic Fan Dancer

Balboa Press

Contents

Introduction.........................................ixPrologue.............................................xiSauce (1)............................................1Trees in the Forest..................................7Circus, Circus.......................................15Chasing Nightmares...................................19Serendipity: Here Comes Turkey!......................25No Splinters, Just a Thumb...........................27Grandma's Bed........................................33Sauce (2)............................................37A Steel Magnolia.....................................43Bush Symphony (1)....................................47Milko................................................51Bush Symphony (2)....................................63Mum, What's Happening!...............................65An Ill Wind..........................................73A Rental.............................................83Just Cruisin'........................................91Bush Symphony Discord................................105Honeymoon Period.....................................111Overboard............................................123Bush Symphony (4)....................................129Screwed!.............................................133Photo Gallery........................................143Sauce (3)............................................159Sisterhood Hallelujah!...............................165Betsy................................................171Pearly Whites and Ham Sandwiches.....................179More Hallelujahs.....................................185Good-bye Vera May....................................193Travels on a Carpet..................................203Betsy Untamed........................................213Sticky Wickets.......................................225Glory................................................231Bush Symphony (5)....................................239Fragrant Rain........................................243More Cruisin'........................................251Bonjour Madame.......................................257Ice Queen Revisited..................................273Epilogue.............................................277For Your Information.................................279

Chapter One

There was always sweet mustard sauce. It was synonymous with Sunday roast at Grandma's.

Grandma Roberts, my dad's mother, was tall and broomstick-straight. Her legs were as thin as a broomstick handle, and they were always covered in flesh-coloured, thick silk stockings. There was never any doubt that those stocking-clad legs were capable of many a good mile. She strode purposefully out from her house in Cleary Street, Hamilton to Maitland Road, Islington every Sunday—twice (there and back). Yes, to church—like Mother Duck with her ducklings falling in behind in a farmyard procession: Grandma, Carole (my sister), and me.

Her shoes were black and tightly laced. They had sturdy, stack heels, so sensible for walking. She wore a lightweight fawn coat buttoned at the waist over her Sunday dress. There was always the same demure neckline, and an antique brooch kept it all properly in place around her neck. Nothing was showing. Her soft straw hat with its gathered black netting around the brim was a biblical covering for her thin, silver hair that was fashioned into a plaited bun at the nape of her neck.

I mostly felt that Grandma was stern. She didn't display her affections openly; her smile was measured, and then it quickly vanished. There wasn't ever a laughing sound as far as I can recall. We didn't indulge in big hugs as we stood tippy-toe to receive a swift air kiss that was meant for our cheeks.

But that was her way; our way was different. Our mother had softened Grandma's son, Frank, over the years. Hugs and real kisses were always flowing whenever we greeted our family and friends.

A family-size roast with accompanying vegetables was baked on a Saturday in the huge, old kitchen in the back of the house. There was no toiling of any kind on a Sunday, so it was served cold for lunch after church. Grandma and Dickie laid out the food as they played host for Carole and me. We did this routinely so that we could attend the Islington Baptist Church (Dad's choice, not Mum's, for his two young daughters).

Grandma lived in a Federation-style house—the sort that had a long, gun barrel hallway—where we grandchildren never got to run. Dickie Bowman was Grandma's boarder, and he lived in rooms on the side veranda. There was a push-out window that we knew was Dickie's. It was always wide open, and the curtain pushed back. Dickie was reliably there ... hovering in among the pushed back curtains and leaking smoke. As we children ran and pushed jovially along the side pathway of Grandma's house, we knew to look up and spot Dickie's strong silhouette just behind those tired ruffles of lace. There we saw the smoke spiralling and trailing its way lazily outside through the hinged side window.

Down through the years, I pondered this image.

Our father was a stickler for rules, and he'd developed an extreme dislike about windows wide open and curtains pulled back. Boarding houses! Whenever we attempted to pull back the curtains and raise the blinds at home to see the beautiful lakeside scenery, he'd hit the roof and claim very hotly that we'd made the place look just like a boarding house. A boarding house? Perhaps he really objected to this smoking window on Grandma's side veranda (the one with the curtains pulled right back), but he'd never raised the issue with his equally stern mother. Regardless, we paid the price forever after.

Dickie's thumb and two fingers were permanently stained brown, and he perpetually wore a soggy, stained cigarette on his bottom lip. Gazing at the wizened, stained butt and the fingers burnt brown, I was filled with a morbid sense of fascination about this nice little man with a dreadfully wet cough.

The lonesome four of us sat at the Sunday lunch table in a room that was heavy with antiquities and smothering dark corners. There were at least eight empty chairs still around the giant table which made us sisters long for our parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles who would join us that evening for the Sunday night tea. Usually, Dickie carved the cold roast with a horrendous-looking knife while Grandma served the vegetables. It was mostly the playing out of a very serious pantomime: the laborious eating of the cold roast meat after it was generously doused with the sweet mustard sauce. The sauce continuously did the rounds of the table during the meal. For encouragement, we were given a nod and cursory grunt by Grandma. "Do the same," the grunt seemed to say. And we did.

There was a silence of sorts, but I listened to the sounds.

Grandma relished every mouthful as she effectively personified the grace that we had just finished praying: "Lord, make us truly thankful." Her plastic teeth clacked, and her appetite was keen. There were frequent applications of the sweet mustard sauce in the absence of gravy.

Dickie's nose was bulbous and red. Tiny veins made a spidery web over most of its surface, but to my dismay, it whistled and wheezed as Dickie ate—even though it was large enough for the task. I pretended not to hear it, but under the table, another story played out: four skinny legs kicked and bumped together as they dangled precariously from giant wooden chairs. We didn't laugh, but we may well have choked. We simply kept pace with the progress of the meal. "Keeping up," it was termed.

At the end of the lunch, all the plates were dutifully carried in procession out to the scullery where Dickie had prepared a giant tin dish. It stood with its partner, the draining tray, on the high wooden table. A slice of Sunlight soap sat waiting patiently on the tin tray, soon to be applied vigorously to the dangling dish rag. Four eyes watched as scalding hot water was poured onto the dishes, and Grandma's long, thin fingers plunged straight into the deep. I was absolutely sure that her elongated fingers would melt in the water as she deftly flicked and rinsed away the last of the sweet mustard sauce. Dickie, her helpmate, would wipe the plates dry and clean them more if necessary. He lifted them carefully from the huge tin tray where, moments before, Grandma had placed them to drain. They were still scalding.

Almost by magic, it was back on his lip: a soggy, stained butt that was flicked back and forth! And yet, for all of Grandma's very stern ways, I don't ever recall her ticking him off.

Sweet mustard sauce—a bottle of memories!

Chapter Two

Thomas Spruce

Pop has never been clear in my memories, and sadly, he provided neither warmth nor colour to my early childhood (even though he was my mother's father).

Vaguely, I see him as a somewhat tall, thin man with lovely silver hair. I had a tendency to fixate on his sunken mouth whilst desperately trying to see where his teeth were. They were scarcely there, except for one or two teeth that closely resembled wobbly pieces of Juicy Fruit gum before being chewed out of shape. His mouth kind of wheezed when he spoke, and though I can't recall the sound of his voice, I think it was soft.

Pop was a coal miner, and he was either down the pit or away beach fishing. He was a good beach fisherman, and he needed to be—his catch fed the family of five boys and one girl (Vera, our mother). It provided a nice change from eating rabbit, pigeon pie, and cheap cuts of meat. Miners were poor, and they lost much of their income through strikes and injuries. Sometimes, Pop sold the fish for much-needed money to supply the family needs.

I recall Pop walking my sister and I home one night following a stay at Nana's. It was cold, and we wore our knitted pixies. Nana had tucked our little camphor bags closely to our chests. She refilled them with camphor whenever necessary as a preventative from coughs and colds (to which I seemed to be prone). Pop paused to talk to a man who was lighting the corner street light. We were still holding Pop's hand when our mother met us from the other end of the street—she took us home.

Thomas Spruce, my Pop, died mysteriously in a sculptured kapok mattress. It was the kind of mattress that wouldn't let you out. He was laid out in Nana's other front bedroom just off the front veranda. It was this bedroom that had a monolithic wardrobe jammed against the back wall. There was a matching winged-mirror dressing table by the door, and Carole and I used to play with the twin mirrors to see a back view of ourselves. Plus, we delved cautiously into the pocket-sized knick-knack drawers on each side of it. But on top of the towering wardrobe was perched a white enamel jug with an orange hose coming from the side of it. We spoke about it in hushed whispers because Nana never really satisfied our curiosity about it.

"What was it, really?" we wanted to know. It took another fifteen years to find out that it was a douche used by women for cleansing themselves after sexual activity. Nana would really have preferred to have said, "To clean your private mick" if she'd thought that we were old enough to know such things about sexual activity. Carole and I have often chuckled about her use of the phrase private mick. We certainly got the message!

We didn't get to see Pop dead in the bed because there was such a crowd of aunties and uncles gathered around it and doing something with him. Somebody took us home, away from the mysteries of death—our early introduction as little girls.

Lucy May Spruce

Nana had false teeth; her mouth wasn't sunken in like Pop's. The teeth clicked in her plump and warm little cheeks when she was chewing, but the clicking wasn't in sync with her chewing. That intrigued me endlessly. But I thought it was a comforting sound that could only belong to our lovely Nana. Her teeth soaking in a jar was part of her bedside paraphernalia, together with another glass jar used to soak prunes (which Nana consumed as soon as she awakened). The kitchen clock stood ceremoniously tall next to both of these items. I thought that the clock was the boss of them as it ticked loudly through the night, as if counting the hours. It seemed like it was waiting impatiently to be returned to the kitchen mantel shelf in the mornings, where it belonged.

Nana's life changed very little after Pop died. Staying overnight was still a cherished delight because Nana was such fun. Her stories of her own family life—coming down from Narrabri across the sticky black soil plains in the back of a horse and dray—kept us intrigued, no matter how many times we sat and listened. She was an excellent storyteller. I could see her words vividly in pictures as she spoke them.

In the mornings Nana sailed regally through the house with the bedroom pot held out in front of her. It was covered by a folded newspaper. With her stays, as she called them—corsets, really—and the unattached suspenders tapping each other rhythmically as she walked, she sang her way out to the back to dispose of the pot contents. I didn't watch this closely—there wasn't any mystery there. Besides, I didn't like the creepy, dark outside toilet amid drooping grape vines and creepers at the back door. Nana's skirts (or something just under them) characteristically crackled and popped as she walked. Just another part of being a Nana, I supposed.

The old iron monarch in the kitchen was stuffed with chips of wood and scrunched up paper, and then it was topped up with some coal from the scuttle. A taper was lit carefully and then poked through the grill bars of the fuel stove in a ceremony every morning. Eyes glued to the procedure, I knew I could do it. I loved the way the heavy poker fitted perfectly into the grooved circular lid that closed up the hole of the spitting and hissing grand dame. The kettle was filled, and breakfast was on its way. The hand towels and long cotton scanties were quickly draped along the airing rail below the mantel piece, flopping in Nana's face if she didn't duck her head to tend to the stove and whatever was cooking on top of it. This was domestic bliss. There was nothing else to ask for but a reliable fuel stove: it aired the washing, cooked the meals, heated the water, and warmed the room. In repayment, Nana kept it blackened and shiny and in constant use, winter and summer. And when it was too hot in the kitchen, she simply sat out on the back or front veranda to catch a breeze.

Another edifice clambered for attention in Nana's kitchen: a conspicuously large lino-covered table, a remarkable multipurpose piece of family furniture. This was where we sat to watch the store order of groceries being unwrapped from the brown paper parcel, all done up with precious string that was never wasted. Nana rolled the string onto one of Pop's cork fishing line holders, stowing it away in a drawer for other timely needs. This table was the countertop upon which all the pies and jam turnovers were made. The vegetables were also peeled on it. It was to this surface that we clambered for the first crispy slices of the baker's cart bread expertly carved off from the loaf and plastered with butter. From there, the slices were delivered into our waiting, drooling mouths. We sat around this table with our Nana while she taught us how to peel lemons—the common, rough variety of lemons from her backyard tree. And while she told us stories, we dipped the lemon quarters into a deep saucer of white sugar and gobbled them happily.

Our first lessons in totting up accounts happened here as Nana rewarded Carole and I for completing small tasks. The kitchen slate was marked accordingly with appropriate strokes, and when the total number of pennies for each task equalled the price of a comic, off we went to the corner shop to choose a favourite comic book.

Eight members of the Spruce family had gathered here to eat. A cane was wielded to ensure manners were learned there; tears were shed, and jokes were made. As my sister and I sat on the lumpy old sofa behind this table, Nana told us about so many things: a son who always bellowed and cried at every meal (and who had to be run outside so that peace could be restored); the sniggering and teasing of sibling rivalry over who got the biggest share until the cane of correction was crashed down loudly onto the table to quell the disturbance. It was a table that could talk of many tangled tales ...

The linoleum on the table top was fashioned into an oval—the same shape as the table. Upholstery tacks cleverly encircled the edge of the table. Many times I walked around that table circumference, loudly counting the table tacks, goodness knows how many there were!

Lucy May was a happy uncomplicated person. All of her tangles were unravelled long ago. She was contented with the simplicity of her aloneness and the pleasure she was afforded by her brown, black, and white fox terrier called Peggy. Peggy was faithful to every movement Nana made, her brown eyes perceptive and anticipating. With her short whiskers trembling, she was ready for action. There wasn't that much. In the late afternoons, almost as a couple, they would sit on the front veranda chairs, peacefully observing the arrivals and departures of the Wallsend bus. It pulled up at Nana's front gate. Everybody knew Lucy Spruce; she was ready for a chat!

Nana must have missed her only daughter, Vera, and her two little granddaughters Carole and Jill when we moved from Durham Road, East Lambton and into the shop at Cleary Street, Hamilton. I suppose she sensed that her daughter's husband was dissatisfied with mediocrity.

I wonder how she filled that great chasm in her life. I wish that she could know that we didn't intend to desert her—our lives were just evolving, and hers, sadly, was nearly over.

Nana Spruce enriched our young lives and embroidered them with her special colours.

"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."

Ballou

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Frantic Fan Dancerby Jill St. Clare Copyright © 2012 by Jill St. Clare. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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