1982 Janine Read Free Page A

bread and cheese. Their mothers (my mother thought) didn’t look after them properly. When the evening meal was finished and my father had gone out to a union meeting (he was a timekeeper at the pithead, a strong union man) I would startchanging into my oldest suit and my mother would say, 
    9 HOME MOTHER JANE RUSSELL   
    â€œHave you done your homework yet?”
    â€œNo. I’ll do it when I get back.”
    â€œWhy not do it now, while you’re still fresh?”
    â€œThe sun’s shining, it’s a nice evening.”
    â€œSo you’re determined to hew coal when you grow up?”
    â€œNo. But it’s a nice evening.”
    â€œHm!”
    And she would fall silent. Her silences were very heavy. I could never pull myself from under them. I could never leave her alone in one, that would have been cruel. Drearily I would get out the school books and spread them on the kitchen table. She would sit by the fire with a piece of knitting or sewing and we would be busy on opposite sides of the room. The wireless would be playing very quietly (“and now the strains of Kate Dalrymple introduce Jimmy Shand and his band with thirty minutes of Scottish country dance music”). The room would grow lighter. Later she would brew a pot of tea and quietly lay on the table beside me a milked and sweetened cup of it with a chocolate biscuit in the saucer. Without lifting my eyes from the books I would grunt to show that I could not be so easily soothed, but inside I was perfectly happy. My happiest moments were passed with that woman. She kept me indoors but she never interfered with my mind. Between the pages of a book I had a newspaper clipping to carry my thoughts miles and miles away, an advert for The Outlaw – MEAN! MOODY! MAGNIFICENT! above a photograph of Jane Russell, her blouse pulled off both shoulders, leaning back against some straw glaring at me with this inviting defiance. My feelings were more than sexual. I felt grateful. I was amazed by myself. Nobody else, I realized, knew all the rich things I knew. The clean tidy room, the click of my mother’s needles, Jane Russell’s soft shoulders and sulky mouth, the evening sunlight over the town in the bend of the river where the colliers’ sons were guddling trout, a mushroom cloud in the Pacific sky above Bikini atoll, Jimmy Shand’s music and the taste of a chocolate biscuit were precisely held by my mind and by nobody else’s. I was vast. I was sure that one day I would do anything in the world I wanted. I thought it likely that I wouldmarry Jane Russell. I was ten or twelve at the time and believed sex and marriage were nearly the same thing. Now I am almost fiforget that forget that forget that where did I leave Janine? 
    10 JANINE NEARING THE COUNTRY CLUB   
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    In a fast car trying not to be afraid, her vulnerable breasts in a white silk shirt, accessible arse in a leather miniskirt, shapely thighs legs feet in black fishnet stockings and, ah! white open-topped shoes with stiletto heels. Standing up in them Janine is on tiptoe, she must raise and tighten her bum, press back her shoulders, lift her chin. Each shoe is tied on by three slender white thongs with small gold buckles which fasten straight across the toes, diagonally over the arch of the foot, and encircle the ankle so that (how happy I am) if the car slows or stops she can’t slip them off, fling open the door and run. The car does slow, a little, leaving the freeway for a sideroad through a plantation of fir trees which cast a very cold shadow. “Nearly home!” says Max happily. The car stops before a tall gate in a security fence. Through the wires Janine can see a gatehouse and a patch of sunlight where a man in shorts, singlet and peaked cap is dozing in a deckchair. Max sounds his horn. The man stands, peers towards the car, salutes Max and enters the gatehouse.
    â€œWhat kind of country-club is this