TALES

I

TOLD TO

NODDY

(A BOOK OF SHORT STORIES)

by

Anne-Marie Hicks

Prologue

Light

I am so close to the subject of my narrative that I might not present events as they really were, if it were possible to see anything at all in such a way as it really is, but as they seem to me now.  And this bias might mean that the way events are presented is not the way that they might have seemed to others who were there with me.  But that is true of all history, and all present reality.

Anne-Marie Hicks, Emerald, Queensland, 1993

Pulling on Noddy’s Tail

When Noddy took me home at night, as a means of passing the time I began to tell to him some stories of my life.

Noddy, with his curly black hair and beard and shining hazel eyes, was a little in love with me.  But that was neither here nor there. I was a little in love with Noddy, too.   I am certain we both knew this, but it was not until I left him, when he put his arms around me, kissed me, and held me against his heart, that, he thinks, love was ever made manifest.  But Noddy’s eyes, and Noddy’s kindness, both sparkling essences of him, gave me his gift long before. When I walked away, I took my stories with me, and left Noddy that much lonelier: a man already lonely just because of his being.  And so Noddy could not have known that he would be a part of my stories now, and that I would keep him with me.

Noddy and I worked out at a coal mine.  I loved the days when Noddy got to drive me the hour or so home, the sun setting blindingly, stunningly, over the flat, wide, dry horizon, and landscaping in deep silhouette any protrusion above the flat earth: dragline, spoil heaps, the odd tree, kangaroos.  We were always on the alert for kangaroos crossing our path on the road at dusk in search of food from the dry and parched earth, bearing, that Winter, little joy.  These were the evening drives during which I regaled him with my stories of misadventure, like an Odysseus in the house of Alcinous - neither of us knowing that this was also the time of the setting sun on a dry and barren part of my life. This was a searching and seeking, like the kangaroos, for more sustenance, more life-food, and more faith that if the search were wide enough, deep enough, the life-food would somehow enrich itself, and there would be sufficiency.  Like the search for the black coal.

Noddy’s contributions to my stories were always respectful. He variously evidenced bemusement, amazement, compassion, gently probing questions, astute, sometimes acerbic comments, and cigarettes.  A few minutes down the road, I would launch the day’s story, just as the massive dragline was appearing on our right.  See the bucket still swinging on the long-arm, carting that dirt, tipping it out, methodically and inevitably uncovering the mystery housed in the earth, uncovering deeply enough to view the seam of ‘paydirt’, or, black coal….

About half-way home, the worst shred of the story would come into the open, there, I’ve said it, feeling better, as though Noddy were the priest and I in his confessional.  Or, as though by saying this dour thing out loud, the pain would go away, and my life be brighter.  And it was at this point that the other mine would loom, with darkness now upon us, looming on our left like a fairyland.  Its many and massive lights, bursting on the flat plain, and its conveyor belts and mountains of coal under the bright lights, its ‘prep plant’ fully lit, were like a self-contained world, a world of richness and profitability, magical, a world where bright things glitter, where there is no night. I was always in mind of Disney’s Fantasyland. A white, bright, island.

I knew that if I were to view these dry plains, hiding their secret strands of wealth inside them, from high enough, I would see a number of bright, white islands.  These, I knew, were islands where hope might lie. But still hope seemed uncertain to me, as the strands of wealth inside these dry lands, once discovered, came to be of benefit, not to the land, but to those who dominated and subjugated it. And for all the mine-tour to show us how the land was replenished, reclaimed, replanted after the mine was done with it, what I saw were mostly scars. There was a reason why I was here.

And so I would have one of Noddy’s cigarettes with him, or he would have one of mine with me.  Nervous I was then, for having exposed, it seemed to me, my somehow polluted seam of wealth.  Then Noddy’s words, or Noddy’s silence, would stroke and soothe me. I would listen, and hear, his incomprehension, occasional outrage, about the woman and her pain, about the why of the pain.  But then, we shared that, too.

We started to talk about lighter, happier things, then, and I would say something to make him laugh, and look at him out of the corner of my eye to see his smile, and he would catch me at it, turn to look at me and I would see his fine hazel eyes sparkle, as brightly lit as that mine.  And this would be like the three-our-fathers and the four-hail-marys that absolved me for making Noddy hurt for me.  You can see why I loved him gently.

Anne-Marie Hicks, Jerusalem, Israel, 1999

Copyright 2017 Anne-Marie Hicks. All rights reserved. 

I come from the hill country, green, steep hills that in another 50-odd years from then would remind me of the green hills of Ireland half a world and half a lifetime away, whenever I thought of my green hills, the hills of my childhood, and the hills of a homeland ; the hills of each that anyway run in my veins and I call them home….

And these childhood hills were always coloured, so my childhood was coloured like them. They are the colours of the people living there, the colours of what people produced there, what they did in the Hills. And they are, mostly, for my memory, the colours of the seasons. 

My memories in the Summer are red, and also they are green.  Hills covered in red cherries among their green leaves, hanging there like baubles, like jewels, and the temptation of Eve ; had Eve come from this Garden, then we were all downfallen. The music at our place, in the Summer, was Greek, of language impaled with laughter, fortissimo, pianoforte, the eternal music of sounds not understood by the brain, and yet the ear falling in unremitting love. The red cherries, filling up buckets held by glorious, coloured-clothed people, glistening olive skin, hair black, or scarved, who reached and moved, and the cherries dropping as though by their own choice from among the leaves, falling like large, red raindrops into buckets.  Large our eyes as the marvellous folk among the trees stopped and the women looked at us, beckoning, smiling, and talked in their unintelligible language, those unfamiliar and gorgeous sounds, that entered our ears and set in me an everlasting music, the colour of red cherries. And at the end of the day, a sea of red in pale, wooden boxes, rich and ripe, on the traybed of the truck, green.  And then, silence among the trees, the music gone from the red air until tomorrow…

My memories are mostly white in the Spring, carrying our brown school cases over hills and valleys, dropping them into blackberry laden gullies, our legs running past wild orchids and wild flowers with colours bright blues and pinks and yellows, and stark in their green, wild-hills homes, and then crossing the stream of pure water, bubbling clear, stopping to drink, jumping over bull-ants and seeing pale whitish snake-skins, and coming up the final slope, past the apple trees, the slope with the view of acres and acres of white, aching beauty, the blossoms on those cherry trees. Those white blossoms filled our eyes and I have never since seen their like en masse, the endless rows now a white soft and frothy blanket, gracing the hills, gracing the small and amazing trees, stunning our eyes.  Up close, the tiny petals, soft and white with speckled middles, their perfume pervading the air, filling our nostrils, filling with white our hair, perfuming our minds and filling our souls with delight.

White in the Winter, too, memories of those white hills, with frosts and with fog, and my father’s precious voice, with the rhyme that lasted his lifetime and ours, into memory like DNA : “ the fog, the fog, the dirty dog – can’t tell whether it’s a fish or a frog ! “. Breath-fog, a childish competition that warmed our chilled-pink-fingered, glove-covered hands with white fog-breath that came from the very frost-covered earth of those Hills, the air so cold it could barely be breathed in, this painful breath, into our small bodies, then warmed by the small, warm-inside interior of our lungs, then breathed out again, that same air warmed by our bodies but that they were yet made colder by it, and forming a hard-breathed white cloud from our mouths into the colder air outside…and the backdrop of frost-encrusted brown-bare trees. 

Earth coloured memories of the Autumn that belie rich life, that seem warm-earth, yet begin the cycle of cold before the Winter, reminding, that the sun’s heat, too, takes a shorter turn, in the Hills, colding each of the valleys in turn.  Brilliant colours, the leaves are anyway falling, although their colours are blooming in richness, of golds and oranges, crimson and variegated-autumn-rainbows, earth-browns, and birch-yellows - leaving a feeling of inner haste, to get things done, to gather warmth, and shelter, before the cold pulls, makes the inside-fire brighter, warmer, as it too, burns with those autumn colours like the last fiery rays of the Autumn sun at the end of day….

And though here we begin our list of seasons with the full solstice Summer, fiercest memories, the cycle truly begins with the Spring, that season of new life, and it ends with the Winter, when, seeds ready-sown for the following cycle turned, the old dies and makes way for the new. 

------------------------------------------

And so now it is the plains, the blue plains, the brown and green plains, seizing and expanding my heart and soul, my mind, and I can hardly fathom why, or how it could be so.  There are cycles of the tides, there are cycles of the saltbush and the rocks, it is true, but there are others of a wider context, cycles that speak of a timelessness, a constancy, a place for soul to breathe, breathe without pain, to breathe in peace and breathe out loss…  The plains, with their flatness, are Eve’s temptation now – to pierce horizons and find the eternal reasons, that be, somewhere beyond the day-to-day, to touch the delicate edges of eternity, to find the fragile boundary of now, and then, and how to live there from here, how to return from there ; how, too, to make the wave tame, just enough to know like a sea-spray, and to make the rainbow bright, just enough to feel the light, to bring laughter and childish play, just enough to hold…. 

The plains.  The plains are their own mark of being, or they have none but they have voice and they use it to call, and they call with a soulful whisper, they are not bound by colour, but colourful, not bound by edges though their edge-less-ness impels, not bound by presence although they are present and they call, not bound…. 

Copyright 2020 Anne-Marie Hicks. All rights reserved. 

Josie went down the stairs ahead of me, which meant that I could view the room for a split second, through the minimal, pointed lighting and the soft blue of the smoke haze, before I had to feel self-conscious at us being summed up by everyone watching the club’s entrance.  Josie headed for the bar, “Are you having a drink?”  “Tequila Sunrise”, I responded and that was the base line of the next phase of my life. 

Perched atop a high stool, excitement in my stomach, it was the Friday-night-in-the-city deal again, but I felt unrestrained and wild this particular night.  It was the last semester closing, soon that Uni. degree would be mine, a new world awaiting, a better life for my children and me….then I saw the black, sleek hair and the sexiest man-body in the room, black pants, white shirt, black jacket, I was already halfway there. Looking like a fabulous 60’s rocker… Melbourne boy !  So of course, when he felt his pockets for his lighter, I was already flicking mine under his cigarette.  Too bad about Josie, she’d handle herself, I was busy getting hooked. 

“Clayton”.

“_______”.

A tug at my sleeve, sometime later, it’s Josie, “Let’s go to [Some Other Place], there’s no-one here”. Oh yes there is, I thought.  “But…”.  “Come on, I’m bored”. “OK”.  Inspiration.  “We’re going to Some Other Place, do you want to come?”.  Quick word to his mates, “OK, let’s hit it”.  Stomach lurch. Slight shaking of the hands, flicking cigarette lighter under my own…God, he’s so cute! as he leans forward to return the favour.  He lit my cigarette for me!….

Of course, by the time we reached Some Other Place, I was in some other place, and ‘he was mine and I was his’… song-lyric carouselling around my brain.  Since, I have been often bemused at how the simple act of relocation and alcohol can draw total strangers closer, becoming ‘proprietary’, a ‘couple’, ‘together’, already, since we have now entered Some Other Place together. 

And then we began the touching, because, after all, now we were an item, well, more or less.  And then we danced.  By the time the dance was over, the rest of the evening was obvious: Mr Sex dancing was the slow, sensual, seductive type – like a craving.  Leaves you wanting more.  Of course, or the job wouldn’t have been done.

And so it began.  The staying over, the renting of  “Purple Rain”, a film I still cannot see in any objective fashion, viewing it as I was through those besotted eyes, on the couch with Clayton.  The hard fact was that Clayton lived in Victoria, but oh, lucky, he’s moving up, that’s why he’s holidaying here, checking the place out.  The long phone calls when he went back to - Melbourne !( well, I got that right ! ), too bad about my study ;  long letters to the beloved….

Then, his things began arriving.  Not just the bottle of Poison perfume for me, but real, hard-core things, like the television and video.  I must be minding them until he arrives.

God, buses take so long, this one must be travelling about 20 k’s an hour.  All the way to Melbourne.  Still, we’re here now, there he is!  He did come to collect me!  In his arms, mouth on mouth, hot and passionate, trembling : do you think he can see how rapt I am??

The Melbourne Green Belt is beautiful, the wombat is beautiful, the mud-brick houses, oh, how I (ie, we) must have one of those!  “I’ve missed you”, he says.  Oh, God, really? I think.  “I’ve missed you, too”, I reply, totally devoid of wit.  “We’ll just put your things in my caravan and then we’ll go down to the house and you can meet my parents”.  Once inside the caravan, it’s the tearing off of clothes, right into it, no fancy waiting.  After, Clayton rolls a massive joint, good old Clayton.  Oh, well, I’ve only had one half of a ‘racehorse’ in my whole life, 60’s hippie kid notwithstanding, so here goes….

“Mum, this is “______”.  Hello, Mrs Clayton, I think I said.  Do you think she’ll think my eyes are red because I’m tired after the long bus trip?  I hope you’re nice, Mrs Clayton, I may or may not have said, but probably just said “Yes, please” when she offered me a cup of tea.  Well, then I saw your baby photos, didn’t I Clayton, and my, weren’t you cute! 

What a few days, very frantic, mostly around to friend’s place to smoke from the thing called a bong.  One go was enough for me, and I got bored soon after, but hey, just look at My Man!  Back to my Brisbane home, in Clayton’s car with him, and it’s towing all his things.  Towing ALL HIS THINGS. Seems he’s moving in, not that it was ever specifically mentioned. Welcome home, Mum, my three children are waiting to see what their life will be like now.

Nightclub again.  Another Friday night.  Drunk again.  Hot sex again.  Porno videos again. Finals tomorrow.  Home at 5 am.  Up at 6 to study, sitting on Distinction, won’t really matter if I flunk the exam.  God, I’m still drunk, must’ve been all those (Tequila) Slammers.  Exam at 9.00.  No time for any more study.

Clayton, you’re cooking.  Wow, it was worth sitting an exam to come home to this.

Clayton, you’re smoking dope.  Again.  I told you I don’t want you smoking dope here, because of my children.

Why are you pushing my boy across the room?  If he’s fighting with his sister, I’ll sort it out.  He’s hardly your size for you to be pushing him around.

Why are you and my friend holed up in the kitchen when the rest of the party’s outside.  Why are you letting her play ‘touchy’ with your feet and can’t you see the bitch is all over you, or do you think I can’t see where her hand is?

And, why did you punch a hole in my girl’s door during the argument you had with her while I was having that general anaesthetic procedure in the hospital this morning?  My fearless girl had to shut herself in her room to get away from you.  Why did you punch her in her stomach, Clayton?

“My car doesn’t do that.  Maybe it’s something else ?”.  Fuck.  I’m being picked up and flung on the ground!!  What is this?  “I’m the mechanic, I’D KNOW!”. “Yes, but it’s my car, I’ve been driving it for seven years…don’t you think …?”.  On the ground again!  I’m not staying around for this.  I’ll just head up the drive ---, how long the drive is ! … Fuck, that hurt! … and how hard it is …

“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry….sorry”.  “Don’t cry, Clayton, it’s OK now, I love you”.

He’s locked me in my room.  OK, I’ll get out of the window.  Oh, shit, he’s heard me opening it, he’s coming for me….  Well, of course, I won’t do that again !

South Brisbane.  Walking to work along the footpath.  Carrying leather briefcase.  Even briefer are my thoughts about last night, when I was locked in my room.  Staccato. Stiletto. Staccato. Stiletto. The pavement, too, is hard.

Facing my class, my students.  What would they say if they knew their teacher had been locked in her own bedroom last night and not allowed out? Quaver.  Fear.  Let that  be a lesson!

Copyright 2017 Anne-Marie Hicks. All rights reserved.