Goldie Alexander
Goldie Alexander has worked as a freelance writer/teacher for the last two decades. In that time she has written 60 prize-winning books for children of all ages and many short stories, articles, scripts and radio talks. She likes to delve into various forms of writing and is passionate about creating and fine-tuning her own work. Her latest books for adults include 2 culinary murder mysteries: “UnJust Desserts” + “UnKind Cut” and the historical fiction" Body and Soul" set in Melbourne 1938. Her latest books for children include "Bridging the Snowy” and the “Health and Understanding" maga-books series.The story picture book "Lame Duck Protest” and an anthology for older children, “My Horrible Cousins and other stories” will appear later this year. You can find out more about her on www.goldiealexander.com
The following work is copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Chicken
Chicken: n. A young domestic fowl;
(sl) game testing courage;(sl) cowardly.
Aust.Oxford Dict.
CURRENT CALCULATIONS.
When Sam took his retirement package, he’d already decided to sell their rambling suburban home and buy an income producing property somewhere out of the city. Those he inspected, some properties were used to run cattle, or grow avocados. Some were set up as vines, restaurants, B and B’s, cheeseries, even a brewerie. As well, there was a post-office/health food outlet - he deliberated for a long time over that - a wholesale florist, an apple, pear and cherry orchard and a small general store.
Six months later came the chicken sheds.
The owner, ‘Call me Bill,’ was a quiet man with a friendly handshake. Bill’s two windowless fifty-yard sheds held twenty thousand four week old chicks. Julie picked her way over squashed bodies, sawdust sprinkled with blood and faeces, then as the bile rose in her throat, she had to race outside where she threw up.
When the men finally emerged, she heard them discussing ways of keeping in with the processing companies. Bill showed them how to regulate the watering system. ‘We give the chooks a special mixture of antibiotics and hormones,’ he explained pointing to the feed bins hanging rocket-like from the roof. ‘Stops them getting sick and makes them grow quicker.’
‘Perfect business for a retired couple,’ he added before they left. ‘We’re only selling because the wife wants to be closer to the grandchildren.’
‘Such a nice man,’ Julie cried as Sam drove away. ‘How can he be doing this?’
‘You’re not kidding.’ Sam revved the engine in disgust. ‘He’s asking fifty k’s too much. Still... chickens,’ he mused. ‘Could be interesting.’
Staring through the windscreen, Julie saw barren hills smooth against a lowering sky. Paddocks fractured by brown-paper dams. The road, a desert broken by white lines. She tried to ignore the insects splattered over the glass; those the wipers didn’t knock away. Night fell as they were half way home. Along the double-lane highway, semi-trailers belched and roared. Approaching the suburbs, glare from service stations and take-away-food barns blanketed out the stars.
CRYSTAL BALL.
If ever Julie visualises herself as no longer married, her mind’s eye pictures a small north facing apartment somewhere in the CBD. Once her paintings are hung and the book shelves stacked, she intends for every corner to be filled with blossoms and bulbs - Spring flowers to remind herself that life can be renewed. From here she and a friend will visit galleries, theatres, restaurants and concert halls. That no such friend exists right now presents no obstacle. Somewhere out there, like slotting together a jigsaw, someone was waiting to fill this role.
In quiet moments, standing under the shower, at work, even waiting for traffic lights to change, Julie gives her imaginary friend substance: Middle aged and single, she dresses well but not too well, is quiet, loyal and gently spoken. Unlike Sam, she’s thoughtful and considerate. Unlike Sam, she rarely frets about money. Unlike Julie, she has the warmth and confidence of a woman who after a long and difficult journey, knows exactly who she is.
THE MENARCHE
Not putting up with blood, discomfort, tampons etc was a relief. Rather, as she explained to the doctor new to this practice, it was the unexpected waves of internal heat, the lack of sleep and the remorseless fatigue that got her down.
The doctor crossed long lean youthful legs and scribbled something on a card. ‘Mrs. Wright,’ she said, ‘do you ever feel suicidal?’
Julie shrugged. ‘Not exactly.’ More like murderous, she thought. Earlier that day, forced to suddenly brake at a pedestrian crossing, she’d had an impulse to drive right through, to create as much external chaos as she felt inside.
‘Sounds like you’re depressed.’ The doctor reached for her prescription pad, ‘Why not try HRT?’ she said briskly. ‘It’ll stop those flushes, help you sleep.’
Julie nodded politely. She idly wondered if there was a pill to cure her present unhappiness? She pictured those long lean youthful legs squashed under the wheels of her car. She wished those legs were Sam’s.
WORLD WAR TWO.
Julie recalled Uncle Tom’s bitter smell when he picked her up; how his buttons scratched her face and dug into her chest. She could even recall bomb shelters, black-out and rationing. Julie’s father, short sighted and asthmatic, was never conscripted. Instead he caught a tram every morning into the city and brought home used pieces of paper for Julie to draw on.
The weekend after a gas producer was attached to the rear of their Ruby Austin, he drove Julie and her mother to the country. Back then, a black market flourished in petrol, cigarettes and certain foods. On the drive to Mornington to buy ‘black eggs’, Julie pictured shiny jet-black spheres like the marble ones in Nanna’s living room. Fifty years later she remembered the farmer’s wife placing a warm egg in her hand… and her disappointment when the egg turned out to be mottled beige.
After tea, Julie was taken to a nearby dam where the Sacred Ibis nested. As she watched birds wheel overhead, she couldn’t help comparing their effortless flight with the silly hens with so little to show for their efforts. Even then, Julie realised how hard it is to be an Ibis. Little has happened since to make her change her mind.
Julie’s mother died last year. Clearing out her mother’s flat, Julie found a shoe box crammed with photos. One dated 1946, is of her parents about the same age as Julie’s eldest son. As for herself; minus two front teeth, she is standing beside the car holding a basket of eggs. Another photo shows her at the lake. Directly behind is a grassy bank where several black and white birds with long beaks hold out one leg as if about to step out of the picture.
THE MARRIAGE TRAP.
Whenever Julie asks Sam why he insists on a move, he reminds her that retiring to the country was always his intention. ‘Besides,’ he adds. ‘We need the extra cash that kind of property will give us.’ He spends a long time talking about projected income, tax rebates, shares, superannuation funds etc. Bemused by his ability to play with figures, she cries, ‘How about my job?’
‘Your job?’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Thought you couldn’t wait to leave.’
Sometimes when her despair reaches manic proportions, she leaves Sam dozing in front of the TV and rushes into the night. Though one road leads to another, they are only replicas of the first. Passing eyeless windows and empty gardens, dogs yap at her heels, mysterious shadows beckon and deflect. Terrified of being mugged or raped, whenever a car rolled past, her pace quickens. But too much history binds them together. Misaligned, like worn pieces of machinery, they should be sent separate ways. But while nothing stops her, everything does. How will Sam cope? What if she loses her job? Her money runs out? Has an accident? Gets sick? Can’t stand living alone? What if she hates being single?
Climbing into bed in semi darkness, her reflection in the dressing-table mirror turns into a pointillist nightmare. Her body, like a fluffy ball of wool, unravels in every direction. These days she dresses and undresses in private. Though this house has three other bedrooms, she shares Sam’s through habit and a certain reluctance to take a more aggressive stance. As she crawls under the duvet, a snore like a death rattle distorts his face. He grunts, turns, but doesn’t wake. She watches red digital figures click away the hours. With the children long gone, with Sam’s retirement forcing her into this move, it all comes down to this: To either spend the next twenty years a stranger in a strange land, or pay for her independence by turning solitary.
During the day, there’s a marked division in their chores. While Sam paints the bathroom, she works in the garden. Clouds hide the sun. A wicked wind knifes through her. Lightning flickers. Somewhere far off there’s an answering rumble. The sky squats on her like a toad. She hides her thoughts. That’s what marriage does. You learn when it’s best to stay quiet. At the same time she nurses her resentment like she would an ailing child. Somewhere out there, other women pack bags and leave. At the back of her mind is the knowledge that if the house and garden look good, this auction should bring enough to buy two separate dwellings. A house for her and one for Sam.
Pruning and weeding as if her life depends on it, she pauses occasionally to examine her conscience. If marriage is made in heaven, hers certainly wasn’t. Years of injury well up. In an attempt to control her rage, she concentrates on her imaginary friend and calls her...
ANNA.
Anna also has grown children and a worn out marriage. Julie conjures up their future: Surrounded by tubs of roses and sweet smelling herbs, they are on the balcony of Julie’s new apartment sipping wine and watching pigeons roost on a nearby roof. In the canyon below, trams creep like green and gold caterpillars. ‘Why don’t things turn out the way we dream them?’ Julie asks Anna. ‘We must be very bad wives.’
‘Nothing stays the same,’ says Anna. ‘Once, if my husband glanced at anyone else, my insides turned to ice. Yet I sent him to another woman.’
‘That’s how I feel about Sam.’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have put the children first. I never believed they’d leave me.’
‘When my boys left,’ Julie reminisces. ‘Each time they visited, I’d send them away with food. Then they travelled overseas and stayed there.’
‘I remember when mine were old enough to drive,’ says Anna. She has the warmth of a woman who after a long and difficult journey knows exactly who she is. ‘There were nights he wanted to make love and all I could think was; are the kids okay? I’d want him to get the whole thing over with, so I could listen for their return.’
‘We were unfaithful to our husbands with our children.’ This strikes them as ludicrous, but true.
Until now, Julie and Sam have bumbled along in spite of everything. Now she finds herself like a true librarian cataloguing his faults. She tells Anna that she can’t stand the way he plans their future without taking her into account. Anna throws up her hands. ‘Men!’ A world of contempt in one word.
Julie reveals how Sam was thinking of buying a chicken farm. ‘Can you imagine being marooned with twenty thousand chooks?’
‘Heinrich Himmler started off life like that.’
Julie giggles. She’s not too old to start a new life. Anna’s greying hair sheaths her head like a helmet. Her figure is trim, the body of someone who exercises regularly. Her clothes casual, but smart. In repose her face wears the lines of someone whom life has treated unkindly, yet emerged confident and secure. ‘Once,’ she tells Julie, ‘I stormed out of the house, and walked and walked. Finally I found myself in a hotel on the other side of the river. Next thing, a stranger picked me up and I spent the night with him.’
‘Wasn’t he worried when you didn’t come home?’
‘No.’ A light breeze feathers Anna’s hair. ‘He probably thought I was at my mother’s.’
Julie feels a pang for lost opportunities. But not really. If friends are to be believed, most men end up as demanding and contrary as Sam.
‘Was that the only time you were unfaithful?’
‘Once I left the children with my mother, and caught a bus to Sydney. I stayed in the Paradise Motel. The bathroom was dirty and the mattress sagged, but I didn’t mind. I took off my rings and flashed my bare fingers. Several men asked me out.’
‘Did you go?’
Anna smiles but doesn’t answer.
Julie reviews her own marriage. Once, angry with Sam, she set about smashing the dinner set his grandmother left him. He has never forgiven her. Back then, she felt guilty. Now, when she considers what else she might have done, she laughs aloud.
A pigeon flutters onto the balcony. She flicks an olive pip his way. The pigeon coos reproachfully before fluttering away. ‘I remember,’ she says, ‘when the boys were tiny, I forgot to adjust their stroller, and it skidded in front of a car. The driver missed them by inches.’
‘That’s not being a bad wife. That’s being a careless mother.’
‘Still,’ Julie reminds her, ‘you did find the courage to leave.’
The sun pins them to their seats. Plants, flowers, even the ivy clinging to the wall, become fluid and unreal. A cloud like a Titan’s head floats overhead. The kumquat tree throws old man shadows on the wall. The lily yawns menacingly. In Julie’s brave new world, anything is possible.
A STAY IN THE COUNTRY.
The summer Julie turned nine, her parents bought a milk-bar and sent her to a ‘holiday farm’ to board with a half dozen other children. Julie was dreadfully unhappy. The house was hot, dusty, fly ridden, with hardly anywhere for her to hide. The farmer and his wife despised her ‘city ways’. The other kids, lead by a bossy girl called Jane, put spiders in her bed, blowflies in her food and shoved her into cow-shit and blackberry. Looking back, she spent the entire three weeks terrified of the horses, the dogs, even the silly sheep.
The farmer’s idea of entertainment was to take the children on all day shooting expeditions. Julie hated the guns, the blood, the limp bodies. When the farmer instructed the children to skin the carcasses, Julie fainted and had to be carried home. Next time Julie was left behind. The farmer’s wife, overworked and unsympathetic, told her to sweep the chook yard. Hens flew at her broom and pecked her feet. Months later, Julie’s dreams were filled with angry chooks, teasing children and bleeding corpses.
Twenty years later, Julie met Jane in the street. Jane recognised Julie immediately. ‘I’ll never forget that cow of a farmer bullying us into killing his rabbits, ‘she said to Julie’s astonishment. ‘I still remember how brave you were, how you simply refused to go.’ She leaned across the table, by now they were sitting in a cafe, ‘I was so shit scared he’d turn that gun on us, I used to cry myself to sleep.’
MARK OF COURAGE.
Weeks pass. Sam scans the property market, marks off potential bargains in either blue or red, depending on their price and distance. One Sunday, he takes her north-east to inspect a house on fifty acres. This property contains several unused chicken sheds and a very large dam. Though the house and sheds need renovating, it is only a two hour drive to the city. ‘That’s it,’ he exults when the agent is out of hearing. ‘Exactly what we’ve been looking for. I’ll fill those sheds with chooks in a jiffy.’
Julie says nothing. Sam drives home. He’s too busy working out ways of negotiating the price to notice her silence. She orders herself to shut out the world and breathe deeply. While her mind drifts weightless, she waits for something under the surface to meet between her thoughts.
Darkness gathers. Low hills. Pine trees like shadow puppets outlined against a red wash of sky. Sam drives on and on. The landscape passes. Their metal bullet plunges into the night. She closes her eyes and prays that they will never stop. On reopening, she will not be surprised to find herself hurtling into infinity. She hopes this might happen. In spite of the car’s efficient heater, the cold seeps inside her bones. She huddles into her coat. Mind numb with fatigue, peering through the misty windscreen, she sees only empty paddocks interrupted by an occasional shed. The evening star winks at her out of a clear sky.
The smell, when it comes, creeps up unseen. Sickly sweet, it recalls compost heaps and decomposing flesh, a return to the soil, certain trace elements. She has a flash, a race memory of crowding with her tribe and the dogs around the camp fire on a frosty night, stomach stretched to capacity, valued and respected as the woman entrusted to carry the embers. ‘Smell that? It’s the chicken sheds,’ he says. ‘After they fatten the chooks, they truck them out to the factories. Then they open the doors to let out the stink.’
He is very matter of fact. Yet the smell seems to linger in the car long after they’ve driven away.
