Life is a Parallel Universe (3 page)

I know what you
are thinking, as you look down upon the Browns askance: those wise
words said by someone of note ‘Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.’ Well, we shall see. But look closely
as Christmas morning arrives. You will see the Browns climb into
their Ford, all scrubbed and clean and plain. They will drive off,
with no detours, under the speed limit to visit the little wooden
church and sit on its hard seats. Once here, they think of
home.

Beatrice both
longed for and feared the long summer holiday. Being cut loose and
free from the mechanical prison of school was something she yearned
for. But, once the holiday arrived, she felt she was in free-fall;
unhooked and unhinged from any mooring. Floating free in space
without gravity.

This panic
would generally last for a few days and then slowly and
methodically, Beatrice would visit the library and perhaps, Els
Bookshop, to gather a stack of books together. She would also take
long walks just to look at things. She would visit the shopping
centre to gaze in wonder at the piles of stuff; stuff that you
could possess if you had money. Sometimes, she would take rides up
and down in the lift, to feel again that tingle of anticipation and
imagine that she was going to the moon. The happy and light music,
that piped everywhere throughout the centre, made her feel as
though she was floating on the air. Almost.

After one week
of holidays had clocked by, Beatrice got up one morning to find
that she had a visitor outside her door. A small black and white
cat, which looked like it was wearing a mask and a cape. The cat
came in and chose to stay. Beatrice had a friend.

I am sure that
your keen eyes had noticed the small figure of Beatrice during term
time, every lunch hour, hunched on the unyielding mission brown
benches. Eating her sandwich and pretending that she belonged to
some random crush of girls. Now, Beatrice had someone to belong to.
But beware Beatrice, cats can be so disappointing. They really only
belong to themselves.

Most sensible
people look toward the start of their high school career with
apprehension. You are still a child and yet are forcibly thrust
into a Mad Max world populated by child-adults; sprouting hair,
oozing with smells and secretions and voices see-sawing about.
Frightening! Stories are told to the initiate, of heads being
flushed down toilets and illicit affairs conducted between student
and teacher. And, yet, there is no reasonable way out. Like cattle
stepping onto the chute leading to the abattoir there is only one
way: forward.

This rather
dramatic view was not one that materialised in the mind of Lisa
White. She was obsessing about her new school bag. It looked, she
thought, like something Madonna might own.

Lisa was
getting dressed on that first morning of high school, listening to
her favourite compilation CD. Dancing with her reflection to songs
like ‘What Have You Done for Me Lately’ and ‘What You Need’.
‘Michael Hutchence! What a spunk! Lisa was fully expecting to meet
such a boy at her new school. Someone who poured in from one of the
feeder schools in the district. Hormones had been released and
fires were being lit.

High school is
a very clannish place: more so than primary school. As the influx
of new students flow into those utilitarian halls and smells of
turpentine polish and raw youth mingle, a miracle appears to take
place. Or, perhaps, it is simply part of the inherited tendency of
people to form groups. There is, however, a seeming intelligence
behind these group alignments: some kind of All Seeing Eye which
appears to be pulling the strings.

Lisa, of
course, finds a throne waiting for her and other ‘diamonds of the
first water’ clustering about her.

And, like a
tornado sweeping through a junkyard, Sue, finds herself set like a
wooden bead, on a bracelet of other plain, smooth and round,
freckled girls. Beatrice, too, found herself swept along by forces
greater than herself. As though there was a conspiracy about to
prove the law of attraction. So, there she was, finally, with a
friend who had read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (twice!) And who was
also smitten and bewitched by ‘Star Wars’. Take a gander at this
scene for a moment. A moment set in time: an insect in amber.
Everyone has their place. But, already, the winds of change are
coalescing and the tide is about to turn.

That year,
1987, a big fat American film hit town and suddenly emotion and
music and romance erupted from sedate everyday confines. Platoons
of girls tramped into the Tower Cinema and sat on vinyl seats,
awestruck in the frozen air; eyes open and unwavering: all ears.
Baby Houseman was not perfect; she blew in like a breeze of
hope.

In those days,
as you walked along concrete school hallways, you could almost
hear, behind the sounds of clanking rubbish bins and distant
shouting from sports fields, the refrain of ‘Hungry Eyes’. Concrete
and clay merged with Hollywood enchantment, to form the backdrop,
to a fecund atmosphere of swelling bodies and flowing nature
working itself free.

Our worthy
young women changed that year; developing crushes on boys. And, for
one of our girls, crushes on girls too. Nothing was admitted,
though, especially to herself. That time had not arrived. Still, a
person was required to push and poke and force themselves into
assigned boxes and slam down the lid.

The paths of
our heroines, also, did not cross much this year. Lives were
developing and advancing, trapped by time, in separate spheres.
Then, suddenly, an intersection is reached on the night of The
School Dance.

It was a sultry
summer night. The night of what was quaintly called ‘The School
Dance’. Held in the concreted school canteen area and cordoned off
with clammy tarpaulins; in the days before public liability
insurance was really ‘a thing’. The dance was a big money spinner
for the school and so blind eyes were turned toward the antics of
car loads of inebriated, sex-upped teenagers who crammed into
corners. Sometimes they danced.

Lisa White
swanned out of the double front doors of the brick veneer on
Madison Drive, wearing a tiny gold miniskirt and sheer lace top of
white. As she walked, she left a trail of Poison: ‘Dior's ultimate
weapon of seduction’. Her father scampered around her, tongue
between teeth, clicking the Kodak. Every now and then she would
strike-a-pose.

Mrs White also
stepped outside to watch her daughter, Lisa, as she set off to the
dance with her boyfriend Gary. Gary, who was commonly called
‘Chook’, even by his mother.

On that sultry
evening, as an opera of cicadas sang out, Mrs White, wearing a
Lycra, sheath dress and holding a cocktail glass elaborately
decorated with mini umbrellas and fruit, stood watching and gushing
loudly to her husband ‘our girl could be a model!’ Pretty soon, in
her mind after this night, her daughter was actually a model, even
though she only had a part-time job at Katies.

At the Brown
household it was a different story. The Brown’s didn’t approve of
such ‘shenanigans’ and so Sue had to beg and plead. Imagine how it
would look if she didn’t go to the dance! Eventually her mother
relented. It was her decision which mattered and Sue was released
from the Friday tradition of a tea time of eggs and chips and
watching something like ‘New Faces’ or ‘Burke’s Backyard’ on
TV.

Sue wore her
green slacks and a flowered top that her granny from Lambton had
given her on her birthday. It was from ‘Best and Less’. Sue’s dad
then drove the giggling group of girls to the dance and afterwards
parked outside his house in the twilight. For a moment, he knew
what it was to feel free.

Adamstown
Heights has no ancient ruins, statutes or tombs to be discovered.
And in those days before, the footprints of the Awabakal clan had
been light ones upon the earth. But underneath this area of
weatherboard and brick veneer houses, lives a honeycomb collection
of old coal mines and great chasms in the earth. Few people looking
from above would have any idea what lies beneath.

Burning our
past and our future.

Newcastle was
built on coal and named after its British coal cousin. It was back
in 1797 that Lieutenant John Shortland found the place, as he was
searching for escaped convicts. And pretty soon, Newcastle was the
place where the worst kinds of convicts were sent to dig coal. It
was a place, which was often called that ‘hellhole’. There was no
fondness in this description.

Mr Snellgrove,
Beatrice’s father had some type of job connected with mines;
something to do with machinery. Beatrice wasn’t sure what his job
actually was, as they had never talked about it. They never talked
much about anything at all.

Beatrice and
her new friend Nola also ambled along to the dance. Beatrice had
managed to get some money from of her father and she had taken the
bus into town and scoured the second-hand shops for something to
wear. She managed to find a pair of jeans and a top for less than
ten dollars. She got some clogs too, which were fairly new. She
felt good: almost as good as anyone else. But the heat was rising
and swirling angry clouds could be seen congregating like a lynch
mob.