Goose Girl Read online

  Joy Dettman was born in Echuca in Victoria and now lives in Melbourne.

  Joy, a mother of four, is a full-time writer and a published author of several award-winning stories and the highly acclaimed novels Mallawindy and Jacaranda Blue.

  Also by Joy Dettman

  MALLAWINDY

  JACARANDA BLUE

  Pan Macmillan Australia

  First published 2000 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pry Limited

  This Pan edition published 2001 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Joy Dettman 2000

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  cataloguing-in-publication data:

  Dettman, Joy.

  Goose girl.

  ISBN: 978-1-7433-4565-8

  1. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  A823.3

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  These electronic editions published in 2000 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Copyright © Joy Dettman 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  Dettman, Joy.

  Goose girl.

  Adobe eReader format 978-1-74198-636-5

  ePub format 978-1-74334-565-8

  Mobipocket format 978-1-74198-692-1

  Online format 978-1-74198-580-1

  Macmillan Digital Australia www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  For Don, my expert on all things mechanical,

  and for Karli, too far away.

  Prologue

  Too much of her life had been wrapped in newsprint; she rarely looked at newspapers these days, but her face was in them again.

  ‘I look like Kermit the frog in this one,’ she said. ‘That photographer should aim his camera one more time, then go and shoot himself.’ She’d put on a couple of kilos since she’d tossed away the cigarettes, and she’d been proud of herself, but the photographer had captured every gram.

  ‘It comes with the territory,’ he said. ‘It’s a great interview.’

  ‘Who’s got time to read the interviews? They’ll take one look at that photograph, then turn the page.’

  ‘Then turn the page. It’s easy. Take your thumb, give it a big lick, and flip.’

  She did, with a theatrical lick and an elegant sweep of her hand, then she pushed the paper from her and looked out at the Melbourne skyline. It was hazy today, smog shrouded, but smog smoothed out the harsh lines of tall buildings, softening the city.

  Old Melbourne town, chock-full of memories. She didn’t want to remember the last time she’d been here. Bad days, those. Hadn’t wanted to come back here.

  ‘I’m scared stiff,’ she said. ‘I’m scared silly.’

  He placed a cup of strong black coffee before her and he kissed her, then offered a stale motel biscuit. ‘What’s to be scared of? Apart from motel biscuits.’

  ‘Newspapers. They’ll crucify me tomorrow.’

  ‘Crucify Kermit the frog? Never. Everyone loves him. An entire generation was raised on Kermit. I used to be in love with Miss Piggy.’

  She tossed the newspaper at his head and the pages flew. Kermit landed in her coffee. A good place for him too.

  ‘It’s not easy being green,’ she sang. ‘Anyway, I didn’t like the Muppets when I was a kid. Shane and I were raised on Humphrey B Bear. For a while we were, and then –’

  ‘No looking backwards. Today will be yesterday tomorrow, so let’s make it a good one.’

  ‘I had that dream again last night. I was driving along the freeway in the old Datsun, and there was this pea-soup fog; I couldn’t see a thing, but I wasn’t worried because I knew you were somewhere up ahead. Then suddenly it wasn’t fog – it was smoke. And . . . and there was this huge red moon ahead, racing towards me down the centre of the road and it was setting the bitumen on fire.

  ‘I tried to put on the brakes but they didn’t work, so I kept on going, straight ahead – into the flames –’

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Joy Dettman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  That Moon

  Melted Away

  Carol Rigg

  The Guitar

  Sunsets and Sex

  Sally De Rooze

  A Set of Wheels

  The Mouse Pack

  And Friday

  Face Down

  The Black Swan

  Games

  Addressing the Situation

  Empty Rooms

  Trams and Plans

  Going, Going, Gone

  Love and Hot Pizza

  The Marathon Man

  The Casino

  Green Clay

  Washed Out to Sea

  A Tangled Thread

  Number 29 Carter Street

  The World Going by

  Lost, Sally De Rooze

  Christmas Fever

  A Naked Chicken

  Santa Dressed in Black

  Lemons and Tears

  Dry Eyes

  Tranquillity by Proxy

  Some Stranger

  The New Beginning

  Rosebuds and Fairyfloss

  Phonepross

  Best Friends

  Going Places

  The Utility

  On the Edge

  Flying Away

  Symbol of Love

  Nightingale with a Broken Heart

  Happy Birthday

  Reality

  Doughnuts and Coffee

  In the Blood

  Good Luck Charm

  Milk and Dragons

  On the Right Track

  Count His Claws

  Black and White

  Epilogue

  That Moon

  1978

  They had to drive Mummy to her bookings because she couldn’t drive the car, and the man making the party only paid for a taxi home. The taxi cost lots of money and Daddy didn’t have lots of money left over, and that was because of the repayments. Sally knew all about the repayments.

  Most Saturdays, they bought takeaway for dinner, because mostly Mummy sang on Saturdays, and she didn’t get time to cook dinner. She had to do her hair and look after the boys and fit in all her practising.

  Tonight the booking was nearly thirty kilometres from Geelong, at a birthday party on a farm. Daddy showed Sally where it was in the map book, but they didn’t have to get there till half-past eight o’clock, so they were having dinner very late tonight.

  Daddy stopped at their favourite fish’n’chip shop and he bought a huge big parcel of fish and chips and potato cakes, and Shane said he wanted to go to McDonald’s, like he always did. But Sally and Shane and Robby a
nd Nicky were in their pyjamas and Mummy was in her cowgirl clothes and boots, so they couldn’t get out of the car and go to McDonald’s. The people would think, what a nutty family, Daddy said.

  Everybody laughed. Even Nicky laughed his pretty baby laugh, and he clapped his tiny hands and ate some chips that Sally made sure weren’t too hot for his mouth.

  She just loved Nicky. He was all fat and cuddle and he smelt so good when he had a bath, and his hair was like white thistledown, and Daddy said he was going to be blond like Sally, because she had white thistledown when she was a baby.

  And they ate everything, all the chips and all the fish and potato cakes, and it was like having a picnic in the car with Mummy feeding Daddy as he drove.

  Mummy had to get all dressed up when she sang, because her costume helped her to put it across, which was sort of like hiding that she was really a mummy, not a nearly famous singer. Her guitar and cowgirl hat were in the back of the station wagon. It was a very expensive guitar and nearly brand-new.

  When they finished their car picnic, they all wiped their hands on the wet sponge Daddy brought in a plastic bag, and Sally had to wipe Nicky’s face and his hands while Mummy fixed her lipstick.

  Then they got to the booking, which was way out down a dark road, and Mummy kissed everyone with big smacky kisses so she didn’t spoil her lipstick, while Daddy got out to get the guitar and hat from the back and talk to the man making the party.

  Then Nicky started to cry. It was way past his bedtime and he was teething and he wanted Mummy, and Daddy knew that the best way to stop Nicky from crying was to drive the car, so he got back in very fast, and because Sally was the biggest, she got to ride in Mummy’s seat, in the front with Daddy.

  Nicky went fast asleep in his little car seat just as soon as the car got going, and Robby was sleepy too, so he just sat there, all quiet and sleepy-eyed and noddy.

  Shane wasn’t sleepy. He was only just one year less than Sally, and he was being the usual silly sausage, Daddy said. He was pulling Sally’s ponytail because she was in the front and he wanted to ride in front.

  ‘Daddy, make him stop it,’ she said, but Daddy couldn’t make him stop because he had to look at the road and drive carefully because he had a car full of precious cargo. That’s what he said, and then he said, ‘Just laugh at him, Sally-gal. He’ll get tired of tormenting, the silly sausage.’

  So she did laugh, and Shane stopped pulling her hair but he started trying to pinch her Teddy bear from over her shoulder.

  She wouldn’t let him get Teddy. He was very special. Sally got him from Grandma and Papa for a birthday present and he went everywhere that Sally went, except to school, but he even went to school on special days when it was show-and-tell time about your favourite toy.

  Mummy said that Sally was too big to take Teddy everywhere, but that was just because poor Mummy was so busy with four children and getting so many bookings since she went on New Faces. Sally had watched her sing on the television that night, and it was, like, very special that her own mother was on the television. Like she was a very famous person.

  Raelene from next door saw her, even. And Raelene’s mother, who was Mrs Mason, said that Mummy should have won the prize money from New Faces, she was just so good. But it didn’t matter that she didn’t win the prize money, because everyone still wanted her to sing for them at their parties. She got lots and lots of bookings, which she had to write down in her diary.

  Sometimes Sally and Shane went to bed late on Mummy’s working nights, and they got to drink milk and eat bickies when Mummy came home – if the taxi wasn’t too late and if they stayed awake. They loved having a little party with Mummy and Daddy and feeling very grown up and special, and they had lots of laughing and Mummy sang just for them, and if Nicky was awake, Daddy jiggled him on his knee and fed him a bottle while Nicky’s foot sort of kicked with the rhythm. Daddy said Nicky was going to be a singer too, and soon Glenda Jean De Rooze would have her own homegrown quartet.

  That was Mummy’s proper name, Glenda Jean De Rooze. People rang up and asked for Glenda Jean, and sometimes Sally was allowed to pick up the telephone, but Shane wasn’t, because he didn’t say ‘Hello’ properly. He just made silly noises, and giggled. Even Mummy knew that!

  Sally didn’t giggle; she was Daddy’s little secretary; she always said ‘Hello’ very nicely, and then she called Mummy, and Mummy would take the phone and put on her special telephone voice and talk like an important lady, and she’d write down her booking in her diary that Daddy bought for her. She made some money from her singing and it helped to pay for the house and saved the bank getting interested.

  They had a beautiful house that the building man built just for them. It had poppies in the front near the lawn and it had little trees, that would grow into big trees, and Daddy and Sally had planted some passionfruit vines near the fence and they put up a really tall trellis and Sally helped hold it for Daddy and then she helped to paint it green, and that was years ago when she was little. Now the fence was all green with the passionfruit leaves and it got beautiful flowers on it, and if the boys didn’t pick them off the flowers grew into purple fruit, and this year Daddy said they would have heaps of purple passionfruit.

  And they were driving home to their beautiful house that night. They had left the light on, so burglars would think there was someone home so they wouldn’t rob them, and Sally knew that their house would look all bright and welcome in the dark street, like it was waiting just for them and for nobody else.

  She was thinking that Mummy wouldn’t be late tonight, and she was thinking about the packet of chocolate biscuits. Because she was Daddy’s big girl, and his helper, while he put Nicky and Robby to bed she would make the party ready. She’d put the chocolate biscuits on a special plate and she’d get Mummy and Daddy’s cups out and the little mugs for her and Shane – if he stayed awake. She wasn’t even a little bit sleepy yet.

  The moon started coming up as they were driving and it was big and fat and so bright. They were on the very dark road and not back in Geelong yet, so they could watch the moon coming up over the trees . . . and . . . and it was like round fire.

  ‘Just look at that magic moon,’ Daddy said, and Sally was looking over the trees to this giant moon and she’d never seen one as big before, then suddenly they were driving into a world of moonlight that lit up the narrow road, and she was looking at the silver trees running by so fast and thinking it was a magic night, like a fairies-dancing-beneath-the-trees night, and Daddy was telling about why the moon looked so big when it first got born.

  Then Shane tricked her. He said, ‘Hey, look at the big owl in the tree, Sally,’ and while she was looking where he pointed, with his other hand he snatched Teddy and he threw him way over the back seat, and he giggled a cheeky Shane giggle because he’d tricked her.

  ‘Daddy. He’s got my Teddy. Make him give it back.’

  ‘Daddy’s driving, Sally-gal. Teddy will have to ride home in the back tonight.’

  ‘But he’s lonely. Can I get him? Please, Daddy. I’ll be very careful,’ Sally said.

  ‘All right, but don’t tread on the boys,’ he said.

  And she undid her seatbelt and she climbed over the seat, and gave Shane an elbow in the tummy as she tumbled over the back.

  ‘Kangaroo, Daddy,’ Shane yelled, and it was like another Shane trick. Sally thought it was a trick.

  Then it wasn’t a trick any more.

  It was like . . .

  Thump!

  And like the biggest BANG! in all of the whole world.

  And it was like a bumpy ride at the show.

  And it was like fast and flying and then the car was upside-down and Sally wasn’t in it. She was on the wet grass, and . . . and . . . and Shane was upside down in the car and he was screaming.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’

  He screamed, and he screamed.

  And the flames came out small . . . and . . . and too fast, like Whoooooosh! And the car was
all flames.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’

  And Shane screamed, and he screamed while the car burned.

  Melted Away

  Sally couldn’t help Daddy and the boys. She was only eight, and eight wasn’t really big. Daddy just said she was his big girl. Even the man in the truck couldn’t help. He didn’t find Sally but she watched him try to put out the flames with his fire extinguisher.

  No one found her until the fire engine came screaming, and the ambulance and the lights and all the men and noises came, and one of them yelled out, ‘Hey! There’s a little kid over here!’

  The policeman sat beside Sally on the wet grass. She was sucking her thumb and reaching for the yellow balloon moon, wanting to ride up with the yellow balloon to the sky and all the stars and go with Daddy and the boys to God’s heaven.

  That’s where people went when they got dead. She knew all about getting dead, because of Grandma and Aunty Bernice; they were bright stars in God’s heaven.

  The policeman wrapped Sally in a blanket because he thought she was cold. She wasn’t cold at all, just shivering, and then he picked her up and put her in a car and drove away from Daddy and the boys.

  At the hospital she told him about home, at Number 29 Carter Street, and she told them about Mummy at the farm playing Glenda Jean, and her singing while the car and everybody got burned. And metal shouldn’t get burned. It shouldn’t. And she told about a taxi coming at eleven o’clock. Later, Mummy came running into the hospital room still wearing her funny cowgirl clothes and Sally was wearing funny pyjamas.