Parramatta Girls Page 3

  MARLENE: What are you doing?

  MELANIE: Shut up, I’m dealing with it.

  GAYLE: You know who I am, don’t you?

  MELANIE: Dunno, are ya the Queen of England? I heard she was an ugly-looking bint.

  GAYLE: Don’t speak to me like that.

  MELANIE: Or what?

  GAYLE: Or you’ll get into trouble with the officers.

  MELANIE: You their lap dog, are ya?

  GAYLE: Someone has to keep the girls in line.

  MELANIE: Is that what they call it?

  GAYLE: House Captain is what they call it.

  MELANIE: Bum suck is what I call it.

  GAYLE: You’re asking for it, Woodrow.

  MARLENE: Melanie, just forget it.

  MELANIE: You know, my father used to say to me, if there’s a mob of ’em, hit the one with the biggest mouth.

  Suddenly, MELANIE hits GAYLE in the face with the iron bucket. The girls attack and struggle with MELANIE and MARLENE. JUDI and CORAL enter, as older women.

  CORAL: What are you doin’ out here?

  JUDI: I’m leavin’.

  CORAL: How come?

  JUDI: Just ’cause I can.

  CORAL: But they haven’t done the speeches yet or nothin’.

  JUDI: This doesn’t change what they did. None of ’em are here to make amends. It’s just a bunch of miserable old girls rakin’ over the past.

  Pause.

  CORAL: Last time us girls got together we went down The Rocks for a big feed. Gala dinner they called it.

  JUDI: Don’t start, Coral, I wanna go.

  CORAL: We hired this bus, to take us out to Picton where we were havin’ the reunion.

  JUDI: Coral—

  CORAL: So we get on, about fifty blackfella women and our driver, he’s Pakistani, lovely fella but he’s only had his bus licence for maybe a day. I reckon the bus company went, oh, yeah, pack of old ducks, we’ll give ’em the rookie, see. So we finish our meal and have a few drinks and by the time he gets to us he needs to get us home in a bit of a hurry so that he can stop and do his prayers. And he’s got a friend with him too, another Pakistani fella, and ’e’s standing in the entrance well, talking to him while he drives.

  JUDI: Right under the sign that says ‘Do not stand, do not speak to driver’.

  CORAL: That’s the one. So the girls pile on and one of ’em shouts out, let’s go up the Cross.

  JUDI: And he’s got no idea how to get there.

  CORAL: No idea. So the girls say, ‘Coral will direct you.’

  JUDI is laughing a bit now.

  So they shove me down the front. Suddenly I’m the Queen of Bohemia, you know. Anyways, I direct him up through the city.

  JUDI: Well done.

  CORAL: Soon as we hit the bottom of William Street, I get on the microphone they use to give tour information, and I start doin’ a runnin’ commentary of the Cross.

  Ah… ‘Okay, there are some girls out for the night, g’day girls.’ And we all wave at them, this pack of fifty old blackfella women starin’ out of the bus screamin’ and cacklin’ like we’re fit to be tied. ‘And there’s a customer, his dick’s the size of your car’s pop-out cigarette lighter. And there’s this famous brothel, there’s that famous brothel.’ And the two Pakistanis have their eyes bulging out of their heads, the one who’s driving couldn’t drive the bus before, and here we are, creepin’ down the Kings Cross road, a pack of out-of-control Parramatta Girls, as if we own the place. This enormous bus wedged into that little street and the neon’s flashin’ and the security guards are wavin’ and I laughed, I laughed ’til I was cryin’ is how I laughed. And I looked around and all the girls they had tears running down their faces they were laughin’ so much.

  JUDI and CORAL are killing themselves laughing.

  And it was worth more than fifty talks for fifty years with any counsellor. Do you know what I’m sayin’?

  JUDI just looks at her.

  Then go back inside.

  JUDI nods and exits.

  The lights change and KERRY enters, carrying scrubbing brushes. CORAL and KERRY begin to scrub the covered way.

  KERRY: See that?

  CORAL: What?

  KERRY: Don’t look up.

  CORAL: Well, how am I supposed to see it if I don’t look up?

  KERRY: Well, you see it every day so you shouldn’t have to look at it now.

  CORAL: What?

  KERRY: The lemon tree.

  CORAL: Yeah. So.

  KERRY: Don’t look up at it.

  CORAL: Why not? It’s a lemon tree.

  KERRY: Yeah. Well, it’s going to get us into sick bay.

  CORAL: For what?

  KERRY: For cream, and maybe more.

  CORAL: Oh. [Beat.] How?

  KERRY: You know how we rubbed toothpaste on our lips so that they’d get chapped and we’d get more cream?

  CORAL: Yeah.

  KERRY: Well, Maree reckons lemon is even better. It really dries out your skin.

  CORAL: So we can get more cream to rub into it?

  KERRY: Yeah.

  CORAL: But if we don’t rub the lemon or the toothpaste into it to make it all dry then why do we need the cream?

  KERRY: So’s we can go sick bay.

  CORAL: And?

  KERRY: And from sick bay we might be able to get out of here. And escape.

  CORAL: Escape?

  KERRY: So we’ve got to get a lemon.

  CORAL: Okay.

  KERRY: So. Way you go.

  CORAL: Me?

  KERRY: Yeah.

  CORAL: Why me?

  KERRY: You know that last week Gayle scaled the wall trying to get out of here.

  CORAL: Yeah.

  KERRY: And Maree once put a pin in her arm and she was rushed to hospital when it travelled to her heart.

  CORAL: Wow!

  KERRY: Yeah. I’ve tried sticking pins in my legs.

  CORAL: Where?

  KERRY: Here. Here’s the scar.

  CORAL examines the scar on KERRY’s leg.

  CORAL: It looks like one-seven-one.

  KERRY: It is one-seven-one. For a girl.

  CORAL: What girl?

  KERRY: No one. Come on, ya wanna escape, don’t ya?

  They continue to scrub.

  CORAL: I’m not getting that lemon.

  KERRY: Do it, or I’ll…

  CORAL: You’ll what?

  KERRY: I’ll get you back.

  CORAL: [suddenly shouting] I’m not doing nothing no one tells me ever again.

  KERRY looks at her, shocked.

  KERRY: What are you on about?

  CORAL: I just don’t want to.

  KERRY: All right. Fine.

  They exit.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE THREE

  LYNETTE gets up to go in. Then can’t.

  LYNETTE: Every time I smell something that reminds me, or see some-thing that reminds me, it’s like the devil’s got hold of one arm and God’s gotta hold of the other and they start to pull. And I start to tear right down deep in my groin and they keep pulling and they tear my guts in half and they tear my womb in half and they tear my lungs in half. And it’s like I want them to pull harder, pull harder so that they tear my heart in half and tear out my throat and split my jaw and separate my eyes. And that’s what every memory of being a child is like. There’s no safe place to go back to. It’s just the minute I start to remember, the tearing in half begins. And the minute I walked in that gate, that’s when the tearing started up again.

  GAYLE is in the shower area. She hears the sound of a ghost whistle and she stands at attention.

  GAYLE: Present.

  There is the ghostly echo of another whistle. Then there is an echoing reverberant sound of showers being turned on.

  GAYLE begins to take off her shoes and stockings. She removes her skirt and is standing in her top with her underpants half down when MAREE enters. There are scars visible, all over her legs. Strange whirls and p
atches.

  MAREE: You all right, luv?

  GAYLE: I have to have a shower.

  Pause.

  MAREE: No, luv. No you don’t have to have a shower.

  GAYLE: I have to have a shower! [She is jumping up and down.] Dance of the jiggly tit. It makes the guards laugh.

  MAREE: You don’t have to have a shower.

  GAYLE: Have you had your shower?

  MAREE: No, we’re not having showers today.

  GAYLE: We don’t have to have a shower today?

  MAREE: No.

  GAYLE looks at her.

  GAYLE: But we have to have a shower every day.

  MAREE: No, but not today.

  GAYLE: I’ll only shower for two minutes. Do you have long showers?

  MAREE: Well, no. Now that you mention it.

  GAYLE: See. That’s it. That’s their mark that you can’t wash off.

  She is scrubbing away at her skin, trying to wash off an imaginary mark.

  MAREE: But I could have long showers if I wanted to. And so can you. When you go home.

  GAYLE: But I won’t.

  MAREE: All right.

  GAYLE: Do you have baths?

  MAREE: No.

  GAYLE: See. That’s it. That’s their mark that you can’t wash off.

  Pause. GAYLE suddenly realises what she is doing and hurriedly puts back on her clothes.

  MAREE: Listen, luv, are you all right? Is there someone here with you?

  Pause.

  GAYLE: I was made to sleep in the car with a blanket and pillow in the middle of winter and I was frightened of spiders. I can always remember finding this spider in the back of this old Vauxhall, or whatever it was, that belonged to George. I don’t want to call him my father. I’ll call him George because he was never a father to me. So from that day to this day I’ve been terrified of spiders… I got in… I had to sleep in the car one night and this spider crawled across my face… and I raced into my… p… [she gags on the word ‘parents’] … so-called step mother and father and told them what was in the car. My father hit me so much that he kicked me on the ground and I had a slipped disc and I couldn’t walk for three weeks. I was a kid, a kid, a kid. I would have been about fourteen. People don’t believe me.

  MAREE: I believe you. [Beat.] Why don’t we go upstairs into the courtyard?

  GAYLE: I don’t want to go home.

  MAREE: No, you don’t have to go home. Let’s just get some fresh air for a minute. Then you can come back down here if you want.

  MAREE and GAYLE exit.

  KERRY enters. She is carrying two large pots of mashed potato. She begins to mash one with an enormous potato masher. MARLENE picks up the masher, as if she has never done any kitchen work in her life.

  KERRY: Not like that. Mash it.

  MARLENE mashes harder.

  Put your back into it. Imagine it’s someone you really want to pulverise.

  MARLENE is mashing but isn’t very convincing.

  That’s not pulverise. That’s just someone you want to give a massage to.

  MARLENE: It’s breaking my arm.

  KERRY: No, this is breaking your arm.

  KERRY puts MARLENE’s arm up behind her back.

  MARLENE: Ow.

  KERRY: Now. Mash the potatoes.

  MARLENE mashes, much more powerfully.

  KERRY: Good. I suppose that’s my head you’re crushing.

  MARLENE: You better believe it.

  KERRY: Good.

  KERRY then takes the masher out of the potatoes and flicks a big gob of mash at MARLENE. KERRY immediately flicks some back. They begin a mashed potato fight. They are laughing and carrying on. MARLENE squeals and KERRY puts her hand over her face.

  Just don’t squeal, okay?

  MARLENE nods. As soon as KERRY releases her, MARLENE squeals again. This time KERRY struggles to get her hand over her mouth.

  I told you not to squeal. And I didn’t do it for my amusement. If you get the officers in here you’ll really find out about someone you’d like to pulverise. Now promise me you won’t squeal.

  MARLENE nods.

  Promise or I’ll shove your face in this hot mash and, believe me, I’ll do it.

  MARLENE looks scared and nods.

  I’m sorry I had to say that but if you get the Matron in here we’re finished.

  MARLENE: What do you mean finished?

  She hands her a towel and MARLENE cleans herself up. KERRY wipes some potato off MARLENE’s face. They mash in silence.

  KERRY: What are you in here for, anyway?

  MARLENE: Neglect.

  KERRY: So how long did you get?

  MARLENE: Six months. How ’bout you?

  KERRY: Oh. I’m a State Ward. They charged me with being uncontrollable at three months old.

  MARLENE: So how long have you been here?

  KERRY: Here? Six months, three to go. The terms are mostly six and nine.

  MARLENE: Why’s that?

  KERRY shrugs.

  KERRY: Length of a pregnancy, I guess. [Pause.] I’ve been in Bidura, Cootamundra Girls Home, here at Parramatta, couple of foster homes. Are you doin’ all right?

  MARLENE: ’Course I am. This place doesn’t scare me.

  KERRY: That’s good. ’Cause it scares the bloody living daylights out of me.

  They continue to mash in silence.

  My last foster home, up in Moree, I was only allowed to go to the cemetery on a Sund’y.

  MARLENE: What d’ya mean you’re only allowed?

  KERRY: I couldn’t go there no other time.

  MARLENE: Couldn’t?

  KERRY: Are ya deaf, ya bloody deaf dora?

  MARLENE: Well, what do ya mean ya couldn’t?

  KERRY: I couldn’t go into the cemetery when there was whitefellas there.

  MARLENE: Says who?

  KERRY: Just the rules. Always been. I dunno.

  MARLENE: Ya can’t go to the cemetery and look at dead people except on a Sunday?

  KERRY: We can go to the cemetery on a Sund’y and to the laundromat on a Frid’y. We’re allowed into the pictures and we line up with everyone else but we can only sit down the front and we have to leave just before the picture is finished. We’re not allowed into any government buildings in town, neither.

  MARLENE: Why you tellin’ me this stuff?

  KERRY: Well. You’re the same.

  MARLENE: No way, not me.

  KERRY: Yeah.

  MARLENE: You callin’ me a boong?

  KERRY: Nah.

  MARLENE: Yeah, ya are.

  KERRY: If the cap fits.

  MARLENE: Well, it doesn’t fit, al’rite?

  Pause.

  KERRY: Soon tell.

  MARLENE: What?

  KERRY: When ya come of age you’ll know.

  MARLENE: How do ya figure that?

  KERRY: Boongs can’t vote.

  MARLENE: What’s that?

  KERRY: Like, for the government.

  MARLENE: That’s not true.

  KERRY: Yeah. We part of the flora and fauna, girl.

  MARLENE: Don’t say we.

  KERRY: Okay.

  MARLENE: ’Cause I’m not a boong.

  KERRY: How come?

  MARLENE: Boongs are drunks and they don’t work and they’re real dirty.

  KERRY: How do you know so much about them, then?

  MARLENE: Everyone knows that.

  KERRY: So what are you?

  MARLENE: My dad. He’s different.

  KERRY: But he’s black.

  MARLENE: But he’s a good one. There are lots of good ones. Not all blacks are boongs.

  Pause. KERRY nods, knowingly.

  KERRY: Yeah, but all boongs are black, sister.

  MARLENE becomes her older self.

  MARLENE: They came and arrested us and they charged us. They charged us with neglect and they put us in the cells. For a week. We was all together but we were in a gaol cell. Why did they do that? They should have put us with Aunty. Or pu
t us with another family.

  Me and Christina were in Bidura and the boys were in the place down the road from there. The boys home. And we used to all go to the pictures on a Saturday and we’d see them at the Valhalla and then one day they weren’t there. I sang out to the other boys where’s my brothers and they said they’ve been transferred to another home. After that I just watched Christina all the time and I’d go to the baby’s room, ’cause she was in a different room, and make sure she was all right, and I’d have to go to school and I didn’t want to go to school because I didn’t want to leave her in case she disappeared. And then one day she disappeared. [Beat.] I did watch her. I couldn’t stop them.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE FOUR

  The girls line up for a dormitory inspection. They show their sheets and their underpants.

  MARLENE: What’s happening?

  MAREE: Dormitory check. You know the drill.

  MARLENE: What would happen if they found something?

  JUDI: Straight to solitary.

  MAREE: Which is a mattress. No bed.

  KERRY: Barefoot, lights on all the time, bread and water.

  JUDI: Or they’d probably make all of us ‘stand out’.

  MAREE: Perfectly still.

  KERRY: For hours.

  MAREE: How about that time I spoke in the dorm and had to stand still for five days?

  JUDI: Yeah, but you got rocks in your head, so it’s easier for you.

  Two women tuck MELANIE into bed. The others exit.

  CORAL enters and walks toward where MELANIE is sleeping. She gently shakes her.

  CORAL: Melanie. Psst. Melanie.

  MELANIE: What?

  CORAL: You were snoring.

  MELANIE: Was not.

  CORAL: Yeah. And you was crying in your sleep.

  MELANIE: Shut up, Coral.

  CORAL: Were so.

  MELANIE: Shut up or I’ll bash ya.

  CORAL: Yeah, go on.

  MELANIE: What? You want me to bash you, do you?

  CORAL: I’m not scared of you.

  MELANIE: Go back to sleep, Coral.

  Pause.

  CORAL: I’m gonna tell the Super.

  MELANIE: Go on, then.

  CORAL: I will. I could.

  MELANIE: Tell him what?

  CORAL: Tell him what that guard did to you.

  MELANIE: [sitting up] What guard?

  CORAL: Down in the showers.

  MELANIE: What?

  CORAL: I saw him. I saw what he did to you.

  MELANIE: What are you talking about, Coral?