Parramatta Girls Read online

  LYNETTE: What do you mean?

  JUDI: I mean what do you think about to set the blubbering going?

  LYNETTE: Just… looking at this place. The memories it holds.

  JUDI: The bad memories.

  LYNETTE: Yes.

  JUDI: But the suffering here isn’t your whole story, is it?

  LYNETTE: No. But…

  JUDI: No, but you get a certain thrill from dwelling on it.

  LYNETTE: I do not.

  JUDI: The cruelty of it. The horror of it.

  Pause. CORAL puts her head around the corner.

  CORAL: Oh. Don’t let me intrude.

  JUDI: Coral. Come here and tell us about that reunion.

  CORAL: It was a great reunion, that one.

  JUDI: Yeah, where’d you do that, then?

  CORAL: Out at that Stonequarry Lodge at Picton.

  JUDI: Oh, yeah.

  CORAL: And we had a big feed at the Observer Hotel.

  JUDI: So you said.

  CORAL: Down in The Rocks.

  JUDI: I haven’t been there for years.

  CORAL: Down in The Rocks.

  JUDI: Nice it was, too?

  CORAL: It was nice.

  JUDI: Have a nice meal together?

  CORAL: We booked in on that Captain Cook cruise.

  JUDI: Harbour cruise?

  CORAL: Didn’t go.

  JUDI: No?

  CORAL: They told us to go to the back of the line, didn’t they?

  JUDI: Who told you?

  CORAL: That tour lady.

  JUDI: She didn’t.

  CORAL: We was all lined up at the front.

  JUDI: Yeah.

  CORAL: And then the boat came.

  JUDI: Yeah.

  CORAL: And she said, you know, ‘Could you ladies wait at the back while we board the other passengers.’

  JUDI: That was queer.

  CORAL: Wasn’t it, though?

  JUDI: And you were all the Parramatta Girls?

  CORAL: All bein’ told, you know, go to the back of the queue.

  JUDI: No.

  CORAL: Go to the bottom of the pile.

  JUDI: No.

  CORAL: You know.

  JUDI: But why did she say that?

  CORAL: I dunno, but she musta thought she’d unboxed a bag of snakes.

  JUDI: I can see yas.

  CORAL: We were hissin’ and carryin’ on.

  JUDI: I can see yas.

  CORAL: Tellin’ her what she could do with her Captain Cook cruise boat.

  JUDI: Shove it.

  CORAL: Sink it.

  JUDI: Sink it!

  CORAL: We was that furious.

  JUDI: I know.

  CORAL: That Parramatta. That spurted up.

  JUDI: That old fire.

  CORAL: Like a volcano.

  JUDI: Yeah?

  CORAL: You know.

  JUDI: Oh, I do know.

  CORAL: Just spurted up.

  JUDI: And you didn’t go?

  CORAL: Booked the cruise.

  JUDI: Booked it in.

  CORAL: Thirty women.

  JUDI: All dressed up.

  CORAL: Didn’t go.

  JUDI: No.

  CORAL: Wouldn’t go to the back of the line.

  JUDI: Why would you?

  CORAL: You know.

  JUDI: Just saw red.

  LYNETTE: ‘Go to the back of the queue.’

  JUDI: So wrong.

  CORAL: We were just standin’ there.

  JUDI: Waitin’.

  CORAL: The boat comes in and there she is, all in her Captain Cook uniform.

  JUDI: ‘Go to the back of the queue.’

  CORAL: I wasn’t ’avin’ it.

  LYNETTE: Why would you?

  CORAL: And then all the other ladies wouldn’t go neither.

  JUDI: They’re good girls.

  CORAL: My feet were aching.

  JUDI: They’re not young anymore.

  CORAL: Standin’, waitin’ for the boat.

  LYNETTE: ‘Go to the back of the queue.’

  CORAL: Eh? What’s that about?

  JUDI: Did ya get your money back?

  CORAL: Oh, they had to give us a refund.

  JUDI: Too right.

  CORAL: And apologise.

  JUDI: Fancy.

  CORAL: And we still wouldn’t get on the boat.

  JUDI laughs.

  And the Captain Cook girl, she wished she’d never seen the likes of us.

  ALL: ‘Go to the back of the queue.’

  CORAL: She won’t be sayin’ that again for a while.

  JUDI: No chance.

  CORAL: Can’t force me to do something I don’t want to.

  JUDI: No.

  Behind them, LYNETTE stands and goes into the home. CORAL and JUDI follow her, thrilled.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE NINE

  MARLENE walks past them, carrying a big pot of stew.

  She notices that the back gate is open. She looks around and goes to call someone, but panics when she realises she’s holding the pot of stew.

  She puts the pot down and runs back and forth across the stage, wondering what she should do.

  She runs back to the side of the stage where she meets KERRY.

  MARLENE can’t speak. She is shaking her head.

  KERRY: What?

  MARLENE: I couldn’t go. Even though it was right there.

  KERRY: Couldn’t go where? Where’s the stew?

  MARLENE: I put it down.

  KERRY: You what?

  MARLENE: I put it down.

  KERRY: You did what?

  MARLENE: I put it down.

  KERRY: Bloody hell. They’re going to kill us. That’s the stew.

  MARLENE: I know.

  KERRY: So where’d you put it down?

  MARLENE: On the way. On the way to the girls in isolation.

  KERRY: You were supposed to take the girls in isolation their stew.

  MARLENE: I know. And then I couldn’t.

  KERRY: Why not?

  MARLENE: I don’t know.

  KERRY: Why not, Marlene?

  MARLENE: I was scared.

  KERRY: Scared of what?

  MARLENE: Come and look.

  They run to centre stage and KERRY sees the open gate.

  KERRY: Bloody hell. They’ve left the gate open.

  MARLENE: Who did?

  KERRY: I dunno. The garbage men, probably. Come on.

  MARLENE: What?

  KERRY: Come on, let’s go.

  MARLENE: Go where?

  KERRY: Escape. You coming?

  MARLENE: I can’t.

  KERRY: Why not?

  MARLENE: I just can’t.

  KERRY: Come on, Marlene, I’ll look after you. [Pause.] Come on or I’ll go without you.

  MARLENE remains frozen. KERRY gives her a goodbye hug, then exits towards the gate. MARLENE picks up the pot of stew. She looks out, wistfully.

  The lights fade.

  END OF ACT ONE

  ACT TWO

  SCENE ONE

  KERRY and CORAL enter as older women.

  KERRY: Hey, Coral.

  CORAL: Hey, Kerry.

  KERRY: Do ya reckon you got treated different in here?

  CORAL: Oh, for sure.

  KERRY: Do ya?

  CORAL: Yeah. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? [Pause.] Me arms.

  KERRY: What about yer arms?

  CORAL: They’re shorter than most people’s.

  KERRY: Are they?

  CORAL: Yeah, they’re only just beyond what you’d call stumps.

  KERRY: Is that why you always wear long sleeves?

  CORAL: Yeah. Because that’s a sign of the bad blood.

  They compare the length of their arms.

  KERRY: Your arms are as long as mine.

  CORAL: As short, ya mean. Which goes to prove my point. Short arms. Bad blood.

  KERRY: What exactly is bad blood?

  CORAL: Freckles are another
sign.

  KERRY: You don’t have freckles.

  CORAL: If your eyes are closer together, if you can’t roll up the sides of your tongue, freckles, short arms and the most obvious of all…

  KERRY: What?

  CORAL: Like both of us…

  KERRY: What?

  CORAL: PB. Pointy boobs. The pointier they are the badder you turned out.

  KERRY looks at her and then laughs.

  KERRY: Ya bloody nutter. It is not.

  CORAL: Yeah, but that’s what they used to believe. That they could know you was a crim by looking at your face and measuring your forehead.

  KERRY: Yeah. [Beat.] Seriously, ya reckon us blackfellas had it tougher in here?

  CORAL: I don’t reckon there was black and white in here.

  KERRY: Just black and blue, eh?

  They exit.

  MELANIE and the other girls are hanging sheets on the clothes line.

  ALL: [singing] The water is wide, I cannot get o’er,

  Neither have I the wings to fly,

  Give me a boat that can carry two,

  And both shall row, my love and I.

  A ship there is and she sails the sea,

  She’s loaded deep as deep can be,

  But not so deep as the love I’m in,

  I know not if I sink or swim.

  I leaned my back against an oak

  Thinking it was a trusty tree,

  But first it bent and then it broke,

  So did my love prove false to me.

  Oh, love be handsome, love be bold,

  Bright as a jewel when first it is new,

  But love grows old and waxes cold

  And fades away like the morning dew.

  They proceed to do laundering things with the sheets.

  MAREE: They’re saying someone has escaped.

  MELANIE: That’s right.

  MAREE: It’s Coral, isn’t it?

  MELANIE: What?

  MAREE: She wasn’t in her bed last night.

  MELANIE puts down what she’s doing and holds MAREE by the shoulders.

  MELANIE: What?

  The girls stop singing.

  MAREE: Coral’s gone. So she must be the one who escaped.

  MAREE exits.

  MARLENE: It was Kerry who escaped out the gate. So where’s Coral?

  MELANIE: They must have taken her to the hospital.

  MARLENE: To have the baby?

  MELANIE: That’ll be the end of her sentence.

  MARLENE: We have to get her to send a photo.

  MELANIE: Of what?

  MARLENE: Of bubs.

  MELANIE: She won’t get to keep it.

  Pause.

  MARLENE: What?

  MELANIE: They take them.

  MARLENE: No, they can’t do that.

  MELANIE throws her a ‘yeah right’ look and exits. GAYLE enters. Her left arm is bandaged. When she sees MARLENE she hides it behind her back.

  Hey, aren’t you supposed to be in the laundry?

  GAYLE: I’ve been helping the doctor.

  MARLENE: What’s behind your back?

  GAYLE: Nothing. Get lost.

  MARLENE: Show us.

  They struggle. MARLENE sees that GAYLE has a bandaged arm.

  So what’s that from?

  GAYLE: The doctor was taking a skin graft.

  MARLENE: What for?

  GAYLE: Um… He says I’ve got exceptionally smooth skin.

  MARLENE: So?

  GAYLE: So, Lux are looking for… models.

  MARLENE: For what?

  GAYLE: For their soap ads. Like, you know how you have all these women doing ads about how gentle Lux is on your skin? Well, they reckon I’ve got really smooth skin and it’s so good I could maybe be in a Lux commercial.

  MARLENE: You are so full of shit, Gayle Ford.

  GAYLE: No, just in the background. Not in the front of the picture, you know, not where the star is, but in the back.

  Pause.

  MARLENE: [looking at the bandage] Isn’t that where your tatt is?

  GAYLE: Well, that’s why they have to get rid of it. So I can be in the ad.

  MARLENE: You can’t get rid of a tattoo. It’s right in your skin.

  GAYLE: Yeah, well, they did.

  GAYLE unwraps part of the bandage. Her arm is a bloody mess.

  MARLENE: Looks bad.

  GAYLE: Yeah, well, it has to look like that at first. But it will heal.

  MARLENE: What did he do it with?

  GAYLE: I did it.

  MARLENE: With what?

  GAYLE: With a bowl of warm water and salt and… steel wool.

  MARLENE: You shouldn’t have done that.

  GAYLE: No. The doctor showed me. It’s not normal steel wool that you use in the kitchen. This is surgical steel wool.

  MARLENE: Did it hurt?

  GAYLE, who has been keeping it together, bites her lip to stop herself from crying. She nods.

  GAYLE: A bit. But it will heal. Don’t you reckon?

  MARLENE: Oh, yeah. It will heal. I’m sure it will.

  GAYLE: It looks bad, it looks really bad, but he’s a doctor, right? From England even. He must know.

  MARLENE: Of course he would.

  GAYLE: And then no tattoo.

  MARLENE: And then you can be in the Lux soap commercial.

  GAYLE: Just up the back.

  MARLENE: Yeah. Just up the back.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE TWO

  MAREE and LYNETTE are folding sheets when JUDI comes in. She pulls out a cigarette.

  LYNETTE: Wow! Where’d you get that?

  JUDI gives it to LYNETTE and takes out another.

  MAREE: Bloody hell! Are you some kind of magician?

  She gives it to MAREE and then pulls out yet another.

  LYNETTE: Judi, what are you doing?

  JUDI: Plenty more where that came from.

  She pulls out an entire packet.

  MAREE: What did you do? Raid the officers’ lockers?

  JUDI: Nah. Stephenson gave them to me.

  Pause.

  LYNETTE: Why would he do that?

  JUDI: I touched his thing.

  MAREE: Really?

  JUDI: Yeah.

  LYNETTE: When?

  JUDI: I was cleaning up his office, right? And he told me to dust the shelves. And the next thing I turn around and he’s got it out and he’s touching it. Right? And so I think, shit.

  MAREE: Because he always looks at you funny.

  LYNETTE: He used to look at Coral but lately he’s been looking at you.

  JUDI: Coral was a sap.

  MAREE: What?

  JUDI: So he’s standing there with this… thing in his hand right.

  LYNETTE: How big was it?

  JUDI: Two pebbles and a twig.

  LYNETTE laughs.

  MAREE: And so what did you do?

  JUDI: He just stood there, right? And I’m looking at him and at… it. And then I just went over and touched it and he gave me this packet of cigarettes.

  MAREE: You gotta be more careful, Judi.

  JUDI: It’s fine. He just rubbed his hand on it and held my hand on it and then after a couple of minutes it went down again.

  LYNETTE: A whole packet!

  MAREE: He won’t let it go now, you know.

  JUDI: Good. Next time he can give me something else.

  LYNETTE: What? Would you do it with him?

  JUDI: No way. But if it’s just my hand.

  MAREE: He’ll want you to put it in your mouth.

  JUDI: Yeah, well if he does he can get me outta here on a Sunday afternoon. Like when he takes those other girls on excursions.

  MAREE: You don’t know what you’re doing.

  JUDI: Yeah. I do. And he’ll have to let me play Portia in the play. When the ABC come to record.

  MAREE: Stupid little bitch.

  JUDI: What?

  MAREE: I know what they can do.

  JUDI: You do not. />
  MAREE: I’ve had a baby.

  LYNETTE: Since when?

  MAREE: A year ago.

  LYNETTE: Where’s it now?

  MAREE: [with a shrug] Adopted, somewhere.

  LYNETTE: Didn’t you want to keep it?

  MAREE: [with a shrug] Nah.

  Pause.

  JUDI: Well, I’m not letting him put it in me, so I won’t get pregnant, will I?

  MAREE: You won’t be able to stop him.

  JUDI: Well then, he would have done it anyway, wouldn’t he? At least this way I get something out of it.

  MAREE exits. LYNETTE remains with JUDI. JUDI tips all the cigarettes out of the packet and counts them.

  It’s like they can’t hear the words comin’ out of your mouth. That’s why they need you to smile all the time.

  LYNETTE: Who?

  JUDI: The officers. They’re like dogs, they respond to the tone of your voice, to the attitude of how you’re standing. They don’t actually hear words, they just see and sense your mood, and if you’re not sweet, you know ya gotta be obedient.

  LYNETTE: Obedient?

  JUDI: Yeah. [She pants like a dog.] So you can’t talk to them. Ya have to appeal to them, ya have to bring something out in them.

  LYNETTE: How?

  JUDI: You can’t be obvious. Like you can’t just wink, you know. Ya gotta flaunt it.

  LYNETTE: Flaunt what?

  JUDI: Your… appeal.

  LYNETTE: I don’t have any appeal. I don’t have anything to flaunt.

  JUDI: Ya do.

  LYNETTE: I don’t. And anyway, why should I?

  JUDI: You wanna be drugged. With Largactyl?

  LYNETTE: They can’t drug you.

  JUDI: Wake up, slag. Wake up. You’re in here. They can do whatever they want to you. Whatever they want.

  LYNETTE: But I don’t have anything. I don’t have anything they want.

  JUDI: You’ve gotta find something.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE THREE

  GAYLE is in isolation. The bandages are still on her arms. She unwraps them and her arms are a scarred and bloody mess. She begins to rub herself on the walls of the isolation cell.

  GAYLE: A scab carries away all the old skin. Carries away all the old skin. Carries away all the old.

  She continues to rub herself on the bricks of the walls of the isolation cell. Her arms and legs are covered in blood, and blood runs down her forehead.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  SCENE FOUR

  LYNETTE and JUDI appear as older women. LYNETTE is a bit distracted by her own experience of being inside the home, staring as GAYLE continues rubbing.

  JUDI: Do you wanna hear a funny story? About numbers.