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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780702252143 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Queensland Press |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 296 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Girl Most Likely
A Novel
By Rebecca Sparrow
University of Queensland Press
Copyright © 2003 Rebeccca SparrowAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7022-5215-0
CHAPTER 1
'Who's Anne Sneddon?'
It was a stupid question. One of those questions where the answer hits you as soon as the question mark has stepped off your lips. One of those times when you wished you could suck each single syllable back into your mouth and eat the moment, like Hannibal Lecter and his fava beans.
But you can't. I've asked. It's out there. And I'm going to pay for it. Miss Goulburn 1964, a.k.a Patricia Botham, would make sure of that.
Rachel!
She turns, eyebrows raised, and gives me "the look".
Things haven't gone well on this car trip. I close my eyes for a second and imagine that I'm somewhere more peaceful. But the sound of staccato horns and squealing tyres brings me sharply back to reality and the inside of the car I'm sitting in. My head slams backwards as our vehicle stops and catches its breath at the pedestrian crossing near the Valley Pool. A grandmother walks past. She glares at us. I don't blame her. Though it's upsetting that even nanna here has nailed a more intimidating "don't fuck with me" glare than me.
This car journey is making me feel nauseated. The driver is the problem. I contemplate opening the car door and tumbling MacGyver-style to freedom. Getting up close and personal with bitumen as the car races towards the airport is, at this point, more appealing than dealing with Patricia or this car journey.
Pity I'm driving.
But it's time to appease Patricia and deal with the Anne Sneddon issue.
'Anne Sneddon. Miss Australia 1979.1 remember.'
And so we return to Patricia's favourite discussion. The discussion about beauty pageants. More specifically, why I, Rachel Hill, Patricia's twenty-seven-year-old daughter, primary school tunnel ball champion, St Peters prefect, Honours degree graduate, former magazine Features Editor, seemingly ideal candidate, have failed to succumb to the allure of the velvet cloak and the cubic zirconia crown.
Don't get me wrong, there was a period when I dreamt of the glamour and fame that only a dazzling smile, Farrah Fawcett hair, and a great pair of legs could bring, but I was seven at the time and my hair was more Velma than Daphne — from a Scooby Doo point of view. After the Channel Seven Miss Australia telecast, I remember writing the newly crowned Anne Sneddon a letter telling her she was beautiful and asking her if she was a princess. Twenty-two days later I received a black and white signed official photo and a handwritten letter telling me that she hoped "all my dreams came true". Patricia was thrilled. I was thrilled. My classmates in 2H at Indooroopilly State School were thrilled. I spent the next eight days wearing a swimsuit, a Hungry Jacks crown and Mum's high heels to the dinner table.
But pretty soon I ditched the sequins fantasy for the clandestine appeal of an annex. I had decided that I wanted to be like Anne Frank (well, Anne Frank with a Hungry Jacks crown ... it was hard to give up the glamour) and spent the ensuing weeks hiding in our loft, speaking in a dodgy accent that had more in common with Hogan's Heroes than a twelve-year-old Dutch girl. Unless Anne Frank's imaginary friend Kitty did say, 'I know nuthink' like Schultz. But I doubt it.
So while I flirted briefly with the notion of fife on the pageant circuit in 1979,1 haven't looked back since. Patricia, on the other hand, is still finding it hard to move on. She has always harboured dreams of me following in her footsteps and "taking up the challenge". And she loves Anne Sneddon. Her favourite Miss Australia. Partly because Anne was indeed as friendly as she was stunningly beautiful. Partly because she was the daughter of my father's secretary, Nan. But mostly because Patricia was crowned Miss Goulburn in 1964 and she feels like she, Anne and Shelley Porter from the newsagent at Kenmore Village (Murgon's Queen of Beef 1996) are all part of that special society. Title winners. Pageant Queens. Holders of the sceptre.
Me? I decline joining any club that today offers membership to pouty five-year-old girls with big Texan hair.
You're perfect. You'd win. Patricia smiles at me eagerly.
I wince. The Miss Brisbane Awards are currently recruiting in our area and she wants me to enter. If only she knew that this just wasn't possible.
'Forget it. So what days do I have to water the orchids?'
This is my cunning ploy to change topic. If Patricia is persistent about pageants, she is obsessive about her garden. And at times like this — when she's going away, I'm house-sitting and there's a need for her to give me instructions — she revels in handing out orders.
I've left you a note ...
There's always a note.
... and why don't you clean out your old bedroom. Throw out what you can and move the rest up to the loft.
'No worries.'
Are you babysitting this week?
'Yep'.
Hmmm.
Patricia is not so keen on the idea of her eldest daughter, former Features Editor of Australia's largest travel magazine, working as a nanny to make ends meet.
Well, it won't hurt you to ring the agency and see if you could pick up some copy writing work a few days a week. You don't want to be sitting around the house all day, Rachel. You'll get bored.
'So the TV's broken?'
I've left the employment pages on the dining room table for you, just in case you want to have a look through them.
She looks at me with the face of a mother who wants her daughter to find a job. I look back at her with the face of a daughter who thinks matricide is dealt with a little too harshly by the current legal system.
We pull up to the "five minute drop off "zone of Brisbane International Airport. This is the cue for my father to awake from his drive-time nap – which, I know and he knows, he has been faking for the last 30 minutes. He knew better than to open his eyes, thus propelling him into the arena of pageant/employment/Anne Sneddon discussions.
I'll bring you back a Yorkie Bar, he says, giving me a sly wink as he unloads their bags onto a nearby trolley. And I expect to have a best-seller to read when I get back.
I smile and roll my eyes. I'd forgotten about the book. The book that I said I was going to write now that I'd quit my job. Good one Rachel.
'Give Caitlin a hug for me,' I say. 'And tell her I want my Laura Ashley jacket back and my Lenny Kravitz and Women in Docs CDs. Tell her that I know she took them. She's such a little ...'
I want to swear.
'... pain.'
If I was with anyone other than my parents I would use the word shit. Caitlin is such a little shit. But if there's one rule I have with my parents, it's that I don't swear in front of them. Ever.
Never ever.
Okay, maybe once.
I swore in front of my mum when I was seventeen and I'd fallen asleep with my radio on. She came in and tried to turn off my radio by twiddling with the volume control. Being woken from my sleep by the thumping sounds of 'Onion Skin' by Boom Crash Opera, is what prompted the groan of 'Oh fucking hell Mum' as I reached down and switched off the radio myself, rolled over and went back to sleep.
The incident has never been spoken about.
Patricia has never attempted to turn off my radio again.
'... and have a wonderful time.'
We'll ring you when we get there, sweetheart. Look after yourself.
A few farewell hugs, some reminders about the Lean Cuisines in the freezer and they're disappearing through the door and over to the BA queue-ready to board Flight 16 that will take them to my little sister Caitlin in London. I sit back in the car and watch them for a while. I can tell Mum is nervous. She's checking and rechecking that her passport and tickets are safely in her handbag. My father is glancing over at the Exchange Bureau trying to decipher the current value of the Aussie dollar against the British pound. And then they're out of sight and my five minutes are up.
I turn back and stare at the dashboard and find myself singing along to Travis on the radio. And that's when I realise that I'm alone. My parents have gone. And despite the promise I made to the mirror this morning, I still didn't tell them I got married.
CHAPTER 2What would Mary do? It's a question that I ponder on the seventy-minute drive home. It's Friday evening, peak hour, as I crawl my way back through the city and eventually into the driveway of my childhood home in Kenmore.
What would Mary do?
Keys in hand, I walk through the front door, switch on the lights and realise the answer is obvious. Mary wouldn't do anything. Mary would never have gotten herself into this ridiculous situation in the first place. Nope. Mary and Rhoda definitely wouldn't have done it. Blair and Tootie and Jo wouldn't have done it. Laverne and Shirley wouldn't have done it ... well Laverne might have but Shirley and Carmine would have stopped her. So that just leaves me. Just me who would get married and not tell anyone.
As I brush past the hallway mirror I do my best perky smile to see if I, too, sans beret, could turn the world on with my smile. The bulb above me flickers and then goes dead.
It's hard to take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile when you're surrounded by pitch black.
I leave changing the bulb for later and move into the kitchen where the red light of hope is flashing. The 'you have friends' light of the answering machine. I've only been gone for two hours and there are two messages. The first message is a male voice I don't recognise.
This is a message for Rachel Hill. Rachel, it's Fergus McLaughlin from the Miss Brisbane Awards. We received your nomination yesterday. We don't usually take on entrants this late but your mother explained that you have special circumstances. Plenty more fish in the sea, love. So we'll be posting you out your introduction kit this afternoon. You should get it on Tuesday. There's details in there about our get together next Saturday at eleven am in our city office. So once you get the kit, give me a call back — my card is in there — just so lean confirm you'll be attending. Okay, thanks Rachel. Bye.
I can't believe she did this.
The second message starts playing. It's Satan.
Rachel, it's Mum. We're still waiting to board but I just thought that I should warn you that you might be getting a call from a young man called Fergus about the Miss Brisbane Awards. I registered you last week. You might be a few weeks behind the other girls but I just thought it would be good for you. A good way to meet some new friends and get out of the house. I don't want you sitting around moping over Troy.
I can hear Dad in the background asking Mum if she packed his eye drops.
Okay, I'd better go. Love you.
Troy.
My parents think that Troy and I have just broken up. Not gotten married. Not about to get divorced. Just broken up. That's a strange expression, a stupid way to describe it. 'Just broken up' reduces a three-year relationship to sounding like a piece of crockery that's been smashed on the kitchen floor after you've done the washing up. As if you were even one piece to begin with. Or maybe that's what it's like for other people. Just not us.
I fix myself a scotch and dry and get the envelope, with its California postmark, out of my handbag. I read over the papers again. The sections that need my signature have been highlighted with a fluoro yellow pen.
Troy.
I pick up a pen and let it hover over the fluoro markings like a mozzie that's trying to decide between landing on ankle or thigh. But I can't seem to make myself do it. Maybe later. But not now. Not right this minute. I'll change my marital status tomorrow. And I take the envelope and put it in a place where I know I'll find it again easily.
Eventually I pick up my drink and walk into my childhood bedroom. A room that is still celebrating 1987.1 hear the bedroom walls wheeze, laden with memorabilia from my life. Memories stuffed into Clarks shoe boxes and Ekka showbags. Memories that have been folded up and crammed into desk drawers or been punctured by old tacks and left hanging from corkboards. Memories perched atop my wooden CopperArt hat stand, stained by the smell of Australis and 4711 perfume; some slightly faded but still crystal clear, others loose and limp like a piece of hat elastic that has lost its will to live.
Looking around, I feel like I have stepped into the life of an old friend. An old friend with a slightly unhealthy obsession with A-Ha.
It's not that I haven't been home in a while. Up until last week, when I was living in my flat, I was over here once a week for a meal. But that's not the same. I haven't lived here. In this house. In this bedroom. I've breezed in and out, when I've been looking for passports or old photos but, like a fair-weather friend, I've never stopped and chewed the fat with my former self. Maybe it's because we have so little in common these days.
I lie down on my single bed and hold my old pillow to my face, inhaling the smells of my childhood. I feel comforted. And I end up lying there for an hour. Thinking about Troy. Thinking about Troy and contemplating the paradox of living life as a divorcee in a bedroom full of Morten Harket posters.
When I pictured twenty-seven, it didn't look like this. I was "the girl most likely to succeed". This is not what was meant to happen.
For the next two days I exist in something of a haze. I dig up my Fido Dido pyjamas, camp out in the living room and watch TV for two days straight, only getting up and leaving the room to a) use the bathroom or b) discover new foods that taste better with Miracle Whip. That's a no for Maggi Two Minute Noodles, toast and Thai Chicken Lean Cuisine and a yes for broccoli, oven chips and plain, lightly salted Thins.
In those two days I buy the entire series of Tai-Bo tapes and something called the Hairdini Magic Styling Wand. I dig out Patricia's Bedazzler and shoot rhinestones all over five tea-towels, an apron, an old t-shirt and some tracksuit pants. I become addicted to Open Learning, stay up every night to watch Letterman and finally work out what Kenneth Copeland's Hour of Power is all about. I sleep a lot and eat a lot. And I feel like crap. But I'm married crap so that at least raises me one notch above the type of poo that can't find a husband.
I let every phone call go through to Patricia's "we're on holidays" answering machine message. Fergus McLaughlin has left another message asking me to confirm my Miss Brisbane nomination and I've ignored it. Mum and Dad have rung to let me know that they've arrived safely and that Caitlin has her nose pierced. Zoë has rung three times begging me to read her latest literary masterpiece. Her third and final message consisted of Zoë just moaning Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick Uuuuuuuuuuuuup over and over until the tape ran out.
Zoë Budd is my best friend. We've known each other since we were five. Mrs Roberts sat us next to each other on our first day of Grade One and before the day was out we were singing Leif Garrett songs and discussing the greatness of H.R. Pufnstuf. Twenty-two years later and she's still skinny as a rake, still sports a tangle of brunette ringlets and still has a smile so wide she may as well have a coat hanger in her mouth. She has the face of Elisabeth Shue and the manners of Veruca Salt. But best of all she's the proud owner of Brisbane's filthiest laugh. She laughs like someone who's just committed a crime and gotten away with it. I love her like a sister. She'll tell me when I've got food in my teeth. Shout me a beer when I'm skint. And even though she always beats me at Trivial Pursuit, she pretends that I let her win.
I love her like a sister but she's definitely not a writer. Zoë is a Flight Centre travel agent. A travel agent who, in her spare time, enters erotic fiction competitions. Which is fine. The only problem is that Zoë has never won. Never won, never got a place, never even been highly commended. This is because what Zoë thinks is erotic fiction would actually be classed as porn. Very bad, dirty porn. Far from being a turn-on, Zoë's writing is the type of porn that would turn the stomachs of the judges who read Zoë's entries. The type of porn that makes you clench your bottom and cross your legs. Porn that could turn you off sex for the rest of your life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Girl Most Likely by Rebecca Sparrow. Copyright © 2003 Rebeccca Sparrow. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
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