short story (unfinished)
WRITTEN:
1984, 17 years
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This was one of my earliest attempts at "the Great Australian Novel", influenced considerably by the excellent English teacher I had in my final year of high school, the oft-lauded Trevor Smith. As a sort of tribute, one of the characters has his first name (tho this shouldn't be interpreted as thinly-disguised student lust - it was nothing of the sort!). The style, as with so many things written around this time, is strongly influenced by Barbara Pepworth's Early Marks.
The first two sections of this are very good, if not perfect (in my personal and obviously biased opinion), and have hardly been altered at all since they were first written (possibly early April - I don't have the original longhand version any more to check) - I think I have changed the punctuation very slightly on occasion, but that is all. The third section has been endlessly rewritten, and it still isn't right. The fourth section is pretty bad - in fact only the very beginning of it appears here; the fifth-thru-eleventh sections I threw away in disgust long ago.
My intention, when I began, was to deal with the doomed-from-the-start love-life of a compulsively altruistic time traveller "on a mission" to prevent certain people she knew from committing suicide. This was meant to be achieved by spending many years studying the necessary mathematics, then going back to her mid-adolescence to begin putting into effect the many thousands of strategic changes required. There is a "twist in the tail", but as I have yet to reach the tail in a plausible way, I'm not giving it away now.
I wanted it to be thoroughly Australian, which is probably where it came undone - I had the drive to write it but at age 17, not enough life (or even general) experience to get it how I wanted it to be. As the years wore on the experience accumulated but the drive evaporated. The drive is now slowly coming back but I have yet to recapture the "flavour" of the theme. The plod, as Mr Smith was so fond of saying, must go on.
Ted and Jude are splitting up. Their cliché has been on the rocks for weeks now. We visit them, separately and together. We offer our sympahties. We cook and clean; help. We think we help.
Ted and Jude have fights in the night. She is leaving him. She has to. She says so. He pleads. He doesn't want to lose her. He loves her. He'll always love her.
She says no, she knows what she's doing. She tells him they will meet again. In ten years, she says. He says no, she can't be sure. Ten years is a long time. She freaks out. Selfish, she calls him. Selfish, childish. She yells. Ted cowers. Jude yells. Punch and Judy.
Ted and Jude; Jude and Ted; Judith and Edward. Landmarks, reference points, the furniture of our lives. We cannot believe this is happening. Not to them, not to us. (At the bus stop there is a wooden bench. ER4JC is carved in the wood. It has been there for years now. For years. Four years. We wince.) But at least they weren't married.
Ted and Jude are splitting up. Their cliché has been on-the-rocks for weeks now. Hyphens. Connected, but drawn out. Continued without consent. Prolonged. Painful.
Ted and Jude. They won't be seen together any more. For the best, she says. He wants her back. Badly. He can taste it. He says. He wants her back. Tactics. Jealousy. She doesn't respond. Unemotive. Nothing shows on the surface. Fickle like diamonds. A girl's best friend.
Ted. And Jude. Separate entities. Entity and deity. Punch without Judy. Unthinkable.
Another whirlwind romance has blown itself out. Everyone said he was too old for her; she'd get bored.
But it wasn't like that. She could see that she'd met him at the wrong time. Too early; he wasn't ready for her complexities yet. But this time there was no future to wait for. Too late. He'd be married to Sophie by the time she could find him again. But how to tell him...? The problem. She knew too much, but there was no-one standing just-over-there in case she furbled her take. Just Jude and her Paunchy; Trev and his Doods. Everything was up to her.
Another whirlwind romance has blown itself out. The news passes like a good time too-soon over. As it is. The tears flow like shiraz over new beige carpet. Everyone knows.
Trev is heartbroken. He loves his Doods. Of course he loves her. Her mad ravings of an omlette future never deter his passions, rather amplify them.
She assures him they will meet again, a decade on. He won't recognise her, though, she whispers mournfully in his ear on their last night together. He discounts her confidence of future events by asking her jokingly if she's leaving him to take up with a fortune teller. She is hurt, but never shows hurt.
Draping one thin arm over his already thickening stomach, she pokes him playfully in the side. Paunchy, she calls him, don't be silly, dear, she tells him. You'll get over me, she whispers, but there is a catch in her voice.
Pauchy burps. Romance exits with a thud. She thinks, and laughs to herself. Paunchy asks what's so funny? And Doods says Paunchy, dear. And Paunchy sighs. And sleeps.
He wakes in the late morning when she's well and truly gawn. Did it on purpose. Might lose his job, but, what the heck, he's only a high school history teacher, after all.
He laughs. He cries. He goes to the bathroom for a shower and there's a note taped to the mirror.
Beloved Paunchy, Believe me, I'm sorry. Had I realised sooner how things would be, I wouldn't have started us at all. With all my love, always, your Doods, Judith Cooper.
"Drop dead!"
She is left standing on the pavement, looking at the fat boy as he walks away across the car park. Away. From her. Can't believe it. She cries, standing where she is on the pavement. Unashamed. Doesn't care who sees. Sure, she's been rejected before, but this one's special, so special. She should know - she's seen him before. Then. When. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. It will be on the television. Two, three years at the outside. It will be on the television. She's seen it. She knows. But she's not going to buy him. He wouldn't be worth anything that way.
Nina found her later as she sat on the rock ledge, overlooking the grey and angry sea, throwing innocent little gastropods into the wild water.
"Whaz wrong, Judith?" Nina, concerned, takes a real interest.
"I'm not going to Philip's party, Nina. I'm sorry, I know I said I would, but I can't." She feels silly. Usually does when things turn out like this. Angry with herself for not being able to remember events more clearly. In sequence. Occasionally. It would help.
"That's a pity, JC. Real sad." Says nothing else. Doesn't prompt, poke, pry. Makes her very likeable. A bit vacant upstairs, but amicable. A good best friend. Quite unlike diamonds.
"I haven't got a steady, you know, but I asked someone to go with me, for the party. He just told me to drop dead." Looks at Nina, waits for the inevitable reaction.
"Judith, how's that? All the guys like ya!" Nina. Naïvety suits her well. Matches her eyes.
"Jonathon doesn't." Admission, but not really admitting. Eyes roll.
"Jonathon!" More a shriek than a word. Gulls flap angrily, squawking at the competition. They needn't have worried. Nina wouldn't do it again; too shocked.
"Jonathon, yes. Jonathon King. The really fat one." The last remnants of calm take off with the gulls, who have spotted someone's hot chips left unattended. On the other side of the car park. Away/gone.
"Oh, Nina, it's so stupid when I could be with anyone else I chose, but I'm in love with Jonathon. He won't talk to me, not now. Not even before I asked him about the party. He doesn't like me."
Folding into silence. Nina leaves her. To sort herself out. If she can.
She knew - had guessed long ago - why he kept rejecting her. It was easy enough. She'd known it even before she'd arrived here, but denied it, wanting so much to change things.
But if there was something that she could do, it was to move on. Nothing for her here/now/when. But she could say she'd tried. That would have to do; that would have to be "the good part", reminding people later on.
There was supposed to be a rendezvous at the war memorial, but no-one was there. Well, she was, of course, but no-one else. The teenage couple with the dog had gone past about a dozen times in the last half hour and she had the feeling she was sitting in their usual spot. Just five minutes more, that's all.
She'd given up and begun the long walk home when a flash of red caught her eye. The girl was sitting on a curb between the two parked cars. Waiting for the lift home. Of course. Careful, now. Don't rush quite so much. And stop shaking; she'll think you're a junkie or something.
"Hello, Anna. It is Anna, isn't it?" Play it up. Play along and perhaps she will, too. Never mind that there can never be a first time in this business. Don't think of that. Just keep going.
"Yes?"
"I'm Judy. Jessica, well, she sort-of sent me. Is that okay? I mean, I don't know the full story, but I'll do my best."
It was odd, standing there, looking at the girl who was almost herself. Would have been, once-upon-a-time. Was, once-upon-a-time, before she began the mad crusade. She wondered how much Anna knew, whether, in going back to change things, Judy had ceased to exist and Anna lived by a different reality. Wondering, but could not ask. Could not take the risk.
"Uh, Judy, okay. Look, I'm waiting for a lift. They'll want to know who you are if they see me talking to you. Already they don't believe about Jessica-" Good. It's all the same, then. Exactly like it was. "-so could you, um, could you ring me? When I get home? About five o'clock should be okay. Here's the number."
She took the slip of paper, remembering the texture of the exercise books, remembering the smell of the desks when they were opened first thing in the morning, remembered, inexplicably, the first time Ted kissed her... Now why am I thinking of that? Why now? It's not time yet, it's not time.