The Swooping Magpie

Sydney, New South Wales

March 1970

1

A sheaf of needles jabbing my face, one arm, wakes me.

I force open my eyes, lids so heavy they just want to drop closed again, struggle up from where I’m lying. Where am I lying? I go to rub away the needle stings, but my left arm is dead.

What’s happened to me? Where am I?

Too sleepy to keep my eyes open, I surrender, plunge into darkness again.

A whisper tells me it’s not needles spiking my arm, but something wet. Rain perhaps? I strain against lead-weight eyelids and see that yes, it is rain –– tepid rivulets snaking through a cracked-open window.

What window?

Beyond the cigarette-smoke fug, I smell leather, the scent of car upholstery cleaner, and I know I am sprawled across the back seat of my father’s BMW.

What the hell am I doing in Dad’s car?

I fumble with the handle, manage to shut the window before my numb hand flops back into my lap.

Rain pelts the car in rhythm to the swish-swosh of full-blast windscreen wipers. Through foggy, ghost-grey air, the wind flings about the eucalyptus trees and, ripped from their roots, bottlebrush fragments somersault across the road like blood-clotted rags.

What’s wrong with me? Why do I just want to sleep?

Something sways me. A gentle but definite side-to-side rocking. Oh yes, it must be the storm swaying Dad’s car.

I squint through the cigarette smoke at my parents, both puffing on a Craven A. It must be Dad driving. My foggy brain knows that, at least. Since my mother doesn’t drive, who else would it be, hands red-blotched, white-knuckled, tight on the wheel? Hair greased down with Brylcreem, not a single wayward strand.

And my mother, sitting rigid as a ruler, as far from him as possible. Almost hugging the window. I catch a whiff of her perfume, can’t recall the name of that stink of half-dead roses.

From the back seat, I can’t see Mum’s kangaroo-fur handbag, but the quiver of one shoulder tells me she’s stroking the fur. The slightest movement, flattening it down in the one, same direction. Not enough for my father to notice; for it to annoy him and snap, Stop stroking that thing, Helen … as if the damn animal was still alive.

I still don’t understand why I’m dopey; why, when I open my mouth to speak, it’s dry and only raspy sounds come from my throat. I hate this out-of-control feeling, but can’t muster the energy to fight it.

A blurry road sign flashes by: Engadine. We must be driving along the Princes Highway, from Wollongong to Sydney. A sliver of dread twitches through me, but I can’t think why we’d be travelling up to Sydney. I let my eyes close again, watch the pink behind my eyelids bleed into red; try to focus my mind, to clear the brain smog.

A smack of thunder startles me awake again. Another road sign: Rockdale.

A zip of lightning, more grumbling thunder.

‘Where are we going?’ The words stagger from me, ragged as broken chips.

No answer. Maybe they haven’t caught my slurry echo. Like after sneaking too much of Dad’s bourbon when they have a night out.

I swipe dribble from the corner of my mouth, smear it over the leather seat of the new car in which my father forbids food and drink.

‘What are we doing in the car?’ I say, louder.

Dad glances across at Mum, face tightening into a frown. ‘You said the dose would last the journey … you’re supposed to know about these things?’

Dose?

Mum shoots him a look. A frightened rabbit eyeing the hunter.

Her head swivels around, she throws me a nervy smile. ‘Just relax, Lindsay … we’ll be there soon.’

A bud of panic coils from my belly. ‘There? Where?’

She fires up a new Craven A, passes it to my father, and lights another for herself. I wish she’d give me one. Fat chance.

‘Why are you both ignoring me?’

Still no answer but now we are definitely driving through Sydney –– rows of doll-house terraces, green and yellow double-decker buses, a band of people with long hair and flower-patterned clothes brandishing a banner: I DON’T GIVE A DAMN, I AIN’T GOIN’ TO VIETNAM. I crack open the window, try to make out their chant.’

Ah yes, the John Lennon song. I recognise something, at least.

Dad turns off onto a narrower side street and parks the BMW in front of a black gate. Behind the gate is a large brick building.

‘This must be the place,’ Dad says.

‘This must be what place?’ That swelling panic surges, snags in my throat and I sense that, somewhere deep, I do know where we are. I do know what’s going on. But still my brain can’t slot it together.

‘Go on then, Helen,’ Dad says, ‘what the hell are you waiting for? Get her inside.’ My father bats his hands at my mother as if shooing away a mosquito.

‘What are we doing here, Mum? Why won’t either of you speak to me? I’m sick of you both treating me like a kid. I’m sixteen now, in case you’ve forgotten.’ My voice comes out less slug-like.

My mother’s shoulders tremble, fingers rifling through her bag. She pops a Bex into her mouth, swallows the tablet dry.

As my father jumps from the car and drags my suitcase from the boot, the horrible realisation slams through me, hard and fast as the crack of the boot shutting.

I know where we are. And I know why.

‘Oh my God … you drugged me?’ I growl at my mother. ‘That cup of tea … what did you give me? More of your bloody Valium, like for every crisis?’

‘How else would we have got you here?’ Mum says. ‘You’d never have come without a fight.’ She glances up at my father standing on the footpath beside my suitcase, under his umbrella. The storm has blown out over the Pacific Ocean, but the sky is still spitting tiny, sharp raindrops. ‘We had no choice, did we, Gordon?’

‘What about my choice?’ I clench, unclench my fists, no longer numb. ‘How could you? I hate you both!’

‘Now come on,’ Mum says. ‘We talked about this. Remember?’

‘We did not talk about this. I never agreed to anything. But you didn’t listen to me, did you? Like you never, ever listen to me.’ I wrap my arms across my chest, don’t budge from the back seat. ‘I am not going into that place … you can’t make me.’

My mother exhales, long and slow. Dad flings open the back door, grabs my arm, tugs me over the rubbish-choked gutter onto the windswept footpath. ‘Get out here, you stubborn girl.’

‘Ouch, you’re hurting.’ I can’t stem my tears, which mix with rain, making a soggy mess of my face. His fleshy fingers press deeper into my arm. The bruise blooms and I know that by tomorrow I will have another purple bracelet. But still I resist.

Dad raises his free hand.

‘Gord –– ’ my mother starts.

The backhander stings my cheek before it arrives, more embarrassment and injured pride than pain.

‘Enough of your brass, Lindsay,’ he says. ‘You’ll do what I say. You are not the boss here.’

‘Yes you are, Dad, I know.’ Sob, hiccup, sob. Skull ringing, the blow still rattling my teeth. ‘I know, I know, I know …’

Mum steps from the BMW, lips pursed into a determined line. She takes two last drags, drops her fag onto the footpath and twists a stiletto heel onto it. She pulls down her lavender-coloured twinset over her skirt and picks up my suitcase. In her other hand, she holds her Women’s Weekly over her hair to stop it getting rain-frizzed.

Lipstick is smudged on one cheek, a speck is trapped in the corner of an eye, where her mascara has bled, and strands of her rolled-up hairdo have come loose from its hairspray anchoring. But I don’t tell her. Let the treacherous bitch look untidy, I couldn’t care less.

I get wetter. My hair must look hideous, all wind-messed and rain-flattened. I don’t know why, but right now having my crowning glory looking nice seems more important than ever.

‘I’ll wait for you in the car,’ Dad says, back in the driver’s seat. ‘And don’t take forever … I need to get home, return to work.’

‘Yes, dear,’ Mum says.

‘And you cooperate for your mother now, Lindsay,’ he goes on. ‘Do you hear me?’

I nod, wrinkle my nostrils against the stink of garbage as we pick our way across the filthy footpath to the gate.

My mother steps aside as the high gate creaks open, nods at me to go through. I scowl, don’t move.

‘You heard what your father said, Lindsay.’

With a sigh, I push past her.

The storm flushed away, the humidity has seeped back into the air at this tail-end of another scalding Australian summer. There’s no warmth in me though, only ice-blocks freezing my insides so that I become so cold I can’t stop shivering.

It’s not just the fear that sets me quaking, but the helplessness too. Like when I was a kid about to launch myself down the slippery dip. I’d hesitate, knowing that once I slid off there was no turning back, even if the metal burned my bum raw, or that once I reached the bottom I’d tumble forwards and scrape my knees.

My mother nudges me ahead of her. I don’t realise it yet, and I won’t speak of the whole sorry tale for years to come, since every time I thought about it, the memories would leave me frustrated, sad and angry, but I would recall walking through those black iron gates as crossing the threshold into the darkest hell.

Wollongong, New South Wales

November 1969 - March 1970

2

‘Hey, Lindsay, isn’t that Mr Halliwell?’ Vicky nudged me, nodded at the surfie wearing Hawaiian boardshorts, a little way across the sand.

My friend giggled, couldn’t stop gawping at our Phys Ed teacher’s bronzed shoulders, the muscles roping his back as he removed his T-shirt. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Surfing … isn’t that obvious?’ I hitched my lip. Vicky might have been my best mate since kindergarten but sometimes she could be a real drongo. ‘Don’t you know he always surfs here after school?’

Surfboard clutched under one arm, Mr Halliwell flipped back his dark, sun-bleached hair as he stalked down towards the sea. Everyone else on North Beach was squealing as they run-hopped across that burning sand, but he just took his time. Maybe he was one of those magicians who could walk on fiery coals?

He passed about a foot away from us, glanced at Vicky and me lying belly-down, tanning our backs.

‘He looked at us!’ Vicky was unable to hide her excitement that the grooviest teacher of Wollongong High School –– the one all the girls drooled over –– had given us the eye.

‘Shush he’ll hear you, idiot,’ I hissed, gathering up my hair into a thick ponytail, which made me look dead-set hot. That, along with my new crocheted green bikini which matched my eyes. It brought out the strawberry highlights in my blonde hair too, and I willed Mr Halliwell to glance back at me.

Vicky giggled, pointed at my chest. ‘One of your boobs is almost poking out of your bikini top … what if Mr Halliwell saw?’

‘Oopsie.’ I flopped back down onto my towel, hoping Mr Halliwell had noticed. ‘Anyway, he looked at me, not you.’

Vicky frowned. ‘Why would he just look at you?’

‘Because I’m the spunkiest girl in the entire school,’ I said. ‘And Mr Halliwell –– Jon –– thinks I’m a real doll.’

‘How do you know his first name?’

‘Because he told me, silly.’ Vicky didn’t need to know that was a lie. I sniggered to myself as he ploughed through the shallows, slid onto his surfboard and paddled out past the dumpy breakers. ‘And it’s Jon as in J-O-N. No H. Much rarer, and sexier, than with the H.’

There was no hint of a breeze on that Saturday, first day of November, the air searing and heavy, the sky a clear, hard blue. The beach was swarming with people, but I was sure no one noticed me get up and stroll over to where Mr Halliwell had left his T-shirt and towel on the sand.

‘What are you doing?’ Vicky said, as I picked up the purple T-shirt printed with Rolling Stones above a picture of the band, and pulled it over my head.

I thrust out my chest, swaying from side to side. ‘Don’t I look groovy?’

‘You should take that off right now and put it back with his stuff,’ Vicky said. ‘You can’t steal someone’s T-shirt.’

‘I’m not stealing, just borrowing.’ I kept twisting about like a kid showing off her new party dress. ‘Anyway, I bet he left his stuff close to us on purpose … as if he wanted me to have his Rolling Stones T-shirt.’

‘Why ever would he want to give it to you?’ Vicky said.

‘I told you, because he digs me.’ The westbound sun warmed the back of my legs, the heat flushing right up my thighs. Butterflies flitted across my belly. ‘You should see the way he looks at me in PE class. In the playground too, and when he’s on canteen duty. Secretive looks when no one’s watching. He never looks at any other girls that way.’

Vicky laughed, flipped onto her back and rubbed baby oil across her stomach. ‘Sometimes you’re so up yourself, Lindsay Townsend. Anyway, Mr Halliwell’s a teacher. And he’s old.’

‘Not that old,’ I said, pulling a tube of zinc cream from my new gold beach bag. ‘Probably not even thirty.’ I smeared Jon’s initials onto my stomach with the zinc. That way, when my tan deepened to that smooth golden hue –– unlike Vicky’s mud-brown tan –– it would be as if JH was tattooed onto my stomach.

‘Thirty’s twice our age,’ Vicky said. ‘Far too old.’

‘I’m almost sixteen,’ I said, wiping off the excess zinc. ‘Anyway, you’re just jealous. You see … I’ll be Jon Halliwell’s girlfriend before you can say gotcha.’

***

‘Why can’t they ever play a decent radio station?’ I said, as Vicky and I waited in the North Beach kiosk queue for our meat pies. ‘Some funky music instead of this boring election stuff.’

I kept looking around the shop, hoping Mr Halliwell would come in to order some food or drink. Just in case, I reminded myself to stand tall, balance a book on my head, practising for when I became a model.

‘Yeah who cares that the Liberals won the election?’ Vicky said. ‘Even though my dad seems happy about that.’

‘I think my father voted Liberal too,’ I said, paying for my meat pie, and smothering it in ketchup. ‘But yeah, who gives a shit?’

Beneath the withering rays, we sat back on our towels to eat the pies, fending off flies, gulls and sand clumps that some kids were chucking at each other.

The breeze picked up, blowing more sand onto our pies, into my mouth. I scowled at the kids. ‘Bloody little nuisances … I’m never having any.’

‘Ha, you’ll change your mind,’ Vicky said. ‘When you meet Mr Right.’

‘No I won’t. No way am I wrecking my figure, just for a kid. And you’re never the same you know, down there, once you’ve pushed a baby out of it.’

‘We’ll see in a few years,’ Vicky said, screwing up her empty pie bag. ‘Anyway, I’d better get home, Mum’s on the study warpath. School Certificate only a week away, she keeps on at me.’

She shook the sand from her towel, and slid it into her beach bag. ‘You’re lucky you’re so brainy you don’t even have to study to pass the exams … and that your mum never hassles you about homework, or anything.’

‘Yep, lucky … I can do what I want as long as I don’t bother her, or take up a second of her precious time.’

I circled my arms around my knees, hugged them, trying to put my mother out of my mind. And, beyond reach of his temper, I certainly didn’t give a single thought to my father. Especially when there was Jon Halliwell to dream about.

Jon. I gazed out at the breakers. There he was, still riding the waves. I could pick out his surfboard by now, and his long hair slicked behind his ears.

‘I’ll stay a bit,’ I said. ‘Catch the next bus. I need to sunbake more if I want the best tan of everyone in our class.’

‘You know you already have the best tan.’ Vicky rolled her eyes, nodded at the Rolling Stones T-shirt, where it lay on my towel. ‘And you should give that back to Mr Halliwell. Anyway, with your endless supply of pocket money, couldn’t you afford ten Rolling Stones T-shirts?’

‘Sure I could,’ I said with a shrug. ‘But I don’t want any old T-shirt, I want this one.’

‘So you really are going to steal it?’ Vicky squinted against the sun’s glare, hoisting up her cut-off denim shorts.

‘Only kidding,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Don’t panic, I’ll put it back with his stuff before I leave.’

‘See you at school on Monday then.’ Vicky slung her beach bag over a shoulder and, as she walked off up the sand towards Cliff Road and the bus stop, I turned back to the breakers curving into the sand, and to Jon.

I picked up his T-shirt again, held it to my nose, inhaled Jon Halliwell’s smell of surf, salt and sand.

Put it back with his stuff? You’ve got to be kidding.

***

Jon came loping out of the surf, swept back an arc of hair and spat salty water onto the sand. As he approached, I shoved his T-shirt into my beach bag and glanced away, feigning interest in a mob of seagulls squabbling over a Vegemite sandwich. From the corner of my eye, I watched him towel-dry himself, and look around for the T-shirt.

I almost jumped as he looked straight up at me, sure he’d caught me staring. But he just threw me the sexiest smile. ‘Hi there, Lindsay.’

My heart stopped, raced. A lorry careering out of control down Bulli Pass –– the steepest slope ever.

He knows I’ve got his T-shirt. No he doesn’t … yes he does.

I flipped over onto my back, at the same time sliding my own T-shirt over the zinc-cream JH initials. ‘Oh, hi, Mr. Halliwell, I thought it might be you … but I wasn’t sure.’

‘You haven’t seen a Rolling Stones T-shirt, have you, Lindsay? I left it right here.’ He shrugged again, kept shaking out his towel, but it was obvious the T-shirt wasn’t there.

I should have given it back but I so badly wanted to keep it. Anyway, I truly sensed he’d left it there on purpose; that he wanted me to have it.

‘No, sorry, I haven’t seen it, Mr Halliwell.’ I hoped my tan hid the blush I felt creeping across my cheeks. ‘Although the wind’s picked up since you went in for a surf, it could’ve blown away … or something.’

‘Yeah, guess that’s what happened,’ he said. ‘Shame, that was my favourite.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out for it,’ I said. ‘And if I find it, I’ll give it back to you at school on Monday, okay?’

‘Thanks, Lindsay, that’s nice of you.’

He slung his towel over his shoulder, picked up his board and walked off towards the pathway that led to Brighton Beach and Belmore Basin. I’d expected him to go the other way, towards the carpark, but heading off towards the Continental Pool meant he must have come to the beach on foot. Which meant Jon Halliwell lived close by.

I shoved my towel and the baby oil into my bag, slipped into my own denim cut-offs, and followed him at what a private detective would call a respectable distance.

I kept him in sight as he strolled down the dusty path –– long strides, cool and sure of himself. I couldn’t stop staring at his bum, the way it hitched from side to side, and at those wide, muscled shoulders, which he must’ve got from swimming. Everyone at Wollongong High knew Mr Halliwell had been a swim champ in his own school days. Almost made it to the Olympic Games, apparently.

I kept well back, ducking behind a fat man trailing a fat dog when I thought Jon was about to swivel around. My breath catching, I clutched my bag to my chest.

On he walked, past the Gentlemen’s Baths, the shadows long on the old rock pool as the sun slid towards the escarpment. After the Continental Baths, at Brighton Beach, Mr Halliwell crossed over Cliff Road and entered a fancy-looking block of flats with Brighton Apartments written on the front.

He must live here!

As he disappeared into the building, I sat on the Brighton Lawn Reserve grass, mulling over my T-shirt plan. Could it work?

Tiddling harbour waves curled onto the sand, regular as a wind-up toy. Kids shrieked as they swung on the swings, and the cloying frangipani scent thickened the breeze and sent my head spinning.

Or was it Mr. Halliwell making me dizzy?

Overhead, a sulphur-crested cockatoo screeched at me as if saying, Go on, Lindsay, just ring his doorbell. You know he’s keen.

When I told Jon Halliwell that I’d found his Rolling Stones T-shirt, he’d ask me in for a cool drink, to say thanks. And we’d chat. About what, I had no idea, but that didn’t matter. Was it too soon though, after he’d left the beach? He might guess I’d had the T-shirt all along. Or, he had left it on purpose –– a sign –– and he really did want me to keep it.

I glanced at my watch. Gone five o’clock already. If I didn’t want to miss teatime, and cause a ruckus with my father, I should get on the next bus. I might not know the number of Jon Halliwell’s flat, but at least now I knew in which building he lived.

I could always think over my strategy and come back tomorrow to return his T-shirt.

3

From behind a row of bottlebrushes in which rainbow lorikeets feasted on the red blossoms, I squinted at the Brighton Apartments building. I held my breath every time someone came outside, but none of them was Jon Halliwell.

Trying to catch a glimpse of him through one of the windows was a long shot, I knew that, but how else could I find out which flat was his without being too obvious? I just had to hope his window wasn’t one with blinds or curtains.

I’d woken early, to a day already heat-dazed, and cursed that I couldn’t yet drive, that I’d have to wait ages for the first Sunday bus to get back to the beach.

Still wearing Jon’s T-shirt, I’d dragged myself out of bed, pinching the fabric up to my nose, inhaling his scent of salt, sand and surf. I stopped myself from groaning out loud. Not that anyone would’ve heard me in that house, vast and still as a cemetery. Quiet too, apart from my father’s irregular snores that rattled my parents’ bedroom. It was always the same when he drank too much bourbon. But the booze did make him sleep longer, and often I wished he’d drink every night.

My parents had already gone out by the time I arrived home from the beach yesterday. Mum’s usual note said they’d gone to some charity function, or to one of my father’s hugely important work events. I couldn’t remember what this particular one was. They were all the same, complete bullshit things. I scrunched up her note and hurled it across the shag pile carpet.

After my shower, I left my sandy beach towel and cossies in a soggy pile on my bathroom floor. Well I had to give my mother something to do around the house, didn’t I?

As usual, she hadn’t left me any tea so I made a Vegemite sandwich, ate it watching Bandstand on television. I pinched a couple of fags from one of the Craven A packs my parents left in almost every room, smoked them sitting out by the pool, drinking Dad’s Jim Beam.

Alone in that big house, I’d finally drifted off to sleep with only my thoughts of Jon Halliwell, an image of his sexy face, his deeply-tanned body. His wide, warm smile.

And now I’d been waiting over half an hour behind this row of damn bottlebrushes, hoping for a glimpse of him. What a stupid idea. I should’ve followed him into the building yesterday, I’d have known straightaway which flat was his.

The lorikeets’ screechy eep-eep startled me and I jumped, a hot wave of guilt washing over me. Why though? I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I inhaled sharply and strolled up the pathway to the building, and into the lobby. And voilà! as our French teacher would say, there was a glass cabinet containing a list of names beside the six units. Halliwell, flat number four. How easy was that?

Legs quivering, fingers gripping the T-shirt, I skittered up a flight of steps and rang the bell of number four. Last night I’d thought about washing the T-shirt, drying and ironing it. Giving it back neatly folded. But I’d never washed a piece of clothing in my life; didn’t even know how to use the washer and dryer. How ironic, that ours was one of the few households to have a clothes’ dryer and I had no idea how to use it. Nor did I have the foggiest about ironing. And what if I’d shrunk it or the iron had wrecked the Rolling Stones print? I’d never have forgiven myself. Even worse, I’d have had no reason to come to Jon’s place today.

Still no answer from flat four. Maybe he’d already gone out? Surfers always go out early. And it was another sunny day, the waves curling high and perfect, so he’d definitely be going surfing. Damn the stupid buses, I was too late.

I rang the bell a second time. After another agonising minute, the door opened. I expected to see Jon in his Hawaiian boardshorts, torso naked, but it was a woman with snow-white hair heaped on top of her head.

Face twisted into a question mark, she said, ‘Hi there, can I help you?’

I tried not to stare at her slim legs, the short psychedelic frock, the Colgate ring of confidence teeth.

‘Er … who are you?’ I said, though the longer I stood there, ankles crossed, the more I had the awful feeling I knew exactly who she was.

‘I’m Diana Halliwell.’ Still smiling, friendly. ‘And who are you?’

‘I’m Lindsay. A pupil of Mr Halliwell’s … at Wollongong High.’ I tried to mask my fluster, hadn’t thought for a second that he might live with someone. And that someone would be a wife. I’d just imagined him living alone up here in flat four, waxing his surfboard, listening to Rolling Stones music and looking out over Brighton Beach and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

‘I f-found his T-shirt at the beach yesterday. He lost it … wind blew it away. I just wanted to return it to him. I said I would if … if, you know, I happened to find it.’

‘Well that’s sweet of you. My husband will be so pleased … it’s his favourite T-shirt. He’s gone out for a surf but I’ll see he gets it as soon as he comes home.’

‘No worries.’ I didn’t know