Acropolis was limping badly this morning. I went out in the car with Debbie and Mum cos Debbie was late for school and had to be driven out at quarter to 9. I went too, so we could feed Croppy, drop Debbie off at school, pick up the chaff from Mr Stoney and take me to the Civic Centre all in one hit. But even after all that there was time to kill. I went to the public loos just outside the centre. The inside of the ladies’ smelt rather foul, and every inch of the walls, the doors, the window sills was covered in graffiti. At lest it wasn’t going to be boring, as I waited for twenty past nine. I reflected that this would probably be the last time in my life I’d be in those loos. On impulse, I decided to add my bit to that which was written. I was excited by my secret, daring little decision, but unable to think of what to write. That silly Italian song that everybody’s singing was going around in my head – “What’s a matter you, hey? Gotta no respect, hey? Whatta you think you do, hey? Why you look so sad, hey? It’s a not so bad, It’s a nice-a place, Oh Shut up a you face!” So I scawled “It’s a nice place” with one o fthe new 2B pencils I’d just bought from Elders (also to kill time).

And then I was late.

The lady was nice, she led self-conscious little me to my seat and asked if my number was right. I nodded dumbly, inwardly kicking myself.

The scaling test itself was fascinating: not really terribly hard, just challenging. The most interesting part was where we had to match statements with various examples of a modern painter’s art. An Englishman, oh, I can’t remember his name; I remember telling myself not to forget his name. Anyway, they were exciting pictures (especially for me, who has not seen much “real” art) and a welcome change in the middle of a booklet full of mathematical problems and endless graphs. But the paintings part was the hardest, because I felt that none of the statements really matched the pieces. It’s hard to tell whether or not I went well in that particular section, but I’m confident that the rest worked out OK. I finished with about fifteen minutes to spare and went back over and checked it. When it was all finished, it was surpising to see that I was the only girl left in the place; the rest had all left early. Most of the boys roared off in somebody’s car, but MW was walking in my direction. Since I was slightly ahead of him I wondered if I should slow down so we could talk about it. I really wanted to talk about it with somebody, as is my custom after an important exam. There is always the lengthy post-mortem. But I didn’t slow down, so I didn’t end up having the customary discussion.

I’m embroidering a dressing-table cover. I started it about a year ago and have been doing it spasmodically ever since. In times of stress or frustration it’s nice to do cross stitch in red and blue cotton on calico. It will be finished by the time we get to our new permanent place to live. I won’t use it before then, it will christen my new room. I wonder what that will be like, and where it will be …

The camels stirred up all the horses at Pony Club today. Croppy forgot about his sore leg and took off, along with all the rest of them. One horse jumped the unjumpable fence over into Croppy’s yard and they both kicked and worried, with eyes bulging. All over a few scrawny old disinterested camels. Debbie was furious and Fordy laughed. Finally she got Mum to politely ask the camel man if he could just move his camels a little as they were upsetting the horses. Debbie calmed Croppy down and led him out of the Pony Club grounds for a long walk so he could get away from it all for a while.

I bet the camel man reveled in the stir. In his book to be written after his epic journey on foot with camels around the Australian coast (and after having the feat included in the Guinness Book of Records) he can write a few paragraphs about the day the Pony Club horses went bezerk.

And then there’s the camel/horse race on Sunday. If today’s horsey reactions are anything to go by, it’ll probably be a shambles – with the camels going in one direction and the horses, without hesitation, in the other.

I didn’t see anything of it, unfortunately; got the story second hand off Mum. I was at home “studying” ie lazily flicking through the pages of a big fat book on evolution. Couldn’t settle into Human Biol or probability. After an all-morning exam I seem to be drained, mentally and physically.

Mum’s metal tape-measure exploded today. I was sitting at the table, varnishing my nails, when there was a loud “sprong” sound and a clatter and slither as the thin wound-up metal tape undid itself and the whole twenty-odd metres curled and kinked on the floor. It used to be a compact little case with a slit where the tape came out like a long, thin tongue; it no longer exists as such. Mum didn’t mind, she thought it was funny that it should pack it in right on the last curtain job for Carnarvon. She said, “I could frame a bit of it as a reminder of my old curtain days, but I won’t, I’ll chuck it out.” Which she did. Everything is winding up and getting finished…

The day before … 12/11/80*

This is a new pen. Mum bought me five pens to see me through the TAE.

I screamed “Ta Ta” to Mum and Debbie, as they drove off in the Holden to feed Acropolis. I screamed it from this chair at this table because the car was directly outside, and could be seen and heard through the big window. A big window. And what with the door as well, and a lounge chair pushed up there, there is hardly any wall to be seen. No verandah or patio or anything, or front yard. Just walk out that door and you are in the middle of Carnarvon. I see waving, rippling dry grass, tall yellow grass, and beyond that red dirt, then the road, and on the other side of the road, big trucks and trailers behind a metal-wire fence.

And then there’s totally clear, faded blue sky. A seagull swoops up around the tall grey telegraph poles as I watch out the window.

The hot, cooking smell of chicken in the oven. Chicken for tea tonight. Tomorrow I will wake up and think, “Today is the English exam” and my insides will turn over. I will put on my blue skirt, my faded blue skirt like the sky, and a dark blue top. I’ll grab my pencil case, with this new pen, and Mum will drive me to the Civic Centre in the Holden. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning at 9.20.

Will I pass my exams and will I go to WAIT? Of course I will, because there is no other way; I cannot do anything else. A stock truck comes slowly along the road; it is wheezing into Gascoyne Traders, with no sheep, so it rattles emptily.

The truckies came into Delmonica’s and had strong cups of tea and always squirted black sauce on their food, whether it was pie or roast or bacon and eggs. I don’t work there any more and I do not make strong cups of tea for the truckies.

I won’t live in Carnarvon any more. Gateway to the North West, the Sun’s Winter Home, a good place for the retired when the cold sets in down south. The old lady and old man chortle into town in their Combie [sic] vans and buy a cake at Delmonicas. She will get some cold meat and fresh bread to make them sandwiches, later. It won’t be until they have settled back into the Combie that they’ll find the cakes to be stale and hard.

Tomorrow morning at 9.20. I tell myself, we are leaving town, starting a new life, moving on. But I can’t see past the TAE. The agony, the anxiety, will be over on the afternoon of th 24th. But then comes the suspense of waiting for the result.

Waiting, waiting until January next year! But such a distant point in the future is unreal; it is tomorrow, 9.20am, that matters.

__________

Transcribed in Sep ’09 from journal written in an exercise book.