The Matter of the Mosque

Week One: Hairspray or Mousse

Carly and Tara and Kelly are sitting on the floor. Each has a brush in her hand, and they are all brushing their little daughters’ hair. The children sit with heads bowed, very still, legs crossed, hands gripping their feet. The feet are in pale pink ballet slippers. Legs covered with the powdery cloth of ballet tights. Silky black leotards, skimpy skirts, crossover tops with long sleeves concealing skinny little arms.

‘Sometimes, I can’t decide which is better, hairspray or mousse,’ Carly says. Her daughter Peyton shifts a fraction sideways on the carpet.

‘I know. Sometimes I reckon it’s the spray,’ says Tara as she slowly draws the brush from Nevaeh’s forehead towards the centre of her skull.

‘I love spray,’ says Kelly, holding the brush in the air above Cadence’s head.

Sunlight entering in strips through the half-closed slat blind, falls on the hands and the hairbrushes, and on the smooth round surfaces of the children’s heads. All heads glint dark gold. There could be a halo around one of the heads.

More small girls flutter in with their mothers. One father. He’s a paramedic. The air in the room wriggles and shifts while he unzips his daughter’s jacket, and positions the child on the floor where she waits quietly for the door to the studio to open. He leaves, a handsome shape in navy blue with badges.

Week Two: The Blazer and the Common Cold

‘So is Cadence going to Vincent Street next year?’

‘Yes, we enrolled. They’re restoring the old assembly hall.’

‘So they’ll all be at school together then.’

‘Did you get the uniform list?’

‘I did. Now I need to get the name tags done. How many prep classes are there?’

‘Two I think.’

‘I like the summer dress, don’t you?’

‘It’s OK I suppose. How about the blazer though? Why do they have to have that great big blazer?’

‘Yes it’s so expensive.’

‘And thick and heavy.’

‘Good in the winter.’

‘Not as good as a fleece. In my opinion.’

‘It’s traditional. They’ve always had it. I went to Vincent Street. We had the blazer.’

‘Same thing?’

‘Exactly the same thing. I hated it.’

‘Has Peyton got a cold then?’

‘They all have. Mum had it and they all got it.’

‘Nevaeh’s had one all the winter.’

‘Cadence seems to have a permanent sniffle. I don’t know.’

The other mothers and children are wafting in. Snot running out of noses. The paramedic comes, ruffles the edges of the air, leaves his daughter, and goes.

 Week Three: The Cake and the Twins

‘Is your mum making the cake for Cadence’s party?’

‘She’s already done it. It’s Elsa. She had to cut the legs off the doll.’

‘Well she would I suppose.’

‘She left them on the table at my place and the cat decided to play with them.’

‘You ought to throw them out.’

‘Oh I will. But everything’s pretty hectic. My sister just had twins. Boy and girl.’

‘God! But she already had twins.’

‘I know. Crazy isn’t it?’

‘What’d she call them this time?’

‘She’s into magic and goddesses and stuff.’

‘So what’d she call them?

‘Jataya and Isis. One’s an Indian eagle man and the other one’s Egyptian. I think. A goddess.’

‘Really pretty. Where’s the party?’

‘Its going to be at Scallywags. Peyton’ll get an invitation. And Cadence. We’re actually sending them in the mail. Old style.’

‘Nice.’

Other mothers, children, paramedic, coming and going.

 

Week Four: Costumes and The Matter of the Mosque

‘So did you get the costumes for the concert?’

‘Yes, Peyton’s is a bit big.’

‘Same here.’

‘I got mum to take it in a bit.’

‘I thought I’d do that too.’

‘Cadence is always looking in the mirror at home, doing the doll dance.’

‘Yes, they love the doll dance.’

‘You live round the corner, don’t you, from the – ah – mosque.’

‘We’ll have to move of course. They park all over the nature strip. Blocking the drive. And those prayer calls all the time. Waking up the children, setting off the dogs.’

‘And the way they treat women.’

‘AK 47s.’

‘Well, yes. You only have to watch the news to see what they’re like.’

‘No way they’re getting their hands on our girls.’

       Raping, murdering, hacking off heads, guns, those sword things, bombing, looting, executing innocent children. Ours was a peaceful neighbourhood until they got their fucking bloody hands on everything in sight. Terrorists. We have to move. God knows where we’ll go. Moving’s so expensive too. Torture. Raping and murdering and hacking to death.

Mothers, children, paramedic.

Week Five: Nothing Works for Nits

‘I need to warn you, Cadence’s got nits. Everyone at her kinda’s got them. I’ve tried everything.’

‘Only thing that works is using the comb and squashing them with your fingers. I’ve spent hours.’

‘Me too. Hours.’

‘Of course we can’t cut their hair because of ballet, can we.’

‘Right.’

‘There’s nothing you can do.

‘Nothing.’

‘I thought maybe hairspray would help.’

‘Not really.’

‘No, nothing helps.’

Carly and Tara and Kelly are sitting on the floor. They are brushing the children’s hair until it is smooth and can be twisted into a tight, tight bun. Then they wind a filmy net around the bun and jab in several golden pins. Other children drift in. Other mothers. Handsome paramedic and his daughter. Sunlight slants through the slats of the blind, falls on the heads of the children. Glints. Halo. Like a blessing.

(This story will be published in the next issue of ‘Antipodes Journal’, and will also be published in my November 2017 EBOOK collection of eight stories ‘The Dead Aviatrix’.)

In the Beginning

In one of the tents at Adelaide Writers’ Week, Antony Elmer read from his latest novel, answering questions from a large audience of keen journalists and adoring fans. It was hot in the tent, there in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens, and Antony sweated, the audience sweated, but it was worth it. He was brilliant. In another tent, Viviana Vincent did much the same, ditto the journalists and fans, except while her audience also poured with sweat, Viviana appeared cool (also calm and collected). Antony’s novel, his seventh, was what is called ‘literary’, and it concerned a murder in Oxford in the 1990s. Viviana’s was the latest in her Venus McVicker romances. The audiences in the two tents were different. Antony’s lot was drawn from what is called the intelligentsia, and was clearly male, fellows packing down with the big boys. A smattering of women, mostly middle-aged. Viviana’s people were predominantly women, women of all ages, their faces alight with excitement at being so close to the darling of their reading groups and book clubs. Antony’s books sold very well, were warmly reviewed in all the best papers and journals, won prizes; Viviana’s sold in fantastic numbers. They were ecstatically reviewed (in women’s magazines). They did not win prizes.

Who is Antony?

Antony Winston Elmer was born in Canterbury in 1949. At Oxford he studied Medieval History. He has been married three times, his current wife being the celebrated TV presenter Minki Sackville. He has four sons and three daughters (the youngest daughter is screen actress Leaf Bath-Dickens). Three of his novels have been short-listed for the Booker Prize. Two have been made into films: The Clear Spring and The Mourning of Exiles.

Who is Viviana?

Viviana Maria Vincent was born in Hobart in 1960, named after her mother’s favourite aunt. ‘It’s a lovely old-fashioned name, darling, a romantic name. Your great aunt was a very romantic lady.’ The name was tailor-made for a writer of romance, and, as fate, luck, or destiny would have it, that’s what Viviana became. Her Venus McVicker novels took off, and Viviana was a success, a sensation, a star. Fortunately she had a heart-shaped face, a dazzling smile, long lustrous chestnut curls, long legs, a lithe and seductive body. A lilting speaking-voice. A certain wit and charming manners. Clothes loved her, the camera loved her also. She was a true gift to any publicist.

She lives, her biography will tell you, in a rambling Georgian house overlooking the Derwent River on the outskirts of Hobart in historic Tasmania. With, it says, her husband (childhood sweetheart – can this be true? It is.) Her children (a film-maker, a barrister and a sculptor) all live overseas. There is soon to be a baby grand-daughter. (Imagine!) Viviana and husband Will also have a most beautiful house in Provence. The children are called Xenia, Yvonne and Zac. VWXYZ. Yes. Please don’t give this a moment’s thought.

The Novels

The latest St Valentine’s Day was heralded on long banners in airports across the world, alongside, as it happened, banners shouting out Antony’s title Carnival of Lust. When people stopped at the airport bookshops, the two books were dropped into separate bags, and they left on different arms. Supermarkets discounted both. It has to be said that St Valentine’s Day outsold Carnival of Lust in the supermarkets. But the latter novel was going to win important prizes; the former, naturally, was not. Viviana has read several of Antony’s novels; Antony would not be seen dead reading any of hers.

In the Book Tent

After the sessions in the tents, Viviana and Antony (she in pale green silk and sandals, him in white jeans, white shirt, pale blue linen jacket, bright pink face and panama hat) were shepherded by their publishers to the table in the Book Tent where they would sign the books bought by their fans. They sat side by side, some distance from each other, and each had a glass of chilled champagne. Queues of readers wanting books signed snaked round the tent and out the door. Viviana’s queue was longer than Antony’s, but not by so very much. Some equal opportunity readers carried both books, and would lean across from one writer to the other for a signature. I probably don’t have to tell you that Viviana signed her books in deep juicy pink, with a fountain pen. Antony also signed with a fountain pen – his ink was black. Velvety black. Both pens were Mont Blanc. His was the Mark Twain Limited Edition; hers the Boheme Pirouette Lilas. (You’d better believe it.)

All this is as it should be, as is to be expected. Viviana’s publisher had provided a large silver bowl, and in the bowl were chocolate hearts, covered in scarlet foil. These were for Viviana to offer to her fans when they handed her a book for signing. When Antony reached across and slid the bowl towards himself, then offered the hearts to his readers, Viviana (surprised) simply smiled and said: Be my guest. My hearts are your hearts. (She really hated bad manners, and his were pretty bad.) I think I said Viviana’s smile was dazzling. Antony caught the ping! of it right between the eyes, and that, as far as Antony was concerned, was that. His biography might not say so, but perhaps it suggests the idea that Antony was susceptible to a pretty face and a long leg and a dazzling smile. Chestnut curls were also very nice. He wasn’t good at telling one perfume from another, but the miasma of ‘Josephine’ that drifted across to him from Viviana was having a bit of a funny effect on him too. He rather liked her ghastly colonial accent, in a way.

After the Book Tent

When all that was over, the two stars and their publishers returned to the hotel. Showered and changed into fresh cream shirt (him) fresh grey cotton sundress and small diamond earrings (her) they found themselves (fate, luck, destiny etc) side by side again in the lounge, drinking chilled white wine and nibbling from bowls of nuts. Publishers and publicists and journalists and fans had all melted away. You can’t count on a fan or two not turning up again, but for the time being Viviana and Antony were in a soft leather sofa world of their own.

Now I haven’t told you before about the fact that Viviana, for all the views of the Derwent River and the adorable house in Provence, sometimes felt – how shall I put this – bored by the very idea of Will. Particularly when she was alone at a festival in the company of a wolf like Antony. (I believe I suggested he was a wolf.) Yes, this princess of romance was not above slipping upstairs with a troubadour of the Oxford college. You are saying – oh, for heaven’s sake, she’s fifty something and he’s ten years older. What is going on? You must try not to be ageist. They make rather a handsome couple there in the subdued glow of the hotel lounge, in their nice fresh clothes, with, now, a bottle of Mister Big Mouth Pinot Grigio on the low table between them. Viviana ordered it as a joke – Antony chuckled. It was a good joke, and a very nice drop.

In the light of, in the face of their differences – and these were several, not least the nature of their writing, and their idea of manners – they were getting along quite nicely. Antony is in the habit of coming straight to the point. No use wasting precious time on beating about the bush. We could have dinner later? He says. And she says – Yes let’s have dinner later. And he says – You want to come up to my room? She thinks for a minute and says – Well, why don’t you come up to mine? When we’ve finished this?

So they finished the bottle and went up to Viviana’s room. They ordered champagne which fortunately came with lots of nuts and olives and things on skewers. And he said – St Valentine’s Day – is that about a massacre? And she said – Carnival of Lust – is that about Venice or about animals madly mating in the Adelaide Zoo? (I never said either of these people was particularly witty.) He hadn’t expected that. He said – once I won the Bad Sex award you know. And she said – Was that for a book or for some terrible thing you did in bed? He said – Probably a bit of both. And she said – Well I think you can have the Good Sex Award today. And afterwards they had a long bath together and drank the champagne and nibbled on the nuts and things. They didn’t ever have dinner, but they ordered some of the tandoori chicken open sandwiches for which the hotel was renowned – and Tony also gobbled up some of the chocolate bars from a basket on top of the mini-bar.

Now when Viviana indulged in these episodes, she thought very little of it all, and returned refreshed to Will in the lovely old house overlooking the Derwent River. But Antony was, in fact, more romantic than she was. He wanted to see her again. Maybe in Provence some time? Maybe one day soon in the house overlooking etc etc. But after breakfast which they shared in the sitting room of Viviana’s suite, before some journalists were due in her room and also in his, she said no to Provence and no to the house on the Derwent, and said she had to hurry now. The hairdresser was coming. So she kissed him softly at the door. And handed him a small paper bag containing six chocolate hearts, wrapped in scarlet foil.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the title story of my 2017 ebook titled just The Dead Aviatrix, published by Spineless Wonders. 

The aviatrix sat looking on through all this tumult with a happy smile.

Now once upon a time – to tell the truth it was 1922 – there was a survey conducted in America. Yes, they checked out, I believe, the reading habits of 36,000 children and discovered that most of the books children were reading were produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. But the nature, and even the existence of the Syndicate didn’t really become public until the late 1970s when the Syndicate was involved in a court case over copyright. The intelligent Edward Stratemeyer had realized that children were less interested in reading for moral instruction than in reading for thrills and pleasure. So he turned this realization into a fortune based on an assembly line of millions of exciting stories, beginning in 1899 with The Rover Boys. And maybe you remember the Bobbsey Twins – they were Stratemeyer inventions. And Nancy Drew of course. Edward wrote under many pseudonyms, and he also had ghost writers who were sworn to secrecy.

Now one of the series, written under the name of Margaret Penrose, was The Motor Girls. Intrepid girls with cars. I am interested here in a title The Gipsy Girl’s Secret. Here is the synopsis, short version:

“On a camping trip to the Adirondacks, the Motor Girls become involved in a mystery involving a Gypsy girl and a stolen purse.”

Quite a lot of involving there.

I set out to tell you the tale of the Dead Aviatrix, and in the process I discovered a quotation from The Gipsy Girl’s Secret, and then I uncovered the fascinating history of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and became a Productively side-tracked. Anyhow, this was the quote:

“The aviatrix sat looking on through all this tumult with a happy smile.” I liked it – see above. You don’t often come across the word ‘aviatrix’ you see. I have had half the title of this story you are reading for some years now, have had the story ready to tell, but it wasn’t until I got onto Edward and his Syndicate that I discovered how to go about it. So that was a bit of a preamble. Here is the story. It’s a publishing story.

Characters: Finch One (Aviatrix)

Finch Two

Publishing Person (PP)

Airhead Intern

Ron

I do apologise for the term ‘airhead’, but I don’t know of an alternative that fits the case – well in fact I do know some, but airhead is the nicest.

Finch One, you will be happy to learn, was a famous Australian aviatrix. At last, the Aviatrix. Like the Motor Girls before her, she was intrepid, a flying pioneer. She was born five years after the Motor Girls made their appearance in A Mystery of the Road. And unlike the great and mysterious Amelia she did not disappear in the skies, but died in the fullness of time in 2009. Needless to say she produced an autobiography The Flying Girl which, while it did not attract those 36,000 American children, was a very pleasing account of a vital chapter in Australian history, and had a nice little echo of The Flying Nun. In her final years Finch One lived in a charming and romantic house that nestled in the trees at the top of a cliff looking down on the waters of Sydney Harbour. The only access to the house was by water, and by a long, steep unforgiving stone staircase. Finch One was ever agile, but you will probably have realized that.

Now while Finch One was happily fading away at the top of her pretty cliff, Finch Two was herself quite busy in her bushland retreat writing a book. Let’s call this one The Novel. Matters were quite advanced, and Finch Two was waiting for the parcel in the mail that would be the final proofs for her attention. And they didn’t come and they didn’t come. In those days Ron the postman would knock on the window of Finch Two’s study, would hand in parcels of all kinds, and Finch Two would say to him – oh, nothing yet from the Publisher Person, is there, Ron? And Ron would open his eyes wide and say – No, Finch, nothing from there. And Finch Two would give him a chocolate anyway. And so time went by and time went by, and one day, the PP took to the telephone and spoke sharply to Finch Two saying – So where are the proofs. We need to go to print tomorrow. We sent them three weeks ago.

NB: Finch One has died by this time.

And we are involved in a bit of a mystery about the proofs.

So now is the time for a flashback. Remember that Intern? Airhead Intern? Yes, well there she was with a pile of parcels to take to the mail room. So much to think of, so much to do, tattoos to consider, a new bikini, an appointment with the footbinder etc etc. She quickly flew through the addresses on the database, attaching sticky labels to parcels, zip zip slip slop slap then off to the mailroom and out into the sunshine grab a coffee get the nails done sniff a little coke. Rave.

The manuscript of The Novel was, as you will have realized by now, addressed to Finch One, author of The Flying Girl, at the top of the winding stone stairs in the trees, on the cliff, looking over the sparkling waters of the celebrated Harbour. If Ron had been leaping up those stairs, he would have knocked on the window in vain. Alas, the parcel was, strangely, not returned to sender. Could it be that Airhead had not registered a return address? This is possible. Probable. There is, at the end of the rainbow, a place called the Dead Letter Office. And there the proofs of The Novel reside to this day.

PP got cracking and new proofs were sent to Finch Two under her supervision to the trusty hands of Ron who duly delivered them to the window of the studio and in due course The Novel was published as if by magic. Airhead was awarded a PhD in Writing and Editing, and went on to become an important person in the mysterious world of publishing. The Aviatrix sat looking down on all this tumult, from her gallant machine in the sky, with a happy smile.