Two parts today. It was a hell of a struggle to get writing again after a couple of days off, but through persistence and pig-headedness I have something to show off. Context be damned. Begin...
You should know that we plants are the worst gossips of any of the kingdoms of earth. We clutch on to any piece of information we can and spread word of it far and wide. Being rooted to a single spot for year after infernal year lends itself to a restlessness and thirst for information, no matter how obscure or insignificant, that no man could ever know. These titbits are conflated and ascribed purpose and importance far beyond their measure. We have to amuse ourselves somehow and the mythologies of the ages can only stretch so far.
One summer’s day Margie left Karabup for life in the big smoke. She would return each season, but it was clear that her life was now somewhere else. Whenever she was back she would talk of life huddled shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people, of new-fangled gizmos and gadgets that made life so much easier than that which the rest of the family was accustomed. She would share stories of her classmates, her friends in the dormitory, and of the lengths they would go to in order to break curfew and go out on the town with their boyfriends. She insisted that she never took part in such behaviour, but the word from the ivy outside the kitchen window that the glint in her eye belied the innocent façade she presented to our parents. Still, our parents bought it (or chose to ignore it) and I suppose there is no harm in that. Men would always be attracted to a girl as sassy as our Margie.
She did come home one winter with a certain young man in tow- the dreaded meeting of the parents. He was tall and gangly; a mop of blonde hair that would not cooperate no matter how much Brylcream was combed between the strands. He stood out like the pet emu in the chook yard- the sort that live in a state of nerves; who apologise for every slight whether real or imagined. My parents, and even Albert for that matter, tried to make him feel welcome, waving away his apologies and reassuring him of his actions at every turn, but after a while it all felt somehow forced. There was that lingering feeling that Margie could do better. They left deflated; a void had opened up between them and it was clear to Margie that this was a relationship that couldn’t last, regardless of how pig-headed and obstinate she could be.
It was two years after first leaving the farm that Margie graduated from teacher’s college and moved to her first posting in another Groupie community about 40 miles south. She would return to visit every now and then to maintain her roots, but it was evident that her life was now elsewhere. As happens in life the children are raised to the best of the family and communities ability, then when the time comes they spread their wings and take those first faltering flaps and leave the nest for good. And while they may return from time to time, there will forever be that rift separating the old life from the new.
Margie integrated into her new community with ease. It was a world she was used to and comfortable with, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She delved into her teaching with gusto, in the first year grooming eleven kids between the ages of 6 and 15 towards life after childhood. They revelled in the worlds of words and numbers and looked on school as a pleasure rather than a chore. She also fell in love with and married a fine man, a fellow Groupie, by the name of Martin Calloway. He earned his living from a run of 100 dairy cattle, and Margie helped out with the milking before heading off to the school building to teach, then again after school closed she returned to the dairy before going home and preparing dinner. She was forever busy running between the school and dairy, while he spent the middle part of his day clearing trees from the back paddocks and slashing bracken that was threatening to over-run the paddocks, poison the cattle and taint the milk. Theirs was a simple life of hard work and simple pleasures deep amongst the Karri. And it wasn’t long before their first bub was on the way.
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