Read Online Gracious Living by Andrea Goldsmith - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrea Goldsmith
Tags: Fiction
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mind off things. No sense in becoming morbid, that never changed anything. Besides, you’re letting yourself go. You can’t give in to this, you’ve got to fight Elizabeth.’ And with that, he would peck her pallid cheek and leave the house.
Elizabeth turned the pages, looking but not seeing. It was not even the daily newspaper – too large to handle while she fed the child – only the local tabloid, full of council news, baby contests, the benefits of a proposed freeway, an article by concerned citizens for a freeway-free suburb, local shopping bargains, lawns mowed, handymen for whom no job was too small. The child’s gulping was only occasional now. She removed the bottle and rolled thebaby on to its stomach and started patting, hoping it might sleep. Elizabeth arched her aching back and turned another page.
She was not reading but saw the small box advertisement anyway. In the same way one always sees one’s name on a crowded page, so this advertisement, no different in style to all the others, stood out.
H ANDICAPPED C HILD
? it asked in shameless capitals.
Going crazy
? it continued on the next line.
I am
, it stated bluntly on the third,
and I cannot believe I’m the only one in the entire southern suburbs. If I’m not please contact me on
. . . A post office box was given and the name Penelope Roscoe.
Elizabeth stood up and walked to the nursery. She put the child stinking of cabbage and dirty pants into the cot. The child awoke and the screaming began. Elizabeth left the room and closed the door; she walked down the hall and shut the door; she entered Adrian’s office and shut that door too. She stood near the desk and listened. The wail was still audible. She turned on the radio, sat at the desk, wrote briefly, sealed the letter, added a stamp. At the front door she called out to Mrs Cox that she wouldn’t be long, walked to the comer and posted the letter.
When she returned, Ginnie was still screaming. ‘She seems a trifle upset,’ old Mrs Cox said from the door of the nursery. Elizabeth took up the soft screaming mass, held it to her and quietened it. ‘I don’t expect to love you, I only want to tolerate you.’ She rocked the baby quieter and quieter. Pacing and rocking and thinking. She wanted peace, clouds of heavy still peace. The baby slept and Elizabeth walked gently up and down, back and forward, her marble face determined to be calm, her body cushioned by a cloud of peaceful avoidance. Rocking and walking at twenty-three.
A week later, Elizabeth Dadswell stood in front of Penelope Roscoe’s house, a small but stylish Victorian cottage in a row of five. Two of the others were garnished with the latest fashions, a third was littered with builders’ rubble and the last, still in its original state, was strangling in lavish tangles of rose and ivy and wisteria. Elizabeth knew the area well. It was in the throes of beinggentrified. Young couples, the honeymoon still fresh and the university degree newly framed, had filled the dilapidated houses with modern touches and youthful verve. Their eagerness, like fresh pungent varnish, adorned the little homes, gently, lovingly, glossing all visible surfaces. The hawthorn brick was painted cream or white, the window frames and Victorian lacework were in contrasting chocolate brown or dark blue; toilets were brought inside and placed in brightly tiled bathrooms, while in the kitchens, old Kookas were replaced with modern stoves and bench space appeared as if by divine inspiration. In other parts of the house windows were widened to propel light into the tawny Victorian interiors and creaking floorboards were muffled by deep carpet pile. Outside, in the front sliver of garden, was an Australian native, a blue gum or a wattle, and, a foot or two further on, a high front fence crawling with a vicious ivy. The little gardens were planted for now, for this year or the next; the new owner-renovators expected to move to larger premises before the gums
Elizabeth turned the pages, looking but not seeing. It was not even the daily newspaper – too large to handle while she fed the child – only the local tabloid, full of council news, baby contests, the benefits of a proposed freeway, an article by concerned citizens for a freeway-free suburb, local shopping bargains, lawns mowed, handymen for whom no job was too small. The child’s gulping was only occasional now. She removed the bottle and rolled thebaby on to its stomach and started patting, hoping it might sleep. Elizabeth arched her aching back and turned another page.
She was not reading but saw the small box advertisement anyway. In the same way one always sees one’s name on a crowded page, so this advertisement, no different in style to all the others, stood out.
H ANDICAPPED C HILD
? it asked in shameless capitals.
Going crazy
? it continued on the next line.
I am
, it stated bluntly on the third,
and I cannot believe I’m the only one in the entire southern suburbs. If I’m not please contact me on
. . . A post office box was given and the name Penelope Roscoe.
Elizabeth stood up and walked to the nursery. She put the child stinking of cabbage and dirty pants into the cot. The child awoke and the screaming began. Elizabeth left the room and closed the door; she walked down the hall and shut the door; she entered Adrian’s office and shut that door too. She stood near the desk and listened. The wail was still audible. She turned on the radio, sat at the desk, wrote briefly, sealed the letter, added a stamp. At the front door she called out to Mrs Cox that she wouldn’t be long, walked to the comer and posted the letter.
When she returned, Ginnie was still screaming. ‘She seems a trifle upset,’ old Mrs Cox said from the door of the nursery. Elizabeth took up the soft screaming mass, held it to her and quietened it. ‘I don’t expect to love you, I only want to tolerate you.’ She rocked the baby quieter and quieter. Pacing and rocking and thinking. She wanted peace, clouds of heavy still peace. The baby slept and Elizabeth walked gently up and down, back and forward, her marble face determined to be calm, her body cushioned by a cloud of peaceful avoidance. Rocking and walking at twenty-three.
A week later, Elizabeth Dadswell stood in front of Penelope Roscoe’s house, a small but stylish Victorian cottage in a row of five. Two of the others were garnished with the latest fashions, a third was littered with builders’ rubble and the last, still in its original state, was strangling in lavish tangles of rose and ivy and wisteria. Elizabeth knew the area well. It was in the throes of beinggentrified. Young couples, the honeymoon still fresh and the university degree newly framed, had filled the dilapidated houses with modern touches and youthful verve. Their eagerness, like fresh pungent varnish, adorned the little homes, gently, lovingly, glossing all visible surfaces. The hawthorn brick was painted cream or white, the window frames and Victorian lacework were in contrasting chocolate brown or dark blue; toilets were brought inside and placed in brightly tiled bathrooms, while in the kitchens, old Kookas were replaced with modern stoves and bench space appeared as if by divine inspiration. In other parts of the house windows were widened to propel light into the tawny Victorian interiors and creaking floorboards were muffled by deep carpet pile. Outside, in the front sliver of garden, was an Australian native, a blue gum or a wattle, and, a foot or two further on, a high front fence crawling with a vicious ivy. The little gardens were planted for now, for this year or the next; the new owner-renovators expected to move to larger premises before the gums
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