ELLE.COM.AU / @ELLEAUS 91
happy homes and love, and no-one criticising anyone else.
Asong of freedom. He went to his kitchen and got down
oneof his drinking glasses (the old jam jars) and cupped it to
the wall, not to spy but to delight in her. That’s when he
concocted the plan that changed his life. He knew how to
change things. He would hold his own party.
He thought about it all night, long after next-door’s
partyhad shouted goodbyes and slammed car doors and
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¢ǰ
the right date, about the wine. He was quite good at wines,
because he’d used wine occasionally as a solace on cold
winter evenings. He was rather fond of sweet, red, dusty,
meditative wine. He thought it suggested poetry and a walk
along a dark, brooding country road. He wasn’t sure what
people ate at parties, but he’d put out his favourite food,
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¢ Ĵ ¡
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whichever one they wanted. He worried about bowls for
people who wanted to eat their cereal wet, but there were
always his jam jars. He tried to imagine people standing
inhis dining room enthusiastically eating cereal from his
jamjars, but their faces were in the shadows, whereas
hisbrimming table glowed under the bright lights of his
imagination. His favourite daydream was about the music
athis party. It would be the music of a woman’s laughter,
and that laughter would set him free.
He became so sleepless with excitement
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a moment longer.
In Molly Dyson’s 39th year of being
a virgin,she unexpectedly found herself
at a party.Later, she had trouble explaining
theevening to herself, although later, much
later at a happier time, she could tell her
daughter about it and smile. Perhaps it had
all happened because it already was a short-
sleeved Sydney summer evening promising
parties in perfumed gardens, even though all
she was doing was coming home from work.
The front door of the house round the corner
from hers was open, and behind it was
darkness, like a cave. Caves were connected
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music she’d listened to as achild, really listened to, delighting
in the echoes and ripples and storms, was “Fingal’s Cave”.
ę ’s, where men
glowed like wrapped Christmas presents amongst brown
shadows. Later, she hid her love of lushness so well that
anyone looking at her plain, embarrassed face would assume
she was plain all the way through.
The music that erupted from the house was heavy
metal,not lush at all, but at the centre of it, on this particular
summer evening, there was a plaintive quality, like a child
calling. She should have seen that as a sign of what was
toǯ ¢ ¢ Ĵ ’d
diedin early childhood, and suddenly there in the road
allshe could think of was how the child’s tiny hand had
held hers, almost protectively. Her steps faltered. Just
then,a Ě sleeves, who was holding
ajam jar of red wine, came to the door and glanced at
theevening sky, glum on the steely roofs of buildings,
andthen at her.
“Are you looking for something?” he asked.
ę ¢ǯ
And also because someone had noticed her, and assumed
shehad a purpose. She tried to look purposeful. The man
wassmiling, his whole face glowing, she later remembered.
His mouth was open, drinking in her laughter.
“The party’s here,” he said.
Molly Dyson had always been convinced that the
wholecity was partying without her on those endless days
when merely to go to bed was a relief from loneliness.
Andnow, at last, she was included.
“Good,” she said. She turned a right angle on her
sensibleheel.
“I’m so glad you found it,” he said as she walked past
him.He had an uncertain voice, as uncertain as her own, so
she felt unusually sure of herself. “So am I,” she said.
She went down the hall of the house, where messages,
clearly important and urgent, hung from
a string. She wasn’t impolite enough to
readthem. However, she made a mental
note to hang her messages up in the same
way – not that there were many urgencies in
her life. The house smelled of vinegar.
Perhaps the man, her host, was a keen cook,
and he was pickling something marvellous,
lamb, with cucumbers, black pepper, exotic
spices. She’d read in the newspapers about
people who did things like that.
She looked around the room, admiring
everything. The dining table was heavy
with rows of empty jam jars. There were
Ĵ ǯ
Perhapsthey were for a party game! She’d
been good at party games, she’d looked
forward to parties when she was a child, to
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spoons. She laughed aloud to think how like those wobbly
eggs she’d become. And the cereal boxes – no doubt for an
apparently childish game, profound in its simplicity. She
cast her mind around the possibilities, to be ready.
Maybeyou ¢ Ě ¢ ę
intoa jar without squashing them – that might be it! And
thenyou had to say what this was a metaphor of – what
wouldshe say? She was seeing the wide world at last, here in
this unexpected moment she was suddenly sophisticated and
ǯ Ĵ¢ inconsequential things in
herlife were likea previously secret procession, heading@“She came into
the room, arms
folded. ‘Are you
the obsessive
loony?’ she asked.
It took all his
courage to answer.
‘Yes,’ he said”