~ the troll

Yesterday, as she posed for an art class, Jenny heard one of the participants relate the following story about a female friend. It is true.

The friend lived in a nearby suburb with her retarded eighteen year old boy, who, though very simple, was functional enough to be left to his own devices most of the time. He was fully grown, tall and strong.

When his mother arrived home one evening she found him in great distress. He looked like he had been in a fight with a bear. He was bleeding, covered in scratches. His clothes were torn, covered with leaves and dirt, and he was scared out of his wits.

Obviously, the mother was very concerned. She was desperate to know what had happened, but her son's stammered answers made no sense. He said that he had fought with a troll.

As she was cleaning him up, he revealed that he had managed to capture the troll, that it was locked in the garage, and that she could see it if she wanted.

The mother, despite the absurdity of the situation, was overcome by trepidation as they approached the garage door. The boy was genuinely frightened and taking shelter behind her. She did not think he was lying. And there was his dishevelled state to consider ...

And there were the sounds of banging from within.

The twilight surrounds of the very ordinary suburban backyard - with its lawn, its barbeque and its trellises - took on an unfamiliar, even nightmarish quality. But the mother shook these feelings from her head, mustered her courage and opened the door.

Inside, there was a tiny little man, a dwarf, in a similar state of discomposure to her son. And he was entirely pissed off.

He had been riding by on the footpath, happily, when her son - perceiving a grotesque creature from the pages of the Brothers Grimm - had tackled him, restrained him and locked him up, evidently thinking he was doing a service to the community in capturing a wild, dangerous ... troll.

~ with chicken head and tutu

We’ve performed the BFG more than ten times now before hundreds and hundreds of screaming children. It’s beginning to become second nature: thwacking myself on the head with an inflatable hammer to the beat of John Farnham’s ‘The Voice’, feeding snozzcumbers to an entity called Bloodbottler, interpreting a military operation in dance with chicken head and tutu …

If one wasn’t in the right state of mind, it could be a hellish thing to face every day, but I’m honestly enjoying it. Judging from the state of my costume once it’s over, I must be sweating out litres of fluid per show. Though it probably doesn’t matter to the audience, I’m polishing my act with every performance and keeping thoughts of the Grublets from Blades of Glory far to the back of my head, (along with other black black clouds which I am better off not dwelling on).

Polly is proud that her dad is the BFG, which is a nice ancillary benefit. Yesterday, we traveled out to Ringwood to see her end of year dance concert. What a massive production… There must have been nearly a hundred performers from the steppes of middle suburbia… And what costumes! The sequins, the tulle and the tiffany! The non-stop rippling, flouncing procession of wild colours, demi-pliés and flourishing nubility. It was impossible not to be entertained. There were men who were indistinguishable from women. And vice versa. There was even a titillating wardrobe malfunction. A nipple, which through the course of one particularly energetic number, crept in and out of its cup as its gangly smiling blonde owner jetted obliviously about the stage.

It was a vaudevillian banquet: dance that ranged from the seemingly accomplished to the pitifully incompetent … and, inevitably, to wandering toddlers, smiling broadly in their profound bewilderment or picking their noses and wiping them on their gorgeous Arabian Nights outfits.

There were three two-hour performances to a huge auditorium, packed each time with adoring friends and relatives. As for myself, I had tried to ignore the preparations for this event, but tyrannical organisers continued to demand my concentration with their complex and exacting procedures. The costumes situation became a yawning gyre of confusion and uncertainty. For my own sanity, I had to palm off the task to other members of Polly’s support cabal.

Polly doesn’t want to do dance next year, thank goodness. Something simple and straightforward like Guides or swimming lessons will do nicely.

~ market day paranoia

Most of yesterday afternoon, I spent gathering books from the four corners of this house in preparation for market day at Pinewood Primary. I priced about twelve boxes and left it at that – with all the surplus books in my possession I could open a store if I wanted, but I had to draw a line somewhere. Besides, I also had Polly cast-offs and a bag of brand new knitted baby clothes from god knows where for our stall as well.


Suburban innocence, you may think. The banal activities of an average family going about its ordinary daily business. If only things were that simple and clear cut…

Well, not really. Of course I don’t aspire to mediocrity, but sometimes, in my weaker moments, I do wish I was a little less strange. Then, perhaps, I wouldn’t get into the sort of troubles I’m experiencing at the moment.

Living in Mt Waverley, having a child, I brush up against the mainstream of Australian civilisation far more than I ever have previously. I’ve mentioned at times how odd it sometimes feels. As if I’m a kind of spy or traitor in their midst. Can’t they tell I’m an alien lifeform with two spines, a grey dewlap and a polyhedral skull? What’s wrong with them? Don’t they see the trail of stinking protoplasm I leave behind me, like a Third Stage Space Guild Navigator with influenza? They don’t seem to treat me as an outsider. I seem to be considered as just another parent, albeit somewhat eccentric.

Well, that’s more or less what I am, I suppose. Regardless of the soul-sucking nightmares that have come to life for me recently, I still had an idyllic, convivial, mildly profitable day at the market today, chatting with strangers about who knows what, getting to know the other parents a little better. I actually felt like I belonged – and it wasn’t that bad a feeling.

For Polly it was just a great big fiesta, scattering around the place in a flurry with her girlfriends. Every time she sold something, a book or a toy, she counted up her money and was off to buy another piece of worthless pink rubbish. One might almost describe it as a shopping jag. What’s more, while we were packing up, she received so many free gifts from other stallholders we returned home with more junk than we started out with.

Plus a neat, but modest fifty dollars for my survival fund.

~ immaculata

On my walks, I pass a place where the Grey Creek briefly swells into a pool. It was once a surprisingly picturesque spot, but since the council removed the ancient shady willows it has lost its character. The exposed grey mud is speckled with shards of coloured plastic, faded whiskey cans and lost lime tennis balls; it bakes in the pitiless sun, releasing the earthy, septic smell that is characteristic of the Grey Creek. The odour is toxic and would not be present if the creek flowed through pristine lands, yet it has always been there and I associate it, almost fondly, with my childhood.

When she first moved into the region, the beautiful white duck Immaculata chose this pool for its beauty. Now, despite the changes, she does not leave. She has come to know the place. Experience has taught her that it is defensible against her enemies. The struggling ecology of the Grey Creek is just rich enough to afford her a staple diet and walkers on the nearby path will sometimes stop to feed her bread.

She is far from being a gregarious creature. I have seen her fight the native black ducks for bread and she is capable of a frightening display of ferocity. I can imagine her defending her chicks in the same way, but a family is something that is denied her. It is unlikely that she will ever find a mate. Yet she is prepared to do everything she can to survive, regardless of the hand that fate has dealt her.

The odds do not lie in her favour. For beginners, she is perfectly white. Foxes, dogs and cats can see her at a distance, even at night, but she seems to have developed a survival strategy that works. Because she is not native to anything outside a farm, she lives under constant threat – just like the willows – of being removed from a habitat reserved for native species. And there is always the chance that a low man will attempt to take her for food. That is why her reticence with people is encouraging.

Despite everything, she is strong, healthy and beautiful. And she wags her tail in a very endearing manner. She does seem a little flustered and stressed, but that is to be expected given her circumstances. I feel a great deal of sadness and respect for Immaculata, defending her tiny cul-de-sac between the motorway and suburbia, forgotten, abandoned by nature, excluded by the plans of humankind.

Happily, over the last week, she seems to have formed an alliance with a pair of chestnut teals and a pair of black ducks, with who she sits with in the shade of the creek bank.