The Visitors

By Vanessa Griffen

MOLLY PETERSON turned off the woman’s programme with a click, shutting off the last strong words of consumer advice. “Buy at the local market. Mandarins are cheap and plentiful and selling at—.” She got up from the kitchen bench, with a sigh. and stretched her large ample person.

“Now I have to do the washing,” she said aloud to herself. She picked up the Made-in-Hong Kong clock which was lying on its face to keep it go i ng “God, and it’s after ten too! Well,” she let it out in a long exasperated breath, “How time flies.”

That acted as a signal. Molly roused herself out of the doze she had been in. Hand resting on one plump hip for moral and physical support she wandered into the first bedroom.

With the spareness of movement that comes from long practice and too much weight, Molly bent and began picking up the dirty clothes in the corner.

“I don’t know what these kids do at school to get their clothes so dirty,”

Molly grumbled as she picked up the various shirts and trousers. “Change, change every day. Anyone would think they had servants.” There was a loud clatter as some marbles fell from a pocket and scattered all over the floor Molly swore, and bent to

pick up a few, but the effort was too much, so she left them there, The beds were stripped of their sheets and pillow cases, “May as well make a day of it.

Molly went into her own bedroom There were socks on the floor, stuffed in shoes, and shirts and some of her dresses on a chair. Molly picked them all up and put them on top of the pile she already had. Finally, she had a bunch of musty sweaty clothes clutched to her bosom. Looking over the top to where her feet were, she walked down the back stairs to the wa t S,. t V^ >s ; ,4 u■ u- » “Wish I had a washing machine, she thought. IJT-R 3XIIIB elbow-deep in Cold Power suds, Molly began scrub bing the sheets against a wooden board. The brush made a rough sound against the board, like grating coco nut. Scrub-scrub, scrub-scrub, scrub scrub. Out of long practice the rhythm produced a not unpleasant state of day dream. Her mind divorced itself from her hands and Molly began to think of all the things that they needed and other household problems. They all boiled down to one thing—money, “Kids’ school fees coming up soon • • • pff! sh t f blew drops of sweat off her nose, and going up all the time too. Thats the trouble send

ing them to a religious school.” She flopped a sheet into an empty tub.

“Private, they have to pay their own costs. Government, it’s all paid for.”

Molly had to sigh over this basic dilemma that troubled her. In her weak moments when the electricity needed paying for, and a new term was coming up, her common sense rebelled against the difference.

“Still, church says you have to bring them up in their religion.” It was what Molly always decided eventually. She didn’t go to church herself, except at Christmas and Easter, but her kids were going to go, Molly was determined about that.

“They can decide for themselves later,” she often said, vaguely, as if that settled the whole matter.

She came to their school uniforms.

They were still new, Molly had just had them made. Their colours were bright and unfaded and the kids still enjoyed wearing them. Molly scrubbed them with care. They were made to last and there was no sense in scrub bing the hell out of them.

Her hands softened their vigorous movements as she picked up young Michael’s pants.

“Eh, he’s a good boy. Doing well too.”

Molly stopped scrubbing and smiled, leaning her hips against the concrete tub to think about it. He was the only one doing well in school and that made her proud. Still, he was such a devil, and so cheeky.

Molly remembered the comments under ‘Conduct’ on his last school report.

“Takes after his father,” she thought with disgust.

Molly began scrubbing violently again.

“Bloody bugger, he’s always late, never home, and spends his money on booze. Never think of the kids. And the fees, who’s going to pay for it?

He doesn’t have to worry.” Un consciously, Molly began ignoring all his clothes that needed washing. “No, they come to me.” The dress got thrown into the next tub and caused a spurt of soapy water to splash into Molly’s eye. It took a few minutes to wash her eye and get the soap out.

In the momentary lull, she heard a knock on the front door.

“Dammit. Who is it now? Probably the post boy with more bills.”

She dried her hands on her skirt and went to open the door.

TIALE-WAY down the passage, XJL Molly recognised the silhouettes of her visitors through the lace curtains. There was no mistaking the white skirt, dark tie, neatly trimmed haircut.

“Oh God, not them again,” she thought. “Can’t leave a person alone.”

She walked heavily up to the door, wondering what to say to them, and how she was going to get rid of them. As Molly bent down to open the door, she saw the man straighten up and pick up his briefcase.

“Hm. Getting ready,” she thought.

The movement irritated her. There was nothing that filled Molly with more annoyance and alarm, than that bracing gesture made by these people who came to see her.

“Yes?” Molly said, the door open half way, composing her face so that it was non-committal and uninviting.

Behind the door she tried to straighten her skirt, at the same time clutching nervously at her blouse which had

popped open from all the scrubbing.

The man smiled. “We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ.” He gestured towards a freckle-faced girl with lovely ginger hair pulled back, who stepped up beside him.

“And we are trying to spread the word of Jesus’ love for us,” the girl finished the sentence.

Molly just looked from one to the other.

“You see, Jesus came down on this earth many years ago, and he died for us because he loved us,” the man went on.

Molly leaned her weight against the door and held it for support.

“Um, yes . . .” she said, and shifted uncomfortably.

The girl had a soft shy voice and Molly focused her attention on her.

“We think one of the best ways of learning of Christ’s love can be found in these little booklets we have here,” she said.

The ginger head ducked down and she began unclasping the briefcase.

Molly watched her and in the brief silence felt it was time she said some thing.

“Well ... ah ...” a plump hand waved vaguely in the direction of the books. “I don’t think . . . you see . . .

Anyway,” Molly said loudly in a final desperate effort. “I go to church myself and I hear the sermons and we have our own religion, my children go to church, and I—and we don’t need any books here.”

Finally ended, Molly took a breath and looked at them. She felt cornered on her own doorstep and definitely at a disadvantage. The girl’s face was raised towards Molly and she looked candid and sweet. She had arranged five books like a hand of cards.

The man pointed to them.

“Perhaps you would be interested in some of these.” he said.

Molly began shaking her head.

“ ‘Peace on Earth’, ‘Love thy Neighbour’, ‘The Good Samari tan’ . ..” He began reciting the titles of the books.

While Molly listened to him, she noticed the dust on her lace curtains.

“Needs washing too,” she thought, to herself. The man was giving a brief synopsis of each booklet. At the thought of washing, Molly remem bered all the wet clothes sitting in the tub, and from that all her domestic worries. The faces of her visitors focused again and Molly listened to the last of their speech.

She suddenly felt removed from them and her basic kindness and respect because they were Europeans, left her.

“They can well talk,” she thought unreasonably.

Mollv stood up straight and cleared her throat.

“No, I’m very sorry,” she said

decisively, a little cross, but still polite, “I . . . we don’t need any of those books in this house.”

Molly stood there, aware of her torn top, the soap suds that had wet her skirt, which was already dirty, and how sweaty she was. She stood up straight in the doorway and used her appearance as a wall to pin her statement on. Without being able to put it into words, she nevertheless was cannily aware that the one thing that would put them off was the actual roughness of her appearance and her life. Molly deliberately bullied them with it.

“Oh, well, that’s all right,” the girl said quickly.

“Well, thank you. Good morning,” the man said.

They smiled, packed their things together and left. Molly shut the door after them, and watched them through the curtain.

“Bloody nuisances,” she said, watching them go next door, MOLLY went back to her washing, and finished wringing the clothes out. Then she put them all in a bucket, picked up her peg basket, and took them to the clothesline.

Over the fence she could see Annie hanging up her washing, her mouth full of pegs.

“Hey, Annie,” Molly called across.

“They come to your place?” Annie poked her head over the clothesline.

She was short, a little on the dumpy side, with black curly hair over a face that had once been very fine.

“Ah?” she said. “Who you talk ing about?”

Molly was flinging clothes over the line, bending down slowly to pick them up, shaking them out, then spacing them out over the line. She jerked her head in the direction of the street.

“Them,” Molly said, a bit breath less from the exertion. “Those church people.”

“Oi . . .” Annie laughed. “Oh yes, they come all right. I said ‘No thank you’ and shut the door.” She always had been a cheeky one, Molly thought.

Annie disappeared behind a sheet to pick up some pegs. Molly waited for her to emerge, all the while pegging her clothes together with a practised efficiency. “Me, I couldn’t get rid of them,” she said. “Always come when I’m busy and never stop talking. Talk about talk!” she huffed. “Anyone’d think I had all day to stand there.”

Molly was working her way along the line. It was nearly midday and the sun was hot. Beads of perspiration began to settle on her forehead. She knew she was too fat. She looked over at Annie with a certain amount

of mild envy. Annie was better off than her. She didn’t have so many children and her husband didn’t spend so much money on booze. Still, she was a good soul. No airs about her.

ANNIE finished hanging out her washing. She came and stood by the fence, watching Molly. They were ready for a good chat.

“Anyway, how’s Tom these days?”

Annie said as an opening: “You heard from him yet? How he’s liking Australia?”

Molly took a peg out of her mouth.

She pegged two shirts together and her face relaxed into a bit of a smile.

“Oh, last time we heard, he was working as a labourer. Construction work. Building office buildings in Sydney.” She started unfolding a sheet. “Six stories I think.”

“Isa, poor thing, he must be cold.”

Annie added brightly, with slight in consequence, “He gets good pay or no?”

“Oh, yes. Overseas, they pay a lot.

Sometimes $lOO a week. That’s a lot of money.”

“Better than they pay here.”

Molly thought for a minute. On the basis of her son’s experience in Syd ney she felt obliged to say, just to be

fair. “Yes, but things more expensive there.” It was what she had always been led to believe.

“That’s true,” Annie aereed. “Ex pensive! Well, everything’s so ex pensive these days. . . .”

She let her voice drift off in a ruminating note as if remembering the times when you could °et a bun for a penny. Annie had a tendency to drift off like that.

“I tell you!” Molly broke in sharply. It was hittin? on a hard, constant fact of her existence. She witnessed it when she went shopping, when she looked at things and the purple stamped prices of last week had changed. Molly felt qualified to speak about it, “Up and up. That’s all they go, prices.” She jabbed the pegs over the clothes. “I tell you, you go into the big shops nowadays and everything’s gone up. Sugar gone up, butter gone up, everything’s gone up. They tell you it’s because of the strike and shipping cost.” Molly felt her temper rise. “But I don’t know.” She shook her head. “The strike was last year.

But what can you say?”

“Yes, everything’s going up,” said Annie.

“I tell you, Annie,” Molly had got her breath back, “it’s going up all the time. You go in the big shops and everything’s gone up. First one cent, then more—two cents, three cents. Every week too! Butter, sugar, tea, jam. And what can you do?”

“Me, I get it from some of the small Indian shops.” Annie wanted to be helpful and also prided herself in her good sense. “Some of the small stores have all the things vou need.

Bit cheaper too.”

Molly had finished hanging out her clothes, and stood leaning against their frangipani tree. She puffed out her cheeks and started to fan herself with her hand.

“Trouble is, no time,” she said briefly.

They both were silent for a minute.

There didn’t seem anything else to say.

ANNIE said, “Did you hear about the Simpsons’ fight last night?

Down the road . . .?” and that started them off on their usual line of gossip.

Molly relaxed against the tree and folded her arms. Gussie next door had come home drunk and had a fight with his wife. Terrible noise, always bickering those two. The brown dog down the road had chased Annie’s kids, almost bit the little one. . • • And what about so and so’s daughter who was pregnant? Yes, always was a flighty thing. . . . Molly asked after Annie’s cousin’s baby and that got them on to talking about kids They talked about all the new

babies that had been born that they knew about.

Molly had quite cooled down now, and was half-sitting on the frangipani tree, her skirt pulled above her knees, which she flapped now and again to fan herself. The sun was past midday and there was only the faint sug gestion of a breeze, which passed over them occasionally in a light teasing manner. Annie was sitting in the shade of a hibiscus bush near the fence.

They had had a good hour’s gossip and were working up the energy to go inside and prepare lunch.

“Well,” Mollv sighed. “Kids’ school fees coming up.”

“Yes. I only got two to pay, but it’s hard.”

“I don’t know where the money’s going to come from,” Molly said in a loud half-joking voice, raising her big arms to heaven. “The Lord will provide, I suppose.”

They both laughed at that. “One thing about Molly,” Annie thought, “she never complains.”

Molly laughed and then felt a little twinge of guilt. The remnants of her churchgoing days came back to her and she felt she took a risk saying that about the Lord. Besides you never knew when the Lord was help ing you, and it wasn’t as if she didn’t believe in him . . . Molly got up and shook down her skirt.

“Well, better go and have lunch,” she said briskly.

“Yes, better be off. Wonder what the time is?” Annie sounded vague.

They both be can moving towards their separate houses. Just before she went through the door Annie called back cheerfully.

“Back to work again!” Molly just waved without looking back.

MOLLY went into her kitchen. She sat down heavily at the kitchen table. After a minute, she opened a tin of corned beef, cut up some onions, and had it all with some left over dalo. The kitchen was quiet and because it was part of one of those old wooden houses, there was a com fortable gloom about it. There were very few sounds, except the drip of the tap into the sink. Molly munched into her lunch, enjoying the onions.

She got up and poured herself a glass of ice water out of the fridge, then came back and sat down on the bench. The Made-in-Hong Kong clock went tick-tick tick-tick with its face down, in the empty kitchen. Molly’s munching sounded very loud in her head. Her foot patted the floor in a kind of tired contentment.

A movement in the corner attracted her attention. A grey mouse crept out from behind the cupboard, and stood poised and alert in the middle of the room. It cocked its head to one side and stared at her. Molly thumped her foot on the floor and it scampered away. The clock went on ticking.

Molly turned on the radio to check the time.

“Ladies,’" a pleasant male voice came on, “have you heard about the grand 50th Anniversary sale being held at Sander’s?” There was an adequate dramatic pause. “Well, there’ll be drastic reductions in all departments, including the super market. Ladies, come to the Women’s Wear and see the latest in Australian summer fashions, all at reduced prices!” He ran through the list of other departments advertising their particular bargains. “And, specially for mothers,” he said indulgently, dropping the final treat, “there will be reduced prices on many goods in the supermarket. So remember—the grand reductions at Sander’s in their 50th Anniversary sale! Beginning on Monday—”

Molly switched it off. In the moment’s silence she heard a knocking on the door.

“Lord, who is it now?” she thought.

Molly got up, put her plate in the sink and lumbered out to the front door. She could see the young Fijian boy standing there, in a khaki shirt.

He was peering through the curtains and getting ready to knock again.

Molly opened the door.

“Yes?” she said.

“Registered article,” he mumbled, feeling in his bag. “Have to sign the book.”

“Eh, what?” Molly was a bit confused “What’s that?”

“Registered article from Australia.”

He had a letter in one hand and with the other he balanced a book under Molly’s nose. “Sign please.”

Molly took the book and signed.

The postboy tore off one piece and gave it to her, folded the book into his pocket, then bounded down the sta j rs Molly sat at the kitchen table, fingering the envelope. She thought it

must be from Tom. She turned it over and opened it slowly with her finger.

A slip of paper fell out, neatly folded, and a letter. Molly unfolded the paper carefully in front of her. It was a cheque from Tom for $2O. Molly looked at the 2 and 0 written in thick black ink. Yes, she could do with $2O right now.

“Thank God I can pay for the school fees,” was the first thing that came into her head. It was an un expected bonus and she was glad of it.

She thought of Tom in Australia. So like him to try to help them out a little. Molly began calculating the things she would pay for first. While she was doing that, she decided that, just this once, she would spend a little bit of it on something nice for the kids. There was more than enough that needed paying for, true but after all it was a present, and why not give them something nice for a change.

“I know what,” she thought, and the compromise pleased her. “I’ll buy them some oranges. Sunkist oranges.

They are always wishing for some.”

Molly could just see the super market, the boxes of oranges at 40 cents a pound, the price written in thick red lettering, the Indian boy standing by the scales, ready to weigh them. Usually two or three oranges made up a pound.

“Overseas and expensive,” Molly admitted, then shrugged. “What the hell. We don’t have it often.”

Molly got up to get ready to go to town. She picked up the Made-in- Hong Kong clock and looked at it.

Two-fifteen. She would just make it to the ANZ bank in time.

Molly heard her number being called and went up with the red plastic chip that had the number on it. The Australian teller took her cheque without looking at her, made a few scribbles over it, then stamped it loudly. He glanced up at her briefly. ,“How d’ya want it?” he asked.

Molly hesitated then waved a hand.

“Two tens,” she said.

It was all the same.