Effie

From Great North Road

(Effie, if you ever see this, don't sue!).

1968 - Good old Broken Hill, somewhere past the 15-mile drift...

Her name was Effie - a name that had the town giggling. She was a blonde Greek that had the sultry looks of a movie star. I had no idea she was forbidden fruit - promised to another. But as they say, a teenage giggling-pin has no conscience. She lived with her parents on a tobacco farm thirty miles north of Broken Hill. This was not a problem when she was at the convent during school term, as she lived with friends of my parents. Holidays were the big question. So we had a special arrangement. It was innocent, really. At night, I was permitted to drive to her farm and hide the Chev. I would stalk through the bush to the back of her house and squat behind the Rhodesian boiler (a local hot-water system made from a forty-five gallon drum). If her window was open, the coast was clear and I was invited in to share in the honest business of biological study. Often, I waited like a randy canine for hours and slinked away when the window stayed firmly shut. The nights I did gain entry always lasted 'til close to dawn, when I would rush off in time to milk the cows (well, I used to watch, anyway).

The bags under my eyes just never went away. But this night, the window was nicely ajar. It was the last night of her holidays and the Mousaka was about to hit the fan. Anxious to make a good night of it, we made our usual nest on the concrete floor of her room. Lit a candle. We had to be dead quiet as her parents room was right next door. A mere three inches of concrete divided us from certain death. The radio was permitted to burble quietly - just as well when I was burbling. It may have been an omen, but I distinctly recall a Bee Gees song called 'Saved by the bell' being played. That fateful night, I was wearing nothing but a tight pair of swimming trunks and a sloppy Joe jumper. It was a night to remember. It was the first time I fell asleep. You know how you wake up sometimes and smile, stretch languidly and listen to the early morning chirp of birds and the lazy movement of a family waking to prepare for the day? Slow realisation dawned on me - this was not my family. Breathless, I strode to the window and put my head out. All clear. Out goes one leg, then the other. I thrust my hips forward in preparation to drop to the ground. I had an Irish tooth-ache, which accentuated by my position. I gawked in terror to my left.

An unshaven face that resembled Anthony Quinn after a night on the turps is witnessing my departure. Behind me the cupboard door slammed as Effie hid to the thumping of a three ton mother at the locked bedroom door. Trapped, I was, but leaped headlong into the dust and ricochet off the Rhodesian Boiler. I stubbed my toe on a fallen log, banked my head on an overhead branch and hopped desperately away. Zorba was trying to get out of his own window and it spurred me on.

"What you do my dorrter!" the unshaven head screamed at my retreat. I bolted barefoot down the dirt driveway with untamed, unfed Alsatians in chase. Behind them, stark bollock naked, Zorba the Greek wobbled after me, shaking his fist in anger. I waited for the shot but just managed to leap the fence to the blissful sight of my hidden Chev.

Contributed by Kieron Dowling.

July 17, 2001