Hans

Alice was lovely. Her natural blonde hair, which was somehow always exactly the right colour and length, lay in exquisite tresses on her shapely shoulders. Her perfectly formed head sat on an appealingly slender neck. One day someone had told her that her large and luminous blue eyes were beautiful. That comment ensured that Alice’s eyes, from that day on, whenever she was spoken to, instantly become larger and shinier, and perhaps even a little bluer. She was taller than the average girl and walked with her back perfectly straight, forever stretching upwards, just as Miss Shiner her primary school teacher had once told her to do.

Alice was trim of figure and her clothes fitted her with a flawlessness that rewarded her for the many afternoons that she spent visiting the more expensive and trendy shops in the state capital. She always chose just the right style and particularly the right fit, which she described as ‘snug’. Some women, who we suggest were envious of Alice’s figure, have suggested that Alice’s criterion for buying her clothes was not that they were fashionable but that they fitted very tightly. They would go on to say, if in a spiteful mood, especially in certain unmentionable parts of the female anatomy. But that is neither here not there and we are certainly not going to discuss such a delicate matter right now, maybe some other time.

Alice was very softly spoken, with a tone that has been described as husky, or throaty, or if one wanted to be cruel, a bit raspy. She was well articulated and if pushed, could talk about horses in great detail. But it was rare for her to utter a sound. When she did speak, people listened intently to her, perhaps because of the novelty of the agreeable music or discord, or whatever the listener perceived as issuing from her exquisite mouth.

It is now necessary to speak of Alice’s smile, which illuminated her face and warmed the very cockles of the heart of the recipient. Folk of all ages became instantly enslaved when she smiled, and then waited anxiously for the next smile, wondering if they had done or said something wrong if a smile didn’t appear. Alice had known ever since she was a little girl that she was attractive to men and women of all ages, and used her innate power ruthlessly to get whatever she wished.

It was strange therefore, that although she received such unqualified devotion from all directions, she found it hard to love anyone in return, if one didn’t count herself. Her first love had been a bay horse that her father, who had idolised her since she was born, had given her for her twelfth birthday. Alice had gazed adoringly at the animal and thereafter loved horses exclusively, finding them much more attractive than humans, even including the ones who did her bidding without question. So as Alice the girl grew into a woman, her exclusive love for horses grew and grew and grew.

It was fortunate for Alice, who might have lived a boring life like most of her contemporaries, that she found horses so adorable and discovered a meaning and a focus to her life. But it was unfortunate for a young man, whose name was Boswell, that Alice decided to marry him, it being impossible for her to marry a horse. It was a matter of some academic interest to her family as to why Alice would want to marry, when it was obvious that she could never love anyone. Cynics, mainly Aunt Corrie, said that Alice was looking for a husband because her father was close to retirement and the funds for his beloved daughter and consequently the horse, would soon be drying up.

Anyway, Alice had smiled at Boswell one afternoon, and we all know how devastating a smile can be, at the Scudley Downs County Show where she was showing her horse. Boswell of course, like so many before him, was instantly smitten by her smile, not to mention her large shiny blue eyes that had a habit of getting larger, and he therefore had no chance. He fell in love with Alice immediately; after all he was only a man. His first love had not been a horse; it had been a white girl called Ebony, who we will meet at a later date. He did like horses, but as we shall see, his mild enthusiasm melted away to indifference that would be difficult to measure due to its microscopic nature after only a few days of marriage.

Two weeks after their encounter they decided to get married, just as Alice had planned, and the wedding was scheduled for three months before Dad’s retirement, as Alice was a cautious girl as far as funds are concerned.

At the insistence of Boswell’s mother, the couple were wed in a picturesque nineteenth century church at Davenport, nestling on the edge of Gumtree Gully, seventy kilometres from the state capital. This was the first time that either of the couple had been in a church since they were baptised as babies, if you don’t count the time that Alice reluctantly went to her grandfather’s funeral.

Granddad had died in hospital after eating a heavy meal of steak, eggs and chips, and two helpings of strawberries and ice cream washed down by two pints of Manchester imported ale. Some people, including Aunt Corrie and the relatives from Victoria, said that overeating caused the heart attack, but we would rather say that he was of an age and it was a natural demise.

Alice did not visit her grandfather when he was in hospital suffering from the massive heart attack. She said she hated the smell of hospitals, and anyway the hospital was too far away. Still one mustn’t get too sanctimonious about Alice’s neglect of her dying grandfather, as Granddad’s own daughter Dolly Occlethwaite, that is Alice’s mother, only visited him once. And she didn’t even stay long enough to witness her dad ‘pop his clogs’ as the Manchester saying goes. The reason for Dolly’s oversight in being there for dad’s demise was Bingo evening at Miller’s Bend. She had to leave the intensive care unit early to be in time for the shout of ‘Eyes down’, and it was as long trip. Thursday is topless waitress night at the Miller’s Bend hotel, which is neither here nor there but some of our readers may be interested. So Dolly, like her daughter Alice, missed her father’s trip to the Manchester in the sky. She was of course devastated by her dad’s death, but she did win the ‘Super Jackpot Grand Slam’, which went some way towards consoling her grief.

The time for the funeral eventually came, and a new crisis arrived at the Occlethwaite family. Alice was being obstinate about attending the funeral, as it conflicted with her daily ride on Johnston her horse. Dolly reminded Alice repeatedly that it was her duty to go to her Granddad's funeral, that it was a public event and people, particularly family members, which meant Aunt Corrie and ‘that rabble from Victoria’, would notice that Dolly’s daughter was not there and she wouldn’t have it. Dolly added that she would never speak to Alice again if she disgraced the family, and that Alice was no better than she should be, whatever that means.

This threat hadn’t bothered Alice too much, she just smiled that angelic smile that everyone knew so well and made her eyes go shiny and large, and still planned to go for a pleasant horse ride on the grim day. After all it was her day off from her job at ‘The Fettered Donkey’ a shop that sold horsey things in Mount Puddin. Alice had only had the job a short time and was eager to hold on to it. She had luckily got the job due to one of the staff, a girl called Aria, leaving suddenly after an altercation with Audrey the other shop assistant, over some genuine Australian jodhpurs made in India that were the wrong colour.

Eventually Alice’s mother had realised that as usual, Alice was getting her own way, and once again she had fallen for the old shiny eyes trick. So when she had recovered from the hurt of Alice’s indifference to granddad's death, which must be admitted didn’t hurt all that much, she tried another tack. She said that she would take Johnston the horse away from her and sell him if Alice didn’t do the proper thing and go to the funeral.

It was then that Alice suddenly remembered how she would miss her grandfather and how kind he had been to her all her life. A suggestion of a tear came into one of her blue eyes as she related the time that ‘poppa’ had taken her to the beach, or had it been a day in the country, she couldn’t be sure to be honest. So she happily decided to pay her last respects to the ‘poppa’ who she knew deep in her heart she had always loved, and go for a ride straight after the service. Alice therefore did the right thing as everyone expected she would, except for perhaps her mother and some of the more cynical members of the family from Victoria, including Aunt Corrie who had never been affected by the shiny large blue eyes. So Alice did attend one church service between her baptism and her wedding, to which we will now return.

Alice looked lovely on her wedding day in an expensive white tight fitting wedding gown. There are many brides who may stretch the anthropological bounds of the symbolic wearing of white and what it signifies to its limits, but not Alice. It had taken many afternoons off from work and several loans from dad for petrol, before Alice finally found just the right gown. It was an original, the manager of the wedding gown shop ‘We Can Make Anyone Lovely For The Day’ had said to Alice, then confidentially whispered the price to Boswell, who sat down quickly and was given a glass of water.

The groom paid for the original white tight fitting wedding gown out of his international holiday fund. He had been saving diligently since long before puberty for a once in a lifetime trip to England to see the city of his mother’s birth. Gladys (always referred to as Glad) was a scouse migrant from Liverpool and had told him about the wonders of the Liverpool streets since he was a child. She had raised him with countless tales of the comfortable snug terraced houses, and about the pubs on every corner where there were nightly singsongs around the piano, and everybody was so happy. Boswell, before meeting Alice, couldn’t wait to see his mother’s native land and hear the beautiful sound of the Liverpool songbirds, which his mother had told him contrasted so vividly with the grating sound of South Australian magpies and the very noisy Kookaburras. Nevertheless, love won and he gave up his lifelong dream and got all of his money out of the cocoa tin stashed under the bed and bought the wedding dress that Alice and her mother had their hearts set on. Alice’s mother was already looking forward to the day after the wedding, when she would put the wedding gown into a cardboard box and place it at the back of her wardrobe with a piece of wedding cake and forget all about it, until a possible granddaughter needed it.

On the great day, the vicar stood impatiently waiting for them, as he had a funeral of some importance next on the agenda and was anxious that no confetti was thrown. Two burly gay, rather ugly churchwardens, who stood in as gravediggers at interments and bouncers at wedding receptions when necessary, stood at the ready. If the confetti rule looked like being breached they would leap into action and evict the culprits from the church property.

The funeral that was straight after the wedding was for a well-known councillor who had died of lead poisoning. Some wags in the community said that it was the local Mafia chief who had dispatched him with a symbolic bullet to the head for having it off with a well known Italian’s wife who grew grapes and the odd marijuana plant in Gumtree Gully. The story is not entirely false; although he did not die from a bullet, but from actual lead poisoning, for he was a painter and decorator, he was in fact dallying with the Italian grape grower’s wife, so the gossips got it half right.

But to get back to the vicar. It must be admitted that the vicar had some reason for concern. You see the funeral directorship had just changed hands and the new owners of ‘We Will Bury Your Loved Ones On The Cheap’ had not yet learned the intricacies of delivering dead bodies to the right place at the right time, and had delivered the coffin and its deadly cargo too early. It now sat in the vestry waiting to be sneaked back out into the hearse and arrive all over again before the funeral commenced. Two ladies of the wedding party had already lifted the lid and screamed themselves sick, but were soon put right with a premature bottle of champagne.

This wasn’t the first time that this had happened, that is delivering the body on its own and too early, and the vicar was suitably pissed off. His fine long hair white hair, of which he was justifiably proud, blew in the slight breeze as he impatiently tapped his foot, cursing at the small children enjoying themselves running up and down the gravel path and scampering through the graveyard. The children laughed heartily when a small child fell into the newly dug grave and had to be rescued by an adult.

The vicar saw the bridegroom’s car coming through the church gates, and suddenly turned on his heel and disappeared into his church to check on the councillor’s dead body and make sure the tablecloth was covering the coffin. The two ladies who had inadvertently lifted up the coffin lid an hour earlier were now very drunk, and assured the vicar that everything was all right, and they had lifted up the lid several times to check if he was still there.

Eventually the bride arrived, suitably late, and a small surge of excitement swept through the gathering, as the prospect of the reception food, and particularly the free drink, got nearer. It was discovered later that the bride was late because there was a problem with the expensive wedding gown. It was not tight enough for Alice’s taste and had to be pulled in a little around the bust, waist, and hips.

After the ceremony, it was noted by Kie-Lee, one of the bridesmaids, that the bridegroom looked lovely, and she gave him a very friendly long wet wedding kiss right in front of the whole congregation. Everyone was surprised, particularly Aunt Corrie, who had never kissed a male in her life and that included her husband. The bride was not amused. But did she not let it upset her too much and spent the rest of the afternoon receiving pecks on the cheek and congratulations, smiling her smile with her blue eyes wide. But we can all guess that inside she was thinking about Johnston her horse, and wondering whether she could get a quick ride in before going on the compulsory honeymoon that she was not looking forward to at all, having discovered that she couldn’t take Johnston with her.

The wedding was voted a great success, as most of the male guests got drunk and vomited in the rosebushes, as was usual at weddings. Even the expected fight in the church hall amongst the relatives from Victoria didn’t spoil the occasion, and the ambulance was only sent for twice. In any event Alice and Boswell were wed, and raced off to the honeymoon by way of the stables to check on the horse, who Alice said would be pining for her by now.

The next day the wedding party, except for Alice and Boswell who were honeymooning at an unknown destination, went back to work as used car salesmen, janitors, concrete pourers assistants, feather pluckers, and in the case of the best man and several of the Victorian relatives, dole bludgers. The magic weekend disappeared and the cruel world of reality reared its ugly head. The best man, because he had nothing better to do that day, returned the groomsmen’s baggy striped trousers, frock coats, velvet waistcoats, large cravats, frilly shirts, and ridiculous grey top hats to the firm ‘We Make Gentlemen of You for the Day’ at Scudley Downs. There was some concern over the condition of some of the baggy trousers, which had been worn by the Victorian contingent. But the problem was amicably settled with a few hundred dollar bills which had been contributed by the party from Victoria as was usual when they went to weddings, or for that matter funerals, and ruined somebody’s property.

Before the enforced honeymoon the lucky couple had bought a property in Cowpat Road, so that Alice could be close to her horse. Alice was so impressed with the countryside and the pasture for her horse that she cast aside all doubts about the long drive for Boswell to work and back each day to the capital, where he had the franchise for a fast chickenfeed outlet. The house was perfect, except they had failed to notice the fact that it was facing east and therefore caught the full sun in the morning. This made the heat unbearable, and Alice desperately needed air conditioning for her delicate skin, which Boswell was happy to fork out for.

Life in Cowpat Road was not easy. There were several complications that made Alice’s life difficult. Water, for instance, immediately became a problem for the newly married couple, for there was no mains water. The little water that was caught from the small roof surface to the rain tank was soon used up with the daily Jacuzzi that Alice had to have to ease the pain of riding each day. She could not survive, she said, without her daily soak and a glass of champagne and a few chocolates while she was rinsing. Then there was the septic tank fiasco, but let’s not talk about effluent here; it's not a nice tale.

Boswell worked very hard selling as much fast chickenfeed as possible, so he never seemed to have enough time to put up fences, lay down gravel drives, or collect the large dollops of horse manure that the three horses manufactured with alarming regularity. For yes, there were now three horses to look after, with Alice hinting for another, because three was such an uneven number, and after all there was a vacant stall.

After being thirteen hours away from the property each day, driving and working, Boswell tended to be very tired in the evenings. And there were still the horses to groom and feed and water when he got home, for Alice could get quite fatigued at the 'The Fettered Donkey’, where she worked part time on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings. So Alice didn’t see much of Boswell, and often went to bed early, leaving him any bills that had come that day, and a note about what needed to be done before he could go to bed, and please, please don't wake her up by flushing the toilet.

One Sunday evening, after Boswell had worked a thirteen hour day, cooked the dinner and mucked out the stables, Alice said that she needed some money to outfit herself for the Scudley Downs Country Show. Her clothes were quite slack and not appropriate at all for such an event, she said, and all she needed was a new black coat, new jodhpurs, new boots, and a new cravat. The whole lot could be purchased from ‘The Fettered Donkey’ at discount prices, that is two percent off. But she didn't mention two percent off what, and there wasn’t much change in the cocoa tin where the fund for such things was usually kept. Boswell said that he could possibly work some overtime, but he wasn’t sure how he could fit it in, as he already worked every day of the week. Alice said that if he tried he could probably work something out. And could Johnston the horse have a new saddle etc, as she would like him to look his best for the show. Boswell didn’t say anything.

Alice woke up on Monday, had a coffee and got into the shower, saving her Jacuzzi for later. She brushed her hair a hundred times, just as mother had taught her, slowly and meticulously put on her make up, got dressed and took the horses for their exercise before going for her stint at the 'The Fettered Donkey'. After work she had her two-hour soak, then went to bed with a good book, leaving Boswell his list of things to do, along with a few bills to pay.

It wasn’t until Wednesday that she began to miss him, and being vaguely concerned, rang his parents. Glad, her mother in law, told her that Boswell had gone to Liverpool to walk the streets of his heritage, hear the sweet birds sing and have a good old sing song round the piano at the pub where everyone is always happy. She scathingly concluded that Boswell’s solicitors were arranging the divorce settlement and would be in touch. As an afterthought she said she was surprised that Alice hadn’t noticed that all Boswell’s clothes and Barker his dog had gone.

Barker the dog, not being a horse, had completely escaped Alice’s attention, and in any event was quite small even for a dog, and easily missed. But Alice’s main concern now was how was she going to manage all the horses on her own. And how was she to get to bed early, and who was to do the cooking and the chores. Also there was the country show coming up and her part time wages wouldn’t be enough to cover everything.

At work the next day she complained most bitterly to Audrey and Peter about Boswell and the pickle that he had left her in. As Alice hardly ever said anything at work, they had never heard of Boswell; they didn’t even know she was marred, and they were quite intrigued. They noticed with interest how loud her husky voice was, almost rasping, and that her eyes were quite small and dull now, and they wondered if she had an eye infection.

Alice’s parents, who lived in the capital 50ks away, which was extremely lucky for them, were also informed loudly by Alice in her raspy voice about Boswell’s uncivilised behaviour. But even her father who loved her from the moment that she was born, declined to comment, as he foresaw a resurgence of horsey bills coming his way.

It didn’t take Alice long to get a live in boyfriend, or as they now say, a partner. He immediately bought her another horse to cement their rather sudden relationship, and to bring the stables to an even number of horses. Brent was a Prison Officer at Runalong, the open prison near Scudley Downs. His brand of rugged masculinity was a nice contrast to the sweet feminine qualities of Alice. He was taller than Alice and was well built; he wore one of those moustaches that are often found on police officers and military men, the sort that unkinder people than we say are purchased at the joke shop.

Brent quickly arranged for a teenage boy from Miller’s Bend to do the chores on the property, and a part time cook-housekeeper. Miller’s Bend has been settled since 1820 and was once a prosperous little town, but now its only claim to fame is that its pub has topless waitresses on Thursday evenings, which we have already discussed. It is the only pub to have naked women pulling the beer on Thursday evenings in the whole of Gumtree Gully. But we must not get obsessed with the Miller’s Bend pub predilections, and press on with the story.

It was not long before Alice had another horse, making the number uneven again, and Brent was working double shifts at the nick to keep up with the bills. When he mentioned the quandary he was in concerning the financial situation, and said that the hired help must go because they couldn’t afford it anymore, Alice wept gently into his shoulder, not quite wetting his shirt. So Brent, being only a man, suggested that she give up her poorly paid part time job and spend her time cooking, keeping house and tending the horses herself. Alice took up the offer like a shot.

Like Alice’s errant husband, who was enjoying the scenic wonders of Liverpool, Brent did not see much of Alice. What with the overtime that Brent worked at the Runalong jail, then the chores that he had to do at night because Alice had forgotten to do them, and Alice’s regular need of a long soak and an early night, Brent found it hard to remember what she looked like, and hardly had the energy to try. And like Boswell, he was dissuaded from flushing the toilet in the evening, and encouraged to use the spare bedroom, so as not to wake Alice. And every day there were more bills to pay. And so it went on.

One day Carol, a neighbour, rang the police at Mount Puddin expressing concern about the couple. She said that she hadn’t seen them for a three days, and that she went riding with Alice most mornings, and had waited for her in Cowpat Road today, but she hadn’t shown up. So she had ridden up the dirt road to Alice's house and knocked on the door, but there was no reply. Carol also said the six horses in the stalls were most distressed and needed water. She went on to say that this was the real reason she had contacted the police, her concern for the horses. The police checked with Runalong Open Prison and they said that Brent was on holiday, and they didn’t know where he might be. So the police decided to go to Cowpat Road and have look for themselves.

The two young police officers were happy to go for a ride in the country, and bumped up the dirt road to Alice’s house. The first thing they noticed were the distressed horses, and they immediately gave them water, spoke to them soothingly and patted them for a while. Then Tracy said that they had better have a look around, and they walked around the house twice trying the back and front doors, without any success.

Kim, the male police officer, knowing that his sergeant was not keen on officers breaking into houses, but not wanting to come over as a ‘wuss’ to Tracy, on whom he was very keen, hitched up his heavy belt, with its handcuffs, gun, bullets, capsicum spray and other tools, and taking his baton in hand, he shouted loudly to nobody but Tracy, ‘Stand Clear’ and kicked the door in, after first putting his baton on the ground. They entered cautiously and crept down the corridor shouting ‘anybody home?’. Kim, when he knew Tracy was looking, eased his revolver in its leather holster. They tried every room with no success, even looking on the fridge for messages. The bedroom was the last place they tried; Kim slowly opened the door with Tracy close behind.

The curtains were closed and the room was quite dark; the air was very stuffy and there was a strange smell. Alice lay on the double bed on her back. Her short skirt had been pulled down as far as it would go, but it was still very short. Her beautiful large shiny blue eyes were wide open as if in greeting and her long exquisite blonde hair framed her beautiful face and flowed down to her shapely shoulders. Round her neck was a horse halter tied tightly in a double bow. Her tongue protruded from the corner of her mouth like a long piece of blue rubber. Stuffed in her mouth and held secure by her tongue were several pieces of paper. Scattered all over the bed were more of them - accounts from ‘The Fettered Donkey’ for fodder, reins, boots, jodhpurs, saddles, shirts and so on.

Kim looked at Alice, staggered for a second and went a deathly pale colour. After a moment he rushed for the recently discovered bathroom, from where he could be heard vomiting into the toilet. He appeared in no hurry to get back to the scene of the crime, all traces of his masculinity gone. Tracy sighed heavily, pulled out her mobile and phoned the police station at Mount Puddin.

Brent was apprehended at Mt Grant, right on the border between Victoria and South Australia. Two police officers were walking down the main street eating ice creams and chatting about football. Brent saw them, turned as if to go in the opposite direction, then sighed and turned back again. Straightening his shoulders he walked up to them and held out his hands to be cuffed. The delighted policemen dropped their ice cream cones on the pavement and arrested him. After cuffing Brent they led him to the car, gently pushed his head down and guided him into the back seat.

The driver started the car, then turned around and said to Brent with mild curiosity, ‘Why did you do it Brent? Another bloke? Was she playing around?’

Brent gazed through the window as though in deep contemplation, then said slowly, ‘No mate’. He smiled to himself and looked through the car window for a full minute.

‘It was the bills that did it,’ he finally said, ‘It was the bills for the horses. And that bloody smile, she was always smiling that stupid bloody smile.’

The police officers looked at each other without expression and said nothing. Then the driver turned around and put the car into gear, and they drove away.

Behind them, Boswell gazed in a shop window while Barker licked at the abandoned ice cream cones with great relish.

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