Columns from The Weekend West

Ros Thomas 20/09/2014 Ros Thomas 20/09/2014

Along for the Ride

A green speck appeared on the crest of the hill. “Bus!” I shouted to the kids, Small daughter and her brother (plus 4-year-old Finlay on loan from up the road) hopped down from the park bench and teetered on the kerb, desperate to be first to recognise the bus numbers.

“That’ll be the 107,” said a spry fellow who was leaning against the bus-stop, dressed like a man who hasn’t cared about fashion since 1970. Beneath his herringbone flat-cap I noticed the bulbous nose of a man prone to thirstiness. His polyester Bermudas were as short as his socks were long. His cable-knit socks were folded just under his knees, insured against gravity by a pair of elastic garters. I could see the indent where his garters gripped the top of his calves. I hadn’t seen socks like that in years.

Ros Thomas 13/09/2014 Ros Thomas 13/09/2014

Not Yet Booked Out

The sight of so many books made my heart skip. Thousands of them sat pressed together on tables, a sea of spines, filling the University of WA’s Winthrop Hall. A smiling fellow with a silvery moustache stood by the door in a black apron. “Half price today,” he said. “We’re open ‘til 9.30 tonight.”

A hushed crowd inched along the tables, heads bowed over the vast array of titles. I could hear the gentle fluttering of pages, the murmurs of quiet conversations, an occasional soft thud as a heavy book was shut. The ceiling fans circled lazily.

Ros Thomas 06/09/2014 Ros Thomas 06/09/2014

Reality Bites

“I’m trying to get the kids excited about the power of words,” her email said. “They are selecting subjects (for the rest of their lives).”

It was a letter from a high school English teacher, asking if I’d talk to her Year 10s. I cast my mind back to last century and tried to remember being 15.

That was the year I rolled down my camel-brown school socks until they sat like a pair of bagels around my ankles. I thought those bagel-socks made my legs look longer and shapelier. Really, I just looked like someone who needed to pull her socks up.

Ros Thomas 30/08/2014 Ros Thomas 30/08/2014

Shooting the Breeze

I was curious. I’d run past them before, always on a Monday morning. As I hugged the perimeter of my local playing fields, I caught sight of their frolicsome little group at the bottom of the hill. It was barely 7.30am. A dozen middle-aged men and women were silhouetted against a weak-willed sun, lugging strange equipment across the damp grass.

Lolloping past them on my first revolution of the park, I saw that they’d settled into a row of director’s chairs and were strapping their wrists and fitting fingerless gloves. Surely archery’s a summer sport, I thought, but they seemed oblivious to the chill wind.

When I panted by on my second revolution (there’s rarely a third), I saw they’d marked out the range with red flags and were sighting their bows against the targets.

Ros Thomas 23/08/2014 Ros Thomas 23/08/2014

When Darkness Falls

It was the wind that startled me awake. A gust outside the window buffeted the hibiscus against the gutter. The screeching of wood on metal unsettled my ears. A branch thumped loudly and my heart joined in. I closed my eyes, chastised myself for being lily-livered, and tried to summon sleep. It was no use. I was spooked.

I swung warm feet onto cold floor and padded out to the kitchen, catching sight of the oven clock: 05.22. What now?

I put on my running gear and tiptoed out the door. The dark was thick and soupy. I couldn’t see where the slabs of footpath beetled over one another, eager to trip me. My street felt foreign and menacing. Was I stupid to run at this hour?

Ros Thomas 16/08/2014 Ros Thomas 16/08/2014

Long Way Down

I have met my nemesis. The staircase in our house is wooden and slippery. The risers are too steep, the treads too short. I have to be sure-footed to negotiate the niggardly winders that concertina around the 90-degree corner. All three kids’ bedrooms are at the top of the stairs. To reach the summit, I step over a succession of soggy towels, dumped school uniforms and lately, a deflating World Cup soccer ball.

Late at night, with husband away on business, I padded upstairs in my woolly socks to check on sleeping children. Alfie the cat was sprawled on middle son’s bed, creating furballs on my best cornflower blue blanket. (I should have known a stray kitten with a Hitler moustache was going to be trouble). I scooped him up and headed downstairs.

Halfway down, Alfie sensed he was about to be imprisoned in a frigid laundry for the night. Squirming to free himself, he leapt out of my arms. My socked right foot slid out from under me. Down I went, smashing the bony cleft between two dainty buttocks on the edge of the step.

Ros Thomas 09/08/2014 Ros Thomas 09/08/2014

Talking Shop

Grocery shopping isn’t as fun as it used to be. My local Coles is efficient, but impersonal and bland. I hanker for the shopping strips of my childhood, when a tray of fresh peaches smelt of the sun. Mum would test the ripeness of a rockmelon by lifting it up and pressing her nose against the fragrant dimple where the vine once fed the stalk.

In 1975, all the shopkeepers in my suburb knew me by name. Even when Tracy Sabitay and I got sprung trying to light matches in the laneway behind Mr Rudrum’s electrical shop, Mr Pearlman the pharmacist had no trouble identifying us: “Well, well, well. Tracy and Rosalind I see! Shall we put away the matches or shall I call your mothers?”

Ros Thomas 02/08/2014 Ros Thomas 02/08/2014

Yesterday’s News

The three of us, former work buddies, were ensconced in a Mexican cantina in Northbridge. It was so dark we couldn’t tell our duck tostadas from our chicken tortillas. But no-one cared. We were absorbed in a discussion about generations.

One of my girlfriends, a senior executive, was recounting how a week earlier, she’d called an underling into her office for some constructive criticism, only to have the young woman burst into tears.

We two listeners were taken aback: “She cried in front of everyone?”

“Yep! All the girls in the office were hugging her and I was suddenly the Wicked Witch of the West!”

Ros Thomas 26/07/2014 Ros Thomas 26/07/2014

A Wing and a Prayer

It was almost 9am and I’d been on the road for two hours. I’d expected a procession of trucks driving north on the Brand Highway but I hadn’t seen another vehicle in 15 minutes. Had I missed the turn-off to Badgingarra?

I slowed around a sweeping bend and noticed a faded truck, parked on the shoulder of a gravel track. I veered off the highway and crunched to a stop in front of it.

Painted across the bonnet was the slogan: “Alcatraz, the Bird Man.” Up close, the pale morning shadows conspired to suggest the truck was deserted but then a gruff voice came from behind the cabin: “Morning!

Ros Thomas 19/07/2014 Ros Thomas 19/07/2014

For Old Time’s Sake

He’s wearing a pale grey tracksuit with darker cable-knit panels decorating his shoulders like epaulettes. An emergency buzzer is looped around his neck. Dangling off the silver chain is a plastic likeness of Walt Disney’s Goofy, painted orange. His name is Jim. He’s 85.

We’re settled into a small lounge curtained off from the dining hall of an aged care home. A bookshelf is lined with a well-thumbed collection of Robert Ludlums and Frederick Forsyths. Someone has lit the fire in the brick fireplace.