Fallen Petals Read online

  SALLY: What was the second reading?

  FRANZ: It’s fine. Here’s your script. I’ll bulk bill you for this one. No need for your mother to ask questions about her account with us. She doesn’t need to know.

  SALLY: She knows.

  FRANZ: That’s enlightened for this place. I’ll fix up the bulk billing with reception. In your own time.

  FRANZ leaves.

  The space becomes Sally’s room. She holds the script, looking at it. She looks at her upper arms in turn. She peers at every freckle as a potential abnormality.

  SALLY’s mother, MRS WOODS, enters. She is holding a pair of pants, which are inside-out, and is threading them.

  WOODS: Sal, do you want to help me with any of this? Or do you just want to sit on your arse all night? Did you eat?

  SALLY: No, Mum.

  WOODS: Sal, do you want to help me fix up any of the trousers? There’s plenty of trouser work this week.

  SALLY: I’m studying, Mum.

  WOODS: Funny way to study, staring at a piece of paper. It’s only taking-up. Come on.

  Silence.

  What’s got into you?

  SALLY slowly ambles past her mother, out of the room.

  Suits me. Go and study then. I’ll keep the roof over your head. I’ll do the taking-up. I’ll keep the business running. Don’t mind me.

  MRS WOODS finishes mending the trousers. Around her, the setting becomes the school library, for Hollow Secondary’s parent-teacher night. It is large enough to hold a parent-teacher night because there are so few books in the building.

  MR SYME sets up.

  SYME: Is it our appointment now, Mrs Woods?

  WOODS: I brought your trousers in, Gordon.

  SYME: Right.

  WOODS: Don’t pay me here. I’ll put you on account at the shop.

  SYME: How is that little arcade?

  WOODS: Little. Take the trousers then.

  SYME: Right. Sally’s doing well.

  WOODS: Good to hear. What’s she doing wrong?

  SYME: Not much. She’s a very bright student, Mrs Woods. In my Human Development class, well, she is close to excelling.

  WOODS: You’re talking about Sally?

  SYME: Yes. But there’s only one small problem.

  WOODS: Oh.

  SYME: As careers guidance supervisor, I have to check all the tertiary admissions forms—

  WOODS: Tertiary?

  SYME: TAFE and university.

  WOODS: University?

  SYME: Sally hasn’t handed one in yet.

  WOODS: Good girl.

  SYME: Pardon?

  WOODS: Won’t be necessary, Mr Syme.

  SYME: I think it would be a good idea for Sally to pursue some kind of further study. Suited to her needs. Now, the local TAFE offers an excellent—

  WOODS: And how much does that cost?

  SYME: There are reasonable—

  WOODS: Look, Mr Syme, me and Sally, I sat her down two years ago when she talked about uni and I showed her the maths, and she and I came to a decision—it costs too much. She agrees with me.

  SYME: I’m only suggesting that she keep her options open.

  WOODS: We’ve talked about them and there are none. She just needs her Matric.

  SYME: In your day, maybe, Mrs Woods, it was called Matric and that was a big qualification.

  WOODS: In my day? In my day?

  SYME: In our day.

  WOODS: Next time you come to the shop, you’d better pay for those pants. [Preparing to leave] I don’t run a credit company. Just a very small business.

  She gets out of there.

  Still the parent-teacher night. MR SYME is slightly baffled. PHIL enters, carrying some essays. He goes straight up to MR SYME.

  SYME: Hello… is your mum in next… what’s your…?

  PHIL: It’s Phil.

  SYME: Yes.

  PHIL: You don’t teach me.

  SYME: Right.

  PHIL: See this?

  SYME: A practice exam paper.

  PHIL: ‘A’.

  SYME: Where’s your father, then?

  PHIL: Doing a lesson plan for tomorrow. Grief Counselling for Grade Two.

  SYME: You’re the Moss boy.

  PHIL: It’s Phil. Look at this one. What mark does it have?

  SYME: ‘A’ plus.

  PHIL: Pretty good, eh? And this one.

  SYME: ‘A’.

  PHIL: And this?

  SYME: ‘A’ minus.

  PHIL: And here?

  SYME: Eighty-nine per cent.

  PHIL: Now—you tell me to take my fucking head out of my arse.

  SYME: What?

  PHIL: Look at my results.

  SYME: Right. Excellent.

  PHIL: You pull your own head out of your fucking arse and tell me again that I can’t make Commerce or Commerce-Law at Melbourne.

  SYME: They are good practice exam results. And practice exams can be different from the final marked ones. You need to remember, should you not achieve those results—

  PHIL: They are the beginning, you cunt. You call yourself career guidance. You ought to be sacked. I am not some fucking hick with a pointless life full of pointless TAFE to look forward to. Look at the results and tell me again what sort of student I am.

  Silence.

  You’re a cunt.

  SYME leaves.

  PHIL stays. And it’s now the home of the Mosses. GAYLE MOSS is coming home late from working.

  GAYLE: How did the chat with all the teachers go?

  PHIL: Really well. They were a bit put out that you and Dad didn’t go.

  GAYLE: I did tell them. You’re a mature adult.

  PHIL: Yes. I got the practice exams I wrote back.

  GAYLE: Good. What were the comments?

  PHIL: I didn’t read the comments.

  GAYLE: Phil—you ought to read the comments.

  PHIL: The marks are the comments, Mum. I know what I’m doing here.

  GAYLE: Really.

  PHIL: I’ll read you one of my essays.

  GAYLE: Not now, Phil. I’ve just come home.

  PHIL: No. Let me. You’ll like it.

  GAYLE: Maybe later.

  PHIL: It’s not exactly a bedtime story, Mum.

  GAYLE: Look—Vaughan’s mother came into the store today, and it just reminded me what happens with this sickness that’s getting some of the little ones.

  PHIL: What, the parents grieve?

  GAYLE: Phil! Don’t let your father hear you talk like that. He’s losing sleep over this.

  PHIL: And little students.

  GAYLE: Phil, don’t be like that. It’s a tragedy.

  PHIL: ‘Small children come down with a sickness in order to skip father’s boring primary school class, and die accidentally. Is this a tragedy?’ Discuss.

  GAYLE: Phil! That’s rude and unattractive.

  PHIL: I’m better looking than a corpse. Oh—I forgot. This town just loves a little corpse—so sweet, so gentle, so at peace. Pop on a floral arrangement and Bob’s your uncle. Such bullshit.

  GAYLE: Please.

  PHIL: Where’s your sense of humour?

  GAYLE: I saw Vaughan’s mother, for crying out loud, Phil. How do you think she feels at the moment? Try to see it from her point of view.

  PHIL: [squinting] Nup. Not much.

  GAYLE: Phil!

  PHIL: But I can hear an echo when she’s thinking. Not much up top in Hollow skulls.

  GAYLE: You’re not a parent. You can’t understand what it’s like.

  PHIL: Parent?! These parents, these stupid National Party- and One Nation-Liberal-voting cocksuckers complain about money so much that you’d think they’d be happy not to have kids anymore.

  GAYLE: These parents are in agony, Phil.

  PHIL: And the little shits are in more.

  GAYLE: Huh!

  PHIL: Let me read you my essay. It’s about microeconomic reform.

  GAYLE: No.

  PHIL: Oh, come on. You’ll enjoy it.
You can give me comments.

  GAYLE: Phil. I have just come home from work. I have to go to the toilet.

  PHIL: That’s all right. I’ll read it to you through the door. It’s a pisser.

  GAYLE: No, Phil. No.

  PHIL: Big voice, Mum. That’s what you always say. Big voice.

  GAYLE: Let me go to the toilet, Phil.

  PHIL: It’s the economics part of it, isn’t it?

  GAYLE: Phil!

  PHIL: What about my fabulous English argumentative essay? About accepting change.

  GAYLE: No.

  GAYLE exits.

  PHIL: [shouting after her] What’s the matter? Failed hippy parent stuck in the country with a son who can see reality for what it is? Come on! I’m your son. You must have had something to do with it. I’ll shout you the economics essay.

  TANIA is at the tree. PHIL walks to her as she speaks. She is laughing.

  TANIA: Did she say anything after that?

  PHIL: No. But at first I heard her piddling, then I heard her crying. Stupid cow.

  TANIA: Mad cow.

  PHIL: Worse.

  TANIA: Your mum’s all right, though. For an ex-hippy.

  PHIL: Fucking hippies. Fucking Kombi van. You’d think they could get rid of that shit heap at least. Buy something new.

  TANIA: Mmm. I love the smell of new cars.

  PHIL: You can get that smell in a can, apparently.

  TANIA: Really?

  PHIL: Yeah.

  TANIA: And you can spray it on the hippies that pass you in the street?

  PHIL: Yeah!

  TANIA: Fucking hippies. They are so out of touch. When my grandfather came back from Vietnam, he—

  PHIL: Your grandad fought in Vietnam?

  TANIA: Yeah—lost an arm.

  PHIL: Shit.

  TANIA: But when he got back, there was no parade, and just fucking hippies spitting on him in the street.

  PHIL: Wow.

  TANIA: No wonder he got onto the smack. The hippies got him on the hammer.

  PHIL: Hang on. Didn’t he lose an arm?

  TANIA: Yes.

  PHIL: So, if he was on the gear, how did he shoot up?

  TANIA: I don’t know. He taught me how to clean a gun. Could do that with one arm.

  PHIL: Sounds kind of cool.

  TANIA: Scary, more like.

  PHIL: I wonder if the guy who bought this place off us will ever come and clean it up.

  TANIA: He’s from the city, isn’t he?

  PHIL: Yeah. Wanted it for a hobby farm. And weekends.

  TANIA: What a dickhead.

  PHIL: Took three minutes to kill all the sheep. Doesn’t seem like he came back since.

  TANIA: City people think it’s all easy out here.

  PHIL: This guy did, I suppose. I don’t know. Mum and Dad still lost money out of the sale. Hippies in Capitalism.

  TANIA: Hey, mannnn. Like, let’s go to the country and be, like, alternative, man.

  PHIL: Is that the best you can do?

  TANIA: And we’ll, like, wear bells on our toes and plant dope and invite all the dolphins to the river, and we’ll have a, like, dolphin orgeeee. Should shoot the lot of them.

  PHIL: Weak bastards’ll just all die out eventually. Like those stupid little bastard kids.

  TANIA: Sucked up too much dirt and got some Abo curse, I reckon.

  PHIL: Nothing to do with that. They’ve just got no ambition to live. That’s all. How many?

  TANIA: Twenty.

  A petal falls.

  PHIL: No. Twenty-one.

  The lights go out on the two little proto-fascists.

  MALCOLM MULVANEY appears. He is the Hollow Chamber of Commerce President. He motions to calm down a meeting.

  MULVANEY: Order, order. I hereby open this extraordinary general meeting of the Hollow and Districts Chamber of Commerce. It is obvious that we have a small health problem in this area concerning some of the young ones, and that some of us have concerns that this may impact on bookings for the upcoming tourist season. There may be questions from the media. So what I have developed here is a media statement to refer you to. The Chamber exec has developed it, and I think you will agree it is a very fine piece of work. But before you read, I’ll give you the gist. Now, just imagine, if the worst comes to the worst and I have to front some tiny media pack, we arrange this…

  Up comes Malcolm Mulvaney, President, and I say, of course we are worried as locals by the naming of this unspeakable childridding disease as the Hollow Syndrome, and that a drop in bookings may result. But holiday makers should realise that so far no cause has been determined and it is only Hollow children who are affected. The point I want to get across to people is that Hollow is still a bloody good place! There is no reason to associate us with this problem. And we’re working on it. Hollow is your average, fine, typical, relaxing, beautiful countryside town that you can still take the family to. [Sweeping an arm out] See? Even with the drought, it still possesses a stirring and striking Australian landscape. Think, people, of Hollow as being like something out of Seachange, but cheaper, huge industrial potential, and with a picturesque river instead.

  An interruption.

  What?

  He pauses for a question.

  Has there been any metropolitan interest following the report, was the question.

  No. No bites yet. It seems to be going mostly unreported to my knowledge. Which is a fantastic result.

  FOURTH

  At the tree area.

  PHIL and TANIA are lying back, looking up at the tree branches. SALLY is a little bit away from them, holding two twigs, attempting to push one into the ground to make a cross. SALLY is doing this at the mound of petals she stepped on earlier.

  PHIL: [not looking at her] Give it up, Sally.

  SALLY keeps on trying.

  TANIA: Here comes another one!

  PHIL: Who, who is it this time?

  TANIA: Little Simon!

  PHIL: A-ha! Come on, Simon. Down you drop.

  TANIA: Ring-a-rosey!

  A petal falls. PHIL and TANIA jump up and point at it, following its trajectory.

  PHIL: No more school for you, Simon!

  SALLY: You guys are sick.

  TANIA: No, Simon is!

  PHIL: Was!

  The petal is still falling. PHIL and TANIA hold their breaths. The petal lands. PHIL and TANIA burst out laughing.

  Another one bites the dust.

  TANIA: [picking the petal up] Do you want another one for your collection, Sal?

  SALLY: Fuck off.

  PHIL: We gotta relax somehow. Swot-vac soon.

  TANIA: It’s so unfair—

  SALLY: I thought you wanted the exams to come.

  TANIA: Unfair of the kids to die. It’s like they want us to fail.

  SALLY breaks the twig she is trying to push in.

  SALLY: Damn!

  TANIA giggles at her.

  PHIL: ’S all right, Sal.

  SALLY: Gawd, I’m even too stupid to make a marker.

  PHIL: Why worry ’bout yourself so much, Sal?

  TANIA: You’re not stupid.

  PHIL: No… it’s the stupid children you should be concerned with.

  TANIA: The children, the children.

  SALLY: How would you like it if it was you?

  PHIL: It’s not going to be.

  TANIA: Oh, the children, the children. Sing along, everybody.

  PHIL: Oh, the children, the children. We mourn for the children.

  SALLY: Don’t be so mean.

  PHIL: I’m hungry.

  He grabs an apple out of his school bag. He bites into it. He notices that the apple is rotten and spits out his mouthful.

  Oh, that’s disgusting.

  TANIA laughs at him.

  TANIA: And there’s a worm in it.

  PHIL: Oh, Jesus.

  He tosses it at the tree trunk.

  TANIA: This place is so sick it can’t even grow good apples!

  SALLY: An a
pple a day keeps the doctor away, because the worms will eat you instead?

  PHIL: Fuck off. Sally Hick. Hick Girl.

  SALLY: Just because I’m not like you.

  PHIL: Just because you’re a fucking Bush Pig. Oink-oink.

  SALLY: Bush Pigs live out of town. I live east of the shops! I’m not a Bush Pig like those girls at school from Barker. I’m from town.

  PHIL: Hollow’s a town, a country town, all country is Bush Pig Country!

  SALLY: Hollow’s a decent-sized, normal rural centre.

  TANIA: Oh, yeah? How many kids cark it in other regions?

  PHIL: Bring on the statistics. Bring ’em on.

  SALLY: That’s just an abnormality.

  PHIL: Abnormal is as abnormal does.

  TANIA: And what about that dickbrain going on about the effects of tourism and never saying what’s really going on?

  SALLY: They’re worried for the businesses. It’s natural.

  TANIA: Bit of truth wouldn’t go astray.

  SALLY: You can’t take the views of a few Hollow people and say that the whole place is shit.

  PHIL: It’s Hollow’s fault. Something about the place.

  TANIA: Yeah. All those burning mattresses on the nature strips. It’s getting out of hand.

  SALLY: That’s just a couple of hooligans.

  TANIA: Cops aren’t doing anything about it. Seen them watching on, clapping.

  PHIL: And the rocks they piff at the sick kids’ roofs? What about them?

  SALLY: It’s hard not to get caught up in all of it.

  TANIA: Couldn’t get out on the street today. Was so packed.

  SALLY: You’ve got a sickie near you?

  TANIA: Four doors down.

  PHIL: Same. Three doors.

  SALLY: Well, I’m lucky, but there is one around the corner.

  PHIL: It’s the way the crowds mass and salivate. You wouldn’t get salivation in Melbourne. The cops’d do something because of the media.

  Beat.

  SALLY: How many rocks have you piffed?

  Beat.

  TANIA: A few.

  SALLY: Same.

  PHIL: Same.

  SALLY: It’s easy to get carried away.

  FIFTH

  Two scenes run concurrently in this section.

  Right, is Phil’s home; left, is Sally’s home.

  JOHN MOSS and MRS WOODS await their children in their respective spaces. MRS WOODS holds a blanket. MR MOSS wears a pained expression.