The Party Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

great.’
    ‘My mother’s there already,’ Gabrielle said. ‘In Heaven. It’s true that everything’s perfect there.’
    Nickie looked at her. She remembered how Gabrielle had talked about her mother being dead, back on her first day at school. How the cancer had eaten up her mother’s brain. How she’d said this as though it wasn’t her mother, as though it wasn’t anyone she’d ever cared about at all. It felt safe to ask.
    ‘Um … if your mother’s dead, how can she tell you what it’s like? In Heaven?’
    ‘She tells me in my dreams. I dream about her most nights, and she gives me all the details.’
    The bell rang.
    ‘It’s neat you dream about your mum, Gabrielle. But you know, it is just dreaming. That’s all.’
    ‘I knew you’d say that.’ Gabrielle laughed. They walked towards the classroom. ‘Dad has the exact same dreams. That’s how we know they’re true.’
     
    When Nickie first asked her mother if she could go to Gabrielle’s place on Saturday, her mother said nothing. This came as a surprise. Her mother always had an opinion on things.
    ‘Well, can I?’
    ‘Who will be there?’ her mother asked.
    ‘I don’t know, do I. Not her mother. Obviously.’
    Joy gave Nickie a look. ‘It’s just that I don’t know them, Nickie. I don’t know Gabrielle and I don’t know her father. You don’t let your kids go off somewhere if you don’t know the people.’
    ‘Sharemilkers are just like us, Mum. They’re human beings.’
    ‘It’s nothing to do with them being sharemilkers.’
    ‘Well, what is it then? Why can’t you just say I can go?’
    ‘You’d better ask your father.’
     
    The next morning, Eugene was out on the farm, and her mother was having a lie-in. Nickie slipped out the door, got on her bike and started out for Gabrielle’s.
    She rode past their own cowshed. Mr and Mrs Janssen were painting the outside of the building. The Janssens had been their sharemilkers for years. They’d come straight from Holland. Her mother loved them; no one worked as hard as the Dutch, she reckoned, they didn’t complain, they just got on with it. Nickie liked Mrs Janssen, but it was hard to have an opinion about Mr Janssen who never talked to her or anyone else.
    Nickie turned down the road to Gabrielle’s and cycled past the Gilberts’ house. Mrs Gilbert was outside her house, hanging washing on the clothes line in the rain. She was wearing her gumboots; underneath the line it was deep mud. The sheets she’d already hung out were so wet they were making the clothes line sag in the middle and they were nearly dragging in the mud. Nickie rang her bike bell and waved out to her. She just stood under the line, holding her big clothes basket, and stared at Nickie. It was nothing personal. Mrs Gilbert did a lot of staring and not much talking.
    Nickie considered Mrs Gilbert to be the most beautiful woman she’d ever known. She looked exactly like Audrey Hepburn — an amazing coincidence because Audrey was Mrs Gilbert’s name. Nickie wondered whether her parents had seen the likeness at birth, and named her in honour of the glamorous film star. It was a waste that Mrs Gilbert was not quite right, Nickie thought. She could have gone places.
    Gabrielle was waiting on the steps at the front of her cottage. She was wearing a mini-dress with purple and green swirls all over it, and white Beatle boots that came up to her knees. When she came close, Nickie could see she was wearing make-up.
    ‘You look amazing Gabrielle,’ Nickie said. She just couldn’t take her eyes away from all the aspects of Gabrielle’s face. There was pale blue eyeshadow on the bottom bits of her eyelids, it was powdery but with little sparkles of silver. Her eyelashes were long and black, and underneath you could see she had drawn black eyeliner, like Elly May in The Beverly Hillbillies . On her lips was shiny orange pearly lipstick, and there was the same colour rouge on her cheeks. ‘Did you do this all