Free Girl with a Monkey by Thea Astley Page A

Reesing, who it was, declared she was a clergyman’s daughter and extremely “church”. Reesing had fought bitterly with her at their first meeting over the restriction of Catholic pupils from attendance at weekly religious instruction—he was an ardent Catholic—and used to growl about her,
    â€œFace like the back of a Bible. She’s the greatest argument for the celibacy of the clergy that I know.”
    Intuitively the girl and Duffecy each knew the other wished to avoid this meeting, but there was no avoidance, and the man’s button-shaped eyes fell upon her with replete distaste.
    â€œSo you’re off, Miss Ford. I received your letter yesterday. No regrets, I suppose?”
    â€œNo. No regrets.”
    Their eyes met in challenge and held, as they hadmet and held through staff meetings, school council disputes and disciplinary action over pupils. Captiousness without humour made him a dull and tiring opponent, for he could not comprehend any of Elsie’s mischievous fribbling with serious matters and suspected empty-minded flippancy where actually there was merely a seeking of relief from his ponderous approach to the scribblings on lavatory walls, the littering of lunches, test failures and so on. She had at first wanted to be friendly with him, but through some quirk in his nature, some over-indulgence of his self-importance, he antagonized people almost at first meeting. Two months ago, on the night of the show, she had come nearer to intimacy with him than ever before or since. They had come by truck, she and Harry, over roads of powder, rain now being a finished flowering of summer, and, separating from Mrs Buttling’s garrulous relatives, made their way in carefree fashion round exhibits to the sideshow alleys. It was the happiest night they had spent together. In spite of the fact that they found the air too ripely full of dust, almost too personal to bear, they had sucked candy and melted great gobbets of fairy floss in childlike enjoyment. Harry, who was wearing his sleeves rolled up well above the voluptuous blue lady on his upper arm, had just shot his third wooden duck when Mr Duffecy strolled by. His family was not in evidence, and since he looked lost and pathetically out of it all Elsie, with only amomentary hesitation that withered at birth, went across to him, innately friendly. Surprised and genially smiling he was introduced to Harry without seeming to measure him against her. For a few minutes they chatted inconsequentially about the weather, the size of the crowds, and had separated almost on the verge of friendship. Her heart felt gratitude and warmth towards him for nearly a week, but soon the old acerbity, the well-known brusquerie and petty tyranny, were back again, like weeds choking out the life of the rose. Good sense told her that his sense of position would preclude a normal relationship—that of one human being to another.
    â€œYou asked for this transfer, didn’t you?”
    His mouth twisted a little as he spoke, for it did not do a man any good to have his staff trying to get away; head office did not like it. There’d been that business over the monthly lesson notes, too, when the whole staff . . . and Charlie French the year before, and that boy—what was his name? Hillen or something—and that trollop from 6B. His lips curled.
    â€œYes. As a matter of fact I did,” she replied looking straight at him.
    â€œWell,” he held out his hand reluctantly, “best wishes to you, Miss Ford.”
    She took it briefly.
    â€œAnd best wishes to you, too, Mr Duffecy.”
    Never again, never exquisitely again to hear theworn-out amplifier playing Colonel Bogey for the children to march in after recess, torturingly sharpening in semitones as the gramophone ran down and Duffecy, testy and inarticulate, gestured to a class prefect standing by to adjust it; never again to see the dull parades when he harangued the