Odyssey In A Teacup (8 page)

Yep. I was no longer
virgo intacta
. It happened one Saturday night a month after Glen and I started dating, in the back of his mate’s panel van. I’d told Ralph, Maxi and Vette in advance that this was to be the night. Ralph suggested we all ‘come together’ for a powwow the following morning.

We couldn’t meet at my place because Maxi the floozy/strumpet/
putana
still wasn’t welcome there (Sylvia held grudges, sometimes for years), so we met at a coffee shop at Henley Beach.

Ralph, Vette and I were already seated when the floozy/strumpet/
putana
breezed in and plopped down on a chair.

‘Details please.’ Maxi wasn’t one to waste time on chitchat.

‘Well ... it hurt. But I was like ... that’s it? That’s what I’ve been waiting for all this time?’ I sighed. ‘It was a real anti-climax.’ Uh-oh. Poor choice of words. Ralph’s eyes lit up like two glow-worms.

‘Come again? Oh, wait. You can’t if you haven’t already.’

Both Maxi and I went on the attack.

Me: ‘Wow. Real sensitive, Ralph.’

Her: ‘
You
set us all up for a fall with your bloody Masters and Johnson!’

Ralph: ‘Hey, it’s not my fault if the first time isn’t all it’s ... cracked up to be.’

‘Well, it wasn’t my fault, was it?’ Maxi hit back.

Ralph became flustered. Seems he had forgotten he was her first. He got defensive.

‘It’s only in romance novels that the woman writhes, moans and arches in ecstasy the first time she does it. Masters and Johnson aren’t unrealistic. They show you what’s possible,
in time
.’ He stared at Maxi as he made his point.

‘Er ... how do you know all those descriptions about the romance novel heroine?’ asked Vette.

Ralph faltered. ‘Um, uh ... we’ve talked about it.’

‘No. Maxi, Ruthie and I have. Never in front of you, though.’

Ralph turned red.

‘Ha! You’ve ... blown it, numbnuts.’ Maxi then drove her point home wordlessly:

. A little off-centre, but it was an up yours to he who had his head up his.

‘Glen wants to marry me!’ That defused the tension.

‘Huh?’ x 3.

Vette said, ‘But ... but you’ve only been dating for
one month
and—’

‘I know—’

‘Even if you date him for two years, Ruthie, as if Sylvia’s going to let
that
happen.’ Ralph wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

It was at the tender age of eleven when I started sprouting breast buds that Sylvia issued her decree: ‘You’re not going to marry out.’
Que?
The only form of coupledom on my radar at that point in time was my very first Hestia bra, but her insistence that I end up with someone Jewish always seemed nonsensical, given my childhood environment.

Sylvia and Joe were married in Cairo and arrived in Australia about three years before Myron was born. Growing up, we weren’t exposed to much
Yiddishkeit
(a Jewish way of life). We celebrated Easter, Joe put up and decorated an artificial Christmas tree every year, and one of the strongest memories I have is of him belly dancing around the lounge room to the strains of ‘Ya Mustafa’. Sung in French, Italian and Arabic, it’s a strange love song where the man tells his girl that even though she sets him on fire with a match, he loves and adores her like tomato sauce. According to Glen, we had a love like that (the tomato sauce part. I’m no pyromaniac, but he said I most certainly did light his fire, baby, José Feliciano-style). Isn’t that what every mother would wish for her daughter? Not Sylvia. Ralph had called it right; when Glen and I had been together for two years, she started pressuring me to dump him.

‘You have no future with him. And the longer you stay with him, the harder it’s going to be to remain a good girl.’

That’s a joke, right?
She didn’t flinch, so I guess not. It was, though:

(a) delusional

(b) naïve

(c) tragicomical

(d) all of the above

I’m going for (d). And how did I feel about this?

(e) angry

(f) devastated

(g) worn down

(h) all of the above

(h) had it, but (g) was foremost. Sylvia’s constant carping was wearing me down. She didn’t let up, but I couldn’t yet afford to move out of home. So it felt like there was no choice; I had to end it with Glen. But I wasn’t going to do it over the phone.

We went on one last date and I dropped him when he dropped me off. We were both (f) devastated. And judging by the burn marks he left on the road in front of my house, he was also (e) angry. So was I!

Sylvia was sitting in the lounge waiting for me to come in.

‘HAPPY?’

I yelled it with so much festering rancour she didn’t dare open her mouth. Looks like she actually did understand what a rhetorical question is.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not a good girl. Or a nice one. I’m BAD. And I’ve been bad every Saturday night for the last twenty-three months—across the backseat of Glen’s car, on the front passenger seat, on the beach, and in the toilet of his rowing club! Bad, bad, bad!
I went to my room, slammed the door and lay awake most of the night, crying.

The next morning, (e) was once again at the forefront. When I emptied out my bag, I found Glen’s wallet. I usually held onto it for him when we went out. This time, though, I’d forgotten to give it back and he’d forgotten to ask for it. Serendipity? Maybe. But definitely a good enough reason to call him. We took up again, secretly.

For three months, Glen and I met on the sly. But when he lost his job and a friend of his from the country offered him a six-month, well-paying stint, he took it. He needed to get away (he wasn’t the only one). We kept in contact by mail (he sent the letters to Maxi’s address), until I got a final letter from him saying that even when he did return, he couldn’t do it anymore. Glen knew he would never win Sylvia’s approval. Who could blame him for ending it. It hurt, though, and for a couple of months I didn’t much feel like going out. But I couldn’t get out of going to Zelda’s wedding.

CHAPTER FIVE:
HER BIG FAT JEWISH WEDDING

Zelda had just turned eighteen. I really did not want to go to her wedding; just being around her was intolerable at the best of times. It didn’t help that I was feeling very raw, that my left shoulder had been aching for days, and that Ralph had refused to come to the ceremony. There wasn’t much love lost between him and Zelda, although he wasn’t going to miss the reception. Anything for a free meal. Ralph and I would have to draw on some heavy, mutual propping up at the reception but for now, here I was in the synagogue minus reinforcement. Myron was in bed with the ‘flu. Lucky him.

Norma, Albie, Louwhiney and my parents were seated on the left side of the synagogue at the front. george and simon, both now married, sat behind them with their respective wives, Stella and Miranda. Zelda’s sisters, Mary and Betty weren’t in the bridal party because their relationship with her was strained. Also both married, they were sitting up front on the right hand side of the synagogue with their husbands and children. The first several rows on both sides were all taken, but Sylvia had reserved a space for me. I felt too anxious, though, to be around the crazy relatives, so I sat near the back where it was empty. There were complimentary red kippot (little cloth skullcaps for the men to cover their heads as is the custom in synagogues) placed on the pews, each kippah spaced a couple of feet apart. They were suddenly swept up by an onslaught of guests filing in and filling up the pews all around me. But ...
oh shit!

This was not so much an overwhelmingly large number of people, as a number of overwhelmingly large people! The pews in these rear ranks were now unexpectedly jam-packed with fat. All these guests,
God help me
, were lard-arses! My cacomorphobia kicked in and I began hyperventilating. I needed Ralph; I needed a paper bag; I needed a size E cylinder of compressed oxygen; I needed ... something!

The choice to sit on the end of the pew against the window wall was not a wise one. I was between a megabuttock and a hard place. I couldn’t leave; I also couldn’t stay.

From years of living in a hostile environment, I’d learned that when I was physically cornered with no way out, the only real avenue of escape was through my imagination. Even this can be an obstacle course when it feels like you have a whole village of little Sylvias in your head terrorising and lambasting you.

What to do ... ?

Ralph had told me that deep breathing helped him to relax. It was worth a try. So ...
ooooohm
for six seconds,
wheeeeeew
for six,
ooooohm
,
wheeeeeew, ooooohm
,
wheeeeeew ...
I felt a bit calmer, but the noise was still there. Other stuff started filtering through, too. It was a strange mélange, which included deviant thoughts and the sound of music:
Rain-sprinkled roses, kitty-cats’ whiskers; oeuf, pest! Woolly mitts, creamy ponies; Zelda and Neville having sex; strictly missionary position—he’d be lost in the folds; flying wild goosies, schnitzels ‘n’ strudels ‘n’ noodles; reverse missionary cowgirl position—Neville the noodle would be pancake; screwed, either way; thinking about my favourite things and not feeling so ba-a-a-ad.

It worked. I no longer so felt ba-a-a-ad. Then there was an encore, but it was outside my head, in real time. The organist started playing Wagner’s
Bridal Chorus
, otherwise known as
Here Comes the Bride
.

As kids, we used to sing a parodied version of this:

‘Here comes the bride

all fat and wide

She slipped on a banana skin

and went for a slide

Here comes the groom

thin as a broom ... ’

How prophetic. As the bridal cortège made its way down the aisle, I felt bad again. Here came the three bridesmaids in yellow (looking like a bunch of genetically modified, record-breaking bananas), and here came the bride.
All
fat and wide.

‘Doesn’t she look a vision?’ whispered the woman next to me.

What? Come
on! She weighs thirty stone on a good day. When she’s not retaining fluid!
‘That she does.’ Those words gurgled and drowned in a soup of bile in my mouth. I should have opened this mouth of mine years earlier and put Zelda in her place.
Just once.
Then I wouldn’t have been left with a long-suppressed, smouldering anger that had mutated into cynicism.
Now, I could only watch helplessly as my bête noire lumbered down the aisle in her frou-frou, good girl white gown. Her rolls strained against and bulged over the ruched bodice, the seams of her dress screaming ‘eek, eek, we’re stretched to breaking point!’ And with the frilly, princess ballgown-style skirt, Zelda looked like a sumo wrestler coated in fluffy, whipped egg whites.

Her fiancé, Neville, was fair-haired, tall and ordinary looking. His only real distinguishing feature was a bad case of acne. And like in the song, the groom was indeed thin as a broom, but he wasn’t coming (not till tonight, anyway). He was already there at the end of the aisle waiting for his bride under the chuppah, a silk canopy held up by four poles. The chuppah symbolises the Jewish home to be established by the newlyweds—open on all four sides for hospitality. Neville was beaming as his bride joined him under the chuppah. They stood opposite the rabbi, and because they were facing the congregation, we had a clear view of their faces. Again, I was overcome with a wave of anxiety facing an assailant that always seemed to have the whip hand. She believed it; I believed it.

This time I escaped. I switched off, numbed out until half an hour later when Neville and Zelda were man and wife. One hour after that, I was hovering on the outskirts of a fleshy-peopled foyer at the reception venue, yet again feeling anxious at the thought of either having to stand here alone near this corn-fed crowd, or alternatively, having to hobnob with the rellos. Where the hell was Ralph?

He and Gwen were currently in an off-phase in their on-off relationship. Just as I wondered if he was still sad about it, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and there he was, my knight in shining armour. Literally. Ralph (who might have felt blue) was coated in silver. He was wearing a silver lamé suit.
Sweet Jesus!

‘You like it? I picked it up at an op shop, dirt-cheap!’

Of course. Nobody else would bloody buy it.
‘Did you look in the mirror?’
You’re standing out like dog’s balls!

‘I felt I needed to make a statement.’

Amazing how Ralph always heard what I didn’t say. Clearly, the show pony had blocked the memory of the ‘statement’ he’d made that day six years earlier in Gavin’s Y-fronts, when it wasn’t just the dog’s balls that stood out. Ralph turned away from me, pounced on an hors d’oeuvres tray carried by a passing waiter and grabbed as many canapés as he could hold. And he kept going back for more. And more. And more. Ralph ate like there was a food shortage, shovelling one appetiser after another into his mouth. A variety of good food was like a precious commodity at his place.

It was now time to enter the dining room. Ralph and I surveyed the seating list and were relieved to see that we were at the same table. The names of the other six people at our table were unfamiliar, but it didn’t matter. Ralph’s siblings weren’t sitting anywhere near us. Louwhiney was sitting with simon and Miranda and george and Stella on the opposite side of the room. Miri knew not to seat Ralph with them. Norma would have ensured this because simon hadn’t spoken a word to Ralph for the past two years. At simon and Miranda’s wedding reception, Ralph asked him if he and his new wife would be taking turns to wear the bag in bed (they’re equally unattractive).