City Hall, Saturday morning, and from home

Hello dears,

IT IS EASTER Saturday and a very lovely day up top, where I have just been taking the air and the sun before visiting the Loo. In King George Square, two musicians are seated on those flimsy, metal chairs that fold so you can stack them along the wall. One musician is playing a violin and the other is pumping away on an accordion.

The musicians are accompanying a group of dancers dressed in special costumes. The male dancers are dressed in white, with bright-coloured banners over the shoulders. There are giant green and yellow badges on the men’s white shirts. The men wear straw hats covered with flowers. They wiggle and turn. Then they shout, jump with one leg lifted higher than the other and then they clap their hands. Some of the men are fat and they sweat in the sun.

The female dancers move less energetically, as ladies present in mixed company are expected to do. As I have said before, the Scriptures in general, and Saint Paul in particular, do point out that ladies in society are not to make a great show of themselves in public places. Oh no, the advice is that ladies are not to adorn themselves with gold and silver, or behave in such a way as to embarrass their husbands. This advice also extends to widows, who are supposed to get married again smartly in order to fit in with expectations. In my opinion, all this advice is not very helpful when all we want to do is have a bit of peace.

I can’t discern whether the male dancers are the husbands of these particular ladies in King George Square. It does seem to me that these female dancers are being quite careful to follow those rules, however silly such regulations are. I’m sure you have already considered this matter, dears, and agree with me. The female dancers, poor things, wear the dull browns and modest greys that look like the scripturally appointed style of dress. However, today they must have been allowed to wear ribbons in their hair and a few pale flowers for decoration. All of the dancers have bells on their ankles. When they turn and jump, the bells jangle like the ones you put on the collars of horses when there is a parade or a special occasion.

At first when I came upon the dancing display, I thought it must be a festival for those who are new in this country. Most Australian men wouldn’t be caught dead in such gear, would they? They’re shorts-and-singlets types, with long socks and shirts for formal occasions. However, I believe these dancers are just part of a quaint private society whose members enjoy dressing up in ancient British get-up. The costumes of the male dancers are unusual to say the least. One man, who appears to be the leader of the dance, is wearing a waistcoat designed along the lines of the British flag, and so I know they are eccentrics. Clearly the ladies among these dancers do not belong in the Loo. They follow the rules of Mixed Society that prevail on Adelaide Street.

TIRED OF THE NOISE and complexity of the dance display, I have once more sought the comfort of our world, dears. In fact, now that I’m down in the Loo, I can no longer hear the music or the noise those men are making with their shouting. No, there is peace and quiet in the Loo. The Tea Counter is CLOSED – as always on Saturdays, Easter or not, except for providing for the Pink Ladies, in private so as not to offend.

Today when I arrived here I was alone, but now several Ladies have joined me, probably looking for a bit of peace in the place provided for them by the Lord. What I saw up there in front of City Hall this morning – and I speak of it only to meditate once more on the Loo – reminded me again of the fact that our Loo is indeed a resting place. I know it would be improper of me to liken it to the Promised Land of the Scriptures. Our place of repose is but a pale shadow of Heaven, and yet for me it is the one spot we can think of as our own, our very own. We Ladies have begun to possess what the Lord has promised. Didn’t He say: Come unto me and I will give you rest? And why do we possess this promise? Because we fear the Lord our God and keep his commandments, not necessarily the commandments of others who have been struck blind, as I have said earlier. Anyone who thinks otherwise of Loo Ladies needs to know what is written on the door of the cubicle I call mine. Scratched into the wood and stark against the otherwise unmarred yellow paint is the question: AND WHO MADE YOU IF NOT THE CREATOR THE LORD GOD OF HOSTS? Underneath is the reply: AMEN, THEREFORE OBEY HIM. No one using that cubicle can fail to read those lines and believe that this indeed is the place the Lord has made.

Alas, the silence here has just been shattered by one of the dancing ladies, who has come noisily down the stairs, the bells on her feet jangling a warning to all of us to leave dancing up there alone. I hope she goes into that same cubicle and is confronted with the facts of the Loo. Only then will she be able to free herself of those fetters round her ankles and live a normal life. We of the Loo do not need bells on our feet, warning everybody of our comings and goings and stripping away our privacy. Neither do we require a tune to dance to, nor ribbons like snakes’ tongues in our hair. No, indeed, we are creatures of quietness and contentment, far from the tempting gaieties of Adelaide Street that cost so dearly when we give in to them. No man can ever make me dance again to music squeezed out of a box; I have the song of Heaven in my heart, and I align my steps to that melody.

I AM SORRY, dear readers, to complain so about the unkindness of the world above on Adelaide Street. In my haste to write this day, I even forgot to tell you what happened when I went to be interviewed as a prospective tour guide. You remember how anxious I was about the appointment and how muddy my outlook, given the wet weather and all, as I left the Loo. ‘I am afraid of the unknown,’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s all there is to it. I’ve blown the whole business out of proportion.’ It was most unscriptural of me, forgetting the Scripture that teaches that the Lord will guide me every step of the way and not let me dash my foot against a stone, or something to that effect. Courage, woman, I chided myself; it’s only a meeting, not Armageddon. I am going to meet someone, that’s all.

So, with soggy umbrella and wet socks, I approached the door to the room where the interview was to take place. As I did so, another lady was leaving that room. She was white-faced. Concerned that she might be taking a turn, or that the interview had gone badly, I asked whether she needed assistance. She shook her head and hurried away.

‘This is a sign,’ I thought to myself, ‘a bad sign.’ Suddenly I did not want to be interviewed by anyone, not least the man in that room from which a dear lady had exited, nearly in tears. Why follow and face the same fate as my predecessor? I scurried back down the hall, hoping to catch the lift before it moved away.

So, dears, I will not burden myself with work that prevents me from sharing time with you. You will remember Mary and Martha, of course, dears. Mary was the more poetic of the two, meditating on the Lord’s Word instead of working in the kitchen. Well, the Lord said that she had chosen the better part, which would not be taken from her. She is the example I follow, and the Lord smiles on me, I know.

Anyway, today is Easter Saturday and I have come here to be quiet, not to be roused as from the dead by horrible jangling bells on fettered feet. Across from me, near the double-pointed sign, sits a Lady with baggy eyes, just like mine. There is a look of quiet ecstasy on her face, as if she too is a refugee from the noise above. Beside her on a chair too high to allow his feet to reach the floor, her little boy is dangling his legs and playing with a fresh tube of toothpaste, which is all you can buy on an Easter Saturday, there being a day-and-night chemist open on Adelaide Street. I am sure the baggy-eyed Lady does not approve of those tarted-up females jigging in the Square. She too has respect for the memory of our Lord’s death, and is one with him in this place where all is normally quiet and well below Adelaide Street. Here in the Loo, we listen to inner melodies that heal the soul but do not jar the ear.

INDEED, TODAY the Loo reminds me very much of a chapel of remembrance. Near the LEFT LUGGAGE sign, there are two niches in which bouquets of orange everlasting flowers stand, eternally, under fluorescent lights that never go out. Once upon a time, when I used to go to that little church up on Wickham Terrace, I would kneel and gaze at the flickering candles. Often I feared that the breeze would put them out and in fact I saw that happen once. How terrible, I thought then, that a soul might be snuffed out just like that. The fluorescent lights over our Loo flowers do not tremble and gasp for air; they have the lasting power of fire that gives light but does not destroy.

Even in our tranquillity, we Loo Ladies have to put up with distractions, however, and terrible rudeness by some not used to this place. I say that now because a Lady dressed in brown and seated opposite me has begun to laugh as she watches me writing. She is probably a spy from the outside, here to make trouble. What has made me notice her is the way she sits crossing and uncrossing her legs as she snaps her neutrally coloured handbag open and shut like a hidden camera pointed directly at me. I suspect she is indeed taking secret photos to sell on the black market to persons with warped minds. People like that make money out of the misery and despair of others. She is a terrible woman, and stupid as well, for spies worth their pay do not attract attention to themselves. I learned that when I once saw a film about the War, and noted it for future reference.

She has just looked at the scales, that brown spy. Just looked at the scales, mind, not used it. Not paid for the privilege. Just stared, balefully, at our scales. I’m sure she has a coin to put in the slot, but is too mean to make a donation to our cause. What a travesty of a Loo Lady she is, mocking those who offer her unhesitatingly the full measure of hospitality in this place. She stands out in her unsuitable dress. It’s brown, like society asks us to wear. No Easter bonnet, either, on that uncombed hair of hers.

OH EXCUSE ME, dears, just when I was trying to decide whether I needed to move to another table beyond the gaze of that Lady in brown, there was a major incident in our Loo. It was so distressing I have had to come home to complete my letter to you. You see, something transformed our peaceful Loo into a place of anguish like unto the horrors suffered by our Lord on the first Easter. Just after I had identified the brown spy in our midst, a Lady in a bright T-shirt, purple skirt and sandals rushed down the stairs and into the Sanitation Area, looking neither left nor right as she sped through the Lounge Area.

It seemed to me this Lady was only in her teens. I did not consider it unusual for a quite young person to come here, but I could not understand why she was in such a hurry. Thinking something amiss, I wondered whether I could help. I left my writing and followed her. In my haste, I noticed nothing particular about the T-shirt but soon was to come face to face with a situation I had never before experienced.

Upon entering the Sanitation Area, I could not find the Lady I had followed, but saw that one cubicle said ENGAGED in red letters. I waited for several minutes. Then I saw the ENGAGED sign turn slowly on its side and the door swing open, inward. A hand reached round it, then an arm and finally a head. It was as if the Lady was pulling herself out of the cubicle by the tips of her fingers, which scratched at the yellow paint on the door. Then I noticed a bandage on that grasping arm, with two strips of tape dangling from it.

Oh dear, she’s hurt herself, I thought, and stepped forward to help. Then I stopped. Her face turned towards me, eyes wild beneath a frizzle of hair. With a jerk of the shoulders, the Lady thrust her T-shirt-covered bosom out towards me: HELL’S ANGELS it said. The lettering flickered red among yellow flames devouring a skull and crossbones, fire shooting forward from those blackened sockets.

‘Who are you?’ the young Lady asked. ‘Have you come to get me?’

I did not answer. I looked away towards the wall-long mirror on the right of the row of cubicles. The Hell’s Angels Lady looked there too. Our two faces floated like pale clouds over the washbasins across the room. Then the image of the Hell’s Angel passed behind me and disappeared. I looked down. She had collapsed on the terrazzo of the Sanitation Area, her eyes sprung open like the crack in the wall of my cubicle. I stared down at her inert form. Then, without taking my eyes from the pile of rags settling into place on the floor, I backed into my cubicle, shut the door and sat down.

It was a while before the Pink Ladies came in to tidy up. Later I went out and washed my hands. I am sorry I cannot say more.

The Lord is risen.

Mavis