Girl with a Monkey

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Book: Read Girl with a Monkey for Free Online
Authors: Thea Astley
drove the mind further than it dared.
    There was the school, the oldest in town, festering with bird lice and blistered paint, where the classrooms in the February days simmered like an oven, or filled up with great sound waves from the phrenetic drumming of the monsoon rains; each class antipathetic to learning and each teacher cowed before the rotund tyrant who guarded each sub-clause of each day’s work. There lay no room for imagination with this inflexible syllabus and none for affection when the entire process of education became a holocaust to the headmaster, who in turn sacrificed it to the inspectorial system peopled by bizarrely ignorant men who knew half a dozen tricky ways of wording a mental problem and all the hardest spellings for children under fourteen. Allunaware, Mr James Duffecy was a root cause for her leaving. Let Harry cross swords with him to prick him with guilt. “Stick to the time-table, Miss Ford,” he had sibilated audibly before the forty blanknesses that were the cream of our youth, before the forty wisely secret smiles that flickered and went out like tiny lamps. She had run after him. “But you’ve made no provision for this topic in my time-table. You insist on my teaching it. When do I teach it?” His walk had not faltered a moment, his fat little godhead strode on to further Jenas, and suddenly, without thinking and with incontinent rage, she had shouted, “We don’t seem to agree at any point. If you would prefer it, I’ll ask for a transfer!” Then she had crashed the door behind her with every atom of power her quivering nerves could apply. That had been three weeks ago.
    Mrs Crozier had been speaking for some time, but Elsie, wrapped in self-pity and retrospective spleen, only caught the word “lunch”. She refused mildly.
    â€œThough I would like to telephone before I leave if I may. My bank-book is mislaid somewhere, and I must find out what to do.”
    Mrs Crozier put on a flapping-brimmed raffia hat, and wandered down into the garden, snipping haphazardly with her shears. Elsie sat on in the big cool house and confronted the telephone with a wry expression.
    Mr Connington’s voice gyrated in a carousel ofwords through climes of austerity and restraint until it familiarized itself as Jon speaking with gratitude and surprise. Elsie deafened herself to these undertones, watched, during the preliminary platitudes, the large bowl of scarlet hibiscus placed with sensibility beneath a print of “Ta Matete”. The decorations of the room were strangely dissimilar. Opposite, mercifully shadowed by the swinging doors, was a browned “Gleaners” cheek by jowl with a piece of most exquisite Swedish glass; next to the telephone table, a wall map of the Ross River mouth and breakwater with the southernmost tip of the island just shown.
    â€œYou’ll have to sign a statement to the effect that you lost it.”
    â€œAll right. I’ll do that.”
    â€œBut do have a good look first. We’re supposed to be extra careful about these things.”
    â€œYes. I understand. I must have at least three pounds seven and fourpence in my current account.”
    â€œNow don’t get bitter.” Jon’s voice became puzzled. “You know how it is and I’m already on the outer with this bunch. I can’t afford to make a mistake, even about three pounds seven and four. That’s just the way it is at the moment.”
    â€œYou mustn’t let the job get you down,” said Elsie lightly. What else was there to say? His stolidity always made her want to meet it with banter.
    She replaced the receiver with a very great feelingof relief, both that the conversation had been achieved and concluded and that she could at least ensure the recovery of the pathetic remnants of her finance. How blatantly she was using this young man! But so had she been used for years, and the resolve only hardened to diorite

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