OH, NO!

The day was overcast and threatened rain as she boarded the city train from Tempe. She felt extremely happy anticipating a morning of shopping, and proud too, as today she would be spending her own money - money that she had been saving for several months. She had been to the city a few weeks previously looking for a Mothers’ Day present. It was difficult to find just the right present for her mother until she spied a blue knitted twin set in the glamorous David Jones store. It was soft to touch, patterned prettily and a colour that she knew her mother would love and, not only that, but one that she could just afford. While it was expensive, this present was special. This was the first time she was able to buy her mother a present with her very own money.

She sat down and looked out of the window as the train rattled and shook towards the city. She saw the darkening, heavy clouds ahead and thought ‘I’m definitely going to need my raincoat today.’ She always felt very glamorous in this opaque plastic raincoat featuring the latest fashion colour - a watermelon pink, patterned with tiny black raindrops - so much more attractive than the practical ones her mother had bought for school wear. Her mother thought that boy’s black raincoats were more practical and lasted longer than the pretty coloured girl-raincoats. She was envious of the other girls’ raincoats but now that she had left school, she was able to buy her own clothes.

As the train neared Redfern station, the sky opened and rain bucketed down. ‘Time to get my raincoat out in readiness’ she thought, rummaging through her bag. She placed the neatly folded raincoat on her lap as there was no need to put it on straight away. There were several stations to go before Museum station and David Jones. ‘The city smells putrid today,’ she thought, ‘I guess it is the brewery.’

She always hated the smell of yeast brewing. ‘What a disgusting pong - how anyone can drink beer after smelling that sour rankness is beyond me’ and she screwed up her nose. Fellow passengers were commenting on the odour that permeated the carriage and she could only agree with them. The stench was terrible and didn’t seem to dissipate the further away from the brewery the train travelled. ‘Whatever is wrong in the city today?’ she wondered.

As the train pulled into Museum station, she put on her raincoat hoping that the city air would improve, but somehow the malodorous rancid smell only got worse. She thought that she would be sick if the smell didn’t disappear soon. She crossed the road to enter David Jones and thought, ‘That beautiful store with shiny white tiles on the floor, starry lights shining above the beauty counter, and well manicured shop assistants ever so eager to serve, surely will revitalise my sense of smell with their perfumes and scents.’ However, as she entered the store, the suffocating fetid smell was there as well.

Wherever she went, people were pulling faces and moving away quickly. She wondered about this reaction as she got onto the escalators. When her hand brushed her right hand pocket, she felt a small hard lump. A horrible memory flooded her brain. ‘Oh no!’ she thought, ‘I am the rotten stink.’ She felt sick on the stomach. ‘Oh no! Oh no!’ her brain screamed at her and she raced outside to find a garbage bin to dispose of the offender. She wished the world would open and swallow her and the raincoat up.

During the Easter holiday break she had gone fishing with her parents. The weather was mostly perfect except for Easter Sunday. The day was dull and overcast but it did not deter the family from walking along the beach with their fishing rods and raincoats in toe. “This looks like a good bream hole here – plenty of white water on top,” said her father. All three baited their hooks and waded into the water to cast their lines. After half an hour, it started to sprinkle and the raincoats were put on. It was pleasant fishing in the rain and a few fish were caught.

While waiting for the next bite she decided to wriggle her feet in the sand. She knew it was good for the toes, ankles and hips and continued to wriggle for several minutes. Then she felt her toes touch the smooth shell of a mollusc and she knew immediately what she had felt. She picked up the purple-blue coloured pippy and placed it into her raincoat pocket. ‘This will be extra bait when I run out of worms,’ she thought. The pippy was promptly forgotten, never to be thought of again that Easter. The holidays came to a close and the beloved raincoat was neatly folded and packed away.

It was another four to six weeks before the raincoat was needed and during that interval of time that poor pippy had transformed its body into a slimy, black liquid along with an accompanying nauseating, pungent odour. She had to sacrifice her handkerchief to remove the pippy remains from her pocket only to discover that she had only removed the initial cause of the smell. The smell clung to the raincoat. She was shattered as she made her way to the railway station to make her way home to Tempe. She was not only embarrassed and mortified by the odour but disappointed that her shopping spree was curtailed by her carelessness.

Once home, she tried to clean the pocket but no matter what she used, the raincoat’s the sour rankness remained. It had to be thrown away. That beautiful and fashionable watermelon pink raincoat decorated with raindrops remains in her memory and even today, she still thinks of it with many differing and opposing emotions.