Chapter 3: following the Plum

Following the plum


I prefer women to wear tracksuits, so as you can see the shape of their legs better.

pages 106 - 110

Come to think of it theose tartts were always standing around with their legs and mouths wide open. Alice thought that the tart in the mirror looked strangely familiar. She was opening and closing her mouth at the mirror testing out how to kiss. There were those two dirty girls on the bus trip who practised on each other and let everybody know. Alice could not poke her finger at what was wrong there. It was more to do with the fact that they had obviously kissed someone and weren’t stuck with just imagining the act.


Always sit and stand with legs together. Alice had been taught to love skirts, the pretty fabrics and trims, the pockets, the styles. But they were impractical, nethertheless the duchess said that it was improper for women to wear trousers. Then she would be dressing as a man and dangerous messages were often conveyed in that manner.


Oh Alice, such a good girl. Her modesty is unsurpassed, her children all have healthy hair and private tutoring. She is only guilty of re-wiping benches when they are already clean.


Alice felt a curious disjoin between the top and bottom.
The top half was tasting the soup for dinner and pulling her hair out over the children. The bottom half was always running off on some “errand”!


She did encourage the rabbit by resting the tip of her finger on his arm.
Her hair curled up as if it was raining. She felt the breeze slither inside her puffed sleeves and tickle her armpits and her legs involuntarily shuffled outwards a little.

pages 111 - 115

besides . . . . If she said no he was off to dunk his biscuit in another cup


Does it matter how many cups and what sort?


Whenever Alice tried smoking, the caterpiller appeared.


It is the flatness that strikes me, and the simplicity. The blue sky is large with white clouds. It is always the colour that skies should be. It meets a horizon that is below eye level. There are lwns and paddocks all edged with that jolly light blue.
Neat lawns, houses painted bright colours with the trims picked out.
It is clear that if you have not cut your nature strip, that you do not care enough about anything to deserve a job. No-hopers lived in rentals. They said that women who had not stayed at home and looked after their husbands had caused their divorces. Then they began to argue about the right way to make merangues.


“I’m so high!”
It was all very exciting, but then she remembered that she had to fix the leak under the house and buy a new vacuum cleaner.

pages 116-120

“Here you are Bourbon, here’s your second serve of fruit for the day.”
“My name’s Sherry , mum, not Bourbon!”
So difficult to plan for the individual needs of 856 children incorporating the 5 food groups, when you can’t remember their names.


“Dunk yer biscuit”.
“Pass the crumpet”
In the presence of rough company its always nice to raise your little finger.


They all went out one night and the tarts were trying to distract the cat with their cherries.


“Now Now! girls”

It had become a caberat and whilst one of them had become a balancing act, the other gripped his leg. She watched him prolong the evening illustrating his prowess with the stick and balls. It was alarming the way they latched onto him.
“Give me strength”, thought Alice.


Then just as suddenly as it had all begun spiralling out of control, it had spun in the opposite direction.
The rabbit had come past and offered the two tarts a carrot and they had followed him. He had spun some cock and bull story dropping references to cinderella and how late it was and they had fallen in love so eagerly, it was a shame to watch.

pages 121-125

Alice was left alone with the cat who immediatley turned his attention to whatever opportunity remained.



Alice climbed onto the table.
The rule is, you have to have one foot on the ground so it was okay.


Alice followed the plum.
(I cannot describe it in words for you but it was like the plum was moving just ahead of her at the same speed, towards a destination and she following in the meantime salivating and with pleasure knowing that at the end of the road the plum would arrive at his destination and she would arrive seconds later to hungrily descend upon him.)


The cat swirled the record backwards and an overwhelming scent of ripe fruit descended over them, like heavy black curtains at the end of an act.


The next morning the ‘ead was bempty and the petals all amounted to the same thing.
He loves me not.He loves me not.He loves me not.He loves me not.He loves me not.

pages 136 - 140

Then there was a rare moment when the rabbits eyes became a window for Alice to look through. Momentarily she was the voyeur.


At times she felt she had finally made it to tarthood, and then.


She felt like that big shoe that the woman who had so many children lived in. The checks had turned into housing commission tower windows that just went on and on. Wouls there ever be anough housing commission flats. Each window peered into a room full of children with a mother that also looked like another tower of housing commission flats with her own windows that peeked into more families with more mothers who looked like housing commision flats.


They were supposed to be playing chess.
The rabbit and two tarts were all int he sack together.
There was no doubt about what anyone was doing.
“Its your turn rabbit!”
“Ha Ha Ha, he’s been ‘aving ‘is turn all along!”
Alice could only imagine eels ferreting around in the wet riverbanks.


Alice thought that she wouldn’t wear a bra. But that pointed to about the same thing as wearing a bra did.
Reveal your inner wrist. It makes you appear vulnerable and ripe.
Don’t be making gingerbread men or eating onions till you’re at least 25.
Though the caterpiller verbally claimed to be entranced by her capacious white puffed sleeves, he unconsciously pawed at where her nipple raised a crease in her clothing. It was then that she noticed that the caterpiller was left-handed.

pages 141-145

“Would you like the job of cleaning this mess up Alice?” suggested the mad hatter.
“A job will only lead to divorce”, said the Duchess.
Alice faintly remembered getting married. There was a cherry on her muffin. Should she eat it?


Allice looked in the mirror of her patent leather shoes but she could not see what other people saw.

“BUTTONS ARE JUST THINGS TO PRESS!”

“WELL I’LL JUST WEAR NOTHING THEN!”

Alice wondered why white trash was so sexy.
Just a two dollar feather fascinator seemed to stop the rabbit in his tracks.

pages 146 - 150

MIRRORS ARE NOT A GOOD IDEA
THEY MAY TEMPT YOU TO LOOK AT YOUR BODY

Oh my goodness Alice, what happened to you?

A BELT WHILST ATTRACTING ATTENTION, MY THWART AN ADVENTURESOME APPENDAGE

RED JAM .......
Indeed, what had happened to Alice?
The duchess was warning about the dangers of red jam when the Queen took a sudden disliking to her (in one of her moods again) and descended on the Duchess with her axe.

“To the Queen!”
They all believed that they were eating organic food and toasting the Queen, but unbeknowns to them they were drinking the blood of virgins and celebrating the moral decline of literacy and numeracy in the working class and having a mass orgy whilst sitting three feet apart with their legs crossed.
So the Queen chopped their heads off.

The Queen said "Now fix up this mess!"
"What with this red paintbrush?" asked the card.
The Queen was guilty of not doing her own dirty washing and the poor card was guilty of not being able to spin straw into gold.

Where are all the king's horses and all the King's men when you need them?

"Don't hold your mouth open"
But Alice couldn't help but gasp. Surely the duchess had seen that her clothes had gone and that she had had 856 children. So why was the duchess still going on about a slight part in her lips?

Guilty of being Angry
Guilty of adolesence and hormaonal, pre and postnatal depression and saying what she thought, perimenopause, menopause and croniism, and not being serviced.

"Keep your hands clasped!"
"I don't give a rat's fat clacker!"
Guilty of not matching the curtains with the couch.

Get off the table Mabel the money's for the beer, NOT.
Beware of the tongue.
Guilty of tongue in cheek.

pages 156-160

Guilty of not lowering your eyes.

Duchalice, Alicess.
Everywhere they were banging like dunny doors. The bushes were rustling everywhere she looked. "Even though I can't see or hear you, don't think I don't know what yer doin'"
Her lip curled like a moustache. The checks began to swirl and Alice's headband began to fizz and crackle.


Alice : guilty of dismay,
eternal dismay.


Sometimes Alice could hear herself speak as if someone was saying the words.
She didn't even have to think about them, they just came out of their own volition

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Alice thought that she would wake up now.
"Wake up Alice"' she said to herself.
BUT SHE HAD BEEN AWAKE ALL ALONG
Even the checker pattern really did exist and at this moment continued to march on.

and pomegranates with their tight dried clawed ends continued to open themselves up.

162

There is a book version of Alice in Tartland. Please note it is only in black and white. 180 pages, A5 size.
If you want it you can send $15in Australia, $20 outside Australia (which includes postage and handling) to:
Debbie Harman
P.O. Box 111
East keilor
Victoria 3033
Australia
Please specify that you want 'Alice in Tartland" and include your contact details.