Let me make this absolutely clear, right from the outset; Shelley and I were not drunk when we got tossed out of the Nerrilyup pub. We hadn't even been drinking. Not a drop. Even the friendly - well maybe not quite so friendly, after that episode - publican, he of the unlikely name of Thomas Jones, would have admitted that. Well, as neither of us was quite twenty one, he certainly wouldn't have admitted to supplying us, even if he had supplied us, which he hadn't. Shelley and I don't drink. We don't need to. We can have all the fun we want, stone cold sober.
Thomas Jones was rude enough to say heaven help the world next year, when we both come of legal drinking age. That was not nice, most uncalled for. It really wasn't our fault, and he didn't have to throw us out either. If we'd been two big dumb farmers, loaded to the gills, he wouldn't have dared. I suppose he would have called for Sergeant Blake, our one and only local cop, to do the dirty deed.
Actually Blake was there when Thomas Jones threw us out, and he didn't do a thing. Well, he did. He laughed. That wasn't nice.
What happened was this: my best friend Shelley and I (my name's Jemima, and I shall never forgive my parents that aberration) were spending the night together at our place in town. Her parents and mine had gone to Perth for a bowls carnival, and were all staying with Shelley's grandies. Because she and I were old enough to be listened to when we had made clear our opposition to accompanying them, our parents had graciously permitted Shelley to come in from their farm to stay with me. Her brothers would look after things out there, and were also looking forwards to a night without parental supervision. Not that her brothers are bright enough to think of anything particularly wild to do with their Mum and Dad absent.
Shelley and I are exactly the same age. We were born in the same hospital within hours of one another. Well, that makes her about three hours older than me if you want to get technical about it, but we have never bothered. We went to school together and sat together for lunch every day. When we were both thirteen we had a crush on the same boy, which nearly led to the end of a beautiful friendship. However, when we saw him behind the school toilets smoking and trying to kiss a girl in the class below him (which was the class above us) we decided we had both been silly and he certainly wasn't worth it.
Shelley's got a boyfriend, one of the teachers at the primary school, and she works part time at the one and only bank in town. The rest of the time she helps her mother, who is the town's best dressmaker. Shelley has always had beautiful dresses to wear to dances and cabarets. She says when she gets married her mother will make her wedding dress and I can be her bridesmaid. She gets all misty eyed when she imagines the scene. But I reckon it'll be a few years yet.
As for me, I work in the office at the hospital, but one day when I have saved enough money I am going to travel. I want to see at first hand all the places I am now only able to read about. Last year when we all watched Neil Armstrong stand on the moon I wanted to go out and apply to be the first ever Australian woman astronaut, but that idea went down like a lead balloon with my family, so I suppose that's one place I'm not likely to get to see at first hand. But then again, maybe one day....You never know.
Anyway, back to our adventure at the pub. Shelley and I cooked ourselves tea, which consisted of a pan of risa riso and sausages, followed by icecream. We listened to some records for a while and then decided we would go down to the pub and have a couple of games of pool down there. All we had been drinking had been Coca Cola, and that was all we planned on drinking at the pub.
It was after nine o'clock when we got there. It was a nice night and we walked there as we live pretty close to the pub. Well, face it, Nerrilyup's a little place. Everyone who lives in the town itself lives close to the hotel, and close to everything else as well. Even though it was Saturday night the lounge was not exactly crowded. There might have been half a dozen other people there, mostly locals, including one elderly man sitting reminiscing over his shandy with a lady friend, a peroxided blonde who was sixty if she was a day, so maybe he didn't think of himself as all that particularly elderly.
Shelley and I bought Cokes and sat over near the juke box so we could decide what was going to be played. We had to wait for a little while till the pool table was available and it was going on for a quarter to ten when we finished our first game, which Shelley won. That was only on account of the fact that I accidentally knocked the black ball in on my third shot. I managed to win the second game fairly easily, more through good luck than skill. (Yep, you've got it, she accidentally hit the black in this time. First go, too!) I suppose you can see by this we are not exactly world class players. Although that really doesn't excuse all the nasty comments Thomas Jones made about us later.
So, at five minutes to ten, with the hotel due to shut officially at ten, we were ready for the third and deciding game. I can't say we had attracted any sort of audience; the elderly gentleman with the lady friend had tottered off and the men in the group had watched us playing for a while before gravitating to the bar, where they wouldn't have to watch such a painful scene. At least, that's what one of them said as he staggered past us. Huh! Everyone else had packed up and gone home before closing time. Nerrilyup isn't exactly the Friday night social centre of the wheatbelt. Shelley broke (strictly speaking, I suppose I should have, but she does a better job of it than I do), and scattered the balls nicely. I was sort of hoping she might have accidentally sunk the black first off again, but no such luck. I had a go, and managed to put a small orange one in, so we were away. For once, we played really well, almost taking it in turn to sink the balls. Finally, about ten past ten, when the barmaid in the lounge had finished cleaning the bar and Thomas Jones had stalked in to stand there and glower at us, we were up to sinking the black. Easy, I thought, as I picked my corner and lined it up.
It wasn't easy at all. Just as I was about to shoot, he called out to me to hurry up and I missed completely. (See, so everything that happened afterwards was his fault. If he'd kept quiet I would have sunk the ball and won easily.) I snarled at him (silently) and motioned for Shelley to have a go. She giggled and lined it up just as carefully as I had done ... and with as little luck. Thomas Jones said nothing, just rolled his eyes and leaned on the bar.
I had another try and Shelley had another try, and that rotten black ball was still on the table. It was incredible, after the ease with which we had sunk the others, that one little pool ball would refuse to obey us and dive down a hole. It was also getting a bit frustrating. Having Thomas Jones standing there obviously waiting for us didn't help either. "Come on, girls!" he kept saying. "Get on with it. I've gotta shut the pub, it's after ten o'clock. And you both oughta be at home in bed anyway." His barmaid came out again, stifled a giggle when she saw us still at it, and hurried off. We had heard several cars rev up and depart, and we were still there. I suppose the sensible thing would have been for us just to say we'd leave it at that, but honour demanded one of us sink the black ball. It was more a case of us against it than against each other.
And it stubbornly refused to be sunk.
Sergeant Blake wandered in about twenty past ten, looked at us both and raised his eyebrows.
"What's going on here then?" he asked, as if it weren't blindingly obvious. (No brilliant detective, our dear Sarge). Thomas Jones looked slightly uncomfortable. Well, we were supposed to be long gone out of there. At least he wasn't still serving any sort of drinks, not even Coke. Not that by then I could have swallowed so much as a mouthful of the stuff. Every time I moved, I think I gurgled.
Thomas Jones explained and the cop looked at his watch pointedly.
"Five minutes more. Then out!"
We nodded weakly in agreement. Five minutes? We wouldn't need five minutes. Five seconds ought to be sufficient. It wasn't that hard to sink one ball.
It was.
Thomas Jones had been getting more and more agitated as time passed. Shelley and I were only too aware of both him and Blake standing watching our every move, and so we botched every chance we would normally have been able to take. An audience doesn't usually bother either of us. But, after closing time, having the publican and the local cop glaring at us was not helpful.
At ten thirty five, Thomas Jones came out from behind the bar and marched to the pool table. It was my shot (again) and I was lining it up carefully. This time I was going to sink it.
I didn't get the chance. He snatched up the ball, dropped it into the corner pocket Shelley had been shooting for, and waved his arms at us threateningly.
"Out! Out, out, OUT, OUT!"
We went. We took what little dignity remained to us and stalked outside. Behind us we could hear Thomas Jones and Blake laughing.
I am never going to play pool in the Nerrilyup hotel again.