the legend of mz shalot

Mz Shalot lived at the end of the last lane off the main road before the esplanade along the river. In a rambling old white weatherboard house. Just beyond her place is the path to the wetlands. Every day she walked down to the esplanade, along the river, round by the pub and back along Terry Street past the shop and the post office. Except Tuesdays. On Tuesdays she caught the ten o'clock bus to the city. I followed her one day but she just sat in the mall. She always wore her brown raincoat, sensible black lace up shoes, a scarf around her head and dark glasses, even when it rained. Except Tuesdays. On Tuesdays she did not wear the headscarf. The local newspaper reported her missing presumed drowned after the awful floods last spring.

Vicky Court is our local historian. I asked her to do a thingo on Mz Shalot for her history stall at the annual arts and craft fair this year. It keeps her busy. Some people don't like Vicky, they say she is a nosy parker. Francie calls her Victoria. She can't stand her. I like Francie.

Vicky did a thing on old Ted down the road instead. Honestly there was not much to tell. When I asked her about Mz Shalot she said there was nothing to tell. The son she had located was no help.

So I asked around. Phil who has had the local shop for zonks said yes, he knew Mz Shalot. She came to the shop most days. She never spoke, only nodded. He reckoned she lived on baked beans, white bread and bacon. That's what she bought. Tony at the Post Office, cum bank, cum news agency etc, said she had used an old blue commonwealth bankbook like you don't see any more. Her name was Evangeline Shalot. The electoral rolls were no help and there was no birth, death or marriage certificate to be found.

Doris who is ninety this year said Evie Shalot had lived at Pipers End all her life. Like herself. She said she was a silent sort of creature, even at school, without any friends. But she remembered that she had won Miss Australia one year. Or maybe it was Miss Pipers End the year they had the regatta. Francie said she was actually a duchess, had been jilted at the altar in England by a prince or maybe a duke, and had arrived home with twin boys. But she was a queer sort and kept to herself.

No, none of that is true said Betty. She won the lottery the year her mother died. At one stage she went off to America and bought those boys from some orphanage there. She was a terrible mother.

Old Ted, the non-hero of the arts festival history display, said she was a looker when she was young but would't have anything to do with the local lads. She was on herself. Thought she was some lady muck thing.

Rachel, who has just retired from her life long job as the doctor's receptionist , said Mz Shalot was an interesting case. She was related to royalty. When she bought the twins back from France she hinted they were the sons of a prince who met with an unfortunate accident. Come on Rachel. Mz Shalot never got that many words together! No she said. But she did bring them in for regular checks that had to be posted off somewhere.

On the way to the wetlands last week I passed the house. It looks the same. Closed venetian blinds, trimmed grass, one geranium down the side and the rambling buttonhole rose coming through the front fence. There was a car in the drive. I thought he was a shabby real estate bloke so I asked him if the place was for sale. No he said. I can't sell it till she has been missing for seven years. Seven bloody long years. Take a gamble Lizzy, I said to myself. Are you her son?

Well out it all tumbled.

That bloody woman, Victoria something or other, came nosing round after she went missing, but I told her there was nothing to tell.

In a way there wasn't. But in another way there was. This is Philip's story.

His name is Philip Pennycourt. Dr Philip Pennycourt. He had been born a Shalot but changed his name as soon as he grew up. He has a brother named Jason. He is still a Shalot. Their childhood was strange, silent, isolated, and without much comfort. He always thought Jason was his twin. Looking out for Jason has been his life's preoccupation. Jason is two sandwiches short of a picnic. He had looked out for him at school and protected him at home when the welfare called. Made sure he had enough to eat. Though the welfare were mighty helpful at times he said. They arranged a special school for Jason and books and a scholarship for himself.

His silent mother, he said, was a cleaning maniac. She mopped the old wooden floors everyday with an old fashioned mop and wring bucket. The floors were permanently wet and smelt of pine o'clean. When they were smaller she stripped them every afternoon when they came in, tossed all their clothes in the washing machine including the canvas shoes they wore, and put them in the bath tub. Scrubbed them with Dettol. We always wreaked of disinfectant he said. He left home when he turned seventeen and took Jason with him. Worked at night and studied all day. But Jason went nutty and got into heaps of trouble, ended up in court and was committed to the nuthouse. I had seen Jason sometimes when he visited his mother. A big awkward man, lumbering in white gumboots behind her.

When he had waded through all the necessary study, intern stuff etc., Philip said he bought a practice in the Redhills district to be close to Jason. He doctors two days a week, raises miniature pigs and grows organic vegies. He is available for emergencies – both man and beast. Jason was placed in group homes when they closed the nuthouse down. But his brain, what there was of it, is so addled by alcohol that he is now cared for at St Jude's Hospice in the city. Philip visits once a month.

One day he arrived with two old brown suitcases. The only things she left he said, apart from her clothes.

Mz Shalot had been born Evangeline Gamel Pennycourt in 1931. Her father was Gamel Augustus Pennycourt. Her mother was Colette Senne originally from Lyon. At thirty-nine Gamel was expecting to become the 6^th Baron Mulcarster when his brother was dying of tuberculosis. But on his deathbed the dying brother's wife produced a son and Gamel took off to London. Here he met Collete and they were married on 7 December 1904. She was twenty-one and he was forty-one. 

In 1907 they somehow ended up in Australia and bought their block of land at Pipers End. No one knows how. No one knows why. No one remembers. Their only child was born when Colette was forty-eight and Gamel sixty-eight. Colette’s diaries start with Evangeline's birth. Hardly diaries but a starting point.

August 15, 1931 – had the child

January 1932 – Gamel and I look at the child

September 19 1932 – child walked Gamel built fence

January 1937 – child started school at the convent in Singlefield

March 1939 – Sister Evangeline says the child played up in sewing - she is calling herself Shalot

What happened?

Miss Pinner took sewing. In grade three all the girls had to make a sewing bag, embroidering their name in red chain stitch across the blue gingham. Christ they were eight! Check it out - it's in the old Ed Department archives. Evangeline pointed out to Miss Pinner that while she had twenty letters to chain stitch, Sue Kay only had six. So between them Sister Evangeline and the young Evangeline came up with the name Shalot. Six letters. One would like to speculate but come on that's enough poetic licence.

January 1941 – Gamel becomes the 7^th Baron Mulcarster

The 2^nd World War is taking its toll. One Baron down

March 1941 – sailing April 7 - have to take child

May 1941 – Gamel had heart attack. Buried at sea

So that was a bit short for his Baron-ship. But Gamel's death had left his wife and daughter well off. There is a photo of Mulcarster castle, Ireland, in the diary. So now Mz Shalot is actually the Hon. Evangeline Shalot but not a lady. Her mother is a lady.

May 1945 – war ended bonfire down on the esplanade Evie stayed out all night.

I'd like to take a bit of poetic licence with that one.

January 1948 – Evie new bathers for beach girl competition

Oh come on Colette don't tease – where's the photo?

June 1950 – need to go to hospital what about Evie

Lady Colette Edith Senne died 5 January 1951 according to the Registrar. The cause of death kidney failure.

Philip is unable to throw any light on the next twenty years of his mother's life except that old passports show that a woman by the name of Lady Evangeline Pennycourt travelled to Ireland a number of times. So she took a bit of poetic licence with the Lady bit! Maybe she went to look at the castle he said.

The next items of interest are appointments for his mother in 1968 onwards at the Monaster University, medical research department. In fact both he and Jason were born at Monaster and when he looked into it he found they were not twins. Records show in fact they were born eleven months apart, the result of early fertility trials. He presumes he got the gung ho sperm from one of the young doctors while Jason got the short end of the stick from some dead-beat druggie short of cash. Yes they paid them to jerk off he said. That's the way it worked. 

He can shed no light on why or how his mother got into this or who their biological fathers are. Records are absent. He thinks he probably has dozens and dozens of half siblings scattered around the country. So much for the legendary paternal duke or prince, although as he points out one would probably have just as many half siblings. It's why he does'nt have children. Don't talk about the ethics he said – there aren't any.

The rest is history he said. Or not even history. You know the rest. She was such a silent woman. The original environmentalist. Not much of a carbon footprint for eighty years of walking. Off she went. To quote T S Eliot: not with a bang but a whimper.

So there Vicky, there was a story. But Victoria as always, has to have the last word. She has started her story Mz Shalot was an Alien...