Trails in the Dust

by Joy Dettman

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said.

  Little boys ask too many questions. She left Georgie to find replies while she went to the bathroom to move Jim’s showering chair before Trudy or Katie saw it. Move it to where? The library was close. No one went in there. It was Jenny’s workroom, her sewing machines and computers lived in the library.

  She placed the plastic chair beside her original dining table, extended to hold three computers, two elderly desktop models and her laptop – and the hard copy of We’ll Meet Again. She’d been working her way through it, transferring her pencilled changes to the file yesterday morning. She closed the doors on it today and went to her bedroom to dress.

  Block-out lined drapes and tall trees kept that room dark in the mornings. She opened the drapes a crack and peered out. The news of Jim’s drowning would be doing the rounds out there. They’d be discussing him on street corners, in the newsagency, over fences. She loathed the thought of him being today’s news.

  ‘Did you think about that, you fool of a man?’ she asked his wardrobe.

  They had his and her wardrobes. Like most of the rooms, the master bedroom was oversized. She opened her wardrobe to look for widow’s weeds. She owned five pairs of black slacks, a black suit, black sweaters, black shirts. She removed a pair of slacks from their hanger, looked at a lightweight black sweater with three-quarter sleeves.

  She wasn’t a widow. She was an abandoned wife, and the abandoned wife chose to wear blue.

  Opened his wardrobe then. A tidy man, her Jim, trained to be tidy by a dominating sister. His shirts hung on hangers, his shoes were set side by side . . .

  A male voice in the kitchen turned her head. Not Paul’s voice. She heard the scuttle of little feet up the passage. The boys didn’t know Daddy. They wanted Mummy. A moment later fingers tapped high on her bedroom door. Georgie opened it and caught Jenny holding Jim’s prosthesis, a hollow skin-toned shin, a black sock and a shoe still on its foot.

  ‘He took it off,’ Jenny said, offering it as evidence. ‘I helped him put it on after he showered yesterday. He took it off, Georgie, then he rode his gopher out there and drowned himself.’

  ‘Put it away, Jen.’

  ‘He wanted to make bloody certain, didn’t he? He took it off!’

  ‘It was an accident, and keep your voice down. He’s in the kitchen, looking for painkillers. He ran into a tram yesterday and hurt his back.’

  As if Jenny cared about his back. ‘Here’s your proof that it was no accident,’ she said, pushing her proof at Georgie. ‘He came in here, took his leg off and hid it in his wardrobe where I wasn’t likely to see it.’

  Georgie took the prosthesis and placed it on the bed. Jenny followed it.

  ‘I should have known. When we came home from Mary Grogan’s funeral, he told me I could sing Ave Maria at his service.’ She was nursing the prosthesis, polishing the toe of the shoe with her hand. ‘I told him I would if he’d recite Daffodils at mine, and he smiled. I hadn’t seen him smile since Trudy took the boys, but he was planning this then.’

  ‘Put it away, Jen.’

  ‘He took that rotten old grey cardigan with him to mark the spot. That’s how they found him so fast,’ Jenny said.

  The twins were at her door, wanting in, demanding in, demanding Papa and go-far rides. They couldn’t reach the doorknob, and a finger to her lips, Georgie returned to the door to lean her weight against it, just in case they worked out that if one stood on the other, they’d gain enough height.

  Trudy retrieved them. ‘Nanny’s sleeping,’ she said. ‘Come away from there.’

  ‘Her is not thleeping,’ one argued, and behind that door, Georgie flinched. Margot, her sister, hadn’t been able to say an s to save her life.

  ‘They need reminding. That’s all,’ Jenny said as their noise abated.

  No lock on that door, or no key to turn in the lock, Georgie moved a bedroom chair against it. It was weighty enough to slow an intruder. She walked to the window then and drew the drapes wide.

  She was sixty plus to those who counted. Her hair may have shown a trace of silver between hairdressing appointments, but few got close enough to Georgie to see her roots. She could thank Charlie White’s old barn of a grocery store for her unlined complexion. For twenty years she’d worked behind his counter, protected from the harsh rays of Woody Creek’s sun. Life had changed for her the night she’d been dragged out of the burning house bare minutes before the roof fell on her bed. Harry couldn’t get to Margot. She’d died in that fire.

  With the drapes open, the wide window of Jenny’s bedroom offered a panoramic view of the front lawn, the trees, the hedge of rosebushes that perfumed this town in spring. A few were still blooming. A few would continue to bloom until they were pruned in June and July. Like a park, Hooper’s half-acre, well shaded in summer, russet and gold when autumn came, but cold and grey in winter when the last of the leaves fell.

  Winter only two months away, with its brutal frosts and pea-soup fogs.

  That window offered a view of the rusty corrugated-iron fence behind the hotel. Peppercorn trees used to grow there. They’d been removed to make way for six prefab motel cabins. There was an ever-green Vacancy sign on display on the corner of Hooper Street and Three Pines Road. It had a No in front of the Vacancy. Had it been switched on it might have been red. It hadn’t yet been switched on.

  Had those cabins been built two years earlier, that sign might have caught the eyes of a few weary travellers, when to get from Willama to Nettleton, traffic had driven through the centre of town. City engineers and their massive machinery placed the final nail into Woody Creek’s coffin. They’d gouged a connecting road from where old Joe Flanagan’s property ended to where McPherson’s began, giving traffic a direct pathway through.

  They’d put up signs, one pointing left to Town Centre, one pointing right to Caravan Park. During the holiday seasons, cars hauling boats or caravans turned right. The town prospered little from holiday-makers. The caravan park opened its own kiosk during the holiday seasons.

  Jenny’s mind was far away when Georgie took the prosthesis again. This time she placed it out of reach, on top of Jim’s wardrobe.

  ‘Take this for what it’s worth, Jen, but whatever it is that you’re thinking, I’d keep it to myself. Insurance companies don’t pay up on suicides.’

  ‘He had insurance policies for both of us,’ Jenny said, and she was at the door, moving that chair. Georgie followed her down to the library, to the roll-top desk. Jim’s black concertina file was in its bottom drawer.

  Jenny hit her finger while removing the file. The pain didn’t stop her search. She found the policies filed under Insurance, found Jim’s will, filed under Will. If he’d written her a personal note, given his mindset at the time, placing that note into one of those envelopes would have seemed logical to him. She knew he’d left her a note somewhere. He hadn’t been the world’s greatest talker but give him a pen and paper and he’d fill a dozen pages.

  She opened the two policies. No note in either envelope but she found what she was looking for in with his will, a folded, handwritten page. It wasn’t addressed to Dear Jen. He’d left instructions for his executors, information on investments.

  And the name and phone number of a Willama funeral director.

  Her mouth open, her eyes disbelieving, she ripped the page in half and pitched the pieces at the window.

  ‘I stuck by him through thick and thin, and he could go and do a thing like that to me,’ she said, and she was gone, out the side door she slammed behind her. Its glass shuddered in the frame.

  THE HOOPERS

  Georgie picked up both halves of the page. She saw the funeral director’s name, then read the rest while sticky taping the pieces together. Jim had organised his own funeral, had prepaid to be buried beside his parents in the Hooper plot.

  She’d known for years that he’d named her and Jenny his joint executors. They’d need those details, but like Jenny, she couldn’t believ
e the funeral instructions. Vern Hooper and his daughters had dogged Georgie’s childhood. They’d hounded Jenny until they’d got what they’d wanted, Vern’s grandson, Jimmy.

  She’d been seven, Jimmy six when they’d lost him. She could remember that morning. They’d had a killer influenza, Granny, Jenny and the rest of them, and Jimmy wouldn’t wake up. Lorna Hooper had arrived in her car. She’d picked him up and driven him away so the hospital and doctors could make him better. Lorna hadn’t taken him to the Willama hospital. They’d never seen Jimmy again.

  She could remember the day Vern Hooper died. She’d been twelve, still young enough to believe in miracles. For weeks she’d believed that Jimmy’s father would bring him home.

  She’d been eighteen the year Jenny met up again with Jim Hooper, in Melbourne. She’d written to Georgie. Jimmy isn’t with his father. He’s never been with his father. Jim signed him over to his sister Margaret . . .

  Eighteen is old enough to form very strong opinions. Having grown up loathing the Hooper name, Georgie had loathed Jim Hooper. Then she’d met him, and seen a glow in Jenny she’d forgotten, heard the laughter she’d forgotten. Whoever, whatever Jim Hooper was or wasn’t, he’d made Jenny happy – and Jenny hadn’t blamed him. She’d said that he wouldn’t have known what he’d been signing when he’d relinquished Jimmy. She’d said that for years after the war, his family had kept him locked away in private hospitals where he’d been stuffed with pills, zapped with electricity, prodded and poked by enough doctors to put him off the medical profession for life.

  Georgie didn’t doubt that he’d taken his own life, and maybe she respected him for it. This last year it had become obvious that his future would be in a nursing home. He’d struggled to stand – and he’d been wearing Jenny down. At Christmas time, Trudy had spoken about Jenny.

  ‘She won’t let me help her with him. I feel so useless, Georgie.’

  Right or wrong, Georgie believed that Trudy had gone back to Nick so she wasn’t forced to watch her father’s disintegration.

  Hothouse raised, Georgie thought. Overprotected by two parents who’d believed she was Jesus Christ in female form. Raised in this beautiful old house, given an education. Georgie had envied her at times.

  As a tiny kid, she’d envied Jimmy’s studio photograph of his toothy daddy, envied his rich grandfather who’d bought him toys. For a time, she’d envied Margot who’d had no photograph of her father – and hadn’t needed a photograph. The Macdonald twins had lived in Woody Creek. She’d learnt early to pity Margot.

  Only thirty-nine when she’d died, and Georgie should have died with her. For some reason she had been allowed to live. It had taken her a long time to come to terms with that.

  For most of Jenny’s life, she’d been attempting to get out of Woody Creek. Until the fire, Georgie had never tried to.

  It was too easy. She’d got into her ute one day, wearing borrowed clothing, borrowed sandals, and she’d driven away, driven north until she’d run out of north and had to turn to the west. She’d continued driving until she’d found a reason to turn back.

  Raelene, Ray King’s daughter, had petrol-bombed the house. It, or Granny’s ghost, had turned on her. She’d died beneath the roof of the old kitchen. Dino Collins, her bastard boyfriend, hadn’t died. He’d been arrested. Georgie was in Perth when she’d learnt that he was playing possum in a psychiatric hospital. That was the day she’d decided to come home and gain the qualifications to hang him.

  She’d spent five years at university. She’d got her piece of paper then ended up a general dogsbody with a group of solicitors who’d made a name for themselves defending murderers, not prosecuting. She’d been in her forties. The jobs she’d wanted had gone to the bright young men. Not that it had mattered by that stage of her life. She’d been with Paul.

  They’d married a few months before Katie was born. The name on her office door said Georgina Dunn. She didn’t defend murderers. She wrote good contracts, wrote good wills, did a lot of dogsbody work, was used on occasions when one of the big guns needed a female on his team. She would need to call her office. She had an appointment at ten. ‘My stepfather died,’ she’d say. Jim had never been her stepfather but it sounded better than ‘my mother’s second husband’. She’d referred to Ray King as her stepfather – for twelve months – then stopped referring to him.

  Katie’s bedroom door was closed. She opened it a crack, enough to peer into the dark room. Katie was asleep. With luck she’d sleep until midday. The door closed silently, she walked down to the back bedroom she shared with Paul.

  He was awake but still clinging to his pillow. ‘What’s going on out there?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of noise.

  ‘They’re in the kitchen,’ Georgie said. ‘Nick’s moaning about his back and hitting Jim’s pills.’ She offered Paul the envelopes and the taped-up page, then his glasses. ‘He’s organised and paid for his own funeral, in the Hooper plot. Jenny read it and ran.’

  Paul sat up and put his glasses on. What little hair remained on his scalp looked much as it had when he’d gone to bed – grey. She’d liked his eyes the first time she’d met him. He had brown cow eyes. A reliable and patient man, Paul Dunn. He’d needed patience to run Georgie down. She opened the drapes, asked him to put the envelopes into her handbag when he was done with them and to keep an ear tuned in for Katie. Then she closed his door and walked back to the glass door and out into the wind.

  Trees blowing, her hair slapping her face, she held it back while scanning the garden for movement. No sign of Jenny. She wouldn’t have gone far, not this morning. The shed’s back door was closed but never locked. She walked across the lawn to it while branches overhead swayed and groaned.

  Found her, perched on an upturned oil drum, beside a motor mower, her finger in her mouth.

  ‘We’re going down to the hospital. They’ll anesthetise that finger and have your splinter out in a second.’

  ‘It will grow out,’ Jenny said.

  ‘If your finger doesn’t fall off in the meantime. There are things we need to get started on, Jen.’

  ‘He’s already finished them. He made bloody certain he wouldn’t end up buried with me, didn’t he?’

  ‘You’re not dead yet.’

  ‘I wish I was. I can’t do it, Georgie. None of it. I can’t.’

  ‘You can do what you have to, mate. On your feet.’

  ‘Mum!’ Trudy called from the back veranda. ‘Mum. Are you out there?’

  ‘Keep her away from me or I’ll end up telling her it was her fault for going back to her toy boy.’

  ‘You’re all talk and no action, Jen – and we’re going to Willama. Stay here and I’ll ask her to move her car.’

  ‘Don’t! She’ll want to drive me. She said last night that she wanted to say goodbye to her father. I’m not going there with her.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Stay here. I’ll be two minutes.’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said, and she stood. ‘Get my handbag. It’s in my bedroom. Use the glass door.’

  ‘Your car is as blocked in as mine.’

  ‘I’ll get it out,’ Jenny said.

  She’d done it before, had driven around driveway blockages a couple of times. She’d driven around a truck twelve months ago when that chap had been here building the ramp for Jim’s wheels. It meant reversing over a garden bed, making a tight three-point turn on the front lawn, but she’d squeezed out before and would do it again.

  She did, five minutes later. They got away unseen, except by Paul. He watched the manoeuvre from the front veranda.

  Driving was freedom, the drive away from that town was always preferable to the drive home. She didn’t speed, didn’t speak until the Mission Bridge.

  ‘I think of what they did to that little girl every time I cross this bridge,’ she said.

  ‘They’re dead, Jen. She’s alive.’

  ‘Probably brain damaged.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have released her from hospital s
o soon had she suffered any permanent damage.’

  They spoke then of Cara and that night, spoke of old Joe Flanagan, long dead, and Lila Flanagan, Jenny’s dog’s namesake. They were both bitches.

  Jenny parked in front of the hospital and handed her keys to Georgie. ‘Do what you have to while I’m in there,’ she said. Jim’s prosthesis had travelled down on the back seat, in a supermarket bag. He’d look intact when Trudy drove down to say goodbye.

  The original hospital building had been standing for a hundred and twenty years. It said so on a plaque beside the old entrance. It had been extended, the old wards gutted and made new, then extended again. It sprawled now, to the west, to the south, but that old entrance had remained intact.

  *

  A boy doctor shook his head at Jenny’s splinter, then told her to remove her rings, two diamond rings and a plain gold wedding band. They slid off easily and were zipped safely into her handbag before she offered her hand again.

  He didn’t know she was an abandoned wife, and for the time it took to anesthetise her finger, to mutilate her nail and remove that log of wood, she was just another silly old woman who’d been staring at ghosts instead of watching what she’d been doing. She told him about her wood stove. He told her to buy herself an electric model.

  ‘I had boiling water for a cup of tea this morning while the rest of Woody Creek went without,’ she said. ‘We had a blackout last night.’

  He swabbed and bandaged her finger, asked what she’d eaten with her cup of tea.

  ‘You wouldn’t approve,’ she said, and he pointed to a set of scales.

  ‘I’m nine stone,’ she said.

  ‘If you make eight, I’ll eat my hat. Scales,’ he said.

  He didn’t need to eat his hat. ‘I weigh more when I’m wearing my rings,’ she said.

  He smiled and checked her blood pressure, listened to her lungs, asked if she was a smoker – and she was pleased Harry hadn’t rolled her a smoke last night.

  ‘Everyone of my age used to be a smoker,’ she said. ‘Can you hear something going on in there?’