Ruby strode to the dairy. Marjorie crept, hunched and timid. Ruby would cast a calculating eye over the industrious beehive, before slipping quickly through the doorway. Marjorie sidled in behind, on the lee side of Ruby and the hive. Into the coolness and austerity of the clean bench and wash trough, and the gleaming stainless-steel strangeness of the milk separator standing in the middle of the room. Ready for action and still not willing to accept its separating days were over. The girls assembled the machine any way they liked. All those gleaming cones and discs and bowls and spouts. The separator would slowly wind itself into life as they cranked the handle, gradually increasing its effort until it whirred and spun under its own generated energy: a soothing, comprehensible energy. The girls would sit then, side by side, against the cool cement wall and watch the machine spin and spin until the separator got tired and slowed and stopped, and once more the only sound was the business of the beehive outside the door. Waiting for Marjorie to come out and face their music. But Marjorie always had Ruby with her. So she was safe.
*
Marjorie and Jesse Mitchell had just begun to join Ruby on the forty-mile round trip to high school when Elise decided to have another go at a flower garden. Not at the front, though. She ignored those gardens with their brick borders and clean-swept paths, waiting as they were for their plastic. This time she attacked the side of the house. Where the bees were.
Marjorie discovered Elise at the kitchen table one morning. She should have been getting their breakfast and seeing about school lunches. She should have been sighing and sipping a cup of coffee and slowly buttering bread. But Elise had more important things to do. She was drawing. ‘This,’ she said, slapping the drawing, ‘will be a rose garden.’ Elise was not hesitant or tired. She was aglow and aglitter. Marjorie’s mouth fell open. A rose garden was too much to hope for. Some geraniums in tins would have done. Elise’s glow enfolded Marjorie like superphosphate for wheat seeds.
‘I will have paths here and here,’ said Elise boldly. ‘The roses will be everywhere. Here and here.’ Elise was stabbing gaily at the drawing. ‘I will have lavender too. And Queen Anne’s lace.’ The kitchen glittered with the brilliant light of Elise’s enthusiasm.
Marjorie was foolhardy. She was swept away. She could see the garden in all its rose-coloured glory. She could smell its rich and comforting delights wafting and lingering in the warm evening air. All that heady purple aroma of lavender staunchly supporting the roses. Marjorie didn’t know what Queen Anne’s lace was but that didn’t matter.
Marjorie could also see that Elise’s planned bit of paradise was close to the biggest and scariest beehive – the one near the dairy. Her joy was not diminished by this either. They would surmount this obstacle, Marjorie and her mother. The bees would get used to it. They could make rose honey instead of onion-weed honey. It was a flawless plan. ‘I will help,’ said Marjorie. And Elise smiled a glittery-eyed and wild smile at her.
Chapter 5
Marjorie stayed home from school after that and helped Elise. They dug and raked and swept. And Elise was alive and burning with energy. Their waking hours were consumed with garden making. They piled red dirt into neat garden beds all over the yard, Marjorie imagining all the while the rose garden to come. Nothing else happened in that house for days and days.
‘Why aren’t you going to school?’ asked Bill.
‘I’m helping Mum,’ said Marjorie.
Ruby gazed at her sister in her strange and penetrating way before walking out to the waiting car and the drive out onto the road to catch the school bus.
The house got messier and messier. The fire in the kitchen stove managed to stay alive by Elise and Marjorie feeding it thoughtlessly and arbitrarily. Meals appeared on the kitchen table in haphazard and ever-increasing absent-mindedness. Which was of no consequence to Marjorie. The weekly washing failed to make an appearance on the clothesline. The copper in the washhouse stood cold. The Simpson wringer washing machine stood idle. The clothesline, with its twin lines of crooked fencing wire propped up with forked sticks, looked on in naked puzzlement at all the garden-making activity over to its left. Elise gaily ignored it. There was too much work to be done in the garden for her to bother with any unclothed clotheslines.
Pa sat at the kitchen table on the first day of action, waiting for his boiled egg and toast and black tea for breakfast. But it didn’t arrive. So he had to make it himself. Burnt toast clumsily constructed and angrily spread with treacle. Black tea slopped into his cup and splashed all over his saucer. Then he stomped out the back door in protest.
Pa stomped back into the deserted kitchen at midday and sat again at the empty kitchen table, tapping his fingers, waiting for his lunch. Elise missed this too, on account of being out in the promised rose garden and therefore too far away to hear. She was high and single-minded, concentrating on the job at hand. Pa was getting hungry. And desperate. ‘Elise!’ He flung open the kitchen window. ‘Elise!’ he yelled again at the bent back busy in the rose garden. ‘It’s dinnertime. Leave that damn fool digging be and get in here and make my bloody dinner!’
Elise looked up at Pa’s angry face framed by the kitchen window. Then she bent again to the garden and called over her shoulder, ‘There’s cold meat in the refrigerator and bread in the bread tin. Get it yourself.’ As dirt flew in clumps and clouds.
Pa gawped and Marjorie went quiet. She tried to blend in with the dirt – a pretty impossible task, but she needed to do something on account of expecting Pa to explode any minute. But he didn’t. He slammed the window shut and disappeared back into the kitchen. Elise had already forgotten him. Marjorie was elated. Bloody cop that, Pa!
Bill must have made the meals. Marjorie couldn’t remember her mother doing anything but the rose garden until that chapter had run out. Elise and Marjorie gardened from early in the morning, when Bill got up to milk the cow, until late in the evening, when Bill came in from the paddock. In the daytime, Elise was outside in the dirt. In the night-time, Elise was outside in the dark.
Marjorie lost count of when she had last gone to school. She could not remember when a roast lamb with vegetables and gravy was last provided. She didn’t care that the same grimy, dusty clothes had not left her skin, day or night, for a now-forgotten number of days. Or that she had not sat in the tin bath in the washhouse for a long-forgotten length of time. Other things were more important. Elise was making a marvellous rose garden, and Marjorie was her right-hand man. Elise couldn’t do without her. They were a team.
But the rose garden exacted things of Elise. It required her to wander outside and alone in the night. Marjorie didn’t mind; she understood these demands, even if Ruby didn’t. Because Elise needed Marjorie. And Elise was glittery, and excited, and full of beans.
Pa was the first to see it. He took a dislike to all that glitter and beans. ‘The woman’s mad,’ he told Bill one night. ‘What the hell are you doing letting her carry on with this rose garden rubbish? She hasn’t cooked anything in a couple of weeks. I have to get my own breakfast, get my own dinner . . . And you’re the one getting the tea – not her. You’re doing woman’s work.’
‘I’ve told you before,’ Marjorie heard her father reply, ‘leave her be. Elise can make a rose garden if she wants.’
‘You’re weak. The woman is supposed to be in here in the kitchen. And you have her running around outside like a madwoman with that damn fool rose garden.’
‘I said, leave her be, Pa.’ Bill’s fist thumped the table. ‘And don’t you ever call Elise a madwoman again.’
‘When are you gunna tell her the truth?’ snapped Pa. ‘When are you gunna tell her this is a fool’s undertaking?’
‘In my own time. And it’s none of your business when.’
‘It is my bloody business!’ shouted Pa. ‘This is my farm and don’t you forget it.’
Now Bill was shouting too. ‘How could we ever forget it? And the l
east you could do is let Elise have a bloody rose garden!’ Bill’s other fist arrived to help with the table thumping.
‘Bloody hell. You know there’s no water on this farm to waste. Not on a damn fool bloody flower garden.’
The argument went on and on. It stuck to sensible things. Like what a proper Mallee farmer’s wife should do. Like waste. Like water. Not about women and their defective nerves. And their words were like water pumping from a broken windmill.
‘Get her back to doing that painting,’ said Pa softly, at one stage. ‘It’s a good smile she’s got on her face when she’s painting. Not like what she’s wearing now. That’s a fool’s smile. And painting doesn’t waste water.’
Marjorie looked at Ruby, but her sister was fast asleep. ‘Ruby!’ she whispered as loudly as she could. ‘Wake up!’ But Ruby didn’t. So Marjorie had to take matters into her own hands. She slid out of her bed and onto the tired lino floor. She crept over to Ruby’s bed and crawled under it. Marjorie kept going until she was stopped by the tongue-in-groove boards of Ruby’s side of the bedroom wall. And there she lay for hours. With the safety of Ruby’s quiet breathing above her. With her hands over her head. Swearing in whispers to the dusty lino.
Pa stomped off to his bedroom. Bill sat in the kitchen, waiting for Elise to come back. Elise roved, euphoric and crazy, glittery and extreme, in the midnight dust, as the magic of Marjorie’s rose garden with its companion lavender and exotic lace from royalty curled up and died in utero. From the lack of a permanent water supply.
Marjorie tried to stay awake to hear Elise come back. Or to hear Bill go outside to find her. But she couldn’t. She crawled out from under the bed in the early hours of the next day and looked at Ruby. But Ruby was still asleep. So Marjorie climbed back into her own bed. She pulled the sheet over her head and put her head under her pillow. And woke to the sounds of Ruby getting ready for school.
‘Ruby . . .’
No answer.
‘Ruby, I’m not going to school today either. I’m staying home again.’
No answer.
‘Ruby, Dad and Pa had a fight.’
Ruby’s back stopped and listened. ‘They’re always fighting,’ it said.
‘About Mum,’ said Marjorie. ‘And Mum keeps going off outside in the dark.’
Ruby turned to face her sister. ‘I know that. She can go outside if she wants to.’
‘I’m scared, Ruby.’
Ruby stared at Marjorie. ‘What are you scared of now, Marjorie?’
‘I dunno, Ruby. The bees? Maybe it’s the bees? They’re very close to where we’re digging the garden.’
Ruby stared at her sister lying there in her bed for a long time. But there were no answers to be found on Marjorie’s bed. She shook her head. ‘I’m going to school,’ she said. ‘You can stay home. I’m not.’ And Ruby walked out of their bedroom to see what she could do about making herself some breakfast, and some sort of school lunch.
Marjorie waited to see if Bill would make her go to school today. But her father didn’t come. She stayed in bed and listened. To the complaining of the verandah boards; the starting of the car engine and car doors slamming; the noise of the car stopping at the house paddock gate, navigating sandhills and corners. She lay there until the sounds faded away.
On the other rose garden days, Marjorie would get up to find Elise already outside. But not today. Today was silent – the day was vacant and deserted. The only activity was the beehive. The only noise was the beehive. Marjorie had no clue what to do. So she sat on the path and watched the house and waited for Elise. Until Pa yelled at her, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, girl? Sitting out there in the blazing sun without a hat on. Do you want to get bloody heat stroke?’
Marjorie looked up through her dusty and sticking-out hair to find Pa at the kitchen window. She squinted up at him from her dirt path.
‘Get in here and out of the sun. Damn fool girl.’ And he slammed the window shut.
So Marjorie straggled off into the kitchen and stood, shoulders hunched and eyes squinting at Pa.
‘Sit down and I’ll get you some breakfast.’
Marjorie slid onto a kitchen chair, but her eyes remained locked on Pa. This situation needed watching. Even Marjorie knew that. Pa never cooked.
Pa got the bread from the bread cupboard, the butter and milk from the kerosene refrigerator, the treacle and jam from the pantry. Marjorie watched and said nothing. Pa hacked and sawed through the bread and speared the hapless crooked slice onto the toasting fork. Marjorie watched and said nothing. Pa flung open the stove door and thrust the speared bread at the Mallee roots burning inside. Marjorie watched and said nothing.
Pa made breakfast with the flamin’ useless toasting fork and the bloody useless bread and the useless flamin’ kettle. He threw the scorched and blackened bread onto a bread-and-butter plate and slammed it down in front of her. He shoved the butter in its paper wrapper and the treacle in its tin and the jam in its jar across the table towards her. Marjorie did not move. She waited until Pa concluded swearing and making breakfast. He sat down opposite her and poured black tea into his saucer and proceeded to slap his blackened and butterless toast with his treacle-coated knife. Pa had his saucer of black tea halfway to his mouth and was readying himself to slurp when his eyes met Marjorie’s. ‘Where is Mum?’ she asked.
Pa put down his saucer of tea with uncommon delicacy. He took his time settling it just right on the bare kitchen table before answering. ‘Well, you could at least flamin’ thank me for gettin’ your breakfast,’ he said. ‘Hurry up and eat it before it gets cold. And don’t you have butter and jam. I’ve bloody told you before about that.’
‘Thank you for my breakfast, Pa. Where is Mum?’
Pa sighed and looked kindly at Marjorie. And she stared back, wide-eyed and terrified. Because a kindly Pa was a most terrifying thing. ‘She’s still in bed. She hasn’t got out of bed yet.’ Pa watched Marjorie for a bit and was relieved to see she remained impassive and tearless. That, he interpreted as a good sign. ‘Come on. Eat up.’ He bent to his own burnt toast and black tea. Marjorie didn’t know what else to do so she ate the burnt toast.
They finished their breakfast in silence. Marjorie cleared the table and stacked the dirty dishes in the dish pan. Pa poured hot water from the kettle. Marjorie stared as Pa took to the dishes with the long-handled wire dish washer with its Velvet soap compartment. ‘What’re you staring at? Don’t you think I can wash a bloody dish?’ said Pa.
No. I didn’t think you could, thought Marjorie. She got the tea towel and dried and put away.
‘I’m going to get the horse and cart and go round the traps now. I’ll be back at dinnertime. Why don’t you look in on your mother while I’m gone?’ Pa’s glance at Marjorie was too close to sympathy for Marjorie to understand. He walked quietly out the back door.
Marjorie waited in the kitchen for the longest of times for Elise to appear. She did all manner of filling things. Marjorie thought if she was full of filling things there wouldn’t be room left for anything else. Like being scared. She filled up the firebox in the stove with Mallee roots. She filled up the coffee percolator with rainwater. She filled up the kettles before placing them on the stove; the tea tin with a fresh packet of tea; the milk jug with milk from the milk bucket; the jam dish with jam from the jam jar. She filled up the wood box on the back verandah. Then Marjorie sat at the kitchen table. She sat with her back to the stove and stared at the hallway door. She had run out of things to fill up. The kitchen helped her then by filling itself up with silence.
But Elise didn’t appear. And the stove ate all the firewood. And the near extinction of the stove told Marjorie she would have to do what Pa said. She would have to go and check on Elise.
The hallway, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity to grow much bigger. Suddenly it was a long and lonely walk down that hallway.
Out onto the front verandah. Over to the flywire door of Bill and Elise’s sleep-out. The house watched Marjorie take her long and lonely walk. The hallway floorboards creaked in amusement at her wobbly, hesitant footsteps. And the front verandah boards squeaked in anticipation of the outcome. Marjorie paused just inside the bedroom door. There was no Elise. Just a lump in the bed facing the wall. ‘Mum?’ asked a tiny voice from the door. Quavery from the effort of the word.
There was no reply from that lump.
‘Mum? Are you awake? It’s time to get up.’
The bed and its contents were silent and still.
‘Mum!’ shouted a crying girl from the door. ‘Everyone’s gone. I’m the only one here. You’re scaring me.’
The motionless lump in the bed sighed. Marjorie ran to the lump and hugged it. And words babbled and toppled out of her mouth and spilt all over that lump in the bed. They were words about Ruby having gone to school and Pa getting her breakfast and having done a bit of digging and stoking the fire and did Elise want a cup of coffee? And about getting out of bed so they could finish the rose garden. Marjorie’s mouth ran out of babble and stopped. She wiped her wet face with her hands. Round and round.
‘We won’t be finishing the rose garden,’ said the lump in the bed.
Marjorie stopped wiping. ‘Why not?’
‘I was foolish to think I could have a rose garden. I’m an utter fool.’
‘But, Mum, you promised.’
The lump reared up from its bed. ‘Promises are made to be broken, Marjorie. It’s about time you learnt a thing or two about life. Hell and Tommy, what in damnation ever made you think we would have a rose garden? For Pete’s sake. Don’t be ridiculous, you stupid child. This house can’t have roses. Now go away.’ The girl stumbled backwards and the lump collapsed back onto its pillow. ‘I’m tired,’ it said and it curled into a lumpy ball and stared at the red dust carpeting the louvre windows.
Marjorie very much wanted to do just what the lump said. She wanted to go away. But how could she? How do you go away when you are on a Mallee farm? You could run for miles and miles and still be on the farm. Away was too far in the Mallee. The thought of running to Jimmy Waghorn’s place had appeal. But Marjorie’s legs had run out of fuel. They didn’t have any running left in them after all this wobbling down the hallway. So she crept back to the kitchen and sat silent and still at the kitchen table. Waiting. Until it was dinnertime, which Marjorie knew because Pa came back. So they replicated their breakfast and had an uneasy dinner. ‘How’s your mother?’ asked Pa over the top of his cold meat and chutney sandwich. ‘Did you look in on her?’
Wearing Paper Dresses Page 7
