Cousins

by Patricia Grace

  ‘Bit long in the tooth aren’t ya?’

  ‘Twenty-nine last time I counted.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a girlfriend or a wife?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘No girlfriend, no wife?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Why you been asking her?’

  ‘Seen her on the tram giving me the eye.’

  They all laughed again. At her. She was hot and uncomfortable, wanted to be home in her room where her mother looked down from a photo in a frame, where there was rain paper, a glass window spider reaching its long arms. Tried to think about that, about having a name of her own, about how she’d taken money from her packet to buy a frame for her photo, bought stockings and underwear as well.

  Ada and Daisy stood to meet the old man and woman and two younger ones who had come over, shaking hands, kissing — as though they knew them. Ada got her up to greet them and they kissed her too, but she wasn’t used to it. Then Sonny said, ‘What about me?’ and kissed her on the cheek and laughed. They all laughed and she felt her face getting hot, couldn’t look at any of them.

  Sonny’s aunty and uncle sat down at their table and began talking to Ada and Daisy in low voices in the language she couldn’t understand. And she noticed that as Ada spoke she began to move her head and eyes and hands in a way that she hadn’t seen her do before. Her stern face changed as though it had melted and all the hard lines had been modelled away.

  Then the aunty turned and spoke to them all. ‘We all going up my sister’s place to play cards so come on up.’

  ‘One day,’ Ada said. ‘But we got to take Mata back in a few minutes.’

  ‘Stay there then, drink your tea.’

  ‘And you all go. Another day we come and meet your sister.’

  The air outside was cold after the heat of the grill room, and she held her cardigan close about her. The stores were shutting and people were gathering at the tram stops with their shopping, stepping out onto the road as the trams lumbered forward. Faces were pale under the white-blue light of the street lamps, and the parcels and bags that people held gave them strange shapes as they stood out on the black road. She walked with Ada and Daisy, with his kiss on her cheek.

  ‘So that’s him,’ Ada said. ‘Well.’

  She’d write and tell Jean about it because Jean knew about kissing and going out with boys. When Jean had gone to live with her aunty she’d been allowed to have make-up and nail polish, and could buy anything she liked with her money. She used to dress up and go to the milkbar with other boys and girls. A lot of boys had liked her, taken her for rides on their motorbikes. At church on Sundays Jean would tell her what they did.

  Then Jean had started going out with just one boy called Rick. She was in love with him and he was in love with her, and now she had someone of her own, a baby of her own too. But she didn’t write any more.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about him,’ Ada said. ‘I think you got to be careful about him.’ As though Ada knew him. People always seemed to know things that she didn’t know, seemed to know each other even when they’d only just met.

  ‘Might not be the one for a girl like you,’ Daisy said.

  But who will there be? Who will there be, ugly enough to like or love me, so that I can have someone of my own?

  She opened the door and went up to her room. It was cold. It was Friday night and the weekend stretched out rawly before her. Tomorrow she’d get her work done then sit in the room and wait. Then she’d walk, pretending to go somewhere, returning in time to help with the meals, wash the dishes, scrub and clean. Then she’d come back to her room and think of having someone of her own, with a house just for the two of them — a house painted cream with red window frames and a glass front door. They’d open their gate, walk along their path, unlock their door and go into the kitchen with its floral curtains, green cupboards and drawers, Neeco stove, pots and pans, dishes, cutlery, tablecloths and teatowels.

  In the evenings they’d sit in armchairs with the wireless going. There’d be tasselled blinds to pull down over the windows, feltex on the floor and pale wallpaper with silvery stripes running down it. On one wall would be photographs, one of her mother. She couldn’t think who the other photographs would be of. Anyway there’d be lace curtains at the windows, gathered to the sides and held into place by frilled ties. There’d be glass swans and wooden elephants on the varnished windowsills, a clock and a vase of flowers on the mantelpiece.

  Jean and Rick had a house with a lawn in the front and a yard at the back where there was a garden and a revolving clothesline. They had furniture, some of it new, and they were saving for a washing machine. They would have the washing machine by now, she thought. Sometimes in the letters Jean told her what she and Rick did, what men and women do, but Jean hadn’t written for a long time.

  She knew she didn’t want to do what men and women do.

  On Sunday she would go to church and walk back to Mrs Parkinson’s to spend the afternoon there, and Mrs Parkinson would give her church papers to read. Perhaps there’d be a coat for her. In the afternoon she’d walk home in time to help, then after the cleaning up had been done she’d go to bed and wait for Monday.

  But there were more things now that she could think about while she waited for Monday to come. There was a warm steamy grill room, fish and chips with runny eggs on top, and a kiss on her cheek that no one could take away.

  Fourteen

  Sonny leaned across the table and said, ‘It’s my aunty, always on about it, always nagging.’ Then he continued eating his sausages and eggs, looking about at the ceilings and walls as though he’d lost something there. His eyelids were drooping and he had a beery smell.

  He’d come in late to the restaurant, just as the rest of them had finished eating. Ada and Daisy had gone with his aunty and uncle to play cards, and had told him to walk her home and get her there by quarter past nine. She was uneasy because she knew that if Mrs Baird saw them walking together she’d tell Mrs Parkinson.

  Then she thought of how, for nearly two months now, she’d saved her half-crowns and bought a photo frame, stockings, underwear and a pair of shoes, as well as pies and doughnuts at work and meals at Joe’s. No one had found out. Also she had a brown cardigan, which at first she’d hidden, but had then begun wearing right in front of Mrs Baird, who hadn’t even noticed.

  The Monday after their first meeting in the restaurant Sonny had arrived at the tram stop carrying a parcel. He’d taken her elbow and guided her through the crowd to the middle part of the tram, the place where men and bad women went. But she’d sat down beside him, nearer to him than she’d ever been, liking the smell of smoke and hair oil, liking having someone to sit close to.

  ‘What’s your name again?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Mata.’

  ‘Mata, I got you this,’ he’d said, showing her the parcel.

  ‘What … What for?’ Then he had placed the parcel on her lap.

  ‘Because I heard what that aunty of yours said to my aunty.’

  ‘It’s not my aunty. It’s Ada. She works with me.’

  ‘Gabbing away in their lingo … Open it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Then he’d popped a hole in the parcel with his finger, pulled a bit of the paper away, and she’d seen that there was a brown knitted garment inside. ‘They don’t want you to have a jersey, I give you a jersey,’ he’d said. ‘Go on.’ So she’d begun unknotting the string while he leaned back blowing smoke, one arm stretched along the seat behind her as if he had his arm round her.

  Inside the parcel was a large cardigan, a man’s cardigan, with four big buttons down the front.

  ‘I can’t have it, they’ll see,’ she’d said.

  ‘Hide it in your bag. Tell them that mate of yours give it to you.’ He’d picked up her bag and pushed the cardigan down inside it. ‘And don’t forget. They don’t let you have clothes, I get you clothes. They d
on’t let you have money, I give you money … Gone past our stops you know.’

  That night in her room she’d tried the cardigan on. It was too big at the shoulders but looked all right if she left it undone. The sleeves were too long but she’d tucked the cuffs under and stitched them down. It was nice and warm.

  ‘Yes, my aunty … she likes you,’ he said sawing the sausage. ‘Said you’re a quiet one, said she likes the quiet ones.’

  What if she told him things, talked to him, tried telling him something?

  ‘When I say things people laugh,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know what’s funny … I don’t know why they laugh.’

  He looked at her with his head on one side, put his knife and fork down and leaned forward with his hands on his knees and his elbows poking out. His eyebrows went up and his pink eyeballs popped as though leaning had made them roll forward, then he leaned back, dropping his head backwards, and laughed. She was looking up into the back of his brown teeth and could see the bulge in his short neck riding up and down. It reminded her of the bar on the folding machine. People stared. She didn’t know what was funny.

  He picked up his knife and fork again, grinning down onto the food, looked up and caught the eye of the waitress and asked for tea and bread. He put his head back and laughed again. The room was filling with people as it neared shop closing time.

  ‘I have to go. In a minute I have to …’ she said.

  He stopped laughing and began eating again. ‘Time I got married, she reckons. Reckons I got to get married, too much on the loose.’

  There was tea and bread there for both of them and he poured tea, slid the plate of bread towards her. ‘That’s what the old lady said. Hmm. So what do you reckon?’ But she couldn’t think of anything to say, thought she was being asked a question but wasn’t sure what, so she just ate some of the bread and drank her tea, quickly because it was getting late. He was swishing bread round the plate mopping up tomato sauce and gravy and she stood to go. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘Put you on a tram and you’ll get back in time, easy.’

  As they walked along the footpath he said again, ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Sometimes people say things to me and I don’t know what they say.’

  ‘About you and me getting hitched.’ She knew it meant married. He went out on to the road looking to see the number of the tram that was coming then returned to the footpath. ‘So what do you reckon?’

  It wasn’t her tram and she was going to be late, but what did it matter because she was going to get married and have someone of her own — if she could, if Mrs Parkinson would let her.

  ‘Yes, but I won’t be allowed,’ she said. She walked out on to the road as the next tram came to a stop. He went with her to the step.

  ‘Says who?’ he said stepping back, and then he called, ‘I’ll get a ring. Aunty said I got to get a ring.’ He was laughing but she didn’t know what was funny. It made people stare.

  Fifteen

  Ada went with her to tell Mrs Parkinson that she wanted to get married. ‘That’ll have to wait,’ Mrs Parkinson said, ‘until she’s free to do as she pleases.’

  ‘Early next year,’ Ada said, ‘would be a good time.’

  ‘It won’t be possible unless she is to marry someone of means,’ Mrs Parkinson said. ‘She has debts, you know.’

  ‘How much?’ Ada asked.

  ‘All these years I’ve been trying to make good from bad, and this is the thanks I get. Her mother was bad and her father told lies, but I did my best no matter how bad the blood.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I’m her guardian until she’s twenty-one. By then it’ll all be paid.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred and five pounds.’

  ‘She’s coming to live with me …’

  ‘I am her legal guardian, I’ll have you know, and I won’t have the likes of you …’

  ‘She’s coming to live with me. In three months the money’ll be paid.’

  Mrs Parkinson hesitated, shifted her eyes. ‘I doubt that. It’s easier said than done.’

  ‘We’ll give you thirty-five pounds now and twenty-five a month.’ Ada opened her handbag and took a purse from it.

  ‘Hmm. Well, we’ll see … All right, I’ll give you three months then we’ll see. If it’s all paid up I wash my hands of everything. After that don’t expect a thing after all I’ve done. After that don’t come running to me about any wedding.’

  The two of them walked solemnly along the path, clicked the gate behind them and then Ada leaned on a lamp post and laughed. She laughed so hard that her eyes watered and she took her hanky out of her sleeve, wiped her eyes and blew her nose saying, ‘She only has to get paid. It was only easy, she only has to get paid.’ It seemed to be the funniest thing in the world.

  After that they went back to the boarding house to get her belongings. ‘I’ve asked my niece to come and stay with me now,’ Ada said to Mrs Baird. ‘We’ve come for her things.’

  ‘I’m sorry but you can’t come in here like this taking my boarder away,’ Mrs Baird said. ‘She’s got a guardian, I’ll have you know. Nothing to do with you. It’s her guardian who arranged for her to stay here.’

  ‘We’ve been to see Mrs Parkinson,’ Ada said.

  ‘How am I to believe that? Mrs Parkinson said nothing to me. There’s work to do here and you can’t just come here taking my worker away. You can leave her things here until I say so, until Mrs Parkinson gets in touch and tells me herself.’

  ‘You could phone her,’ Ada said.

  There was something about Ada that made Mrs Baird nervous. She dropped a fork in the sink and went to the telephone.

  When she returned she said, ‘Mrs Parkinson said she’s got someone else for me if you can leave May here until Friday.’

  ‘We’ll go now,’ Ada said.

  From Ada’s they could walk to work and home again. For the first few days they went together to the tram stop after work to see Sonny, to tell him why she wouldn’t be travelling on the tram any more, but he wasn’t there. On the Friday they went to Joe’s and he wasn’t there either, neither was his family.

  ‘Someone must’ve died,’ Ada said.

  For a moment Mata thought Ada was saying Sonny had died. She didn’t ask Ada what she meant, but thought she mightn’t ever see Sonny again.

  At first it was strange to have money of her own. Ada told her to save it all and at the end of each month she’d have enough to pay Mrs Parkinson. ‘You don’t need to pay any board,’ Ada said, ‘and you don’t need any tram fare. When you’re all squared up, then we’ll see.’

  It was a month before she saw Sonny. He’d been away to a funeral and had decided to stay on a while. On his return he found that he’d lost his job at the meat works, but he’d gone down to the wharf and got work there without any trouble.

  The story that Ada told about the two of them going to Mrs Parkinson made them all laugh, and their laughter had made her laugh too. She wasn’t used to laughing, felt uncomfortable when the other people in the restaurant turned to look at them.

  ‘I got you this,’ Sonny said, putting his hand up his sleeve and producing a watch as though he was a magician. It was a man’s watch with an expanding strap.

  ‘Looks like a hot potato,’ Daisy said. ‘You been perking?’

  ‘Got it from a mate, just helping a mate out.’

  ‘Pull the other leg.’

  ‘Nah, true. My mate had a bad accident. Fell down the hold this morning and busted his legs and arms and cracked his head open. Laying there nearly dead and he says, “Get these watches off me before the Zambucks come.” We looked on his arms and he’s got five up one arm, five up the other, all the same, like that one. So we got them off him … just helping.’

  At the end of each month she took the money to Mrs Parkinson, and on the day of the last payment, even though Ada wasn’t there with her to help her feel brave, she asked Mrs Parkinson for the papers.

  ‘Wh
at papers?’ Mrs Parkinson asked.

  ‘That could be about my mother and me.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ she’d said. Then she’d gone to a drawer, taken out an envelope and handed it to her. ‘Here, take this. It’s the paper and the birth certificate, and then I can wash my hands of everything.’

  In the envelope was a document of guardianship and a birth certificate. Also there was an old letter from her grandmother: ‘I am answering your question about the land. It is our family land and the children inherit it when it is their turn for it. There is land here for my daughter who is deceased, the one who is the mother of Mata. Our granddaughter can come here at any time you allow. But the land can only come to her when she is freely our own, when she is freely our daughter and not her father’s daughter or someone else’s daughter. That is because the land must not be taken away. Yours sincerely, Keita Pairama, grandmother of Mata Pairama.’

  She undid the back of the photograph, put the birth certificate and the letter in between two pieces of the backing cardboard and did it up again. She threw the document away.

  Sixteen

  When she and Sonny first married she thought it meant that she had someone of her own. For a short while it seemed so. While they were staying with his family it seemed that way. It was like having someone of her own and her own family as well.

  Sometimes even then Sonny didn’t come home at night, but the old people were there and they were good to her. Their granddaughter, her husband and baby lived there too, making it seem like a real family. ‘Have to change his ways now he’s married,’ his aunty would say when Sonny didn’t come home. ‘That’s him, always on the loose. I want to see that boy settled before we head up north.’

  When he did come home it would usually be in the early hours of the morning. She’d hear him stumbling in, moving round in the kitchen and heating up food. Later she’d hear Aunty get up to see if the stove had been left on. Sonny would be asleep at the table and she’d hear Aunty trying to wake him. If he didn’t wake, Aunty would ease him on to the floor and put a blanket over him.