by Ben Hobson
‘All the money he give you make it worth it?’
Sharon looked down at her slippered feet. ‘Not sure I was doing it for the money.’
‘Then why were you doing it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know why you broke the law?’
She attempted, ‘I thought you’d like it, me working with Ernie. You know, your mum and your future father-in-law working together.’
‘He thinks you’re a joke. You know that, right?’
Sharon said nothing.
‘He said so to Cass. Well, if not to her then in front of her. He thinks you’re a cow. That he said verbatim. He said you were like a cow running to the back of a ute giving out hay.’
What to say to that? Peter’s words sat in the air like claggy glue. She wondered where he had learned to be so venomous. Guessed it was on her again. He hadn’t been taught any different.
She sighed. No wonder her son thought the way he did; what he thought was true.
Her father had scooped up the chicken bodies in a wheelbarrow, their matted red feathers clumping together, mottling like fallen leaves. Like you could step on them, play with them, throw them in the air. He had showered, and then wheeled the barrow down the street to the butcher, Mr Oxley. He’d asked her to accompany him and she’d refused.
So now here they were, Sharon and her mother, seated in the lounge room watching television. Her mother had a hot water bottle on the small of her back. She sat forward, clasping her hands together, wincing.
‘You want something to eat? I could make you something.’
Sharon shook her head. Then, softly, ‘I don’t know why you just let him hit you.’
Her mother kept looking at the television. The screen, without the lights on in the room, coating her face in muted colours.
She said, ‘It’s easier.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sharon …’
‘What do you mean, it’s easier?’
Her mother sighed, held her hand to her back, repositioned the hot water bottle.
‘You’ll understand when you’re older.’
‘Mum,’ Sharon said. She looked at her mother, willing her to turn her eyes. ‘He shouldn’t hit you.’
‘I know, sweetheart.’
‘You should say something then.’
‘That’d just make him madder.’
‘The cops’d help?’
‘No,’ her mother said. ‘They wouldn’t.’
‘They would. Why wouldn’t they?’
‘They’d come over here and at best they’d talk to him about it. And he’d act all sorry for a little while. But then he’d drink; he’d get mad. He’d look at the other blokes around him and how their wives are so far up their arses and he’d come home wild again. No.’
Her mother was crying now.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘I shouldn’t say arse.’
‘Mum––’
‘I’m sorry this is how it is, sweetheart. But this is how it is.’
She did turn then. The look she gave; Sharon never forgot it. In later years, when she thought of her mother she saw that look, that face only. Fraught with pain, world-weary. But more than that. It was broken.
Her mother said, attempting a smile, ‘It’s best you learn now, sweetheart. You stand up for yourself, you’ll only get shoved back down. Best never to stand up in the first place. Now. Let me get you something to eat.’
They ate in silence, kept watching television until it was bedtime. Her father still hadn’t returned. She dreaded his coming home but knew now what she needed to be: subservient. She vowed she’d help her mother. She vowed she’d help herself. Don’t stand up, push back. Make life easier for all of them. Be small. Don’t argue.
Before she fell asleep she rose from her bed. Quietly padding down the hall, leaving the house, gumbooting her feet, treading into the chicken coop. Her father had shovelled the severed heads into one corner. Had told her he’d get to them later. He was out drinking, she knew.
The verandah light was dim, made the going difficult. She sorted through the heads, her fingers gentle, timid, until she found Daisy’s, with its distinctively coloured feathers near the eyes. One eye still open, staring.
She took it from the coop. In the shed, with the dangling light on, she found her father’s tomahawk. She placed Daisy’s head on the oil-soaked concrete floor. She twisted the tomahawk around, so the dull edge hovered over Daisy’s head. And then just lifted it a little, let it thunk down. The crunching of bone sounding for all the world like an egg cracking. She lifted the tomahawk, hammered quietly away. Daisy now completely forgotten. No part of her remained.
She used the dustpan and brush to sweep up the mess. Still a small smear of blood on the concrete. Let that remain. She threw the head into the oil-drum bin, took off her gumboots, walked inside, got back into bed. Waited for her father to return.
EIGHTEEN
PENELOPE MOORE
Her hands were on the dash. Vernon beside her, driving, looking dapper in his cap. She knew he only wore it to please her, and pleased she was. They’d been married seven years now, and she was still discovering things about him, little insecurities he kept so well hidden from everybody else. He kept fiddling with the hat, looking in the mirror when they’d stopped, checking it fit him right.
‘It looks fine,’ she said.
‘You’re biased.’
There were bags filled with camping supplies on the back seat. She turned to find the bag where the biscuits were stored and as she did so the seatbelt tightened against her stomach and she felt deathly afraid for the child inside her, like she’d squeezed him. The baby, she’d decided, was a boy; she’d started calling Mark in her prayers. She held her tummy with both hands.
‘You alright?’ Vernon asked.
She nodded. ‘Just hurts a bit.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
She smoothed her hands over her stomach, to calm her unborn child. She was wearing a loose dress with yellow flowers on the fabric.
‘What do you think of the prison they’re opening?’ Vernon asked, looking at her briefly.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There’re a few people mad about it.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you?’
She huffed, arched her back a bit to relieve the pressure on her pelvis. ‘I told you I don’t know. I don’t think about it.’
‘Place out here is as good as any, I reckon,’ Vernon said, not seeming to really listen to her. Then he added, ‘People have to have a place to do their time.’
‘I suppose people are afraid.’
‘Suppose so.’ He smiled. ‘It’s right up here on the left.’
They rounded a bend. On the right a house being built. Soon they’d come to a bridge, with a road to the left. He nodded at it as they went by. ‘Just down there,’ he said.
‘You said that on the way over.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We’re already at that stage, are we? Repeating stories?’
She smiled. ‘Hope not. Make for a boring life.’
He nodded at her bump. ‘He or she will change things. Make a few new stories.’
They’d started late, the two of them. He was in his mid-thirties, had been in his late twenties when they’d married. He said he’d had some sorting himself out to do after the war. She didn’t blame him. She’d waited. He seemed hesitant about most things. Preferred to think before diving in. She enjoyed that about him.
She heard something strike her car door. As Vernon turned to look something else struck the windscreen. She gasped and held her hands across her stomach. Vernon yelled. The glass cobwebbed, became impossible to see through. She held her hands up to ward off what was coming. The car was turning. She put her hands back on her belly before the car slammed into something.
I
n this panic she could still see but her mind was absent and she blinked a lot to try to rid her eyes of the haze. All she could think of as she sat there trembling was a nursery rhyme her father had taught her, but in this rhyme there were no words, only sounds of varying pitches and rhythms, so she hummed it, and willed her consciousness back to life.
Soon she held her hands up to her face and saw some of her fingers were broken. They were at odd angles. Blood was covering them from some unknown place. Her thumb. She had to blink to clear her mind to acknowledge them to herself and as she did so the pain became sharper. It solidified like so many needles. It was not in her fingers she felt it most acutely, though. It was in her stomach.
She forgot Vernon in this dread and ran her hands over her belly, fearing so deeply for the child within her that she almost lost her breath. She squeezed herself, more tightly than she should, and could feel the lump of the baby. No movement, no flutter in her belly. She was lucid enough to know it for sure. Knew it deep inside her that the baby she and Vernon had sang to and cuddled and dreamed for and planned for was no longer alive.
She started screaming. She screamed, just looking at the dash and her mangled hands, until she couldn’t scream any more. She could feel blood between her thighs, sticking her skin to her dress. Then she turned and saw her husband. His cap had fallen off and blood covered one side of his face. She pawed at him, hurting her fingers, said his name a few times. One of his arms looked funny, as though it had only recently been attached. She felt his fingers, gave them a squeeze, hoped he’d squeeze back. The side of his door was bent.
Soon there were sounds outside, a person’s voice. Her door opened and she was hauled out by her underarms, and shakily she stood and glared at the sun. There was a policeman beside her, looking at her face, her forehead, saying something. Sirens in the distance. The policeman was nodding to the grass––asking her to sit down? She kept running her hands over her belly. Her grief was such that she could not sit.
When she woke she instinctively looked for her husband in the empty space beside her. She’d dreamed of Mark again. That he’d been born. That she’d got to hold him. There was a poster on the wall of some woman draped over the front of a car, grinning like some possum snarling in the dark. Wearing knee-high boots. Margie’s boy’s room. She rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling. Stains in each corner, the fan dusty. She was too old for this now, fighting like this. It was childish. She sighed and kicked off the doona.
Margie wasn’t up yet, often wouldn’t rise until eight at least. With her husband dead and her boy moved to Trenton as an electrician, Margie had given up all reason to live besides gossip. And you didn’t need to wake up early to catch gossip.
Penelope sat up and swung her feet around. She hadn’t brought her slippers, in her rush to leave, and so padded barefoot on the carpet to the bathroom across the hallway. She showered. When she was ready to leave, and had her towel wrapped around her and her hair up in another, she wiped her hand across the mirror and stared at her weathered reflection. Wanted to scold herself, force herself to look at who she’d become, truly. After getting dressed she walked to the kitchen.
She ate a bowl of cornflakes, seated at the meagre, laminex table, the same table William Kelly had sat at yesterday, being polite with his words but judging her with his thoughts, she knew. She thought of her husband and the way he had looked when she left him alone in their house. She looked at the bowl of cereal, the spoon hovering before her lips. She searched the orange flakes for something. He was stuck to her like tar. Without him she was less of herself and she wondered if he felt the same.
Margie soon approached from her bedroom. With her blue dressing gown flowing about her she looked both elegant and whale-like, slow-moving and graceful. Her stomach collided with the kitchen bench and she grimaced, grabbed at it.
‘You alright?’ Penelope asked.
‘I’m okay, I’m okay. Gosh, that hurt,’ she said. She opened the fridge, prepared her cornflakes. ‘So Phyllis called me this morning with some more news about your man.’
Always the feigned delight when she spoke about another’s misfortune, even those she cared for. ‘Yeah?’ Penelope asked. ‘What’s that?’
‘Well, Phyllis said she was talking to Julia, and you know Julia. She’s friends with Ruth. Married to Jack?’
Penelope only nodded. They’d been through this the day before. William Kelly had told them first, but Margie had taken great delight in confirming the information to be true through her own network.
‘So,’ Margie said, ‘Phyllis said that Julia said your old man got released. And Julia said Ruth said Jack is quitting the force! She’s so upset, with a baby on the way. Can’t blame him really, though. I heard those blokes who beat him up the other night got released with just a warning. No small wonder in this town. Nothing ever gets prosecuted properly. You know I heard Sharon Wornkin say she didn’t really care about Newbury? Somebody was trying to tell her about their milk getting retested down at the supermarket—you know how Trenton gets with the milk?—and they’d found some abnormalities, or some other word. And she said she didn’t really care. I know the job is hard for her, but I heard her say it. Can you believe that?’
Penelope slowly nodded, trying to pick out the important information.
Margie walked over and sat at the table. ‘You don’t seem too happy about it.’
‘Too happy about what? You said a lot just now, Margie.’
‘Vernon’s release.’
‘Well. I’m glad, I suppose.’
Margie took a mouthful of cereal. ‘I understand that. I was the same with Doug––’
Penelope knew she was about to get the story again, so she said quickly, ‘I was thinking we could play bowls again today.’
Margie stuttered, clearly wanted to continue on. She soon recovered and said, ‘I know it sounds dumb, but I like it when you two fight. I want you to make up with Vernon as soon as possible, don’t get me wrong’—she said without an ounce of sincerity—‘but I really like having you here. Reminds me of when things were a bit better.’
Penelope stood and moved to the sink. She rinsed out her bowl and when she turned around Margie added, ‘Makes me think of your boy. Actually, I meant to say, we should go visit him.’
‘We?’
‘Well,’ Margie said, and looked down at her bowl, ‘I mean, only if you want me to come. But I’d be happy to go with you.’
‘So you can talk about it with everybody?’
Penelope regretted the words the instant they were spoken. Margie’s face sagged, her belly fell forward. She gave a hefty sigh. There was no defiance or defence in her, just acknowledgement. That this was the way it was.
Penelope tried to make amends. ‘You’re right. I guess we should.’
Margie looked up. ‘You’ve just been talking about it a lot and I thought I could go and support you. Help you.’
‘I know.’
‘So if you don’t want me there I won’t be there.’
‘No,’ Penelope said, ‘it was a good idea. I’m sorry. We should go.’
‘After lunch?’
‘How about later this afternoon. That’s visiting hours anyway.’
Margie looked surprised. ‘You know when they are?’
Penelope nodded. ‘We’ll go then.’
When Penelope turned to leave the room, Margie said, ‘What are you going to do about Vernon?’
‘That man has never needed me for anything. If he starts now he’ll know how to find me.’
Getting ready for bowls, she tried to forget what her son had looked like the day before he had hurt that young woman for the final time. The last time Penelope had seen him. The way he had laughed as though everything had been fine.
NINETEEN
SIDNEY CAHILL
Brendan was out in the shed. Had been most of yesterday, too. Working on something. Sidney could hear his banging from the bathroom. Amy was sitting in the bath splashing happily, l
ooking up at him for reaction, but his thoughts were not with her. The Cahill family had eaten fish for lunch, steamed cod with white sauce, what they always ate on Good Friday, seated in silence around the dining table. Cassie had not re-emerged from her bedroom since Brendan had been beaten, apart from grabbing small amounts of food. His mother sat grim-jawed and hard to read. She spoke once to Brendan, tended him with sympathy, but soon shut up when Ernie rested a hand on her arm, gave her a look. Brendan’s face was swollen, faint notes of purple up his neck.
The only normal one among them while they ate had been their father. He had the same jovial manner he always ate with, as though nothing had happened. His were the only words uttered the whole meal, complimenting his wife on her cooking. It was all in stark contrast to their usually loud family. This disturbed Sidney more than anything.
Amy had pasted most of her fish over her face and after lunch her face had broken out in a rash, which she kept scratching. He’d tried moisturiser on it but she had protested to the point of screaming. Sarah had been no help. Even now she was in the bedroom, ignoring her daughter. The bath had calmed Amy down, though. She wasn’t watching her father now, focusing instead on the bath toys. He splashed some water at her.
Leaning on the bathtub, he could feel the fractured rib in his chest. He could feel, too, the bristles of the stitches rubbing against the fabric of his shirt. He felt pretty stupid, how badly he’d reacted. He’d thought he was dying. Brendan would’ve taken the kicks in stride and kept going, tackled the old man. His arm still hurt. He moved into a better position, sitting cross-legged. Sitting forward, Sidney dabbed at Amy’s face again with the face washer. With his poor arm, the shoulder ached. She cried and waved her hand at his in protest. The rash still lit up her face but it no longer seemed to be spreading. Maybe she had an allergy? ‘Maybe it’s just Grandma’s cooking, hey sweetheart?’ and she offered him a smile.
Mid afternoon, with his daughter washed, dried and asleep, Sidney walked outside. His brother’s project in the shed was still underway, judging by the sounds. The pig carcass swinging on the verandah a grim reminder. It wasn’t that their father hadn’t beaten them before, but there’d always been a reason, and it had always seemed measured. He thought of Amy, of what he’d do were she to become a threat to herself. Would he react the same way? If she were endangering herself, or their family, what lengths would he go to to stop her? Shook his head. Hard to understand or judge that sort of thing until it’s on you. The pig’s skin was slowly losing its pink. They’d bathed it in boiling water to rid it of its hair, the bath still beside the verandah, around the side of the house.
