Swimming Home

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  But it was the face, and especially those eyes looking straight at her, that unnerved Catherine. I know you, those eyes said. I know all about you. It should have reassured Catherine, but if anything the image frightened her. Catherine touched the photograph, touched that face, left her fingerprint on it. She couldn’t see herself in this woman the way she saw herself in her father—his laugh, his feet, his way of tilting his head when he was thinking. Still it felt as if the woman in the photograph laid some claim on her. She ran her finger over the image again, wishing, although she wouldn’t have been able to say what it was she was wishing for.

  ‘She shone,’ her father had told her when she’d asked him what Julia was like.

  ‘Am I like her?’

  Her father couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘Perhaps you are,’ he said then. ‘Perhaps you are after all, Cate.’

  Her father was the only one who called her Cate. She didn’t know what her mother had called her. People often said how sad it was, especially other mothers, confirming their own indispensability, but Catherine told them matter-of-factly that you couldn’t miss what you’d never had. ‘And anyway, I have Florence,’ she’d say. ‘And Florence is worth ten mothers.’ They’d look at her sadly then, as if there were some aspect of their pity she was failing to understand. ‘And, also, mothers are quite unimportant really,’ she’d say, a grin on her face. They never knew she was teasing. But sometimes when they talked about how sad it was, she’d think back to the photograph and wonder what it might have been like if her mother hadn’t died, what it might have been like if her mother was alive.

  Florence had been in Catherine’s life for as long as she could remember. She was like a mother to Catherine. She asked Florence about Julia, not mentioning that she’d seen the photograph. ‘Oh, she was a beautiful girl, your mother, a beautiful girl.’ Florence shook her head slowly. ‘That red hair and those green eyes. But being beautiful can be a curse.’

  ‘She was cursed?’ Catherine said.

  Florence paused before she answered. ‘Being beautiful didn’t make her happy. She wasn’t happy like you. You’re just a bucket of happiness to the brim. It’s children that make us women happy.’

  ‘So why wasn’t my mother happy?’

  ‘’Cause children make us sad too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘All mothers are sad, because mothering is a giving away, always a giving away.’

  A bucket of happiness, Florence called Catherine. Catherine didn’t feel that way now; more like a bucket of cold. She lifted her head out of the water and looked towards the far bank. She was veering off course. The point towards which she was swimming—A.J. Smellie Warehouses—was to her left now. It should have been directly in front. She was drifting. That was the thing. You had to account for your drift. Perhaps the tide had turned already. Perhaps she’d miscalculated. Michael could aim for a reef a mile out and use the current to get there by the shortest route. Sometimes he’d swim in the opposite direction of his goal for a while, but always he’d come back to it effortlessly.

  She had a sudden memory then. She was standing on the beach with Michael. They were both in shorts without shirts, although Catherine had a singlet on. They might have been seven and nine. The soles of her feet were so hot on the sand she had to hop from one foot to the other to keep them from burning. Oh, to be so warm now, she thought. Michael yelled, ‘Go!’ She was the faster runner and she beat him into the water, but he dived under and came up thirty yards away from where they went in and won the race, just like he always did.

  She swam a few more strokes and looked up again, correcting again slightly, then put her head back under. She should be better at this, she thought. She’d pictured this swim in the weeks since she’d made up her mind to do it, but the reality was so different. Think about what you’re trying to achieve. Her father’s voice. And don’t go to sleep. The first shock had been replaced now by a deeper feeling, a hankering in her bones to be free of the cold. It was almost comfortable but she suspected being comfortable might be worse. She suspected it might be how she’d give up.

  She was drifting again. The tide had turned. ‘Swim,’ she said out loud, which felt good, to have a voice out in this dark old water.

  She could see on the bank the girls who’d come down to watch her this morning. They’d be so amazed, she thought, especially Darcy. There were others too, quite a crowd. It would show them she could do something important. What if I don’t make it? she wondered. The river had seemed narrow even that morning as she made the crossing in the wherry. But now, in the middle, it seemed so much wider. Her arms were beginning to tire. It was months since she’d swum. If I don’t make it, she thought, then stopped herself. Never plan failure. Her father again. It was one of the last things he’d said to her. Never plan failure. I won’t, Daddy.

  3

  LOUISA WATCHED HER NIECE SWIMMING, MANAGING TO avoid the ferries whose passengers waved and cheered, the boats and barges that looked ready to run the girl down. There was a smell like fresh meat on the turn, sweet, a little rancid. Louisa was afraid. Would Catherine make it across without harm? What if she didn’t? What was the girl thinking?

  A ferry sounded its horn. Louisa didn’t know if it was a warning or greeting but Catherine raised an arm to wave. It seemed a hopeful gesture, Louisa thought. She looked back at the bank where half a dozen girls from the school were waiting, cheering along with the builders from the next-door site. The beauty of the day was with them all, except for Helen Anderson, who was awfully red in the face.

  Catherine’s arms were bare. They looked so slight as they came up out of the water. But she moved so easily, like a creature born to swim. Even as Louisa knew she shouldn’t, she admired her niece’s grace.

  Catherine had said she wanted to swim, Louisa thought now, although it was Louisa’s housekeeper Nellie who first raised it. She’d cooked pancakes for Catherine’s birthday on the third. ‘She’s fifteen now,’ Nellie had said, as if that had anything to do with it, ‘and so perhaps she could swim again.’

  So was this what Nellie meant? It must have been. And Louisa had ignored her. You can’t ignore children, Louisa heard her mother say behind her, so clearly she turned and looked, as if her mother was there. ‘I wasn’t ignoring her,’ Louisa said.

  Helen Anderson cocked her head. ‘I beg your pardon, Doctor?’ ‘Nothing,’ Louisa said. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this.’ Louisa had a hunch there was no rational explanation at all but she desperately wanted Helen Anderson to believe there might be one.

  She looked below at the group cheering Catherine on, the girls, the builders and now a few others from neighbouring buildings, Louisa noticed. A motor car pulled up and a man holding a large camera got out, followed by another man in a tan suit. The second man started talking to the girls on the bank.

  ‘I think that might be a journalist,’ Louisa said, ‘talking to your students.’

  ‘Oh goodness, stop that! Stop that this instant!’ Helen Anderson called out, going back down the bank towards the group. ‘Just one minute, young man.’

  The journalist, a compact lad with blue eyes and a cheeky grin, lifted his hat and said, ‘I believe she’s one of your students, Miss Anderson. Is this the school’s three Rs? Readin’, ritin’ and the river?’

  This was going to be bad, Louisa thought: very, very bad.

  They’d tried to be patient, Helen Anderson had said. What did she mean? Had there been trouble for Catherine at the school? Whenever Louisa asked her, Catherine had said it was going well, although in truth Louisa was so busy with work she hadn’t really spoken to Catherine lately.

  It was Louisa who’d picked Henley, which valued education for women, according to its prospectus, while accepting the importance of manners. Moreover, it was a school that didn’t stop for the long summer break all the other local schools had, which meant Louisa wouldn’t have to find something to do with Catherine across a summer holiday.

&nb
sp; But now, it seemed, either the school had failed or Catherine had, and Louisa had a notion that Helen Anderson, at least, was convinced it was Catherine.

  Louisa had a picture in her mind, then, of Catherine on the island at three, running full pelt into the sea behind her father, catching him up, catching him up, Harry pretending to run as fast as he could, letting her grab him around the legs, both of them crashing over into the water, Harry coming up first, shaking the water from his blond curls. Louisa, waiting on the beach, was afraid, for where was the child? And then, suddenly, there she was, out in the deeper water, calling, ‘Daddy! Come on or we’ll miss the wave,’ just like a little porpoise.

  Catherine’s mother had drowned, that was the thing. The water was the last place you’d expect to find her, and yet it was like a siren to the girl. Always had been, Louisa thought now.

  It was six months after Julia died. Louisa had left London in the January of 1914, in the middle of that cold winter, reaching Sydney nearly two months later in high summer. She’d put off going—selfish, really, but she’d been setting up her practice in Harley Street—and before she knew it, those months had passed. And in truth, she had fears about seeing Harry again, about seeing a child, any child, if she was honest with herself, and especially a child from her own family, the feelings it might arouse in her. Millicent had counselled against her going for this very reason. ‘If Harry wants to come home, he will,’ their mother said. But Millicent was already a little addled by then, good days and bad, and Louisa didn’t put much stock in what she said. Louisa felt it was her duty to go to her brother and do her best to convince him to come home, no matter how she herself might feel. Perhaps, too, she wanted him back in her life. At any rate, she set out, hopeful.

  Australia was warm, delightful for the first days, but then, as Louisa moved steadily north—Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns—the weather became hot then unbearable, relieved only by the sea. It was late on a Sunday when the last ferry pulled in beside a long pier that jutted out into a little bay. Louisa stepped down the gangplank and onto the jetty. To one side was a muddy bank and to the other a long, curved beach. Although there was a good breeze, the heat blasted her now that she wasn’t on the water.

  Harry was waiting at the shore end of the jetty. When he saw his sister, he took off his hat and waved it madly, reminding her of the guileless boy he’d been. ‘Louie!’ he called. ‘My, but it’s good to see your face.’ He came towards Louisa with his arms outstretched. They embraced warmly. When she pulled away finally, she saw tears pricked his eyes. Poor Harry, she thought then. He’d suffered terribly, she knew. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  He looked so well, it occurred to Louisa, not so much the grieving husband she’d expected. ‘Oh goodness, Harry,’ she said. ‘It’s the least I could do. And it’s taken long enough.’ She smiled, holding on to his hands, which he seemed in no hurry to free from her grasp.

  ‘Yes, it has,’ he said, returning the smile with a boyish grin. ‘But I’ll forgive you as it’s an awfully long way.’ He let go of her hands and then took her arm to lead her off the pier, taking her portmanteau in his other hand. He was quite cheerful, Louisa thought.

  Only a year separated them, Louisa older, and they’d grown up like twins, although Harry always towered over his sister physically and Louisa worked harder at her studies. Left largely to their own devices—their mother had taken up a post at the London School of Medicine for Women before Harry was walking, and their brother Alexander was six years older than Louisa and off at school—they’d always been close. Harry was tall like their father George and had the curliest hair of the three children. When he was a child, it was like wires sticking out of his head, and red like their father’s had been, though it was tamer now, Louisa noticed, and more sandy coloured. He’d been the favourite of their grandmother in Edinburgh; she always made Napolean cakes especially for Harry. But after he married, he’d distanced himself from the Quicks and from Louisa in particular. She never understood why, and since he’d moved away, she couldn’t easily address it with him.

  Besotted was the only word for it, Millicent had said. ‘Our Harry is besotted with an American girl.’ Their mother had gone over for the wedding. ‘Delightful,’ she said. ‘Absolutely delightful people, even if they are Catholic.’

  ‘Does she want to be a missionary too?’ Louisa had asked. Harry had first visited Australia with Alexander, who’d taken over the family shipping company. They’d extended the mail service, which meant their ships passed through the Torres Strait to Australia’s north. Harry and Alexander stopped at the port at Thursday Island and then spent a month in Cairns. Alexander wanted Harry to go into the business with him, Louisa realised later, but Harry was set on following his mother and Louisa into medicine. The visit to the island only cemented his plan. When he came home, all he talked about was the hospital they were building on Thursday Island and the marvellous Torres Strait Islanders. He finished his medical studies and then spent six months training at Johns Hopkins in America, where he met Julia Freebody. They married so quickly Louisa wondered if Julia had been pregnant, but Catherine was born eleven months later, after they’d left for Australia and Thursday Island, where Harry had secured the post as hospital doctor. So it had been a love match. And Julia was more than happy to go to a remote place, Millicent told Louisa when she came home from the wedding. ‘Aren’t they marvellous, Louie? Aren’t they just?’ That’s when Louisa asked, Does she want to be a missionary too?

  Louisa wondered at first when Harry stopped writing if Julia was one of those possessive types—some of Louisa’s friends had married men like this—but Julia hadn’t seemed that way the one time Louisa had met her. She seemed an uncomplicated girl to Louisa; a bit lost, if anything. They’d come to England on the way through to Australia. Louisa had travelled down from Edinburgh, where she was finishing her surgical training, to the family house at Aldeburgh in Suffolk to see them. Harry was as besotted as Millicent claimed. Julia was polite, smiled a lot, but she wasn’t really there. That’s what Louisa would have said if asked. ‘I didn’t get a chance to get to know her because she wasn’t really there.’ Awfully young, Louisa decided, too young to make up her mind about anything. And, yet, married. Louisa herself was only in her middle twenties, but Julia was nineteen. No interest in the vote, or medicine, or any of the issues of the day, as far as Louisa could tell. Hunting, Millicent had said. The girl goes hunting, shoots with the fellows. But other than that, harmless, if an odd match for Harry, who, like the rest of the Quicks, had an opinion on everything, and, Louisa realised when she thought about it, had never fired a gun in his life.

  After they left, Harry rarely wrote home and never came back to visit, even after Catherine was born. Louisa asked her mother was there something she, Louisa, had done to offend him. They’d always been so close and now he hardly even acknowledged his sister. Millicent said he was just getting on with life. ‘He’s married with a family now.’ Louisa had missed her brother, and the opportunity she might have had to be an aunt to the child. She sometimes wondered if Millicent had breached Louisa’s confidence and told Harry what had happened. Perhaps he knew and judged Louisa harshly. Alexander had always blamed her, so perhaps Harry would too.

  She regarded him now. He didn’t look as if he was judging his sister at all. He looked genuinely relieved to see her. The cream linen suit and broad-brimmed hat looked well on him. It had been four years, Louisa realised.

  On the ferry, Louisa had sat outside with the Islanders, hoping to find a breeze. Their skin was beautiful, with such a depth to the colour. She had to stop herself from staring. But it was more than skin colour she was drawn to. Strangely, they reminded Louisa of the women of the East End, who were generous with their time and inexhaustibly, and, given the cruelty of their lives, inexplicably happy. One shy young woman offered Louisa a white fruit with a brown hairy skin. Coconut, Louisa thought. She shook her head no, although it smelled delicious. There was som
ething about these women with their full smiling faces, the easy way they had with one another and with their children, that wasn’t there even in the East End women. They looked free, Louisa thought.

  Harry held a parasol over his sister’s head as they made their way to the buggy. ‘Florence said to bring this,’ he said, twirling it before handing it to her. ‘You’ll burn in a minute otherwise.’ Louisa didn’t know who Florence was but didn’t ask. Had Harry met a woman on the island? she wondered. It would be no bad thing if he were to remarry, Louisa thought then.

  They took a dirt road towards the town centre, sitting up front in the open buggy, Harry gently guiding the horse. Oh, the heat of the place. While the horses moved quickly enough, the breeze they created was as hot as the air. It would make anyone want to kill themselves, Louisa thought. She nearly said so, until she realised that, given his loss, talk of death probably wouldn’t do Harry any good. But surely he noticed the heat. She looked across, but he appeared oblivious.

  Louisa had expected the island to be populated by those natives she’d seen on the ferry. Back in London, she’d gone to the library and located in an atlas the islands to Australia’s north. They were home to the Papuans, the atlas said, and the Papuans were cannibals. The people on the ferry didn’t look as if they’d eat each other. What’s more, when Harry took her through the main street of the town, it was full of Europeans rather than natives, men in suits like Harry’s, arm in arm with young women in colourful dresses with parasols against the sun, workers in shirtsleeves and knickerbockers, girls and boys in cotton shorts or skirts.

  Harry laughed when she asked him about the cannibals. ‘Wrong islands,’ he said. ‘New Guinea is north of here, and I didn’t know the Papuans were cannibals. They come across in canoes sometimes to Saibai or Boigu in the north of the Strait when they’re sick. Occasionally the native healers bring them to me. Blood poisoning, a labour that goes on—but I’ve never heard of them eating each other.’ He laughed again, as if Louisa had made some great joke.