The Denniston Rose

by Jenny Pattrick

  ‘Is my house burned right up?’

  ‘To the ground. I believe one corner of the chicken house still stands but I have not been over to see.’

  ‘Is my father dead?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Where is my mother?’

  ‘She is seeing to your father.’

  ‘But he’s dead.’

  ‘She is seeing to his body.’

  Rose cries out as Mrs Rasmussen lifts the cloth by two corners, dips it in the cool water and lays it on her face again. A baby is crying too, and Rose hears footsteps on the stairs going into the baby’s room. Mrs Hanratty sings to the baby and the crying stops. Then she hears faster boots in the corridor and through the cloth she sees a shadowy Michael running into the room. The noise hurts her face.

  ‘Don’t bother Rose now,’ says Mrs Rasmussen.

  ‘I can’t see her face,’ says Michael.

  ‘No,’ says Mrs Rasmussen.

  ‘Can you lift up the cloth so I can see?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ says Mrs Rasmussen.

  ‘Will she be all right?’

  Rose wants to hear this answer too.

  ‘The burn is not too deep,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, and she laughs. ‘She will still be our Rose of Tralee. When her hair grows. And her eyebrow.’

  ‘Will I have a scar like Billy Genesis?’ asks Rose.

  ‘I certainly hope not,’ says Mrs Rasmussen in a sharp voice. ‘Not with all the care and attention you are getting. Your face will be dark and scabby for a while, and then red for a while, and then there might be a white patch, but not much.’

  Michael kicks his feet around and asks when can he see under the cloth. Mrs Rasmussen clears her throat loudly. ‘Michael,’ she says in her school-teacher voice, ‘you are making too much noise altogether. Go out to play.’

  After Mrs Rasmussen has gone Rose lies still under the cloth, thinking about Michael. Mrs Rasmussen doesn’t like him much. Most grown-ups like Brennan better. Sometimes Michael makes her laugh, and he thinks up good games, but Rose likes Brennan better too, most of the time.

  Then she listens to the noises in the house. She hears Elizabeth and Michael shouting at each other, and then Mrs Hanratty shouting at them both to go out and play. She hears one of the boarders clumping down the hall, then he tiptoes past her door, then he clumps along again. The baby cries again and Mrs Hanratty comes running down the hall. Soon she comes into Rose’s room with the baby and lays the baby on the bed on Rose’s good side.

  ‘Hold her there while I wet the cloth again.’ The baby smells of sweet milk. Mrs Hanratty arranges the cloth so she can see out with one eye.

  ‘How is that now?’ she asks, and Rose says her face is not so hot.

  ‘You are a brave little girl,’ says Mrs Hanratty. ‘My Michael would never lie so good and still.’

  ‘I like listening,’ says Rose.

  ‘There is certainly plenty in this bedlam to listen to,’ says Mrs Hanratty.

  Rose touches the baby softly. Her finger is gripped tightly by the tiny fist. Rose wants to hold the baby forever. Mrs Hanratty says that might not be a good idea and takes the baby out again.

  Later Rose hears the bell ring for tea in the boarders’ dining room. Footsteps go down the hall: a humming woman whose little boots click and two men going along together in a rumble of boots. She can hear talking and laughing in the dining room and at one time a great shout of laughter going up into the air like an explosion, and then for a long time little bursts of giggles as if bits of the explosion are falling down to earth again. She can hear Michael and Elizabeth’s voices laughing, and Rose smiles a little too. Her face is not so stiff.

  Then Mr Hanratty comes in and stands looking down at her. The smell of pipe smoke comes in with him. He is in his shirtsleeves and his waistcoat is stretched tight across his stomach. His gold watch chain curves from buttonhole to pocket like a smile. His curly brown hair and bushy beard shake from side to side for a bit.

  ‘Dear, dear me,’ he says. ‘Poor little mite.’ And shakes his head some more.

  Then he takes a breath and says, ‘And how is our littlest boarder feeling?’

  ‘They forgot to bring me my tea,’ says Rose. Mr Hanratty laughs.

  ‘Those are the most welcome words we have heard from you these three days,’ he says.

  ‘Have I been here three days?’

  ‘You have.’

  Rose thinks about three days. Three day-times and three nighttimes.

  ‘Am I going to live here now?’ she asks.

  ‘We will worry about that later,’ says Mr Hanratty, and pats her toe where it makes a little hill under the blanket.

  ‘Is my mother sick too?’

  Mr Hanratty clears his throat with a kind of growl. The hair around his mouth bunches and twists like a tiny forest in a storm.

  ‘Well now,’ he says. ‘Food for the little lady. Mrs Hanratty will be delighted to take your order.’ He pats the bed again, but gently so it doesn’t bounce, and goes out. Rose likes the way he walks, tramp tramp as if he is stepping in mud and is afraid of slipping. His back is solid like a tree and his stomach points the way.

  Michael’s slippers run down the hall. His are the fastest of all the footsteps in the house. Rose has counted nine different footsteps. He runs in.

  ‘Mother is bringing some soup,’ he says, and comes close to the bed. ‘Can I see under the cloth now?’

  ‘No, it hurts.’

  ‘Is your eye still there?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is your ear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You might be ugly,’ says Michael.

  ‘I know,’ says Rose, and thinks about being ugly.

  ‘There isn’t any blood,’ says Michael. ‘The cloth is clean.’

  ‘I know,’ says Rose.

  ‘Or pus.’

  Rose feels a tear in her good eye. She doesn’t say anything.

  ‘So I don’t think you will be all that ugly,’ says Michael. ‘And if you are you can still be my friend.’

  Rose lies still. The tear rolls down.

  Mrs Hanratty comes into the room with a bowl of soup and a smile, but frowns when she sees Rose.

  ‘Michael Hanratty, have you been upsetting Rose?’

  ‘No,’ says Michael. ‘Anyway, I’m going to give her my lucky rabbit’s paw.’ And he runs out. Rose hears him next door crashing drawers open and shut.

  ‘That boy!’ says Mrs Hanratty, and she puts the soup down while she lifts the cloth. Michael comes running in again but he stops still when he sees Rose’s face and his eyes and his mouth open wide. Mrs Hanratty starts spooning soup into her mouth and it is meaty and creamy and the best thing Rose has ever tasted. Michael tiptoes to her other side with a solemn face and puts something soft and furry into her hand.

  ‘You can have it to keep,’ he says, and watches without saying anything while she eats all the soup. Rose wants the cloth back so he can’t see her.

  ‘You’ll be up in no time,’ says Mrs Hanratty, ‘if you eat like that.’ She soaks the cloth and arranges it, and tells Michael to come out now and leave Rose to sleep. Michael’s solemn face comes close to Rose.

  ‘Your eye is still there,’ he whispers, and he goes out with his mother.

  IN the morning she hears her mother’s voice downstairs. Her words are short and strong and they stick out of Mrs Hanratty’s running words like rocks in a fast creek. Mrs Hanratty’s voice goes higher and Rose thinks she might be angry.

  Rose looks at the cloth in its basin by the bed. She doesn’t need it all the time now but anyway she squeezes it out and lies down and puts it on her face. She doesn’t want her mother to see. The talking has stopped and her mother comes up the stairs very slowly. Rose lies still.

  Her mother comes into the room. With one eye Rose looks at the tangled hair. Her mother’s good coat is muddy and her face is bruised. She stands away from the bed, just looking at Rose.

  ‘Are you all right?’
she says.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her mother lifts the cloth to look under, then puts it back without saying anything.

  ‘Your father’s dead,’ she says.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And is buried.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the gully,’ says her mother.

  ‘East?’ says Rose. Her mother looks at her and then sits down slowly on the chair by the bed.

  ‘East,’ she says. ‘Yes.’ And slowly she lowers her bruised, tangled head onto the bed and cries out loud. The sound is like something wild, not human at all. She bashes her fist again and again on the clean coverlet. Rose howls.

  Mrs Hanratty is at the door.

  ‘Leave us alone,’ screams her mother and Mrs Hanratty goes. After a while they both stop.

  ‘You forgot to do your hair,’ says Rose. Her voice comes out in hiccups. Her mother slowly takes two pins from her pocket and puts them in her mouth. She twists the dirty hair behind her head as if she would tear it out, and stabs the two pins any old where into the mess.

  ‘Is that better, madam?’ says her mother in a sharp voice.

  ‘Yes.’ Rose likes the sharp voice better than the howling. She wants to ask her mother to clean the mud off her good coat but she decides to wait till later. Her mother says that she has come to collect her, but that Mrs Hanratty wants her to stay for two more days until she is better.

  ‘Will I be ugly now?’ says Rose.

  ‘You are not a pretty sight at present,’ says her mother, ‘but that will change when your hair grows back. I doubt you will ever be ugly.’

  ‘Will my hair grow back soon?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ says her mother, and throws her arms about as if she’s angry.

  Rose decides to keep the rest of the questions for later. She feels better, though. Her mother usually tells the truth.

  Her mother picks at her nails. Rose looks out the window. The questions come out anyway.

  ‘Where will we live?’ says Rose.

  ‘Well …’ says her mother. And then nothing more.

  ‘Is our house burned right down?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Yes, all of it.’

  ‘Even the chimney?’

  Rose shrinks back as her mother jumps to her feet. ‘What use is a chimney standing lonely in a black field of charcoal? What use, Rose? Eh?’

  ‘We could build a new house around the chimney.’

  ‘Yes? Around the chimney? Who is the carpenter of you and me?’

  ‘You built the chicken house.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me of chickens!’ shouts her mother, ‘Not chimneys either. You! You!’ But then she stops and sits down with her hands folded like a lady. In a little while she says, ‘We are going to live with your uncle Billy Genesis.’

  ‘He’s not my uncle!’ says Rose.

  ‘Well, he has offered to take us both in, and we do not have much choice.’

  ‘We could stay with the Rasmussens.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

  ‘That’s enough of questions,’ says her mother.

  ‘I don’t want to go!’ wails Rose.

  ‘Well, so. I am going and so are you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Rose cries. ‘I don’t want to!’

  ‘You will!’ says her mother, hands on hips. ‘Enough of this, you ungrateful girl. Billy is building on a special room for you, which is more than a thief deserves.’ She looks hard at Rose and says she will come back on Tuesday to collect her.

  Rose pretends she hasn’t heard.

  ON Monday morning, when Mrs Hanratty is collecting Rose’s breakfast dishe s, Mrs Rasmussen’s huge body fills the door. She is smiling and holding some white flowers and her cheeks are pink from climbing the stairs.

  ‘Well, Bella!’ says Mrs Hanratty, and she smiles too. ‘Not long, now!’

  ‘Any day,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, and heaves her body over to the bed.

  ‘Just smell this manuka!’ she says to Rose. ‘It makes your heart glad to be alive!’

  ‘No it doesn’t,’ says Rose.

  ‘She’s down in the dumps today,’ says Mrs Hanratty.

  Rose looks at the little white flowers. She pulls two off and drops them on the floor and looks up at Mrs Rasmussen. The two women look at each other.

  ‘She knows?’ says Mrs Rasmussen.

  ‘Her mother was here yesterday.’

  ‘Out of the frying pan,’ says Mrs Rasmussen.

  Rose looks up from picking at the flowers. ‘What is out of the frying pan?’ she asks. Neither of the women answers, and Rose starts crying and asks why she and her mother can’t stay at the tree-trunk house.

  Mrs Rasmussen pats her hair and sighs. ‘Well, sweetheart, I’ve offered to take you until your mother finds her feet, but it’s not so simple …’

  ‘Why can’t she come too?’

  Mrs Rasmussen sighs again. ‘Ah well, there it is.’ Then she says she must get down to the schoolroom, the children will be running riot, and gives Rose a quick kiss, not her usual hug, and goes downstairs.

  ‘We could stay here,’ says Rose. Mrs Hanratty puts the tray on the bed and sits down.

  ‘Listen, Rose,’ she says. Rose knows she is going to say no.

  ‘We all love you, Rose, and are trying to do our best for you and your mother. Your mother is an independent woman who will go her own way. She wishes to live with Billy Genesis, who has been … kind … to her.’

  Mrs Hanratty’s face is not kind at all. Her eyes, which are usually warm like brown toast, look more like burnt raisins.

  ‘Your mother,’ she says, ‘wishes you to live with her. Billy Genesis is willing to have you both, so that is what will happen. A child cannot choose.’

  ‘He’s not kind to me!’ says Rose.

  ‘Well … perhaps there is some good in him and perhaps he will be a better man with a woman in the house. And Rose, you can come and visit as often as you like.’ But Mrs Hanratty’s face is black as coal as she picks up the tray and goes out. The baby is crying again.

  Rose wants to cry too so someone will come and pick her up and tuck her into a pram and wheel her away. She climbs out of bed and goes to the window, walking softly so as not to bounce her face. The nightgown, which is Elizabeth’s and has little pink flowers, is too small for her. It pinches her armpits. She looks out the window and sees Brennan running across the yard from the schoolroom to the dunny. Then he runs back and looks up and sees her. He waves and she waves back. He doesn’t stop and stare with his mouth open or anything, just waves.

  She looks down Dickson Street. Over the roofs she can see the big chimney of the Powerhouse smoking and she thinks of her own chimney standing all alone with the ashes of the house around it and her treasure inside it. Her feet are cold on the wooden floor so she goes back to the bed, still treading softly. On the end of the bed is her slate and chalk, where Mrs Rasmussen has left it. She picks all the white flowers up from the floor and arranges them in a circle on the slate. Then she counts them. Thirty-seven.

  37 she writes. And then she draws a chimney on its own, with no curl of smoke and no roof.

  A Door Facing Out

  ROSE LOOKS THROUGH the open door. Inside, the little room is dark. There is one window, high on the wall.

  ‘Go in and see,’ says her mother, so she steps inside, but carefully in case there are nasty surprises.

  ‘I can’t see out the window,’ she says.

  Her mother snorts. ‘I might have known you’d find fault. Your Uncle Billy has gone to a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘He’s not my uncle.’

  Rose sits on the little bed. There is a box beside it, and a chest in the corner for her clothes. On the floor a rag rug in colours of mud and coal. She looks down at the rug. Billy Genesis is watching from the doorway.

  ‘Well, say thank you,’ says her mother. ‘There’s not many little girls have their own room spe
cially built for them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says without looking up.

  ‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ he says in a funny way: too loud.

  ‘Billy Genesis, don’t start that,’ says her mother, raising her hand to him. Billy catches the arm and twists it back. ‘The mother will have to do, then,’ he laughs, and kisses her hard in full view of passers-by.

  ‘The door goes the wrong way,’ says Rose.

  ‘Speak up, child,’ says her mother, and then she says to Billy Genesis, ‘I don’t know what’s got into her; you usually can’t stop the chatter.’

  ‘It’s all the change,’ says Billy. ‘But she’d better get used to it quick.’

  ‘The door,’ says Rose in a louder voice. ‘It goes outside. Anybody might come in.’ She looks hard at Billy Genesis.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ says her mother.

  ‘My room isn’t joined properly to yours.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re going on about,’ says her mother. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Look, madam,’ says Billy Genesis. He goes out her door and puts his big red hand on the other door and pushes it open into the main part of the house, to show how easy it is to get there.

  Rose looks at her mother. ‘Why don’t you sleep here with me?’ she says.

  Her mother looks away out the door. ‘I’ll be next door with your uncle Billy.’

  ‘He’s not my uncle.’

  ‘We’ll have no more of this!’ shouts her mother. ‘We’re lucky to have a roof over our heads.’ Her voice is edgy and rough. Rose knows her mother wants to hit her, but won’t because she is so ugly and burned.

  ‘Now, come next door when you have done sulking,’ says her mother, ‘and we’ll have our tea.’

  Rose goes to the door and shuts it hard. It nearly catches her mother’s skirt. She goes back to sit on the bed. Something about her mother is different. She doesn’t like the different thing. She wants to be back in their messy little house at the Cork end of the Camp. This room is too empty. It’s like a little prison. She thinks about the princess in Rumpelstiltskin, locked alone in the attic until she had spun all the straw to gold, and she thinks about the poor little princess in the tower. She goes to the corner and drags the chest across the floor. This floor has proper floorboards. You could hide treasure under them. She pushes the chest until it is under the window and then she climbs up and looks out.