Rose can smell fiery drink on her mother’s breath.
Questions are buzzing in her head like flies. About school and the Rasmussens and Billy Genesis and the bonny man by her side. When her mother stops singing the questions come out in a rush, like round balls, and her mother picks each question up and throws it back, not caring where it goes.
‘Never you mind your pretty head about my bonny man. You will know soon enough …
‘Billy Genesis knows nothing yet. So trap shut, please. He will kill us both if you blurt one word …
‘I will fetch you from school at the right moment — tomorrow, the next day, maybe — and you will come quiet as a lamb, you understand?
‘How can I know where we will live? On the road, on the sea — one place or another. We will see the wide world, Rosie, where sun shines and a body is free!
‘School? You have learned enough of that. Now is time for a new learning …’
Rose can feel screaming coming up her throat so she tries to keep talking. She asks if the new bonny man is a violent man, because Mrs Rasmussen says violence is evil.
Her mother slaps the table hard. ‘Mrs Rasmussen, that soft bag of dough, has her head in the sand. All men are violent, Con the Brake included, there is no escape from it. But,’ she adds after gaining her breath, ‘there is good and bad violence and Billy’s is the bad sort.’
Suddenly the screams escape. They fill every part of Rose’s head. Her arms smash at the plates and the walls and her mother. She flings around the room screaming and wailing.
‘Mother of God!’ screams her mother. ‘The whole Camp will come running!’ Her hard arms wrap around Rose and squeeze until no air is left to fill the screams.
When Rose can breathe again she says she doesn’t want to live with any new uncle, or with her mother or away in a new place.
Her mother slaps her hard on her ear. ‘I said we would have none of that. Be happy. Be grateful your mother makes a new life for you. Now, get off to bed and bolt your new bolt if you know what’s good for you.’
Inside her room Rose pulls the bolt across and waits to hear it click. She carries the heavy iron candlestick that Billy Genesis made at the forge over to the little table. The glow makes the room look warm, even though it is freezing cold. Rose likes her own little room now. The bolt has made it safe. For a whole week there have been no visits. By the light of her candle she folds her clothes neatly to be ready for school, then she hops quickly between the cold sheets and beats her feet up and down until the bed warms up. In her head she says the twelve times table, and then the eleven. She sings both verses of Rose of Tralee. She adds up all the money in her treasure box, pounds shillings and pence, thinking of them all in their right columns.
In the end she manages to fall asleep without thinking about leaving school or leaving Denniston and Michael and Brennan and Mrs Rasmussen and everyone.
Suddenly Rose is awake. Something is crashing next door in the kitchen. It sounds like the table being thrown around. Rose pulls her knees up in the bed and hugs them. She keeps her head under the blankets but the sounds still come, thud, thud through the wall. Her mother is screaming. Billy Genesis sounds like a wild animal, swearing and growling. He’s in a rage. Something else smashes. Billy howls as if he’s been hurt. Rose hears a door bang and her mother’s footsteps running away. For a while there is silence. Then more stumbling and crashing. Billy is throwing things at the wall.
Then everything is quiet. Rose thinks Billy might have passed out with the drink.
But then, just as she’s drifting into sleep again, something jars her awake. Rose is out of bed and flying in her nightgown across to the trunk under the window. Billy Genesis is crashing against her door.
‘Rosie, Rosie!’ His voice is thick and blurry. The whole room shakes as he crashes. Rose stands on the trunk, trying to pull open the window. The catch is icy cold and her hand is shaking so hard she can’t do it. She feels as small as a white moth beating at the window.
‘Rosie! Rosie!’ Billy crashes again. The bolt holds. Then nothing happens and Rose thinks she might be safe. She stands on the trunk, shivering. She is not sure what to do. Maybe Billy is waiting under the window.
There is another huge thump and a splintery sound. The whole door, and Billy with it, crash into the room. Rose can’t breathe. She presses against the cold wall, trying to be flatter than paper. She can hear him blundering around, swinging his arms.
His hand touches her. It closes tightly around one ankle. Everything in the room turns red and wild. Rose falls on him, scratching and biting, kicking to free herself. She would give all her treasure to be able to reach that paler shadow of the open doorway and run away. Even if it’s freezing outside. Even if it’s a snow storm. She kicks again and Billy stumbles back. Rose’s hand finds the cold iron of the candlestick and she swings it wildly in the dark, back and forth. It hits some part of Billy with a soft thud. Billy grunts in surprise. Rose can’t see where he is. She keeps waving the candlestick back and forth but it connects only with black air. Then she hears a sound like the thud of an axe into wood. Billy has fallen and lies still. She stands there in the dark panting and trying not to scream. Cold wind blows in.
The lump that is Billy is snoring — a loud, ugly sound. Rose pulls the blankets off her bed and throws them on top of him so she can’t hear the sound.
Then she runs next door into the house. No one is there but the room is full of broken things — the chair, both plates, the coal-box and the shelf. She shuts the door, bolts it and stands by the coal range until she stops shivering. She thinks about going to the log house but Mrs Rasmussen will be asleep. And she will be cross because of the evil of violence. Rose thinks about crawling into the men’s quarters, but she doesn’t like going there any more. So all night she sits by the coal range, wrapped in a rug, waiting for her mother to come home. Billy’s heavy breathing, sawing through the wall, never stops.
Her mother doesn’t come home.
As soon as it’s light, Rose, holding the rug tightly around her, tiptoes to the door, unbolts it and pokes her head around the empty hole that used to be her door. Billy is still under the pile of bedclothes. His snores sound strange. They catch sometimes, then start up again with loud snort. She needs her school clothes but they are under the bedclothes too.
Rose creeps her hand under the sheet. She makes a little noise and pulls her hand back when it touches his cold body. Her hand has blood on it. Inch by inch she pulls the blanket back from his head. Rose jumps because his eyes are half open, but they’re not seeing anything. A beetle is crawling on his chin. His horrible hair is dark and sticky with blood.
Rose looks at him. The beetle starts crawling down his neck.
Quickly she feels for her clothes. There is not much blood on them. She runs back to the kitchen, which is now grey with morning light, and dresses by the dying fire. Her mother is still not home.
Rose knows what to do. She runs past the log house and up the path to town. Patches of snow sit like hats on all the rocks. Her breath steams. There is no wind this morning, and the mist has gone. She is excited. This is an adventure! Mrs Hanratty waves from the water-heating fire outside. She doesn’t knock on Hanrattys’ door but goes straight in and up to Michael’s room. Brennan is there too, which is surprising. Rose thought they were enemies now.
She tells the boys to get dressed quickly because they are needed to stop a war.
‘But I haven’t had breakfast yet,’ says Brennan.
Michael is grinning and quickly pulls on his vest.
‘It’s a secret,’ says Rose. She’s still puffing from the running. ‘I need your help or else Violence will spread like fire over Denniston!’
Brennan says, ‘Can we still have breakfast after?’
‘After we’ve fixed the Violence,’ says Rose.
Mrs Hanratty calls to them as they run out but Rose says they will be back in a minute for breakfast.
Even Michael is quiet when Rose p
ulls the blanket away from Billy’s snoring head.
Brennan moans. He edges back from the doorway. ‘Have you killed him, Rose?’ he whispers.
‘Not quite.’
‘Well, you are the violent one, Rose,’ says Brennan.
Rose shouts at him. ‘I am not! Billy was violent first!’
Michael stares at Billy’s head. Slowly he bends down and pokes at one half-open eye and then the other. Billy goes on snoring.
Brennan puts out his hand slowly and shakes the man’s shoulder, gently, as if he is asking for attention. Billy’s head rolls a little. Brennan screams and holds his hand as if it is burnt. Michael shakes Billy’s other shoulder, much more roughly. The head rolls back and forth. Rose laughs — little hiccuppy yelps. Michael grins and kicks the head as it rolls, just tipping it with his toe.
Billy snorts — a long rattling sound. The children all jump back. Then the snoring stops altogether.
They watch him.
‘He’s dead,’ says Brennan. He is trying not to cry.
Michael pushes him again with his boot, but Billy doesn’t snore.
‘You killed him, Rose,’ says Michael.
‘I did not it! It was you!’ cries Rose, ‘You kicked him!’
Brennan is crying hard now. ‘We’ll all go to hell now,’ he sobs, ‘and burn in the eternal fires.’
‘No we won’t,’ says Michael. ‘Not for one tip with my toe like that.’ His eyes are bright and hard. ‘But Rose will be punished,’ he says. ‘She’ll probably go to prison.’
Rose wants to hit Michael but she needs him for her plan. ‘We need to hide Billy,’ she says, ‘so war won’t break out.’
They all think about this.
‘No one would go to war over Billy Genesis,’ says Michael, but none of them is sure.
They look at Billy. He’s very big. His face is blue.
Rose keeps watch outside and the boys pull Billy by his legs. He bumps over the crashed door. No one’s coming. They pull him around the side of the house, over the snowy ground, to the edge of the Camp. Then they roll him over the ledge. He rolls twice and stops against a tree. Michael says, ‘Damn!’ like a man and climbs down. Rose and Brennan watch while he holds onto a branch and kicks at Billy, but the body is stuck.
‘Break off a branch to hide him,’ says Brennan quietly.
Michael does that, and puts the branch over Billy. Now you can hardly see him.
The hardest part is propping the door up so it looks shut. Rose has spread her rug over the bloodstain on the floor.
Then they all go back to Hanrattys’ for breakfast.
‘I don’t know what’s got into you three,’ says Mrs Hanratty, ladling porridge. ‘You’re like skittery rabbits!’
That only makes them giggle more.
DURING the morning break that day the pupils of Denniston School were throwing snowballs in the playground when Rose’s mother came to the fence and called Rose. Rose shook her head and dodged behind the dunny.
‘Come! Come quick!’ shouted Eva as if she were calling a dog. She dropped her bag in the snow and charged into the playground. The pupils gathered together and stared as Eva dragged a screaming Rose out onto the road. Michael and Brennan wanted to call Mr Stringer but they were too frightened. Was Rose going off to prison already?
‘No! I don’t want to!’ screamed Rose, wriggling and kicking, but her mother’s grip was iron hard and the child was dragged, leaving long raking ruts in the snow, down the street and out of sight, heading towards the Track.
Eva Storm
NO ONE KNEW. Ha! Not one soul up there on the Hill had a single idea what went on under their so-pinched noses. Con the Brake was some kind of mascot to them — popular, larger than life. They loved to hear this wise man talk; he coloured their own dull lives. Which Con enjoyed — don’t we all? — and played up to. Do you see? So they make a small saint out of the man and are blind to any other side.
The other side is the wanderer, the adventurer, as I have said already. In the end change and excitement and things forbidden will rule a man like Con, over love or contentment and those settled dull virtues. On the Hill they saw a man loving his Bella and his work and his friends. True; he did. But they never noticed the man who was drawn to the stirring of unwed flesh on a dark night — my flesh; who needed, like a drug, to taste all the flavours of this world, and to smell darker scents along with the light.
So. My story is ending. This story at least, for my life is full of chapters.
‘Con,’ I say to him one dark night under bright stars, ‘now is the time for moving. We two and your daughter.’
‘I love my Bella,’ says Con, all the time panting and roaring at me in the cold air. Oh, there’s nothing better than a hot man on a frosty night! ‘And why should I move when you are here also?’
‘Rose …’
‘Rose is better off here, Angel.’
‘Not with that sinner Billy Genesis prowling.’
‘But I have fixed the door, woman.’
‘If I leave, with Rose, you will follow, no?’
Then that lovely man would laugh and shake his head and go at me again to make me forget all. But the great ship of Con’s life was unfurling sails, the signs were there. The horizon glinted in his eye again. He would come; he would come.
The matter of Billy Genesis. Who knows the full story? Roaring drunk that night he was. Me, I was perhaps also under the drink, and more than ready to provoke a fight. Bring matters to a head, no? I hoped for Con to kill him in a rage, and so make a reason to leave the Hill. Ah well, not so smart a plan. I tell you, that night was all muddy water and no good sense to it.
I know this: we fought. Some taunt he made provoked me. Before I know it I am telling Billy that Con the Brake is my true lover. That we plan to leave. Not wise, yes? But who can make a sensible speech when a bad man is raging? So. Billy shouted half the Bible and destroyed half the kitchen, but directed his anger at me rather than Con. Well, the stupid man was too drunk to know hand from foot, let alone man from woman. At one stage the iron poker was in my hand and I swung it. I fancy it connected with some part of Billy. My memory is not so clear.
In any case I woke with a black eye and a sore head in the bed of a new recruit over at the men’s quarters. Bruises dark as prune juice all down one arm. My mood just as black, to think what further damage Billy Genesis may have done. To house and to my plans both. Out I stamp over fresh snow to inspect. Oh, my friends, imagine the shock to see Rose’s door smashed off its hinge and inside Billy Genesis heaped on the floor, near death in a pool of blood. No sign of Rose.
So. I remember the poker and the smash of it into some part of Billy. The sound of the fight must have been heard all over the Camp. They will come for my blood, I know it. Here is their excuse to get rid of me into some distant prison unless some new story can be arranged. I leave Billy lying there, snorting like a sick horse, pack some few things in my bag and go looking for Con.
After such a night, not to mention the shock of Billy lying there, a certain exhaustion would be understandable, no? A lowering of morale? I tell you, for me that day it was the opposite. My blood sang: I could feel the spirit rising up like a lark, and a smile shine through all the bruises. Who can understand these things? That day fortune was on my side, every minute. Not one step faltered from the line my fortune drew.
My luck began at once. The Incline was running and Con the Brake was on first shift. Eva, I said to myself, a good sign yes, but this must be done quiet as a cat. The morning was bright with snow and my coat black, so care was needed. For some time I hid behind a rusty wagon, waiting till the hook-man turned away. Then like a dark shadow I slipped into Con’s little shed and pressed close to the wall. Above me drums and cables moaning and grinding.
Con starts and looks around to see who might be watching. No one has noticed. He frowns and goes to speak but I lay a finger on his lips. To build his excitement I drive the tip of my tongue into his ear, in out, in out. Then,
quickly to the point, I whisper into the same juicy ear.
‘Billy Genesis is murdered.’
Con grunts but keeps his eye on the cables and hands on the wheels.
‘Rose has killed the man. Billy lies in a bloody mess inside her room.’
‘What?’ For a moment Con lets go his handles and turns a raging face towards me. The cables whine as they pick up speed.
‘Con!’ I shout, for all will be lost if we are discovered. He calls down all manner of curses as he fights to bring his wagons back under control. Our luck holds: the hook-man is too busy to notice the rushing wagon. When he turns back it is well behaved again and out of sight over the edge.
‘Listen,’ say I, ‘I will take Rose away now, this day, and we will wait for you in Westport.’ I give him the name of a place I know. ‘If you haven’t joined us in four days I will lose hope and take her to the police.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ growls Con. ‘Your own daughter.’
‘And yours. You will come. You will, Con. I feel it.’
Yes, my friends, I knew it. Knew the moment was right. These days not much work on the Hill. Incline closed six days in seven. Slow times are no good for the adventuring spirit. That big man needed only the excuse. Before he could raise questions or threats I had slipped out again and around the back. Oh, my feet wanted to dance! But first to find Rose.
He came. Oh, he came all right. Would I tell a story with a sad ending? I tell you this: gladly would I live again every minute of the worst times of all my life just to lie one more month in that man’s arms. The dark house of my life — too many bad times to remember or count — now contains one beautiful window that looks out on a glory. Over and over I can remember that glory. What a gift, my friends! One month we had together, before he moved on. A month as sweet and full of good living as any woman could wish. Those four weeks passed as if inside the red throat of a fiery volcano: fierce, wild, every minute beautiful and dangerous as fire.
The Denniston Rose Page 27
