Mercy Street

by Tess Evans

  ‘Haven’t got any.’ Both mother and daughter shuffle their vegetables to the side of their plates.

  ‘Eat your veggies,’ he says to Rory. ‘They’re good for you.’

  ‘Mum isn’t eating hers.’

  It’s a reasonable observation, and Pen would have known to spoon them up with encouraging noises. He’d seen her do it with Shirl’s kids. Yum. Lovely orange carrots! He looks at Angie, but she continues to worry at her chop bone. ‘Yum,’ he says with a singular lack of conviction. ‘Nice green peas.’

  Rory stares at him. ‘Hate peas.’

  At least she drank her milk. George scrapes the plates while Angie takes Rory to have a bath. By the sound of things, the kid likes the bath even less than she likes peas. He’s drying the dishes when mother and daughter emerge from the bathroom. Now that it’s clean, he notices that Rory’s pinched little face is freckled. Penny had a light sprinkling of freckles on the bridge of her nose and across her cheeks and shoulders. She was always trying to powder over them, but he loved every single one. There’s something about freckles, he always thought. Something tawny and wild. Pen said they made her look like a schoolgirl, but George knew better. With her lithe body and golden freckles, she had a grace that could only be described as feline.

  This pitiful mite looks more like a skinny feral cat, with her green eyes and sharp, pointy teeth. She’s wearing the same pink T-shirt and grubby white tights she had worn all day (when had he started noticing such things?).

  ‘Pyjama time,’ he demands rather than asks. He’s tired now, and dispirited. He just wants them to go to bed and leave him in peace.

  Angie manages to look both embarrassed and sullen. ‘Only had one pair. Grown out of them, hasn’t she?’ Her hands span the child’s shoulders as though demonstrating the amazing growth spurt that had brought this to pass.

  It’s George’s turn to be embarrassed. ‘Yeah. Well – I’ll get some sheets.’

  ‘We got sleeping bags.’

  ‘Not when you’re guests in this house,’ George says, with a curious dignity. ‘Pen would never forgive me.’

  Pen loved visitors. Especially when they stayed overnight. Her elderly Aunty Kath from Bendigo, for instance. She used to stay with them when she came to Melbourne for her regular medical appointments. The evening before Kath was due, Pen buzzed around like a firefly, preparing the guest room. After a full day’s work, too. All that energy, George thinks ruefully. But he loves to remember her that way. She dusted and polished and then took out the crisp white sheets, burying her face in their folds. ‘Mmm. Aunty Kath loves lavender. Smell, George.’

  He had reeled back in mock horror. ‘Take it away. Too girly for me.’

  ‘Is it too girly to cut some roses?’

  ‘Only for you.’ George went and found some choice blooms which she arranged in the crystal vase. ‘Is the room well aired enough, do you think?’

  Before he could answer she was off to make Aunty Kath’s favourite lemon pie.

  George burrows in the linen cupboard. The smell of lavender is accompanied by a surge of nostalgia. ‘I’m doing my best, Pen.’

  ‘Can you give us a hand?’ Angie returns to the kitchen as he’s wiping down the bench. ‘Gotta put the mattress on the floor. She’s not used to a bed . . .’

  Something inside George responds to the shame in her voice. He pats her on the arm. ‘No worries, love. Kids will be kids.’

  It’s after eight-thirty before Rory settles, her soft, animal snore drifting out into the passageway. George stops at the door and listens. Funny little kid.

  ‘She’s asleep,’ he announces.

  ‘About time. I’m dying for a smoke. Didja remember to get them?’

  George has remembered them but did wrestle with his conscience. He hasn’t smoked since Pen was diagnosed. Talk about life being unfair. Pen had never smoked. Not even as a dare, or to give it a try as a kid. She couldn’t see the point, she said. Better things to do with her money. Then she got the cancer and he, George, got off scot-free. Except for losing Pen, of course. Except for watching, in those last weeks as, eyes bright with fear, she sucked with a terrible greed on the tube from her respirator.

  When the bored young woman behind the counter handed him the cigarettes, George looked at the box. In his smoking days they used to be so fancy. There was something slimy-looking and phlegm-green and disgusting on the back of the packet. Passive smoking kills, the caption said. Well, that’s true enough. George had put the cigarettes in his pocket. He’d work out what to do later. Thank God he’d lost all appetite for nicotine.

  Now Angie is appealing to him with a look he knows only too well – the look of a smoker dying for a fag. Dying! Good one, George.

  He has to try. ‘Pen – my wife – died from lung cancer,’ he says. ‘It was He shudders. ‘It wasn’t nice.’

  ‘You sound like me nanna,’ she snaps. ‘Waited till the kid went to bed, didn’t I?’

  George sighs. There’s some virtue in that, he supposes. He takes the packet from the drawer. ‘Here. But don’t smoke inside. Me asthma’s been much better since I stopped.’

  Angie grabs at the cigarettes and scrabbles in her handbag for a lighter. ‘Ta. I’ll go out the back and then I’ll have a shower.’

  No offer of money for the cigarettes. No I’ll have a shower if it’s okay with you. George might be a bit rough around the edges, but his mother had taught him manners. He switches on the telly and flicks through the channels, settling on a documentary about sharks delivered in the breathless tones of a David Attenborough wannabe. He had been going to finish his book, but he wants to assert his authority, even if it’s only in the choice of television programs. ‘The Great White, though potentially lethal, is a thing of beauty . . .’ George’s hand reaches for a beer and finds it closing on nothing. He’d forgotten all about it. No wonder he feels edgy. He hasn’t had a beer all night.

  Angie, meanwhile, sits on a garden chair drawing greedily on her cigarette. Eyes narrowed, she observes the drifting smoke, and savours the satisfaction of a job well done. In the fading light she scans her surroundings. She’s in a small paved courtyard, enclosed by a trellis on two sides. The shabby wooden table is shedding paint and two of the chairs have faded and slightly tatty cushions. There are pots of various sizes, some with healthy-looking plants, others somewhere between dying and dead. She stubs her cigarette in one of the pots and stands up to peer around the trellis. A path leads to a rotary clothesline and further on what looks like a shed is covered with some sort of creeper. There’s a patch of lawn in the middle and bushes around the edge. It all looks so ordinary that she almost cries with relief. They’ll be okay here, her and Rory. Even though sooner or later they’ll have to move on. They always do. But right now, they’re on to a good thing and she congratulates herself on finding such a nice place. Especially without any help. She pauses outside the lighted window. ‘Told you I can stand on my own two feet,’ she tells the absent Bree.

  By the time she returns from her shower, George is on to his second can. Should he offer her one? It’s an unwritten law of hospitality that you offer your guest a beer, but with her newly scrubbed face, she looks so young. He dithers. ‘Last can,’ he lies, holding it up to demonstrate its rarity. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t like beer. What about a Bacardi and coke?’

  ‘Only got beer (thank goodness). Anyway, how old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  George is not so easily fooled. ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’

  ‘Twenty,’ she says. Adding with some bravado, ‘Nearly twenty.’

  ‘And Rory?’

  ‘Nearly five.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Mum and Dad threw me out. Went to me gran’s for a while but she got sick. And she carried on over every little thing. Been in a few different places since then.’ Her eyes skitter across his face, and sensing a dawning empathy, she continues. ‘Some of them were okay, but the last one – a mattress like, two
centimetres thick. Hardly any hot water . . . Crackheads next door Twisting the tassel on one of Pen’s cushions, she glances up at him from under still-matted eyelashes. ‘Don’t look like that. We’re doing all right, Rory and me.’ She turns to the television. ‘Do you always watch such crap TV?’

  4

  Yellow ones with the pink butterflies – or the blue ones with mermaids? This is all new to George – he passes Kidz Biz on his way to the pub every day, but has never been inside. Well, why would he? There are always mothers and children in the shop, so he figures it’s his best bet for finding kids’ pyjamas. Now he’s found them, but there are so many decisions. Size four or five? Rory is nearly five, but she seems small to him. Doubtful, he holds up the size five. They look pretty small, but they would, wouldn’t they?

  A tiny woman with a large pram smiles at him. ‘Pressie for your granddaughter?’

  ‘No. Yeah. I’m not sure what size to get.’

  Assisted by the young woman, he chooses the smaller size in the yellow. Halfway to the checkout, he goes back and adds the blue mermaid set and a pair of fluffy dog slippers. It only makes sense to add the slippers – you can’t let a kid put on smelly socks after a bath. He peers into the bag the moment he gets out of the shop, and all the way back to Mercy Street, savours the glee bubbling in his throat.

  Rory and her mother are out when he gets home, and the sparkling droplets of glee begin to drain away as he remembers the reality of the child. She is whiny, snotty-nosed and grubby. Greedy, too. And rude. Hate mermaids – that’s what she’ll say and he’ll be left looking like a real galah.

  So instead of giving the gift directly to Rory, he gives it to Angie as she prepares her daughter’s bath. ‘Happened to see these in the shop,’ he mumbles. ‘Thought they might come in handy.’

  Angie opens the plastic bag and looks at him all funny. ‘You’re not a bad bloke, George,’ she says, before hurrying off to the bathroom.

  George clanks around with the dishes and listens to Rory’s protests. Who can fathom the ways of kids? Tonight, it seems, she doesn’t want to get out of the bath. By the time he sits down with his book, there’s a blessed, if suspicious, silence. Then Angie’s voice. ‘Go on. Show George.’

  Rory, wearing the mermaid pyjamas (a perfect fit) shuffles along in the doggie slippers, right up to George’s chair. She’s trying not to smile and for a moment he sees beyond the watchfulness in her green eyes. She likes them. ‘You look very smart,’ he says.

  Her stare is so intense it drills right into his head. ‘G’night, George,’ she says, stony-faced.

  He expects Angie to mention the pyjamas again. He wants her to. They’ve been a great success as far as he can see, but after her cigarette, she just slumps on the couch, staring at the television. The program is So You Want to be a Model. A series of very thin young women glower and sulk into the screen to a breathless commentary by an even thinner older woman in black. The tone of the commentary reminds George of the nature programs he likes to watch. The same note of wonder and intimacy. As the sullen-looking models preen and prance, a delinquent thought causes him to snigger. Next we’ll have the mating ritual.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  George is embarrassed, almost as if he had spoken aloud. ‘Nothing. You want a cup of tea?’ An affirmative grunt sends him to the kitchen, fuming. Can you believe it? There she is, lounging about on his couch like Lady Muck or someone – expecting him to wait on her hand and foot.

  He never minded making tea for Penny. She cooked all the meals and it was fair enough that she could put her feet up at the end of the day. He takes down her special china cup – the one with the blue cornflowers, and cradles it in his hand. Sees himself, clear as a bell, pouring the tea, putting a biscuit or a slice of cake on her plate. She always smiled up at him when he came back with the tea. ‘Just the thing,’ she’d say, after the first sip. It was regular as clockwork. George brushes his hand across his eyes and returns the cup to its place. Right up until the last few days, Pen sat or lay on that couch smiling and saying, Just the thing. Even when it was no longer ‘just the thing’ and she was able to take only a few tiny sips.

  He opens the fridge and takes out a can. He feels like a cup of tea, but he takes out a beer. Drinking tea on the couch. That was a George and Penny thing.

  By the time he brings the drinks in, several girls are crying and hugging each other. ‘Felicity’s into the next round,’ Angie informs him. ‘Hope she doesn’t win. She’s a real cow.’

  George needs to talk. ‘Penny, that’s my wife, she taught me to cook, you know. When she knew she was – sick.’

  ‘Laura should of won. I reckon they rigged it.’

  ‘Just simple things – chops, parma . . .’

  ‘She probably slept with the producer or someone.’

  ‘. . . a bit of pasta, a roast . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ No point in sharing his memories with this lump of a girl. With some spite, he mentally compares her with the weeping beauties on the television. No hope for you, love. Penny would have compared more than favourably, but she was too practical to waste time on such things. When they were young, he managed to overcome his shyness a few times to tell her how pretty he thought she was. She always looked pleased and a bit embarrassed. He wishes now that he had told her more often. When her hair had fallen out, and her cheeks were puffy and sallow; when the dark caverns of her eyes glittered with pain; then, when she needed to hear how beautiful she was, her beauty had been devoured with such savagery that he was unable to utter the words.

  It was inevitable, George supposed, that Shirl would come before Bree’s contact managed to find them lodgings. The next day, she ‘pops in’, as she has a habit of doing, at just the wrong time. Rory is scooping up the last of her cereal (much of which has found its way down the front of her new pyjamas), while George, toast in hand, reads his newspaper.

  Shirl is in and down the hall before he realises she’s there. ‘I just thought I’d pop in – George! You have that child again.’

  He can hardly deny it. ‘So?’

  ‘That young woman dropped her off this early? Before she’s even had breakfast?’

  George mumbles into his newspaper.

  ‘Mum’s still in bed,’ Rory volunteers, dipping her finger in the sugar bowl.

  ‘Don’t do that, child. Your fingers could have germs on them.’

  Rory examines her fingers for said germs but George’s eyes are glued to the print that crawls ant-like across the page.

  Then the implication of Mum being still in bed hits Shirl. ‘She stayed the night? That . . . person stayed the night?’ Shirl thumps herself down on the nearest chair as though, in this new world order, her legs can no longer be trusted to do their job.

  George gets up and pours her a tea. ‘It’s just for a day or two. Bree has this friend who knows . . .’

  Shirl makes a little moaning noise. ‘A young woman. Living here. With you. What will the neighbours think?’

  George realises that he doesn’t care a toss for what the neighbours might think. ‘Steady on, Shirl. They had nowhere to go. What was I going to do? Throw them out on the street?’

  ‘George gave me these pyjamas,’ Rory says, picking off the cornflakes and placing them on her tongue. ‘And doggie slippers.’ She lifts her leg as high as it will go, to show off the furry, brown footwear. ‘There’s one for the other foot, too.’

  Shirl’s smile is strained. ‘Very nice, dear.’ She turns to her brother. ‘Honestly, George, you have to be the most gullible person I’ve ever met.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Just look at her. A sly little miss if ever I saw one. And as for her mother . . .’

  George isn’t having any of this. ‘You’re the churchgoer, Shirl. What about all that Bible stuff, “Do unto others . . .” and so on. Where would our lives have been if we hadn’t known how to forgive?’ Where would his have been if Penny hadn’t known how to forgive? The thought comes unbidden and he
pauses before continuing. ‘It’s all give and take,’ he says. ‘In the end, that’s what life is.’

  ‘In this case, you seem to be doing all the giving,’ his sister responds tartly. ‘Now please tell me you haven’t been sleeping with that girl.’

  George hasn’t had a good laugh in a long time. Now, the suggestion that he might be sleeping with Angie (or any young woman for that matter) sends him into a series of genuine guffaws, snorting tea through his nose in a violent explosion of mirth. ‘Give us a break!’

  Shirl begins to giggle. ‘You’ll be the death of me,’ she says, wiping her eyes. ‘But they’ll have to find somewhere else sooner or later. You know that.’ She’s struck by a sudden thought. ‘If you’re lonely, you could get a dog.’ Seeing George’s jaw tighten, Shirl shifts her gaze and changes the subject. ‘Washcloth – don’t worry. I’ll get it.’

  George remembers very well the last time his sister had offered the solace of a dog. That was just after Pen had left him. Even after all this time (fifty years ago in May), the pain is deep and sharp and real. Bruised ribs will heal well before this old wound. His fingers curl into fists at the thought.

  ‘The washcloth lady’s here,’ Rory announces as her mother makes a brief appearance in the doorway before wandering out for a smoke.

  George is still chuckling when Shirl comes back from the bathroom. Washcloth lady. Doesn’t that describe her to a T?

  Being forewarned, Angie waits until Shirl leaves before coming back into the kitchen. In the meantime, Shirl had finished her tea, wiped Rory’s face and hands (none too gently, George thinks) and left with an ominous parting shot. ‘Get rid of them. That young woman is a loser.’ (George’s eyebrows had shot up at that. Shirl had obviously picked up some of the argot from her daughter’s generation.)

  ‘In Mum’s day, they called them battlers,’ he retorts and is vindicated when she closes the gate behind her without further comment.