by Joy Dettman
Swept up Margot’s cards and slid them into their packet. Margot went to bed ahzeeing. He went to the bathroom, and she boiled water to wash the dishes. She was standing at the sink when it started happening. She made it as far as the glass door, then it was like a rush of life leaving her and she was on her knees, her face pressed to cold glass.
He came with his towel from the bathroom and saw her crouched there, saw the blood, and called Flora to deal with it.
‘Jenny’s haemorrhaging,’ Flora yelled. ‘Get the car out, Geoff.’
Don’t panic if there’s heavy bleeding, Veronica had warned. Don’t go running to a hospital if there’s heavy bleeding.
Margot standing in the doorway, grinding her teeth at the bloodbath.
‘Get her into bed! I’m all right. Get me a towel, Ray, and go away,’ said Jenny.
He tossed her the towel he’d used in the bathroom and went away.
‘I’m all right, Flora.’
‘You’re not all right. You’re haemorrhaging,’ Flora said. ‘Bring a blanket, Ray.’
She tried to get up, to argue. Couldn’t get her feet beneath her. Submerged by pain or fear or pills, and where did heavy bleeding stop and haemorrhaging begin? She didn’t want to go to the hospital. Didn’t want to bleed to death either. Granny said she’d almost bled to death when Archie had aborted her baby.
Fear of dying overrode fear of the hospital. She stopped arguing. They wrapped her in a blanket; Ray carried her out to Geoff’s car. He drove them to the closest hospital, the Alfred, where a nursing sister diagnosed a miscarriage.
‘Is it your first, Mr King?’
Maybe Ray didn’t understand miscarriage. Geoff understood. ‘She’s got three,’ he said.
They hurried her away. They strung her up by her legs like a cow in a butcher’s shop. They peered into her, prodded her, lights blazing, sisters bustling. Then the breathing in of chloroform and that dragging away from consciousness.
I’m sorry, Granny.
Is it your first, Mr King?
I’m sorry, Granny.
Is it your first, Mr King?
Woke up in a bed, woke up vomiting in a world of punishing white light, and she wanted the dark back. Hands handling her like a butcher handles a dead cow’s carcass.
Is it your first, Mr King?
Slept again, dreamed mad dreams of pantomimes and the factory, of Lila and Norma, dwarves, standing around a giant inspection table, packing the pressed bodies of babies into cardboard cartons. Came to her senses in a panic, and rose up from her pillows, knowing where she was, or where she wasn’t. Remembered the hospital, remembered Ray and Geoff Parker, remembered Veronica. Didn’t know the time. They’d taken Billy-Bob’s watch. Didn’t know if she’d been in that bed for a day, a week, or a month, or who was feeding her kids.
A nurse told her the time. She found her watch in the tin locker drawer. It was dead. The nurse resuscitated it, strapped it on, and Jenny knew it was ten o’clock. Morning or night, she didn’t know.
‘My kids?’
‘Fast asleep, Mrs King.’
Night-time.
She slept deeply, for an hour or a day. They woke her to drink tea, to eat a hospital biscuit, and later they woke her with a sandwich.
Her watch needed winding.
Then he came, her shoes and clothing stuffed into a string bag. For an instant she was relieved to see him, until she saw his eyes, until she saw the bulging policeman at his side.
They knew.
THE FALLOUT
Jenny slid lower in her hospital bed. She couldn’t look at Ray, couldn’t look at the policeman who leaned over her demanding the abortionist’s name. She turned to a young doctor, her eyes pleading with him to pull the bedcovers over her head and pronounce her dead.
‘We need his name, Mrs King,’ the policeman said. ‘What was his name?’
How did they know? Did they know?
Ray’s eyes knew. They hated her.
‘You were lucky. Other women have not been so lucky,’ the policeman said.
Wanted him to put her in jail. Wanted to be anywhere away from Ray’s eyes.
‘We need an address and his name, Mrs King.’
Wished she’d never heard of Mrs King. Wish she’d never heard of Raymond King, never heard of Armadale — and they could stick red-hot needles beneath her fingernails and she wouldn’t give them her saviour’s name.
‘The abortionist’s name, Mrs King.’
He was like a stuck record. She had to turn it off, but if she said anything then she was admitting that she’d had an abortion.
They knew. Policemen wouldn’t waste their time on every woman who’d had a miscarriage. Somehow they knew.
‘Myrtle,’ she said.
Didn’t know why she’d said that. It came out, that’s all. Myrtle had taken Cara Jeanette. It was an abortion without being an abortion. Had to . . . had to think before she answered. Couldn’t think.
‘We need more than her Christian name.’
‘Norris. It was Norris.’
May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, Granny used to say. Sydney was a long way away.
And he wanted her address.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where did the procedure take place, Mrs King?’
‘Nowhere. At the house.’
‘Where is the house?’
‘I telephoned her. She came to . . . to Armadale. She did it in the bedroom.’
The first time, Veronica had done it in Wilma’s bedroom. It had been over and done with in less than three hours, no repercussions.
‘The phone number.’
‘I can’t remember it.’
She could remember Veronica’s. She could still see those numbers written on her hand. Had tried to wash them off with spit and her handkerchief. Handkerchief in her handbag.
‘It’s in my bag.’
Safe to say that. Her handbag was at home. Sewing money in it, singing money from last Friday in it, her bankbook. She had to get home, get it, get the kids, get what was in her cake tin and go.
Where were the kids? Had the police taken them away? Women who had abortions were unfit mothers.
‘Where are my kids?’ Scared for them. Scared of Ray’s eyes. Scared of the policeman. ‘Who’s got my kids?’
‘Who gave you the phone number, Mrs King?’
If she invented someone, they’d want to know where she lived. This wasn’t a game she was playing with Archie Foote, fairytale lies of singing in Sydney, of sharing a house with her friend. If she lied to a policeman, it was true lies, and they multiplied into worse lies. And they’d probably put her kids in a home, and she’d get five years’ jail, and her kids wouldn’t know her by the time she got out, and they wouldn’t want to know her, and Vern would get Jimmy. She turned her face to the pillow and bawled for the hopelessness of life, and because Granny wouldn’t want to know her either, and . . . and because she’d end up on the streets like Amber, or in a madhouse like her.
‘Who gave you the phone number?’
‘Please go away!’
‘We need names, Mrs King.’
‘A woman in Coles cafeteria gave it to me.’
Always a crowd in there. She’d shared tables in there. She’d discussed her kids with strangers. It could have been true.
‘Her name?’
‘I didn’t ask her name!’
He wanted a description and, defeated, she gave him what he wanted. She described Margaret Hooper, which was easier than making up a description she’d probably forget — and Margaret deserved it anyway. She’d lied about Jim being dead. They’d all lied about him being dead.
‘Frizzy platinum-blonde hair, short, plump, glassy blue eyes.’
He asked for a description of Myrtle Norris, the abortionist, and it seemed rational to describe Lorna.
Nothing was rational. The look on Ray’s face wasn’t rational. He was rigid, frigid, his innocent lamb’s eyes burning like the devil’s.
> ‘You’ll have every other bastard’s kids but mine, you she-dog slut,’ he said.
And not a stutter, not the hint of a stutter. This wasn’t Ray. Ray stuttered. None of this was real. She was dreaming it. Wanted to wake up.
And he wanted her to wake up. He flung the string bag of clothing at her head. Her shoes were in it. They hurt.
Got rid of the policeman though. He and an orderly marched Ray from the ward while she cowered in the bed, finally knowing the man who hid behind the stutter, and knowing exactly what he thought of her.
Is it your first, Mr King?
It hadn’t been his first. She’d got rid of his first too. Hadn’t thought about it . . . them as babies, just blood. Maybe the last one was threads of baby.
How had they known? Had she screamed it while fighting her way free of the chloroform? Had Veronica left something inside her?
Hadn’t thought about what might happen if something went wrong; hadn’t thought about much other than getting it out of her. It was out, and she wanted to die, wanted the doctor to put her to sleep with an overdose of chloroform before the policeman came back.
‘Where are my kids?’
The doctor didn’t know. And the policeman didn’t come back. She found out why when a nursing sister came to help her dress. She was being discharged.
‘Am I going to jail?’
‘You’re the victim, Mrs King. They’re not after the victims.’
They weren’t sending her home? Not with him. He’d murder her.
‘Do you know who’s got my kids?’
The nurse didn’t know.
And Ray hadn’t waited. Maybe they’d put him in jail. She stood at the hospital entrance looking towards Armadale. She had to go back there, get her money, and find out who had her kids. Probably with Flora. She’d hate her too. She wanted more kids and couldn’t get pregnant. Everyone wanted what they couldn’t have.
Jenny wanted sixpence for the tram. She had a ton of money at home, plenty in the bank, and not sixpence in her pocket for a tram fare. Didn’t have a pocket. Didn’t have the strength to walk to the tram stop even if she’d had sixpence.
Sat on the hospital step catching tears with her fingers, until a middle-aged bloke sat beside her and offered his well-ironed handkerchief and his packet of cigarettes.
‘Lost someone have you, love?’
Shook her head.
‘It can’t be as bad as all that,’ he said.
It was worse than all that. She’d finished everything this time. Everything.
She smoked his cigarette and a taxi arrived. The bloke was waiting for it. He got in, then, his head out the window, called to her, ‘Which way is home, love?’
‘Armadale.’
He gave her a lift to her corner, patted her shoulder when she slid out. ‘Take care of yourself,’ he said.
Gone then, never to be seen again. Wondered if he had a wife; if he loved his wife, or if he looked at her with hatred in his eyes.
She’d walked that block and a half to Ray’s house a hundred times. It had been as nothing. She walked it slowly that Wednesday, stopping to rest, to study shrubs not worthy of study, but she got there.
His motorbike was parked against the veranda. She walked around to the back door. It was open. And her kids ran to her, all three of them, and she held them to her, feeling a rush of love for and from those massed little bodies. Held them to her until he came dancing into the sleep-out like Granny’s mad rooster.
The kids ran out the door. With no strength to run, Jenny backed away, backed away to Granny’s old tin trunk, where she sat, watching the mad rooster’s dance.
‘It w-wasn’t mine,’ he said. ‘You’ve been m-making m-m-money on your b-back, you sh-she-dog slut.’
She could absorb punishment, had learnt the art early. She sat watching the dance, waiting for it to end.
He wasn’t a man of many words. He ran dry. The kids came back when they heard the bike roar into life. Quiet kids, clustering around her, knowing something was wrong but afraid to ask.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘We’ll go.’
‘Where?’ Jimmy asked.
God knows.
‘When?’ Georgie asked.
‘I’ll think about where tomorrow.’
She made a cup of tea. Georgie was frying pancakes when Flora opened the passage door. She didn’t come in.
‘I had the police here today,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No woman came here that day. You went out with the kids and you didn’t come back until school came out.’
Jenny didn’t deny the accusation. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Didn’t eat a pancake. Had no strength to wash the dishes. She left them on the sink and crawled into the kids’ bed, needing its comfort that night, needing the comfort of her kids. A crowded bed, but she slept, surrounded by warm little bodies.
And woke to him leaning over the bed, and the smell of drink, the smell of his sweat.
‘Please don’t start on me again,’ she said.
‘S-start on you, you she-dog s-slut? The whole b-bloody town s-started on you.’
‘Get out of my kids’ room with your dirty mouth.’
‘You g-got rid of it because it w-w-w-wasn’t mine, you slut.’
Jimmy awake and clinging to her, Georgie out of the bed.
‘We’re leaving in the morning. Now get out. You’re scaring my kids.’
He slammed the door, slammed his own; she slid from the bed and, on bare feet, crept out to the kitchen. She’d leave before he woke.
Then what?
Get a hotel room until she felt strong enough, felt capable of making the right decision. Had to make the right decision this time. Had made too many that were wrong.
Had to get her handbag. It was in his room. Should have got it instead of sleeping. She looked for his cigarettes in the dark. There was always a packet around somewhere. Not tonight. She had cigarettes in her handbag. Sat watching his door, giving him time to fall asleep. It felt like midnight or later. The city grew silent in the early hours, its hum of life stilled.
Hungry, and no milk in the fridge, no bread in the tin. A few sultanas in a jar. She ate them, made a cup of tea and drank it black.
Granny used to say she had the recoil of a rubber band. She was recoiling. She had a plan. Get her bag, get the kids up before daylight and get out, and who cared to where. Ride trams all day if they felt like it. Ride a tram to the end of some line and get a hotel room there. Her case was in the sleep-out. Her clothes were out there. She’d take what she and the kids could carry.
Stood and crept to his door, listening to the in and out of his snore, the choking inhalation, the moaning exhalation. He was dead to the world. Slowly she opened his door, just a little, just enough for her reaching hand to locate the bag’s strap. She unlooped it, withdrew it and closed the door silently. Back through the kids’ room then, through to the sleep-out, where she turned on the light and opened her handbag.
No cigarettes. She’d had half a packet left. No red purse. It had last Friday’s jazz club money in it. She felt the pocket where her bankbook lived, found her endowment book but no bankbook. It had to be there. She emptied her bag onto the camp bed, shook it. Lipstick, pencil, notepad, junk and fluff, old shopping list, but not a threepenny bit.
He didn’t want her to leave in the morning. He wanted to keep her here to punish her.
That book and purse had to be somewhere. They’d be in his room. She wasn’t going in there, not tonight.
In the bags on his bike maybe?
She crept outside and up to the front of the house, and in the dark searched the leather saddlebags, the little tool bag. No bankbook. No purse.
They’d be in his bedroom. She’d have to wait until he went to work. He didn’t like missing work. Wait, and hope he didn’t take them with him.
She slept the last of the night on the camp stretcher. The kids woke her at eight. She hadn’t hear
d Ray leave, but he was gone and the kids wanted to go to school. Jenny was home, life was back to normal, or it would be once they were back at school.
No bread to cut school lunches. She spread Weet-Bix with jam; they liked that. She walked them out to the gate, watched them to the corner, was still leaning on the gate when Flora returned from walking Lois to the Catholic school. She barely acknowledged Jenny’s ‘Good morning’.
Here we go again.
No time this morning to worry about Flora; she had to find her bankbook and purse.
She emptied Ray’s drawers, his wardrobe, went through the pockets of his grey suit, his trousers, his jacket. She stood on a chair to look on top of the wardrobe, she looked beneath it, pulled his mattress from the bed, moved his dressing table. No bankbook, no red purse.
Knew they wouldn’t be in the kitchen, but she searched it, and felt like Amber, who had periodically turned rooms upside down and shaken them. She progressed to the kids’ room, then the sleep-out. Every drawer in the house was emptied, every cupboard. She emptied the rubbish tin, poked with a stick through ash in the incinerator, raked out the copper’s firebox, searched her garden, wondering if he’d buried them, or burnt then buried them.
She was on her knees, peering beneath the veranda, when the kids came home. They got down on their knees to search with her. They found a tennis ball, found Jimmy’s wind-up monkey, wondered who had hidden it there. Its works had gone rusty. It wouldn’t play the drums.
Dinner that night was boiled macaroni served with vegetables, cheese and a mixture of tomato sauce and chutney. Ray didn’t come home. And something in the fridge stank. Chops there since Saturday morning were turning green; steak was threatening to do the same. She tossed the chops out and made a stew from the steak.
A WONDERFUL LIFE
Sunday, washing day. Ray hadn’t been home since the night he’d taken her purse — shouting himself a hotel room with her earnings? She didn’t know where he’d gone, didn’t care, just as long as he stayed there. She was hanging a multitude of little socks on the clothes line when Flora walked by.
‘Still cool enough,’ Jenny said.
