Moth to the Flame

by Joy Dettman

  Or phone earlier if the news was bad. Enough bad news in this place. It wasn’t going to be bad.

  She left the kids and walked over to Ray, poking now at the mattress with Granny’s rake. ‘Would you have a spare cigarette?’

  Too willingly, he dropped his rake and offered the packet. She got one out. He struck a match. God, let me hate him, she thought as she leaned in close to get a light. Couldn’t hate him, not when he was like this. Stood with him for a minute, sucking in nicotine but smelling the stink of feathers.

  ‘There’ll be a tin of kerosene near the wash trough in the shed,’ she said. ‘Toss a bit on with some wood. If you can get what’s underneath it burning, it might catch on.’

  He knew how the city worked. She knew how this place worked, knew without thinking. And she couldn’t afford to think, not right now. Just do; just do what had to be done and think later.

  She sent the kids off to find eggs. They found dozens of them, precious as gold in Melbourne and here for the taking. Jimmy loved fried eggs.

  ‘There’s millions everywhere, Jenny.’

  A food market, Granny’s land. Milk on the hoof, vegies in the garden, meat on the wing in the chook yard.

  The kids were eating fried eggs and potatoes when Mick Boyle arrived. No room for more in Gertrude’s house. The lean-to took most of it; the bottom end of the kitchen absorbed the rest.

  She must have known something when she’d rolled Sissy’s mattress. Had to scrub Granny’s bed first, then it would absorb Sissy’s mattress and the pillows. She made up the sleep-out bed with Norman’s sheets, his blankets. Emptied one carton into Gertrude’s dresser cupboards. The rest could wait.

  She was cooking scrambled eggs and potatoes at six when Elsie’s kids walked by again, taking the diagonal short cut through Joe Flanagan’s wood paddock to town. They’d want to be at Maisy’s when Harry made his phone call.

  Seven o’clock, seven thirty, and they hadn’t returned. If the news was bad, Maisy wouldn’t allow them to return. Jenny looked for them when she tucked her kids into the lean-to bed, all three worn out by their day. Left their window hatch wide open, fresh air blowing through, blowing the germs away, please God.

  Ray left for town at eight, the same way as Elsie’s and Harry’s kids had gone. Hoped he’d find his way through. She watched him hold down the wires of the dividing fence and step over, watched him head into the trees. Then picking up the milk bucket she walked out to the paddock to call the goats in, as Gertrude had called them, by tapping on the bucket’s base. She’d milked goats before. Hoped they’d allow her to milk them. They came, three gentle old nannies to stand in line. They didn’t argue about her out-of-practice hands either, maybe relieved to give up their load.

  She’d learnt a lot on this land. Hadn’t learnt much in Melbourne. Loved and loathed this land. Loved its bounty, its sky, its moonlight. Same moon as Melbourne’s, but bigger up here — more sky for it to grow fat in. More stars too. Different sounds. Different smells.

  Still loathed the smell of goats, but by the time that orange moon had escaped the hump of dark trees, she had two-thirds of a bucket of free milk; pints of milk for porridge, for puddings. She had wood on the wood heap; an old black stove where the kettle was always boiling, the oven always ready to cook. If she belonged anywhere, it was here. If she’d learnt anything in her twenty-four years, it was how this place worked.

  ‘It’s all pre-recorded somewhere up there,’ she told the moon. ‘I was meant to come home today. It’s all written down. I’m just following a script. If you’re sitting up there waiting to scratch Granny’s name out, don’t do it, or I’ll walk off the stage.’

  Bone tired when she carried her milk back to the house, that happy train ride now light years away. She’d been picked up by a time machine, moved from 1947 twenty years back. Same table lamp burning on the same old kitchen table. Same milk strainer. Same chipped enamel jug. No Granny sitting beside her stove. Granny burning up in bed.

  Another lemon squeezed, Jenny was crushing aspros when the Hall kids came home, came to stand at the door, all three talking at once.

  ‘Mum’s good, Dad said. It doesn’t look like cancer, the doctors reckon. She was still asleep, Dad said.’

  ‘That’s a weight off your minds,’ Jenny said.

  ‘How’s Gran?’ Lenny asked as they were leaving.

  ‘Bad.’

  It took too long to spoon in the flu brew, and Gertrude choked on it and stopped breathing. Jenny hauled her away from the pillows, shook her, held her against her and thumped her on the back. That forced a breath in. She held her with trembling arms for minutes, then, more carefully, spooned in the last of the brew.

  Probably the wrong thing to do. Not knowing the right thing, she did what felt right. Fetched a basin of water from the tank at ten — and the old climbing rose bush grasped at her arm, asking for news of Gertrude.

  ‘I’ve got to cool her down,’ she told it, or told herself. ‘That’s what she’d tell me to do.’

  Bathed her with cool cloths, bathed her long legs, her long narrow feet, and by lamplight they looked young, too vulnerable without their boots. She washed old work-worn hands, kissed those hands and thought of kissing Norman’s dead hand, and she held Gertrude’s face between her hands, kissed her cheeks, her brow while she could, spoke weary nonsense to her while she could.

  ‘I’ll let your goats go dry, my old darlin’. I’ll sell the young ones to the butcher. I’ll eat your chooks — the ones I don’t let starve. I came home so you could save me, so wake up and save me. That’s your lifetime job, so wake up and get to work.’

  Not a movement out of her, barely breathing, but cooler maybe. She lifted her away from the pillows and propped her higher, placed an ear to her chest where the wind storm still raged. It would be all over by morning.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t.

  Ray was back, with his bike, and wherever Gertrude was, she heard that motor and flung her arms attempting to rise from her bed. Someone needed her.

  ‘It’s Ray. It’s Ray’s bike. We’re here with you, darlin’, and I’m never leaving you again. Wake up and talk to me.’

  He came in with a bottle of lemonade, a loaf of bread, two packets of cigarettes; and maybe she was pleased he’d come back, certainly pleased to see the bread, the cigarettes. She washed her hands, her face, combed her hair, and cut bread, ate it with honey, drank tea with goat’s milk, helped herself to a cigarette, and reached for Granny’s matches to light it.

  Always a box of matches on the mantelpiece, on the dresser side of the mantelpiece. Always and forever they’d been kept in that same place. They’d lived there long before Jenny could reach them. Reaching that mantelpiece had been a childhood measuring stick.

  Twelve years old when she’d outgrown Elsie. Fourteen, and as tall as Amber, when she’d stopped growing, stopped being. Stopped. Believed for a long time that if not for the twins, if not for Margot, she would have grown as tall as Sissy, as Granny. Knew now that height had never been written into her master plan. Archie Foote measured five foot six, an inch more than Juliana Conti; their offspring had been lucky to ever reach Granny’s matches on that mantelpiece.

  ‘She’s spent her life running around after the people of this town,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t those kids tell someone she was sick?’

  ‘Old Ph-Phoebe w-wanted to die in her own b-bed.’

  He’d said her name.

  ‘How old was she, Ray?’

  ‘Y-y-younger than your gran. H-how old is —?’

  ‘Seventy-odd.’

  Didn’t want to work out the odd bits, not tonight. Didn’t want to know how many odd bits there were.

  ‘Did you get a room at the hotel?’

  He shook his head. She was relieved about that. Didn’t want to be way out here with three — six — kids, not tonight.

  ‘Toss one of those blankets on the couch,’ she said. ‘I’ll sleep with Granny. She won’t dare to die if I’m beside her.’
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  Joany was the first of Elsie’s kids to take to her bed with the disease. Ronnie had it but refused to lie down. On Sunday morning, Margot started her ahzeeing.

  ‘I’m thick.’

  She was. She wouldn’t eat, and when Margot wouldn’t eat, she was sick. Two lots of brew to mix that morning, but Gertrude was improving. She took her midday brew from the cup, then coughed like a dog with distemper.

  Six o’clock on Sunday night when Jimmy vomited. She settled him in beside Margot; knew she had the disease too, but refused to admit it. Once Ray was gone she’d deal with it, and Harry was coming home tomorrow.

  Ray had brought no change of clothes and little money. He knew he had to go home. She wrapped a dozen eggs, placed them into a brown paper bag. He liked eggs. It was all she had to give, and a ten-bob note for petrol.

  She walked with him out to his bike, watched him place the eggs into his saddlebag — from a distance. She expected him to mount the bike. He didn’t.

  ‘I g-g-get c-crazy jealous, Jenny.’

  Didn’t want this scene. She wanted a strong dose of flu brew and to get her limbs down. Had to play it out to the end, and play it the right way.

  ‘I couldn’t have managed here without you. I’m grateful, Ray.’

  ‘I d-d-don’t know w-w-w-what I’m d-d-doing when I’m drunk.’

  Sometimes there was no answer to make. Sometimes there was nothing to do but look up at a sky lit like a Christmas tree, to reach for a cigarette just for something to do. She lit one. The smoke hurt her lungs. They felt raw. Her throat felt raw.

  He reached for her. ‘I w-w-want us to m-make up, Jenny.’

  She stepped back. ‘There’s nothing to make up, Ray. We’re parting as good friends. I’m grateful to you.’

  She sounded like a cracked record. What else was there to say?

  ‘I’ll c-come b-back on F-Friday.’

  ‘No. I came home because I want to be here. I’m not leaving Granny again.’

  ‘I’ll g-get a mill j-j-job.’

  ‘You’ve got a house and a good job down there. You belong down there.’

  Bats flying, feasting on unseen bugs; music floating across the paddock. She used to sit in the moonlight with Granny listening to Harry’s wireless.

  ‘We’re m-m-married.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not the wife you need.’

  She drew on the cigarette and the smoke tasted bad. She tossed it down, ground it out, sighed in air. And fresh air hurt her lungs.

  ‘I’m sorry you found out I got rid of that baby, but I’m not sorry I did it. I’d do it again. Having kids splits a woman into pieces. We leave pieces of ourselves in every one of them. There wasn’t enough of me at fourteen to split, and I’ve done it again and again. Just go, Ray. I don’t want to be your wife or anyone’s wife.’

  ‘I n-need y-you.’

  ‘You need a girl who’s got no scars, someone who wants nothing more than to go to bed with you and have your babies. You’re a nice-looking man. You’ll find her. And when you do, take her riding in the moonlight, talk to her. Don’t close yourself off from her like you did from me.’

  ‘I’ll u-u-use those things you b-bought.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  She had to get him gone. She had to breathe, and get this scene played out calmly, decently. Just get him gone then go to bed and sleep until she woke up. That’s all she needed. For him to be gone and a long sleep. She’d be fine in the morning.

  ‘I w-won’t t-touch you if you d-don’t tell me I c-can. I p-p-promise —’

  ‘It’s too late, Ray.’

  ‘I g-g-got n-no one, Jenny.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The howl was back in her voice and she had to control it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that in Melbourne? Why didn’t you tell me you’d nursed old Phoebe for months, that she’d wanted to die in her own bed? You hid your best parts from me.’

  ‘Y-you would h-h-h-have said what they all s-s —’

  ‘I would have said you were a kid, like I was a kid when I got pregnant with Georgie, that we did what we had to do to survive. I would have been pleased that the big boy who’d saved me from Sissy had found a way to survive when everyone in town thought he was dead. We were two kids dealt unplayable cards, Ray. We make bad partners but good friends. We can stay friends.’

  ‘I g-go m-mad when I g-get drunk —’

  ‘Getting drunk makes people into who they want to be. It made Norman brave enough to fry cheese sandwiches in Amber’s kitchen; made eighteen-year-old twins fearless enough to rape me. You wanted to kill me. I can’t live with that.’

  ‘I’ll c-come on Friday n-night.’

  ‘You’ve got grounds to divorce me. Go home and do it.’

  Walked away from him. Left him standing out in the moonlight, looking like a Roman gladiator, tall, strong-featured, unarmed — and waiting to be eaten by the lions.

  WAITING FOR PETROL

  She slept for five hours on the cane couch. Georgie woke her. Jimmy had vomited all over the bed.

  Jenny washed him on the table, changed his pyjamas, placed him into her couch bed, made up Granny’s spare bed for the girls and got them settled before hauling the new mess out to the shed. Carried water from tank to shed and howled for Melbourne’s water.

  This too would pass. In a day or two, it would pass. Harry would be home this morning. Just get through this morning, leave the mess soaking in the trough, a shake of Persil, a dash of phenol to kill the germs.

  Jimmy on the floor when she returned, his big eyes open but no longer seeing her.

  Aspro. It was all she had. And while she was feeding it to him in honey, his skinny little body went into convulsions. He wet his clean pyjamas, soiled them, and was unaware of what he’d done. Held him and howled on him, and, when his little body relaxed, ran with him in her arms to Elsie’s house.

  ‘Lenny! Lenny!’

  He came to the back door, pyjama-pants-clad.

  ‘Get the garage man. Jimmy’s bad. I have to get him to the hospital. Get Maisy. Get anyone with a car. Hurry.’

  Carried Jimmy home, praying, pleading for Lenny to hurry, for the garage man to hurry, Archie Foote, anyone. Maybe it was too early for the garage man to be at work. What time did he open? Her watch said eight.

  Holding Jimmy was wrong. He was burning. She was burning and heating him more. Had to cool him down. That’s what she had to do. Wet cloths. That’s what she had to do.

  Got him on the floor, a towel beneath him, got water. She was on her knees, bathing his half-naked little body, when she heard the motor. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Wrapped his lower half in a towel, pulled a singlet over his head.

  Motor running, car door slamming, the gate squealing open. She was wearing the wraparound gown she’d worn since Georgie woke her. It was crushed, wet, gaping. She pulled it straight as a long shadow fell across the floor. Expecting the garage man, or Maisy, for an instant she didn’t recognise Lorna Hooper’s silhouette against the light. Saw the white handkerchief held to her nose. Get anyone with a car, she’d told Lenny. Garage man not at his garage, he’d got someone. That was all that mattered.

  ‘He took a convulsion. I have to get him to the hospital.’

  ‘Clothe yourself,’ Lorna Hooper said.

  Red case open on the stripped lean-to bed. Chaos in there. She grabbed the first frock she put her hands on, the blue linen. Got her wrap off, got it on. Shoes? Where had she left the shoes she’d worn home? In the kitchen.

  Lorna was halfway out to the car, Jimmy in her arms, before Jenny located her walking shoes beneath the couch. Got them on, snatched her handbag from behind the door, then, with no word to Granny or the girls, she ran, her frock unbuttoned.

  She was opening the chicken-wire gate when Lorna did a reverse spin. The wheels of the big black car bucking, gears grinding, the car took off up the track, Jenny left standing, belt dangling, bodice gaping.

  She’d get Jimmy to the hospital. That’s all that mattered. Couldn�
��t have the air in her car polluted by the town slut. Of course she couldn’t. That didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if her beautiful boy rode with the devil’s handmaiden as long as she got him to the hospital.

  She was still standing at the gate when a second car drove onto Gertrude’s property and came bumping down the track. Gone from town too long, she didn’t recognise it. Someone wanting Gertrude? Nurse Foote wasn’t available.

  She buttoned her frock, did up her belt then recognised Lenny seated beside the garage man. She met the car in the yard, not understanding why they were here.

  ‘Lorna Hooper took him.’ Giving voice to those words made her understand, and her heart lurched. ‘Who told the Hoopers?’

  ‘Miss Hooper was waiting for petrol,’ the garage man said. ‘You’ll be right, then?’

  Vern was Jimmy’s grandfather. He’d get him to the hospital. He’d demand the best attention for him. That’s all that mattered. Nothing else mattered. That’s what she told herself. Her stomach told her a different story. It wanted to vomit. Nothing in it to vomit out.

  Garage man leaving; Lenny’s bike in his car boot. Lenny ran after the car. It stopped. She watched the bike lifted out, knowing she should get in that car and follow the Hoopers to Willama. But he’d be safe in hospital. He’d be safe there until . . . until Harry came home. Quarter past eight. The train got in between ten and ten thirty. He’d be safe until then.

  Car bumping up the track. Watching it go.

  ‘Joany’s pretty crook with it,’ Lenny said. He sounded like Harry.

  ‘Aspros,’ Jenny, mother of three, said. If she’d learnt anything in Melbourne, it was how to be a mother. ‘There’s plenty of lemons on the tree. Sweeten it with honey.’

  She swallowed two aspros with water, picked up Jimmy’s soiled pyjamas and the towel and took them out to the shed to be tossed in with everything else. Not enough water to cover them. Wanted Melbourne’s taps.

  Drank black tea with a squeeze of lemon, and when the aspros reached the aches in her, when they wrapped a cushion around her nerve endings, she filled the copper, got it boiling, tossed all bar the blanket in to boil clean. Washed the blanket; heaved everything over the clothes line.