Moth to the Flame

by Joy Dettman

  Ten thirty: Granny coughing her lungs out but wanting news of Elsie.

  ‘It’s not cancer. Harry will be home soon to tell you all about it.’

  ‘Ray?’

  ‘He had to go back to work.’ Tell her about that later.

  Looked for Harry at eleven, wanting another adult close by, needing him to convince her that Jimmy was safe in hospital. Watched for Vern Hooper’s car, hoped it would come, didn’t expect it. Watched and listened until eleven thirty, walked outside each time she heard a motor approaching. Trucks drove by. A tractor. No Harry.

  Mixed up a double dose of flu brew for Granny and drank half of it before offering the rest.

  Margot had the constitution of an ox. She wanted to get up to go to the lav. Jenny carried her out, carried her back to bed. Georgie had the disease, or the headache and sore throat of it.

  ‘Stay in bed,’ Jenny told her.

  ‘What brought you home?’ Gertrude asked.

  ‘Homesick.’

  At twelve Lenny rode off to town to find out what had happened to Harry. He came home with aspros and honey and the news that Harry had missed his train, that George Macdonald was in hospital.

  One o’clock. ‘I’m going into town, Granny.’

  She cut through Flanagan’s land. The last paddock looked too wide. But she crossed it, climbed between the last wires, and the stooping lifted her head from her shoulders. Walked up Blunt’s Road, her lungs straining to feed limbs sufficient air. Legs of lead, trembling at the distance they still had to go. They carried her down to Hooper’s corner.

  His roses were an assault, their massed blooming wrong today, red, pink, orange, heavy giant blooms. Too much colour, too much perfume. And no car in the yard. She walked by the roses, following a bricked path between green lawns to the front door where she knocked.

  The hollow empty sound of her knock put the fear of God into her heart. She hammered at that door, then forgot her legs were leaden and ran around the veranda to the back door to hammer there. Locked.

  Ran then, up past the hotel and over the railway line, each breath of air hurting. A twin opened Maisy’s door. Looked by him, looked for Maisy. She came, dressing-gown-clad, a small coughing boy behind her.

  ‘Can I use your phone, Maisy? Jimmy’s in hospital.’

  ‘We took George down last night.’ Maisy’s nasal voice was a croak today. ‘He’s in a bad way.’

  Didn’t want to hear about George Macdonald. Didn’t want to hear about Harry’s missed train, or about Elsie’s chloroform.

  ‘Harry said he slept for the first time last night, slept through until seven,’ Maisy said.

  The phone in her hand, Jenny placed the call.

  ‘The operation knocked her about, he said, but she was talking to him last night. The doctors seem to think she came through it well.’

  Nodding, barely listening, waiting for that call to go through. ‘What’s taking them so long?’

  ‘The place is chock-a-block,’ a twin said.

  ‘They say Ernie Porter’s in a bad way with it,’ Maisy croaked. ‘He’s been down there since Saturday.’

  A woman’s voice on the line.

  ‘I’m enquiring after my son, James Morrison — Hooper. He was admitted this morning.’

  The woman had no record of a James Morrison Hooper, no Hooper-Morrison, no Morrison-King, nor any near-six-year-old boy admitted to the hospital this morning.

  ‘He has to be there,’ Jenny said. ‘His grandfather took him down early this morning. Vern Hooper.’

  The woman didn’t know Vern Hooper. She gave Jenny a list of local doctors and their telephone numbers. No pencil. No paper. A twin offered a pencil and pad. She touched what he’d touched. Sometimes there is no choice. Legs shaking, stomach shaking, head pounding, only fear keeping her on her feet now, fear and her need to locate Jimmy.

  A twin brought a chair from the kitchen. She didn’t thank him, didn’t sit down. Her third phone call located Jimmy, or located where he’d been. Mr Hooper and his grandson had seen Doctor Frazer this morning.

  Almost two o’clock. Where had they taken him?

  ‘They’ll be staying at the Farmers’ Arms, love,’ Maisy said. ‘They’ll want to keep him down there close to the doctors.’

  ‘Why isn’t he in the hospital?’

  ‘They put the old man out on the veranda. It’s wall-to-wall beds out there.’

  Maisy gave her a Bex tablet and a glass of lemonade. ‘One of the boys will drive you home, love.’

  She’d crawl before she got into a car with one of them, and she wasn’t going home. For years she’d feared Vern would steal Jimmy. In Sydney, when Jim had been listed as missing, she’d feared every car that pulled into the kerb out front of Amberley. She’d feared Vern when Norman had died, had feared leaving Jimmy at the school gate in Armadale.

  And she’d brought him back to this town.

  Constable Denham knew her. He knew the history. He’d find Jimmy.

  She left Maisy’s house and walked the short distance to the police station. A stranger answered her knock.

  ‘Is Constable Denham in?’

  He’d moved on to Bendigo. And her legs gave up the fight and sat her down on a weather-worn bench seat; and her mind gave up the fight to remain coherent. She said too much, spoke too fast. The constable told her to slow down, to start from the beginning, but the beginning had been too far back. Today, there was only today.

  He brought her a glass of water. She didn’t want water. She was breaking up — head, body, heart. He told her he knew Vern Hooper and his daughters, that they were good people. He knew Mrs Foote too, knew where, how, she lived. He drove Jenny home and told her he’d contact his Willama colleagues, get in touch with Mr Hooper, that he’d contact her when he had news of her boy, and to pop into bed and get some rest.

  She poured the last of the brandy into a glass when he’d gone. Its taste was vile but she drank it and lay down on the cane couch to die. And did, until seven that night, when she rose to dose the rest of them, and herself, adding rum to her brew this time. If anyone called for her in the night, she didn’t hear them.

  The constable woke her at nine. He stared at the girl who had difficulty opening the door, a girl who might have been a movie star playing the role of destitute wife, and he imagined what she might look like in high heels and fur coat, stepping into a limo.

  He knew now that she’d been involved with Vern Hooper’s son, had been engaged to him, had a baby to him that the son spent two years in a Japanese prison camp, that she hadn’t waited for him but wed a stuttering, bike-riding lout. He’d heard it all this morning on the telephone, from Miss Hooper. He’d heard that she and her father had been in touch with the city police, that her brother, the war hero, had charged Jennifer and Raymond King with the wilful neglect of his son.

  The constable saw, smelled, the neglect that morning.

  AN UNFIT MOTHER

  Harry didn’t miss Tuesday’s train. He came home to his own houseful of sickness, came home with his other kids, four of them and two coughing.

  The constable’s car returned at three, Vern Hooper in the passenger seat. Jenny walked out to the gate.

  ‘Is your husband about, Mrs King?’ the constable asked.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ she said.

  ‘Mr Hooper and myself would like a word or two to your husband, if we may, Mrs King.’

  She pushed the gate open. ‘Jimmy is my son,’ she said, bypassing the constable to approach the passenger side of the car. ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘Your son, and my grandson,’ Vern said.

  ‘Where did you take him?’

  ‘Where he’ll be well looked after.’

  ‘I want to talk to Jim.’

  ‘All you need to hear from Jim is that he’s charged you with neglect of his boy.’

  Vern remained in his seat. The constable stood looking across at Harry’s house, at smoke billowing up from its chimney, a swarm of kids playing outside.<
br />
  ‘You know he was never neglected. His teacher, everyone knows . . .’

  Too sick for this; back aching, neck, her limbs felt like bruising on bone, head aching, throat too raw to fight any more.

  ‘Tell it to the judge, girlie,’ Vern said.

  ‘You can’t do this, Mr Hooper. I love him.’

  ‘If you loved that boy, you’d do the right thing by him. A fight in court will do him and no one else any good, and you can rest assured I’ll take it to the highest court if I have to. An agreement between you and Jim will be the best way to handle this, best for all concerned.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘With his father, where he should have been two years ago.’

  ‘I want to talk to Jim.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you.’

  She turned to the constable, two hands holding her head onto her shoulders. ‘He wasn’t ever neglected. He was sick. I sent Lenny in to get the garage man.’ Tears blurring the constable, blurring Elsie’s house. ‘The garage man will tell you he came down to take him to the hospital. She came in and she took him.’

  The constable had spent the past half-hour speaking with Vern and his daughter. They’d passed on information received from their investigator. Miss Hooper may well have walked into that shack and taken her nephew, but if a judge got to hear half of the dirt the investigator had dug up on Mr and Mrs Raymond King, he’d no doubt hand her a medal for kidnapping that boy.

  ‘You haven’t got a leg to stand on, Mrs King,’ he said.

  Her legs were leaving her; she gripped the police car’s door-frame, the windowsill, and hung on. Harry coming across the paddock, Josie in his arms. Had to hold on, that’s all. Harry knew she’d never neglected those kids. Head spinning, or the yard spinning, roar of the ocean in her head, shaking her head, forcing her eyes to see the face at the window.

  ‘You know me, Mr Hooper. You know me.’

  ‘I know you, girlie. I know about that filthy abortion business you got involved with down there too. And if you’ve got the brains you were born with, you’ll want to keep that from your grandmother.’

  A punch below the belt. It wrung the air from her raw lungs. And he saw what his words had done and hit her with more of the same.

  ‘Any woman who’ll do to her unborn what you did to yours is no fit mother for my grandson, or for the others you’ve got. I’ll see them all taken away from you.’

  ‘You would have let him die unborn.’

  It was the howl of old ammunition, useless against him. He waved it aside with his hand.

  ‘Make it as dirty as you like. It won’t do you one iota of good.’ He raised a finger, Jim’s finger, Jimmy’s finger. ‘You went after my boy to ruin your sister’s wedding, and there’s never been a doubt in my mind of that. You got Jim so screwed up about you, he didn’t know if he was coming or going.’

  Then he hit her with his death blow. ‘We’ve got our investigator chap looking into what you got up to in Sydney. He’s already found the lodging house. He’ll know more by the date of the hearing.’

  The devil was in Granny’s yard raising a heat haze. Blurred white chooks swaying, yard trembling, walnut tree shaking, pecking chooks vibrating the earth beneath her feet.

  She’d used Jim’s name in Sydney. Jenny Hooper had been six months pregnant when she’d left the clothing factory. They’d found Amberley. They’d find Cara Jeanette. Little three-year-old girl with Jenny’s hands.

  Just one more rape, Jenny Morrison. God’s account book fallen open again at that old dog-eared page. Lie down in the dirt and spread your legs, Jenny Morrison. It’s no use fighting any more.

  She fell to her knees. Vern didn’t bother opening the car door to put the boot in. He did it seated.

  ‘Do you want your grandmother to see your name plastered all over every newspaper in Australia? That’s what’s going to happen if you force me and Jim to court. We’ll do it. You’ve got my promise on that.’

  Sky darkening, raining newspapers. abortion emblazoned on the front pages. Raining photographs of wide-eyed, smiling kid Jenny, holding fast to her talent quest envelope. WOODY CREEK SONG BIRD SWAPS BABY FOR FREE BOARD. The headlines buried her. They blacked out the day.

  The constable carried her inside, and, having got her there, found a coughing old woman collapsed beside a bed, two little girls trying to lift her.

  He drove Jenny to the hospital.

  WITHOUT COERCION

  Night of the long nightmare, of Norman’s train racing in her head, the roar of it, the circling of its hundred wheels. Factory in her head, piles of prison-camp bodies on the inspection table, wire trolley full of body parts she had to sew back together. Had to find the right bits, do what had to be done.

  And voices. Voices too loud in her head.

  ‘Mrs King. Mrs King.’

  Not the factory. She hadn’t been Mrs King at the factory. Everything was wrong. Sissy was there in her rainbow taffeta. Everything was wrong.

  Beside the lake, beneath the trees . . .

  ‘I’ll put a cheque in your hand today.’

  Had to sign the cheque for Sissy’s dress. That’s what they wanted. She’d got Norman’s money. Nineteenth of April 1950. It was wrong. Couldn’t sign it yet. Sissy always wanting something. Always getting what she wanted. Let her wait.

  ‘A couple of signatures today will bury what I know.’

  Words hammering against her eardrums. Wheels. Clackettyclack, clacketty-clack, clacketty-clack. Stowed away on the ghost train to hell, old devil squatting down there, waiting for her soul. Two devils, bargaining for her soul . . .

  ‘Money is nothing to me, not without that boy to plan for. She’s had him for six years.’

  Six, sixty-six. He wasn’t six. Third of December he’d be six. Cara Jeanette was the third of October. Couldn’t know one without the other. Tried to lift her head to tell them he wasn’t six. Magnetic pillow beneath a head of iron. Iron coffin. Hot.

  Contract in the devil’s hand. Why didn’t it burn?

  ‘W-w-what’s it s-s-saying?’

  ‘That he’ll end up owning every penny I own, every penny his father owns too. What more can she want for her boy?’

  Chuckling papers.

  ‘I n-need g-g-glasses.’

  ‘It’s simple enough. This one says, I, Jennifer Carolyn Morrison King, without coercion, and being aware that it is in the best interests of my son, James Hooper Morrison, do hereby relinquish . . . This second one is to do with the legitimising of the lad’s birth. He’ll be his father’s son, and my legal heir.’

  What’s in a name? A rose by any other . . .

  ‘Your father’s name is still respected in Woody Creek. They’ll spit on it if I’m forced to use what my investigator chap dug up on you and old Phoebe Fisher. Her brother is prepared to stand with us in court and swear that you wormed your way into that old lady’s affections. And don’t doubt I’ll use him if you force me to. I’ll use that abortion business, drag up the business with her mother. Our team can keep this in the headlines for months if we’re forced to. Or we do it clean. We do it here today.’

  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to a dusty death . . .

  ‘For Jim’s and the lad’s sake, I’d prefer to do it clean. Your boy will be raised in a mansion to know the best that money can buy, girlie. He’ll be educated at the best schools. It’s his father’s turn now. He’s missed out on six years of watching his son grow. You do the right thing by him now.’

  ‘T-t-take the p-pen, Jenny.’

  You can’t fight two. Lie down and take it. Sign away your soul and they’ll go away. White paper chuckling in her face. Gold and maroon pen dripping black insects to the sheets.

  Just a fly in everyone’s ointment, Jenny Morrison. That’s all you ever were. Drag your feet across their chuckling paper. Then lie down and die.

  There was a landlady called Myrtle,

  Who lived in a shell like a turtle,

  U
ntil one fine day, she decided to play,

  and Myrtle the Turtle was fertile.

  SCATTERED CHILDREN

  Cara Jeanette Norris, born on a kitchen floor, her swaddling cloth a striped tea towel, was, at the moment, walking with her father, Robert, looking at the pretty flowers.

  A pretty child, clad in a red tartan and lace frock, shod in dainty shoes, her head a golden halo of tight-spring curls, her eyes as blue as the early December sky. Pretty as a picture, tiny Cara Norris, and full of questions.

  ‘Is stars a bit like . . . like the sky’s flowers, Daddy?’

  ‘Stars are like suns, poppet.’

  ‘Where did them all go . . . when . . . when it gets light time, Daddy?’

  ‘They’re still up there in the sky. Our big sun is so bright we can’t see them.’

  ‘Why?’

  Environment is seventy-five per cent of the child, the experts say. Experts are often wrong. Environment may influence a child’s aspirations, her vocabulary, the tone of her voice, but Cara Jeanette Norris was Jenny’s child.

  Robert Norris had met the girl who gave birth to his daughter. He recalled a pretty young thing, country-clad, a chubby babe on her hip. Myrtle had known her well. She spoke often of their daughter’s resemblance to Jenny, and since the chap had come knocking on her door enquiring after a Jennifer Morrison who had lodged at Amberley during the war years, Myrtle had argued to sell the house and move far away.

  ‘A house is only a house, Robert.’

  But a house can be much more than a house if it is in a familiar area, in a familiar city, when well-known shops are just around the corner, the station a few blocks away. A house as large as Amberley can also provide a good income.

  ‘You’re worrying needlessly,’ Robert Norris said.

  ‘Mrs Collins has commented on Cara’s hair a dozen times. She knew Jenny well.’

  ‘She knew her as an adult, not as a child.’