Moth to the Flame

by Joy Dettman

  ‘Which way did he go?’

  ‘Towards Blunt’s, and in a hell of a hurry.’

  As was Lenny Hall, who came down that same road and pulled up out front of Charlie’s, two of his tyres remaining safe on bitumen. With rain pelting in from the south, he opened his protected window. ‘Mum said to get you and Raelene, Georgie.’ He looked pale, tight-mouthed.

  It was Jenny. She’d gone down to Willama with Lila Roberts to order Granny a tombstone with an owl on it.

  ‘They’ve had an accident?’

  He nodded, and her heart died. ‘At the mill,’ he said.

  Ray. And her heart slammed into her lungs. Not Jenny.

  She ran to the ute, mug still half full of tea in her hand, Charlie left standing, holding his can of baked beans.

  No raincoat, no umbrella, rain pelting down, she ran through the mud of the school yard to knock on her old classroom door. ‘There’s been a mill accident,’ she said to the auburn-haired woman who Jenny had known as Miss Rose, who Georgie knew as Mrs McPherson, who Maisy called Amy.

  They buttoned Raelene into her rain cape, and Georgie, Raelene on her back, returned to the ute. Away then, Lenny’s tyres slewing. He got them to Elsie’s house.

  Georgie made her way to the tiny kitchen. Donny taking up too much space in it; Margot at the table, using up more space; Elsie at the stove. No room for Georgie there. She left Elsie spreading a jam sandwich for Raelene after trying to talk her into Vegemite. Raelene had a sweet tooth.

  Front door open, Georgie stood watching Macdonald’s new tractor roar by, a bare twenty feet away. It shook the house. Their truck was behind it, its tray loaded with mill men heading out the road towards Davies’s mill. One by one, trucks and utes came from town, then the council grader came, scooping mud, piling it up to the sides of the road. One of the Macdonald twins’ black utes itching to pass it. Simpson’s truck behind him, also loaded with men.

  How bad?

  Very bad.

  George Macdonald had set up that bush mill. He’d walked away from it during the early days of the Great Depression. Davies had bought it sometime before the war. Set up in the midst of the raw product of city fences, termite-proof stumps for city houses, railway sleepers, bridge supports, the mill was three miles on from Gertrude’s land, out along a gravelled road — and there’d be nothing left of that road come nightfall.

  ‘We weren’t working,’ Lenny said, joining Georgie in the doorway. ‘Just batten down the hatches, Davies said. That’s all we were doing. The creek’s broken its banks out there. The mill will be under water by tomorrow.’

  He rolled a cigarette as slim as one of Harry’s, lit it and blew smoke at the rain. Not Harry’s son, but he was all Harry in other than appearance. Little of his Aboriginal forebears in Lenny. A blue-eyed, blond-headed white-feller’s son, Lenny Hall.

  ‘He would have died outright, Georgie. The log stack rolled, just out of the blue. Nothing anyone could do. No time to yell. I can see it every time I close my eyes, like in slow motion, over and over and over. Just one, then that whole bloody pile of logs rolling down on him. I’m getting out of it. That’s two that’s died out there since I started.’

  Georgie nodded, watched the road.

  Jenny got home near four o’clock, light almost gone, rain pelting down again.

  She’d been to the school to get Raelene. Amy McPherson had told her there’d been another accident out at Davies’s mill. Only one reason Raelene would have been taken home early. Jenny knew the reason.

  She’d come as she’d left, via Flanagan’s, Lila not prepared to hazard her car in the forest road bog. She was dripping wet, her shoes mud-covered. Her eyes were dry.

  ‘How?’ was all she said.

  ‘A log stack rolled,’ Lenny said. ‘We weren’t even working, Jen, just battening down the hatches.’

  ‘Come in out of the rain, lovey,’ Elsie said.

  Jenny looked at her shoes, half of Joe Flanagan’s wood paddock stuck to their soles.

  ‘I won’t take my shoes off twice, thanks, Else.’ She turned to Lenny. ‘Could you haul Donny over for me?’ she said, and started back across the paddock, one thought only on her mind. Donny. Or maybe two. I should have slept with him. I could have. He wasn’t even forty.

  Donny . . .

  Wiped mud from her shoes on tussocks of grass, as she may have any other day. Lenny came behind her, Donny over his shoulder, Georgie behind him, Raelene on her back. First thing first: the stove. Out.

  Donny on the floor, near the wireless. Raelene wanting Jenny to take her Red Riding hood cape off, not Georgie. And Margot came in, her ahzeeing wail reaching a crescendo.

  Hell was Raelene’s foot stamping on cold bare boards, Donny’s ongoing dirge, Margot’s wail — and that bloody chimney dripping rain onto a cold stove, pooling in the back corner of the hob.

  I could have slept with him. It wouldn’t have killed me . . .

  Stop. Get the stove burning. The wood trunk was full.

  No more Ray to keep it full.

  Donny.

  Full stop! Don’t think about that now!

  A dark day; the kitchen a freezing pit. Donny didn’t like the dark. Georgie turning the wireless on; crazy dame singing a crazy song: Ying tong iddle I po. Donny didn’t care. Georgie cared. She changed the station while Jenny placed a saucepan on the hob to catch the trickle of water, mopped up the pool, then reached for an empty Weet-Bix packet, shredded it and poked the cardboard into the firebox to encourage not quite cold embers into life. Squatted before it then, blowing on the embers.

  Smoke. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, Granny used to say.

  It was too soon. It was less than a week since . . .

  Not the same. Nothing like the same.

  Georgie, preparing to light the lamp, changed her mind and flung the door wide. She had a nose like a bloodhound, could smell Donny’s soiled napkins at the instant of their soiling. No doubt biscuit-filled today, bottle-filled during the hours Jenny had been away, then the lot shaken up by his ride across the paddock on Lenny’s shoulder. He’d released his load, and far better the winter wind blow in through that open door.

  Jenny changed him on the floor, on her knees, still clad in her raincoat, an open newspaper beside her, a toilet roll. She washed him with perfumed soap, powdered him — not for the powder’s medicinal qualities but its perfume — then out to the lav with a newspaper parcel, around to the washhouse with the napkin to drop it into a bucket. Half-filled the bucket from a tap, poured in a dash of bleach, a shake of powder. Soaped her hands then, and admitted to those hands, to the soap, that she couldn’t do it alone. Wiped the hands on a rag of towel.

  ‘I can’t,’ she told Ray’s bedroom door. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Then out to a heavier downpour. ‘I can’t,’ she told the rain.

  ‘Get inside,’ Granny yelled. It could have been Granny’s voice — Georgie’s beautiful head leaning out through the lean-to’s window hatch.

  ‘Close that, love,’ Jenny said.

  She walked around to the door. Didn’t go inside; went to the old tank to wash her hands again. Always a bar of soap kept in a saucer on the tank stand, always and forever. A new bar had been placed there by Granny less than a week ago. Wet soap today, swimming in its saucer, turning to jelly but eager to lather. She stood there a long time, wasting water, washing her hands of Donny.

  It had to be done.

  Plenty of water in that tank to waste. Both tanks had been overflowing to the chooks’ yard for days. Little river of water; Chook Creek running fast towards the lower ground of Rooster Lake.

  ‘Get out of the rain, Jen,’ Georgie repeated.

  ‘I can’t do it, love. Not without Ray, I can’t.’

  ‘He’s not your responsibility, Jen.’

  Nor was Raelene, but she wanted Jenny to take her shoes and Red Riding Hood cape off. Jenny came inside. She took Raelene’s shoes off, put her bunny slippers on, hung her rain cape beside Granny’s black o
vercoat, barely scorched by its brush with flame.

  Flames licking in the firebox, the shopping put away, Willama sausages placed in a plastic bag in the fridge. The greatest invention since the wheel, plastic bags; every one that came into the house was cherished by Jenny. Used bags were washed, hung on the clothes line to dry. What she wouldn’t have given for a few plastic bags in Armadale when he’d come home with his load of roadkill.

  No one taking any notice of Margot’s ahzeeing, she was punctuating it now with accusation. ‘You don’t even care he’th dead.’

  ‘Shut up with that, Margot.’

  No one had told Raelene her daddy was dead. No one knew if he was. Had to get him out from beneath that log stack. It would do no good telling Raelene tonight. Had to get through this night, and deal with her tomorrow.

  Georgie piled wood into the firebox, adjusted the flue. Jenny was outside again. She’d bought a large bottle of bleach in Willama. Used a lot of bleach on Donny’s napkins.

  ‘I want my cape on,’ Raelene said.

  ‘She’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘I want her to come inside now.’

  Altogether too much noise.

  ‘Be patient, Raelene, and shut up that ahzeeing, Margot. You’re driving me mad.’

  ‘He’th dead, and she’th jutht doing the wathing.’

  ‘Who’s dead?’ Raelene asked.

  ‘You don’t care one bit,’ Margot howled.

  Cared enough to put Raelene’s rain cape on, her shoes on, to let her out the door. Better out there than in here.

  She cared about the noise. Cared a lot about that. She cared that someone was lying dead under a pile of logs — although would have cared more had it been Lenny under those logs, or Harry. That was the truth. You can’t get away from the truth.

  Ray’s packet of Relaxatabs was on the mantelpiece with Jenny’s cigarettes. He’d had trouble sleeping with the light burning for Donny. He’d swallowed two of those tablets every night. She opened the packet. Only two left.

  . . . warden threw a party in the county jail . . .

  She liked that song. Turned to Donny. Maybe he liked it. His head was against the wireless cabinet, soaking up the beat. Wondered if he thought he was singing. Granny used to say he was.

  Wondered if he thought anything.

  ‘It’th too loud.’

  ‘You’ve got legs. Use them.’

  ‘Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock,’ Georgie sang as she pushed the two tablets from their sealing plastic then reached for a mug, for a knife. She stood beside the stove grinding the white pills to powder with the knife’s handle before pouring a dash of water from the kettle into the mug, stirring with the knife blade.

  Margot turned the volume down; Donny fell to his back, competing well now with the wireless.

  . . . was dancing to the jailhouse rock . . .

  Feeding bottle on the dresser; Raelene’s bunny mug hung on its cup hook; Margot’s private glass was in the corner of the second shelf. Georgie meted out the liquid Relaxatabs to glass, bottle, bunny mug — equal shares for bottle and glass, a smaller share for the bunny mug — a good dash of green cordial into each, then water from Granny’s stone bottle.

  ‘The warden threw a party in the county jail,’ she sang off-key. Maybe she’d inherited her father’s voice. She hadn’t inherited Jenny’s.

  Donny wasn’t fussy. He’d suck on anything. The dirge silenced.

  Jenny came in with Raelene, who snatched up her bunny mug, emptied it while Jenny removed her belted raincoat, shook it, hung it to drip behind the door, removed Raelene’s cape, and Raelene wanted biscuits. Georgie gave her two. Margot didn’t want a biscuit or her cordial.

  ‘Drink it or I will,’ Georgie said.

  ‘He’th out there thquashed under a log.’

  ‘Shut up, Margot, and drink.’

  Donny, punishing an empty bottle, banging it on the floor. Georgie reached for Margot’s private glass. Margot snatched it. Her germ fetish hadn’t improved with age. She ran through the rain with it. She’d get more sympathy from Elsie.

  ‘How am I going to get him out there to bed? I can’t do it, love,’ Jenny said.

  ‘No one expects you to, Jen.’

  Raelene wanted Jenny to pick her up. Jenny sat and took her on her lap. Georgie walked to the wireless and turned it off, claimed Donny’s feeding bottle, tinted green by cordial. Wondered what he weighed. She’d never lifted him. She took his hands and hauled him to his feet. He stood. A fat boy-baby, napkin- and sweater-clad. He could walk if someone held his hands. He liked to walk. She walked him to the table, then, as had Lenny, she got her shoulder down to his middle and heaved, unsure she could lift him until he lifted. Out to the rain then, fast.

  ‘You’ll break your back!’ Jenny said, rising, sliding Raelene down, but Georgie was running through the rain towards Ray’s bedroom. ‘It’s too early to get him down. He’ll be awake at dawn.’

  Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  Margot’s germ fetish didn’t extend to beds. Georgie found her sprawled across Ray’s, ahzeeing into his pillow.

  ‘Get off there, Margot, or he’ll land on top of you.’

  Jenny was behind her. ‘We won’t be able to get him out of the cot in the morning, Margot. He’ll have to sleep there. Get up!’

  She didn’t move.

  Donny was breaking Georgie’s back. She dropped him into the cot. It shuddered as it took his weight, the floor beneath it shuddered, but he was in bed. They straightened his limbs, lit his Coleman lantern, tossed the quilt over him.

  ‘How are we going to get him out in the morning?’

  ‘Tip him out,’ Georgie said, and they returned to the warmth of the kitchen, to watch Raelene’s foot-stamping dance.

  ‘I want my daddy. Why won’t my daddy come home?’

  Day already given up its light, she knew he should have been home by now with her lollies.

  Jenny picked her up, sat with her, rocking, patting her face. Georgie sat watching, waiting for her portion of the pill to do its work. It did. They carried her to bed at five thirty, Jenny assuming she’d worn herself out with her crying.

  They made a cup of tea and stood together in the open doorway, warming their hand on the mugs, sipping scalding tea and watching the road; the only noise, the splat-splat of water into the big boiler, the drip-drip into a smaller saucepan, and the steady rain falling on the roof.

  ‘I hope someone milked the goats,’ Jenny said.

  Harry would be out at Davies’s Mill. Elsie and Ronnie could milk. Lenny couldn’t. Ronnie worked for a farmer, camped out during weeknights. They’d brought him home when Granny died. They wouldn’t bring him home for Ray.

  No one had fed the chooks. Most were free to forage. The cockerels were penned, and the rooster. They’d survive a night without dinner.

  No movement on the road. No movement of chooks or goats. Old horse standing out in the rain, still waiting for Granny to come home.

  ‘There’ll be no light left soon for them to see what they’re doing.’

  ‘They’ll use their car lights,’ Georgie said.

  Or stop what they were doing and leave him out there in the rain.

  A quarter to six, and nothing. Six o’clock before they heard the distant rumble, then the siren. The council grader led the way into town, the police car’s intermittent siren behind it. In the doorway, identically shaped hands linked, gripped, Georgie’s the larger of the two, Jenny’s grip stronger. Statue still they stood as Macdonald’s truck went by, then a black ute, then Simpson’s truck, saturated men standing on its tray. Many vehicles, many wet men, Macdonald’s tractor bringing up the rear. A slow-moving but noisy funeral cortege. They stood holding hands until the intermittent siren wail became distant, until the tractor’s motor faded.

  Then nothing. Then pitch darkness. Closed the door on the darkness and lit the lamp, piled more wood into the stove.

  At seven, Georgie made a fresh cup of tea. She
cut two thick slices of bread and toasted them against the embers, plastered them with butter and honey. Two plates on two hobs, two mugs of tea.

  ‘Pass me my cigarettes, love.’

  ‘They’ll kill you. Eat your toast,’ Granny’s voice said.

  How had that happened? When had it happened? She didn’t lecture on the burning of money like Granny had lectured. She passed the cigarettes, the matches. ‘You eat your toast first.’ Didn’t want her to crack. No more Relaxatabs. Scared she’d crack.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right. I should be crying for him, not eating toast.’

  ‘The world can only end once a week,’ Georgie said.

  Jenny looked at that girl who should never have been born, who, had things gone right in Melbourne, would never have been born, and she thanked God, or fate, or happenchance, that things had gone so wrong. Loved her. Loved her good sense. Loved her heart, her soul — just loved her. If not for Georgie, she wouldn’t have bothered living when the Hoopers took Jimmy.

  Her hair looked darker tonight, the ends curled by too-frequent wetting. She looked younger, seemed older. Her eyes lost their green by lamplight, darkened. Too much behind them to read tonight. Weariness, worry, determination.

  Laurie’s eyes had worn that same expression during those last days in Geelong. When it’s over, it’s over, sweetheart.

  ‘When it’s over, it’s over, Georgie. When you’ve got no options left, then there’s no option.’

  ‘You’ve got no options, Jen.’

  ‘I know. It’s got to be done, it’s just —’

  ‘Say it out loud, Jen. Make the statement now, and stick to it.’

  The rain came back to thunder on the low roof and a new stream of water spilled to the stove. Without needing to move from her chair, Jenny reached for an enamel bowl, placed it. Tinkling of raindrops adding the high notes to the chorus of the drip-drop-splat.

  ‘You look more like Laurie than ever tonight.’