Paper Daisies

by Kim Kelly

  He smiles, ever more pleased with himself. ‘You mean you haven’t guessed?’

  What?

  He chuckles again. ‘Such a clever girl and yet so naïve. Of course you are the one I need, Berylda. You have always been the one I need. And now it’s time these needs were met.’

  ‘Do it then!’ I snarl. ‘Do it.’

  ‘Patience.’ He laughs. ‘Marriage mustn’t be entered into too hastily now, must it?’

  ‘Marriage? What are you talking about?’

  What?

  What?

  What?

  ‘Our marriage. Yes, that’s right,’ he says mundanely, seriously – impossibly. ‘I will announce the engagement when you are back in Sydney, give you a few weeks to come to terms with the idea. Put a smile on your sour little face, and you will put a smile on that face.’

  ‘But you can’t –’ You are insane.

  ‘Oh, but I can.’ The wolf smile is a world of certainty, the reptile mind is made up, his words soft, slow and deliberate. ‘There is no need to be so alarmed, Berylda. You will be permitted to begin your studies in Medicine – that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Yes. Right.’ He nods and rolls his right hand as if leading the dullest student. ‘And when you do resume your studies, you will return from Sydney each Friday afternoon to be at Bellevue every weekend, such is your devotion to me, and to prepare for your wedding, which will be held at All Saints on the ninth of March; Liversidge will perform the ceremony – I’ll speak with him about it next week. It is of the utmost importance, you see, that we do hurry things a little, as we must be married before the candidature for the party is decided. I want you with child preferably before these New South Wales elections are held, which I expect will be sometime mid-year. I must be seen to be more of a traditional family man; this is the element missing from my appeal to the public and to the party, I believe. After the child is born you may resume your studies once more. You will still receive your degree, of course – and this way I will be seen to be the modern family man as well, a supporter of women, women who will encourage their husbands to support me. You will be permitted to practise; you may even specialise, in either gynaecology or pharmacology; you may choose which, as you may choose rooms in town, on William Street or Durham Street. As you may choose to remain a good girl. Or not.’

  He nods and gestures for me to answer him. For me to be pleased at this plan. I cannot even blink.

  ‘You will see the sense, my dear.’ He nods again, sure. ‘I have considered this for some time, obviously, and now the time has come. Enjoy your frolic to the Hill, for it is the last you will be permitted. It is time for you to grow up and accept your responsibilities. When you return to Bathurst you will begin nightly congress with me. Indeed, you need not bother with your corset from now on, unless some strain upon your back might make you desire it. Optimally, I want you visibly gravid by election day.’ He claps his hands and rubs them together; satisfied: ‘Right. Understood?’

  ‘Right,’ I reply. I spit it through my teeth. ‘Understood.’

  He says at the door to the hall: ‘Our children will be perfect, Berylda. I would like a minimum of four. Five would be ideal. It is all achievable and manageable – your sister will help raise the family, so that you may otherwise do as you wish in your … career.’

  And I promise silently at his back: I wish to see you dead.

  I will see him dead.

  I will see him dead before this week is out.

  My mind rages round and round and round this lead-sealed trap. My hand begins to throb where he kicked me. My shoulder hurts where he wrenched my arm.

  I go to the window for air. I lean on the sill. I breathe. In. Out. It is moonless now, so black I cannot see a thing. No river, no hills. Nothing but black space.

  And I am sure now.

  Pharmacology? Be careful what you wish for.

  I will find the perfect way. To end this.

  He has left me no choice.

  ‘Ryldy – Ryl, are you all right?’ Gret is pressed against the door for me now.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ I rush past her, dash under the bedcovers. Cold, so cold; trembling.

  ‘What did he do? What did he say?’ she asks me through the dark, curling around me.

  ‘Nothing of consequence,’ I say to her. ‘Just reading the riot act on my behaviour, laying down the law. You know what he’s like. Don’t worry about it.’

  Because I will kill Alec Howell, and my darling sister will never know a thing about it. No one will.

  The Track

  Man is a rope, tied between beast and superman—

  a rope over an abyss.

  Thus Spake Zarathustra

  Ben

  ‘Wilber, steady on – your legs are longer than mine.’ Cos is puffing along the road, where the milkman’s just deposited us, on his run home, a little way past the hospital – no cabs this hour on New Year’s Day. I don’t know why he’s insisted on coming, but insist he has: You can’t go running off after a girl without witness – who would ever believe you? Reaching for his tobacco before he was even awake. And someone’s got to make sure you don’t hurt yourself in the pursuit.

  ‘It’s not a matter of leg length,’ I say, already leaving him behind. ‘It’s that pipe you have to have before getting out of bed.’ Not to mention that generous gut he’s been cultivating the past few years.

  The sun is about to rise over the hills; the sky is bronzing with it. And it is cloudless, promising good weather today. I begin to run, as though she might not wait for me. My head pounds with last night’s wine and worry at displeasing her. Displeasing her? I dreamed of her frown, all night long, falling into her frown, falling into a field of nettles. But still I’m running, for her.

  Almost at the gate, just past the drive, I see the verandah is lit up by the lamp at the door, cutting out the iron lace below the roof in silhouette. I see her now, Berylda Jones: pacing round from the western side of the house, that sparrow-swift stride both dainty and belting the boards. I can hear her footsteps from here, a good thirty yards away, and the contradiction makes me smile, quite stupidly. Until I see him, following. Howell. They are in silhouette too, black shapes in the yellow kerosene light. He is pointing at her back, beseeching, insisting, urgent words spat through clenched teeth, trying not to shout; something that sounds like ‘stop it’. She keeps striding across the front of the house. He catches up to her, grabs her by the wrist; I feel the pinch at my own from last night, the slug trail it left, just as the dog barks and bounds up the front steps. Howell lets her go then, with a dismissive wave she does not see. He disappears inside the house with angry slamming of the door, and a strange rush of desire comes to me, to grab him in return, to break his fingers, crush him.

  I jump the fence, like Galahad storming the white pickets, and put a giant boot into the flowerbed. Ranunculus asiaticus, white and double-bloomed, now scattered across the lawn, and the dog bounds for me, paws on my shoulders, almost pulling me to the ground with the forward momentum.

  ‘Is that you, Mr Wilberry?’

  Who else might it be? I look up, following the audible frown to the corner of the verandah; the movement of her skirt there.

  She is already turning away: ‘Come straight around to the stables, please.’

  The dog gives me a grunt and nudges my hand with his snout: Come on.

  I come on. ‘Good morning, Miss Jones,’ and it’s only a few paces to catch up to her.

  ‘It is.’ She turns her head to glance at me, just as the sun flares above the ranges, and I see her more clearly now, striding into the day. I see the blush of her cheek as she turns away again. Energetic and confident, with her straw boater and that shortened style of skirt that shows her boots, she could be captain of the ladies tennis team. Pale grey skirt and black boots, charging
across the crest of this hill. I am tied to the black band at her waist as she goes, somehow remaining ahead of me, though my stride must be twice hers. I imagine she would beat me at a game of tennis, soundly. And yet she is so small. Petite is always the better adjective, Ben, Mama would correct me whenever I referred to her as small. And I am smiling stupidly again.

  ‘How capable are you on horseback?’ She glances back at me once more. Was that a smile? Too quick to see.

  ‘What?’ What did she ask me? I am suddenly caught up again in wonder at her. Wonder what sports clubs she might actually belong to at Sydney, at the university. Strike me, again and again, she’s a medical student, or about to be. I wonder if she’s at all interested in botany, from a medicinal point of view; she was discussing something about chemistry with that Dr Weston last night, wasn’t she? Not that I have ever been taken much by the chemical nature of things myself, but – that could be something to talk about with her today, couldn’t it? A point of interest? What would I know? I’ve never spoken to a female university student before, except to say ‘excuse me’ in a corridor; they don’t seem to enrol in botany past first year at Melbourne. At Adelaide there are loads of girls, but Melbourne, the sky would fall in if women began –

  ‘Mr Wilberry?’ Her tone is impatient. ‘I said, do you ride well?’

  Do I ride well? ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I reply, although riding is one thing I can safely say I do well enough. Not that I have had a decent ride since – that last with Mama, out at Jericho, out to the billabongs, at the edge of Eleonora. Last June. Her absence catches me again, and I can’t think. For a moment I can only see my mother belting up the trail ahead of me, her straw-coloured hair falling down her back. She was too young to die; too young to be gone. And I am small again; alone with Pater for some forgotten reason, and he’s throwing me on the back of that massive bay stallion we had once, to get to church: You’ll keep with me, son, or you’ll go to hell.

  ‘Good,’ the girl says, pulling me back from all that. ‘You can take Caesar then – he’s a little headstrong and more than keen to be out.’ She glances behind her yet again, and again only for a second, not long enough for me to see her face at all before she asks: ‘Where’s your friend? Mr Thompson, is he not joining us? Sore head, has he?’

  ‘Yes. No. Yes – ah. He’s on his way.’ The gate creaks; it’s him, shambling in up the path now.

  ‘He can have Jupiter.’

  ‘Jupiter? He doesn’t sound much less headstrong,’ I say, thinking of Cos, who is not much of a horseman, not by any measure.

  But she laughs, that soaring chime of a laugh. Should I suppose she is laughing at my joke? I don’t know, it wasn’t much of a joke, but she looks at me now, directly, under an arched eyebrow. ‘Our dear Uncle Alec – he does so love a tyrant. Loves nothing more than to keep these ones trapped in the top paddock too. They’re mostly just for show, poor things.’

  I have no trouble believing her; everything about Alec Howell seems false. But I don’t answer her. The old workman is leading a pair of stallions from the stables. Alec Howell is fond of a good show, there is no doubt. These horses are nothing less than majestic. Arabians, one black, one roan. Hardly poor things.

  ‘Which one is Caesar?’ I ask her.

  ‘The black one. My sister and I call him Jack, though. We had a stallion very like him once … some time ago.’

  I laugh, for he is the one I would pick if I could choose. ‘Jack. He’s beautiful.’

  ‘Isn’t he just. And Jupiter is Rebel, to us – he’s a little silly sometimes, something of a show-off himself. But we won’t leave Uncle Alec entirely steedless – he’ll have Neddy, our doddery old workhorse, to ride into town with.’ She laughs again: into me. As though she is seeing me, recognising me only now. Her blue eyes are the sky awakening in this soft golden sunrise light. Beautiful is not the adjective, not the right adjective at all. ‘Buckley – Buckley,’ she says, turning away from me again, ‘Jack is for Mr Wilberry, please.’

  I take the reins from the old man and place my right hand on the top of the stallion’s shoulder as he comes round to me. He seems steady enough as I look into his great dark eye, steadier than me as I sense Miss Jones touch the crook of my elbow, only for a second, but she is so close I catch the breath of her perfume, that fragrance of rosemary and something else; a glimpse of a bruise across the back of her hand that charges into me with the pain of whatever accident caused it.

  ‘Test him,’ she says. ‘Make your adjustments, please, and then we’ll be off.’ She is in a hurry to be away, that is all her touch implies; her eyes imply it too – come on – and I will not waste time about it. My hand is reaching for the pommel already as she says: ‘My sister and I will travel in the buggy with Buckley. You and Mr Thompson will travel ahead – north over the bridge first, then straight on to Duramana for the Track – from there, you’ll need to keep well ahead, see that the road is passable as we go.’

  ‘Yes. Passable,’ I manage to reply.

  I will see that the road is passable. I will mend the road should it need mending; I will be the road, for Berylda Jones.

  Berylda

  ‘Good.’ I watch Mr Wilberry’s handling of Jack: quickly astride and taking him around the yard, quite obviously capable. ‘Good.’

  He is here. Mr Wilberry is here. I doubted a thousand times through the night that he would come; feared that my rudeness, my capriciousness at dinner would give him second thoughts. But he is here, and Alec Howell cannot now stop us from leaving – he would not dare. Mr Wilberry is here, and we will be on our way in a moment. Please. And I will not let go of my half of the wishbone, clutched inside my pocket, until we are out of the gates. It is only the short half, my half, the losing half, but I am clutching it so tightly it is digging into the flesh of my palm, the tiny but immutable shape of my resolve. Inside this shock that returns and returns to me, echoing through every cell that amounts to the material of me, making less and less sense each time.

  Marry Alec Howell? Incredulity marries horror, searing up my spine and through to the ends of my hair. How can he think this will be plausible, to anyone, in this town or elsewhere? He is forty-two years old. I am not quite twenty. Why would I ever accept him? Much less want him? My departed aunt’s husband. That is disgusting enough. Never mind that this is the same hideous animal who rapes my sister. This is delusion. Possibly a psychosis, if that’s the right term for it. He could have any other woman; he could have Dulcie Wardell and all her purebred Caucasian wealth, connections, twenty years of unfettered childbearing in a snap of his fingers; her mother would throw her at him with the chequebook. Why does he want me? My skin crawls at the question. And my shoulder aches again from where he pulled me by the arm just now, chasing me halfway round the verandah, demanding that I kiss him as a token of my pledge to accept him. You will stop this resistance, Berylda, he warned, hissing the words at me from some realm beyond madness. You will not continue this coldness to me, this wilfullness, you ungrateful little slut – stop it, stop it now. Only leaving me be as Mr Wilberry arrived and Prince started carrying on – poor hound who will no doubt get a hiding on my account sometime today, because of my resistance.

  Stop it. I will stop it. I will stop you, Alec Howell. There are no questions any more. I will simply find the way.

  ‘Ryldy, I’ve just realised I forgot the jam.’ Gret emerges from the stables, where she’s been organising all of our baskets and boxes into the buggy. ‘I’ll go back in and ask Mary –’

  ‘No. Don’t worry about it, don’t bother Mary – she’s in full breakfast flurry now,’ I almost bark at my sister. I don’t want her to go back inside the house, as if he might hold her there until I kiss him, until I sign the marriage certificate, until I give him his child. ‘We’ll get some jam along the road.’

  So blithe and twittery I sound, or at least I hope I do, but I cannot recall if there is a shop on the road bef
ore the Turon crossing at all. My mind is tattered and frayed, too fraught to remember. Will anything even be open on this New Year’s Federation Day? How far is it to the Hill precisely? Forty miles? I know this answer and I can’t think of what it is. Hysteria creeps along the back of my neck. Will our Sally be able to pull the buggy far enough and fast enough to get us away?

  ‘Aye,’ Buckley says, with that soothing, scouring growl of his. ‘We’ll call in on the Kings at Duramana, misses. Mrs King – she’ll have some jam and she’ll open a window for me, no matter the day.’ Yes. Of course. The Kings live along the way, their little teashop a famous last outpost of civilisation before the Track; I know this, of course I do. And our Buckley won’t take us anywhere but safely; he’s packed the tent and more water cans than we could ever need, just in case; and he can sense my urgency to be away, even if he can’t know the truth of why.

  ‘Oh look, Mr Thompson’s arrived.’ Gret waves over my shoulder now. ‘Good morning – good day to you!’ She smiles into the sun; her lovely face is the sun.

  But I am past pleasantries as I turn to Mr Thompson. ‘You’d better make yourself comfortable in the saddle,’ I instruct him abruptly. ‘It’ll be a long day in it.’

  ‘Good morning to you too, Miss Jones.’ He is out of breath from walking up the yard, but ever equipped with sarcasm. ‘If I fail, will you have me shot at dawn?’ Saluting me and winking at Gret: ‘Your sister always such an awful sergeant major?’

  ‘Oh Mr Thompson, are you always so awful?’ she bats it back to him merrily.

  On any other morning I would relish her brightness, to see her so gay and carefree, but I am too far past the pretence of laughing along at anything now. I look over my shoulder, back towards the house, expecting Uncle Alec to appear with the hunting rifle. No evil and no desperation seems beyond him; I am frightened as I have never been. The terror threatens to overwhelm me: slicing through the ligament strings that hold my body upright. My knees quiver; my bones are turning to aspic. If we don’t leave now, this minute, I shan’t be able to run. He will catch me. And I will kill myself and my sister with me before he does.