by Susan Tarr
Before it was completely daylight, before the bellbirds woke at crack of dawn, he dressed, packed his school suitcase and quietly left by the back door. Down the slippery concrete steps, twenty-five, twenty-six, watch out for webs wet with dew. Down, down, down, forty-eight, forty-nine, careful – the moss and the spiky creepers reaching out to catch at his ankles, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, arriving on the roadside far, far below.
In the greater distance, over the other side of the city beyond the grey water, he had seen pine trees high on the hills in the early morning smoke. From down on the road, he could only see the bases of the closer buildings in Dunedin across the harbour water.
“I’m going home,” he yelled at squawking seagulls diving from on high. “She needs me! I’m her big boy!”
He ran, unaware of how high he was stepping, his suitcase bumping against his knee. He walked. He limped. He dragged on and on until he could no longer see the big town, only the Caversham shops. He stumbled into a cemetery, cold and damp, no hope of direction or comfort there. A red telephone box stood tall and secure, scorning his confusion.
Miserable, thirsty and hungry, he retraced his steps and made off in another direction to go higher. He slumped into an exhausted sleep beneath some bushes in the town belt, the cold gathered around him, a brusque wind nosing beneath his tight school jersey and up his tight grey shorts. Early the following morning, down, he stumbled, down, down. Then up, up, up he plodded until he neared the top of yet another hill from which he could see the long skyline in the distance clad with stark pine trees. Passing terraced cottages all of a sameness, chimneys poking holes in the clear morning sky.
The afternoon sun shone weakly. Dry fire spread up his throat, and his tummy gnawed away at him. But he knew his way home now. From way up there he’d once collected pinecones to stuff in a sack. His father had carried the sacks over his shoulder.
Not far now. Cresting the hill – nearly home.
Visitors.
Dragging his heavy boot, he moved slowly, intrigued by the long, shiny black car pulling slowly away from his gate. There were lots of other cars too, and uncles wearing church suits and hats, and aunties swathed in black and wearing church hats with veils pulled down to hide their faces. Like magnificent tragic columns. Dressed up for a wedding, for church. Was it Sunday?
He spied his father among the group.
“Hey, Daddy, it’s me. It’s your boy. I came home.” His voice a hoarse whisper.
Propelling himself faster now, limp, hop, limp, red from exertion and the chill of the cold southerly wind, he waved and called again. This time no sound came out from his mouth.
Everyone left. Gone in the cars that drifted silently away from the gutter, windows as secret as early morning mist, one following another.
He stopped running. His boots were making his leg muscles scream at every step. On his heels were huge water-filled blisters where his too-small boots rubbed against them. His throat stung from the cold air, his legs ached, his knees were splotched purple.
It rained.
From Portobello it was a long way to the top of the hill with the pine trees. Looking back to where he’d walked from, he could barely see the houses dotted along the peninsula. Try as he might he could not see Mr Brown’s house up the hundreds of steps, hidden in bushy shrubs where sad moreporks cried and creepers grabbed his ankles. Hauling himself up, boots in one hand, suitcase in the other, he limped on to find his home.
His mother would be surprised to see how big he’d grown. He’d been away forever. He pushed the back door open with one hand, the kitchen oddly chilled without the constant warmth from the coal range.
Walking down to the front bedroom on tiptoes in case she was sleeping, he whispered, half-singing, half-laughing, “It’s me-ee. I came ho-ome.”
Cold shivered through him, raindrops dripped from his head down his back and shoulders, as he dropped his boots in the doorway, his balled-up holey grey socks closer to the bed.
He reached for the rose geranium talcum powder tin on the dusty bedside table, shifting it from hand to hand before putting it into his pocket. Then he pushed his hand down under the eiderdown to the emptiness below. The hollow shape of her body was still there, but it was cold. Damp.
He sat at the foot of the bed and waited for his parents to return home from wherever they had gone.
CHAPTER 26
Fox Furs
Bella rushed in from the street, high heels clunking, up the stairs, two at a time. The door banged back on its hinges. She stoked the fire to heat the wetback for her evening bath and filled the kettle, humming a commercial jingle. She set out cups and saucers. Clink, went his mother’s best tiered cake plate and rattle went his mother’s best flowered china – onto the trolley.
Better be careful, he breathed.
Clink, chink, rattle came the trolley down the passage to the sitting room opposite the cold room where he sat on his mother’s bed.
There was an old lady who swallowed a dog what a hog to swallow a dog she swallowed the dog to catch the cat she swallowed the cat to catch the bird she swallowed the bird to catch the spider she swallowed the spider to catch the fly I don’t know why she swallowed a fly perhaps she’ll die
The house was filled with the whispering of grownups. Tall relations and strangers alike were bowing in toward each other, talking in muted tones, ignoring the darkened room opposite.
…such a lovely woman…so young…that poor man…his second loss, you know…
“Is it really?”
“I believe so, dear.”
“Oh?”
“Indeed. Shhh!”
“Do you know where Mummy is?” he whispered to the old black taffeta lady who peered down at him from beneath a dark cluster of feathers like a blackbird. “Do you?”
“Come, come, young man.” Her voice firm, she helped him down off the bed. “You be brave now. Come along and greet the others, there’s a good boy. They’re all your family. They’ll look out for you. So never you mind.”
Standing barefoot and drenched below the moving sea of black, wave-crested with feathers, flowers, veils and satin hats, his eyes danced from one to another. Brown fox furs stared back, sharp little eyes, warning him – of what? Words travelled along invisible strands of wire among the feathers and hats; words full of meaning and importance – to tall people.
The curtains were closely drawn though it was daytime. Stiffly standing at various points in the darkened room were vases – on the mantelpiece, the oak dresser – filled with white velvety lilies. He inhaled the different smells of sweet sherry, malt whisky, cigar smoke and mothballs.
His father in his too-tight wedding suit was shifting oddly from foot to foot. Whisky glass stayed between hand and lips, he noticed the boy in the passage holding onto Great Aunt Gert. His face tensed and a muscle set up a rhythmic twitch beside his mouth.
He reached his arms up. “Who are these other people? Why are they here? I can’t find M-Mummy.”
Words tumbled urgently from his mouth as he bravely held back his tears.
“Not now, boy,” his father said, strained and low, smiling narrowly at the grownups. Taking the boy by his cold hand he pulled him along the passage to his bedroom, shut the door, hauled him onto the bed.
The boy prepared to be cuddled and told where his mother was and who the grownups were.
“What are you doing here?” His father’s voice was solid with familiar anger.
“I…Mummy…my boots–,” he wailed. “They’re wet.”
“You’re supposed to live with the Browns, you ungrateful little bastard!”
His father shook him fiercely by the shoulders, making his head jiggle and bounce, before hurling him flat on his back on the bed.
He shrank into the bare mattress as his father’s face loomed fiercely above him. Wham! The fist pounded the wall, making a hole, tilting the picture on the high-up nail.
Though he was afraid, he managed to say, “I’m truly sorry, D
addy. It was an accident.”
He howled as he dodged a second blow to his head. Then his father clapped his other hand over his mouth, fingers blocking his nostrils so he couldn’t breathe. Struggling, his blistered feet kicked wildly at the mattress, the wall, the dresser. His tongue probed the palm of his father’s hand that tasted of familiar Swedish pipe tobacco.
His eyes pleaded. Daddy. It was an accident…accident…accident…
Images swam in his head, around and around, a fish swimming in water, or a seal tumbling in the waves, rolling black thunderclouds on a cold day scattering the leaves…
His tongue slackened against his father’s hand.
His bare feet stopped kicking.
His eyes watching, watching…
High above the room all was peaceful…
Watching…
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow I don’t know how she swallowed a cow she swallowed the cow to catch the dog she swallowed the dog to catch the cat she swallowed the cat to catch the bird she swallowed the bird to catch the spider she swallowed the spider to catch the fly I don’t know why she swallowed a fly perhaps she’ll die
The man left the room, walked smoothly back to the guests in the sitting room, a tight smile slapped on his face.
From high above, through the ceiling, the boy watched him fill his whisky glass too high, laugh too loud. The women folk tsk-ed, appreciating his grief, empathising. He watched him pull open the curtains, letting the bleak sun shine her reluctant rays inside the house of secrets and death.
He watched Bella serve cups of tea and fresh cucumber and tomato sandwiches.
He understood everything – from his new understanding high above the rooms.
Such a dear girl you are.
Barely out of your teens.
Helping your family in their darkest hour.
Where would one be without family, I ask you?
Bella curtsied, lowered her eyes and smiled, her bubblegum tucked into her cheek.
She had a secret.
His father had a secret.
He had a secret.
CHAPTER 27
Coal
This time Malcolm didn’t bawl. So far Jack had said nothing, and that was all right. There was learning in nothing too. After scratching his head for an age, Jack eventually said, “Well, son, that’s a big story so I’ll just tell you that a slut is a bad woman. She’s not good for anything, so make no mistake there. You mind me and keep clear away from sluts. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said calmly, and he got down from his chair by the window in the warm steamy kitchen. Just so long as Bella was a slut, was all.
Everyone had a story to tell.
The gardens near Clifton House and The Cottage were well cared for. Often as Malcolm sat on a park bench among the many-coloured rhododendrons, peonies in full bloom and standard roses, lush, full and rounded, someone would join him to talk or maybe just nod or jerk. The more senile patients, those who couldn’t do any of that any more, were housed a distance away from the main building.
As time passed Malcolm had become interested in the hospital as a whole, as a unit, and in its history. He’d heard that The Cottage was opened in 1898 especially for those women who were convalescing, or were now well enough to prepare for a return home. (Clifton House was for the men.) The Cottage gardens were designed to be peaceful so those women patients could live more normal lives for the remainder of their stay. Those in residence were there primarily because of minor breakdowns or financial worries, some because of home troubles, childbearing, or overwork. Even diabetes.
He recalled a young girl whose parents had her committed because she would slip away to the lake whenever there was a full moon. The lake, the night… The lake beneath some torrential rain. Oh, anyway, somewhere else. Somewhere far away.
Some horses, some men and women he knew, poor resigned creatures hunched over in the rain. He switched off the mental picture, and told himself, “I’m nothing like them,” yet felt himself bound to them by invisible chains.
He was different from the mass that lived in the crowded isolated wards, each housing fifty or more.
He was waiting for…
He recalled how once he’d laughed at the word. Waiting. It was anything but amusing now. What else did he ever do but wait? He waited for…
He wandered through lifeless rooms and lifeless gardens. Another two hours. Another three. Then dinner. Then the sound of some key locking some door. Then the sound of footsteps crossing the gardens or roads to lock other doors or gates. Then more waiting…sometimes feverish and strange…
The sound of a horse neighing from afar. The clanking of metal or a motor starting up. Voices. Music. Then the nights, the stormy nights with their great gusts of wind in the oak trees and the distant rolling thunder. And then what, then what?
He sat quietly on the seat and he waited.
A patient called Dick Clough joined him, speaking fast and loud in his strong deep voice. Sometimes Malcolm didn’t understand a word Dick said. Today he was saying, “I realise I have no other home. Can you believe that, Mal? I just live at the men’s house.”
He watched a sparrow flit past. He’d known Dick for a long time now. He knew Dick’s story.
“I used to have a home back in England when I was a nipper. But I was a bit of a bother to me mam. Gave her the lip once too often. Ah, me dad warned me good and proper but I was just a kid. I was too young to care.”
Malcolm understood about England and the English people. He’d heard Jack and Mr Antonio say there were loads of Poms working in the hospitals as nurse aides or attendants, all meeting the terms of their assisted passage from England. The English staff were contracted to do two years employment in order to repay their passage over. There were far more women than men arriving and most of the young women did their two-year stint then shot through. They didn’t like the mental hospital, the patients or the conditions. They said it was dirty and the work expected of them too hard, unsafe.
Jack said most of them were city chicks from the old country and they expected too much from their new life. He doubted they’d ever set foot in a mental hospital back home. As well as their not liking the place, they spoke a different English, hard to understand. Now there were Dutchies arriving and Scots, Irish and Pakis, even Abos. Well, it was a circus all right, Jack said.
The two houses – Malcolm was somehow intrigued with them – Clifton House and The Cottage, they each had a kitchen where the men or women made their own meals and sorted their own medication. They didn’t sleep in noisy dormitories – he’d been inside – they shared private bedrooms. He wondered if he would ever make it to Clifton House and have his own room and make his own meals.
Dick was still talking. “…and so I got into a few fights down at the wharves, broke a few noses. Dad said I’d best get meself on a merchant ship before someone done me in. He was glad to see the backside of me. Blimey, I’d give someone a bash and get a thick ear meself. And me mam, she’d had enough of me. It was just lads being lads. I know that now. What do you reckon?”
It didn’t matter what he reckoned. Dick went on talking anyway.
“So I set sail when I was thirteen, getting up to some right shenanigans. But it weren’t no different from home. I still got in lots of fights. So they packed me off to the mental asylum. I don’t have a lot wrong with me, though. I’m not deaf, dumb, blind or lame. I’m none of that. Musta been me ugly moosh.”
He took a long hard look at Dick’s face. It seemed all right to him.
“And I’m not a homo like them homo chaps. What with their lady clothes and all, no wonder they were committed. They get The Treatment regular. It’s the only way to control their deviant bodies. They’re kept well apart from each other. Matron gets their special drugs from her dispensary. None of us regular blokes take the coloured pills they do. I checked.”
Malcolm wondered what colour the homo pills were and if he were taking any of them. He was about to as
k Dick about the colour but he was talking again.
“…so this here has been me home for nearly fifty years now so I’ll stay put. In the beginning, I must admit I got pretty down. It was once a real castle, you know, like the old castles of home with the turrets and the battlements. I saw them in the photographs on the walls. Now it’s just a building. But the grub’s good, eh?”
He nodded. Yes, the grub was certainly good.
When he considered Dick, he was reassured that Dick wasn’t such an odd fellow. Using Dick as a gauge, he decided one didn’t have to be mad to be here. And if this were true, there was hope for him yet.
Dick patted his big belly. “I used to work in the boiler house with old Bill way back. I’d be down the railway station, filling the horses’ carts with coal. They were Clydesdales then. Bloody beautiful animals. Socks and Mac they were called. Then we’d come back and dump it all in a ruddy great heap outside the boiler room. That was before they got that six-ton Albion lorry with its solid tyres. That was a damn fine lorry, with an especially high tray for carting coal. Did I tell ya it was chain driven?”
As Malcolm opened his mouth to reply, Dick continued, “And the next lorry we got had those pneumatic tyres on it.”
He thought of all that coal, shiny clean and black, and he asked, “Was it Ohai or Kaitangata coal?”
“Sometimes ’twas hard to tell the difference. Sub-bituminous, I think.”
“I love coal,” he said quietly.
“I love coal too,” said Dick. “Go figure that? Maybe we’re both crazy. Maybe we’re both normal, eh?”
They laughed heartily, and then sat for a while as each pursued his memories about coal.
After a time Dick said, “It was an important job I had. Bill got me a black woollen singlet same as his. Some o’ the wee boys helped. They filled their own wee trolleys and carted the coal up into the boilers. The boiler room churns out all the heating for the hospital now. Remember the old days, Mal? No heating in The Building. Some poor sods froze to death. You remember, don’t you, the frozen ones?”
