Ash Mountain

by Helen FitzGerald

  Fran still didn’t understand. ‘Sister Mary Margaret taught me there for the second half of fifth year. I had private check-ups in the sick bay because I refused to go to the surgery. What are you on about? Is that Gramps waking?’

  ‘No,’ said Vonny. ‘He’s sound asleep. I just checked.’ She and Rosie returned to the table, and Vonny put one of the photos in the middle.

  The Captain looked away.

  ‘Why are you looking away? There’s nothing to look away from,’ Fran said.

  ‘One photo isn’t weird,’ said Vonny, putting the second on the table. ‘Two, not so weird either.’

  Everyone but The Captain was looking at the third now, also of a vulnerable pregnant teenager in her underwear, and it was starting to be weird.

  ‘We got scared so we only saw these, but there we think there were lots more in the hatbox, Mum.’

  Fran needed to make a fresh pot of coffee, urgently. ‘Um, so, that is weird. I don’t know how to feel. Who’s wanting a top-up?’ As she filled the percolator, she spotted The Captain turning the photos over, trying to slide them off the table and get them out of sight. ‘I’ll keep those.’ She snatched them and slammed them face down on the bench beside the stove.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Rosie came to me because she didn’t know what to do … To be honest, I didn’t know what to do either. The plan was that I’d talk to you privately.’

  She had lifted the lid on the percolator and was watching the coffee rise. ‘I do – I know what to do, it’s fine.’ The coffee maker was spitting hot syrup onto the back of the photos. She should shut the lid, turn the gas off, both. ‘Hang on.’ She snapped the lid and turned off the gas. ‘You broke into the convent?’

  Vonny was good at thinking on her feet. ‘We just walked into the convent through the side door. Oh my God, Rosie, your boots! I forgot to give your boots back! We did break into the wine cellar, but we locked it up again; no-one will ever know.’ And off they ran.

  That was Nurse Jen knocking on the door. The Captain followed her and whispered, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘About the photos. You said you know what you’re going to do.’

  Nurse Jen was ringing the bell now. And her dad was moaning. She had to get The Captain out. ‘Two things: I’m going to ask the nun to give me the box back without landing the girls in deep shit, if that’s okay with you. Rosie’d probably get a warning; for Vonny it’d be jail and she’ll probably never get out. Second: I’m going to avoid you. You’re a jinx. I’m that girl again?’ Fran pointed to the splattered photos beside the cooker. ‘I’m her?’ The nurse was ringing and her dad was calling her name and she was thinking about crying. ‘I’m upset, but it’s fine, I know what to do and now you do too.’ She let Nurse Jen in, The Captain out, and shut the door.

  Oops, Rosie was still inside. ‘Bye Mrs Collins,’ she said, pushing past.

  And Fran watched the girl in the cherry-red boots walk towards her father’s forgettable car.

  Vonny was in bed with a sore head, and Nurse Jen was in charge of Gramps for the next four hours, which meant Fran could do anything she wanted. She opened the windows and doors, but there was no breeze. She turned on the television, The Love House, turned it off again. Everything was icky, the world was yucky, the light was bad. She splashed her face with a tiny amount of water and closed herself in the bedroom to ring Vincent. ‘What’s she got that I haven’t, this Chelsea person?’ she said.

  ‘Constance.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘She’s very nice, and don’t worry, she’s not jealous of you at all.’

  ‘That’s … I’m just ringing to say I’ll put Vonny on the three-thirty.’

  ‘Cool. You okay?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Love you F Face, talk soon.’

  Fran had called to tell Vincent everything, but he wasn’t her listener anymore.

  She changed into her running gear as quickly as she could and sweated it out along Ryan’s Lane, up and over the monument track, and along North Road. She jumped the fence across from St Michael’s onto the old railway land. It was her favourite run, down that hill, along those long disused lines, then up to The Tree.

  It was a large oak, and was on the hill beside the Old Reservoir. Gramps had proposed to her mum here, and the two of them had made plans for a new life in the country. Apparently, Sofia said this was the most beautiful view she’d ever seen – and her family was from Tuscany.

  She remembered Gramps bringing her here when she was five, both of them dressed in black, shoes off, feet in the water.

  ‘Stuff happens,’ he’d said, fishing rod in hand. ‘Things get interrupted.’

  Fran was crying her eyes out. ‘But no, no, no, what are we supposed to do now?’

  ‘Have a cry, then make new plans,’ he’d said.

  He brought her here at sixteen too, quite a few times that year, baby Dante in a pouch on his chest, a fishing rod in his hand, Fran usually crying.

  And when she was thirty, pregnant, lying down, sighing; her fourteen-year-old son holding a fishing rod beside his beloved Grandpa.

  Fran headed back down the hill and onto the railway tracks, sprinting all the way to the oval, where she stopped to stretch.

  Sunday lunchtime downtown Ash Mountain: the oval was littered with last night’s bottles and cigarette butts, the soon-to-be-replaced statue of Bert Gallagher had been vomited on by someone who had cancer or had eaten tandoori. The Red Lion carpark was crammed with the vehicles of families having counter meals of chicken parmigiana and peppercorn steak.

  Fran was hungry.

  A group of young men with a boat named Red Rocket were getting snacks at Gallagher’s Bakery, on their way to Lake Eildon, probably. And the convent was … the convent was right in front of her. One last stretch and she headed that way.

  Fran expected the elderly nun to take ages to answer the door – the building was an enormous bluestone rectangle with a hall attached – and it was a shock when Sister Mary Margaret appeared almost immediately.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello! Sister Mary Margaret, do you remember me? I’m Fran Collins – Francesca.’ The same Sidney Nolan was still hanging in the hall, and that was about as welcoming as the place would get. ‘You taught me when I was pregnant. Do you remember Little Dante? Sorry, I’ve just been running.’

  ‘Little Dante? He’s enormous! Course I know him. His half-acre feeds me, practically – come look at his miracles. Francesca. Come, come, I was just about to pop on the kettle.’

  The zucchini on the kitchen table were impressive – Dante had a knack for enabling things to take off.

  ‘I can’t stay for tea, sorry. I’ve got to get back to Dad.’

  ‘Would you like something other than tea?’

  ‘Um, maybe water, thanks.’

  Poor Sister Mary Margaret, the lonesome lush. She poured Fran’s water first, then – ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere’ – squeezed herself a reasonable-sized glass of cask rosé, plopping two round ice cubes in it. ‘I made toffee!’ It was in a lovely tin. Sister Mary Margaret was into pretty containers. This one had cows on it. ‘I’d love to be able to chew it. I can only suck it these days. Take some.’ Sister Mary Margaret put a small piece of toffee in the side of her mouth and did not chew it. ‘Your dad – how’s your dad?’

  ‘Terrible.’ Fran’s speech had been disabled by the toffee. ‘No, he’s okay. He can’t move, or do anything. He wants to die.’

  ‘I’ll try and get out this week, do some crosswords with him.’ Sister Mary Margaret had shrunk a tad, but still towered over Fran at eighty-something. She used to have a kind face. Fran would describe it as sad now – that made two of them – but not unkind. She lit a cigarette and opened the kitchen window.

  Fran wanted one badly. She could also murder a glass of wine. She took the toffee out of her mouth. ‘I remember I had a hatbox when I was here, for my own special things. You called it a
“treasure box” and said it would always be here for me. I decorated it with posters of Kate Bush and The Proclaimers. I was wondering if you still have it.’

  The nun butted out her fag and refilled her glass with rosé. ‘I doubt it. So long ago. The things we used to say to children!’

  ‘Of course, you probably threw it out. Just I kept crafty things in mine that I’d like to have, and some photos. It could be in the sick bay.’ Fran looked at the half-glassed door adjoining the kitchen. ‘Just in there.’

  Sister Mary Margaret took her iPhone out from under her habit and handed it to Fran. ‘Give me your number and I’ll have a look later, you mind? That was me right in the middle of a show.’

  ‘Oh sorry, what are you watching?’

  ‘Housewives.’

  The nun’s tone intimidated Fran.

  ‘Of New York.’

  Fran left immediately.

  The Red Lion was mobbed for a Sunday at 9.00. There’d been cricket all day at the college, according to Henry Gallagher, and the fete committee and a few Lions had wound up at the bar after their working bees. Dante made her come. He was forcing her to get out of the house every Sunday after the Old Mill closed, 9.00–11.00, there were to be no objections.

  Where the hell was she supposed to go at that time in Ash Mountain? She brought the buggy with Gramps on a Stick, who was as reluctant as she was, and the iPad was head-height beside her at the bar. Three shots of sambuca sat in front of Gramps. The barman – Bert Gallagher’s grandson, Pete – was pouring him a fourth, which was on Marti Ercolini and his wife and his son-in-law, all three huge fans of the way the chemist used to be run.

  It was pretty clear that Dante and Gramps were having a dooby at home. They were giggly. ‘Turn the monitor left a tad, can you Pete?’ Gramps asked the barman. ‘Down a bit, up, stop!’

  The screen was now pointing at fifty-something Mrs Verity O’Leary’s cleavage, which was hefty.

  Fran wheeled the buggy over to Verity’s table. ‘Dad’s wanting to say hello!’

  He tried to object en route – ‘Fran, Francesca!’ – but it was no use, his head was opposite Verity’s. ‘How’s that nasty rash?’ he asked her.

  Verity, cleavage well out of view, had terrible teeth and yellow eyeballs and indeed looked as if she might have several nasty rashes. ‘Matthew Collins, is that you … Are you still there?’ A puff of smoke had clouded the screen. ‘Matthew?’ The monitor went black.

  Fran, back at the bar with her white wine and quick crossword, had decided she should give up and head home, when The Captain came in, bringing a breeze with him. There was silence in The Red Lion for a country-and-western moment, then The Captain moved; heading straight for the stool beside Fran. She slid one of Gramps’ sambucas his way. ‘It’s not gonna be easy avoiding you, is it?’

  ‘I was dropping some guests here, they’re staying upstairs.’

  Two women in ridiculous hats had settled at the other end of the bar.

  ‘How was the wedding?’

  ‘Beautiful. She had great hair. He was a dick.’

  He hadn’t downed his sambuca. ‘Are you driving?’

  ‘I’m forty-seven.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s dark.’

  ‘These are gonna go to waste.’ Fran moved a second sambuca his way and downed one herself, gesturing Pete for another round. ‘I hate this town. It’s a serial-abused serial-abuser.’

  The Captain took a shot and looked round the room. Three adult Ercolinis were playing darts. The Lions were telling jokes. The fete committee had merged with the wedding guests and were toasting the absent bride and groom with a round of actual champagne, and Verity O’Leary was trying to turn on Gramps on a Stick.

  ‘If you hate where you came from, then likely you hate yourself,’ said The Captain.

  ‘Really, Confucius…?’ What rubbish. How could she hate herself when she was always so busy? ‘Why do you let people call you The Captain? Are you not embarrassed?’

  ‘If someone nicknamed you after a Jane Fonda character and it stuck, would you object?’

  ‘I’m not ready to be Grace.’

  ‘I was going to say Barbarella.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, The Captain.’ Fran extended her hand.

  He shook it. ‘You’re gonna love this town, Babs.’

  An hour later, Fran and The Captain rolled out of the bar wheeling the buggy with Gramps on a Stick, the monitor still blank.

  ‘It’s better lit via the playing fields,’ said The Captain, who was making a lot of health-and-safety related decisions.

  She was wearing his jumper, drinking a bottle of water, and had just promised she would not beg the teenagers out front for a cigarette. They both had one and they were wasting them tongue wrestling by the side of the bakery. Fran readied herself to make a plea.

  ‘Do not even think about it,’ said The Captain.

  They crossed the road. On the pavement ahead was The Spot. The Captain might not realise where they were, he may never have seen the flowers her dad left there for ten years, which Fran always retrieved and composted well before death. The Captain might stand on it, he might say something, make her talk about it when she did not want to.

  He didn’t, he moved to the right; he knew. She was only five, but she remembered BR Junior was at her mum’s funeral with his family, and that he cried more than she did. Against the advice of everyone, her dad had taken her to the funeral. She was glad, as she’d been there to stop him jumping in the grave.

  She and The Captain walked past The Spot. She said nothing. He said nothing. For at least twelve steps they walked in companionable silence, each knowing the other was thinking about heartbreak and therefore feeling the worst of it all at once, all over again. He was a decent chap, this Captain, but The Spot etcetera had caused her buzz to wane and she was about as ready for that as she was to be eighty-year-old Jane Fonda, as fabulous as she was.

  ‘Race you to the gates,’ she said, abandoning Gramps on a Stick and bolting off towards the college for five strides.

  He didn’t realise she’d stopped, and she found it less funny the further along he raced. He wasn’t a running machine. Maybe because he was drunk. His legs were spindly, his left hand all over the place. She shouldn’t have tricked him. Even with the buggy she would totally have won.

  The college was as pretty as Oxford, probably. She’d never been to Oxford, or England, or anywhere, but she loved Inspector Morse and – she did not really like this about herself – pretty much anything that was on the BBC. The college, built in 1901, had ornate iron gates and a long driveway lined with oak trees that should never have been planted here. She loved this avenue – even though it led you to the college, where her life ended. It was glorious, especially as a kid in summer, as it had the only decent shade for acres and wound up at the school pool, which you could swim in for free during the holidays if you didn’t mind getting felt up. Fran and Tricia didn’t mind at all when they were six. Every day all summer they joined a queue of girls under twelve who didn’t mind. It was so fun to be twirled in the water by Mr Brown or/and Brother Colin, one big hand gripping the in-between in order to power the twirl, so fun.

  The main building was red with white trimmings, an ornate veranda thrown in to say Yes, it’s as if we’re in Kensington, but we also have sunshine. It was pretty, unlike bluestone St Michael’s next door, the first Catholic church to be built outside of Melbourne and even less welcoming than the jail.

  ‘They dumped their shit here and they’re still doing it,’ said Fran, walking through the stone-arched quadrangle and then onto the perfect lawn no-one was allowed to walk on – there were signs. ‘Another infection that didn’t quite manage to destroy.’ She had crossed to the other side of the quadrangle and reached the dorms. She pressed her face against the wall. ‘I smell abused children. “Please Father, I don’t want to go into the projector room; please, I don’t want to be a projector-room boy.’ She was very drunk, and slid down
to rest with her back against the wall. ‘It’s like that song, the Court of King Caractacus … “Oh the priest who raped the nun and touched the boy who fucked the slut of Ash Mountain”.’

  The Captain was now sitting on the ground beside her. ‘You do know whose song that is, “The Court of King Caractacus”?’

  She thought for one second. ‘No?’

  ‘B side to “Two Little Boys”.’

  Everything was icky. ‘I don’t want to talk about the hatbox,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I don’t have to talk about it; no need to.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t remember anything weird, I don’t remember photos being taken. If a nun wanked over them, so what? Did it harm me? If I was abused and I don’t know, would it help me to know? What’s the difference between this situation and posting something on Instagram?’

  ‘A lot.’

  ‘If someone’s abused in the bush and there’s no-one there to hear it…’

  ‘It still happened … Sorry, it’s just, my little girls are still growing up in this town.’

  Footsteps, a dark figure – it was Father Frank, walking on the other side of the quadrangle. They rose in synch, raced past the pool and across the footy fields towards the northern grandstand.

  ‘They’re smoking!’ Fran had spotted two boarders on the top bench, and was running up the stairs and along the aisle. ‘Hey boys, spare a smoke?’ She must have been pissed. Boarders usually scared the shit out of her. In fact, these two could be the ones from the monument, who’d called Vonny a Mountain Slut. She hadn’t seen their faces yet, but if it was them she was ready. ‘Or are you complete arseholes?’ she said.

  The Captain remained at ground level. ‘Fran! Come down!’

  They were not Boarders #1, #2 and #3 from the monument, but two entirely fresh ones.

  ‘He’s an arsehole,’ said Boarder #4. ‘Whereas I’m lovely.’ He lit a fag and handed it to her. He had droopy blue eyes, a blond aristocratic flop of hair and slobbery always-open lips that indicated a nasal problem of some sort and which had drowned the end of the cigarette. He also had good legs.