Hush, Little Bird

by Nicole Trope

  When the plays he was rehearsing for were performed he would stop working altogether and the money would disappear for a few nights or weeks. I never told him but I always held out hope of an early closing. He went to endless auditions. Henry always proclaimed that the next role he was auditioning for was ‘just made for you, my boy. You almost don’t even have to audition, just walk in and they’ll give it to you.’ Henry spoke like that to all his clients. Every one of them was, according to him, on the cusp of greatness. It was difficult for Simon to keep going back after each rejection, but he never lost faith. ‘Henry will get me there, darling girl, I just know he will.’

  By the time I was pregnant with Rosalind, however, he was beginning to play with the idea of giving up. I knew it was all talk, but I could see his despair at failing to become the star he thought he was destined to be. ‘I’m a silly man with a silly dream,’ he would say to me, and I, knowing that he had been made maudlin by cheap wine and a bad day, would reply, ‘No, you’re not, Simon. One day you’re going to be a star.’ But I privately longed for him to get a real job and become a proper husband.

  And then one night everything changed.

  One of our neighbours had offered to babysit Portia and Rosalind so that I could go and see Simon perform Hamlet. I was, by then, simply exhausted all the time. I had gone back to work at the supermarket the moment Rosalind started school. We were desperate for the money. Just keeping the rent paid felt like an enormous task. I didn’t want to go out, but Simon was so excited for me to see him perform again and a night out did feel like a chance to remember that there was life outside of work and children.

  When Simon was on stage I felt the same fizzing attraction to him that I had felt that first day watching him perform Macbeth. Despite my exhaustion and constant worry about money, I still ran my fingers over my lips, imagining the taste of his kisses that I knew so well.

  Backstage afterwards I was over the top with my compliments, happy to see him enjoying the spotlight.

  We were getting ready to leave when Henry came in with another man. Henry was practically frothing at the mouth, he was so excited.

  ‘My name is William Hadley,’ said the man and then he waited, presumably for us to recognise who he was. We had no idea. We couldn’t afford a television because of the expense.

  ‘Television, Simon,’ said Henry. ‘Television!’

  William, as we would both later call him at dinner parties, stroked his neat grey beard, laughed and said, ‘We have a talent show in the planning stage and we’re looking for a host. We think you have exactly the right look for the project.’

  I had no idea who ‘we’ were, because only William was present, but television people always see themselves as larger than life.

  ‘I’m an actor,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t want to host a show on television.’

  ‘My dear boy,’ said Henry, and I grabbed Simon’s arm forcing him to look at me as I tried to silently communicate to him my fear about the overdue rent. I didn’t know how much money such a thing paid but I was sure it must be more than being a waiter.

  ‘Simon,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Of course there’s no harm in talking,’ said Simon, thankfully getting my message.

  ‘No, no harm in that,’ laughed William. He shook Simon’s hand and nodded at me, and then he and Henry left. As they made their way out of the theatre, we could hear Henry listing the plays Simon had performed in.

  The talent show was called My Kid Can . . . and each week it featured five children competing for a cash prize. They sang or danced or recited poems. Television had only just gone from black and white to colour. It was a medium that ‘real’ actors didn’t take seriously. The stage was the place to be.

  ‘Rose, I’m an actor. I’ve spent years honing my craft. I cannot give that up to be the host of some execrable talent show involving children.’

  ‘I can’t work any more hours than I am doing. I’m so tired. We can barely make ends meet. Please say that you will just go and talk to him—for me, for our children.’ I whined the words at him, sounding more trucculent child than desperate wife, but it worked.

  Simon gave a heavy theatrical sigh. ‘For you, my darling,’ he said, ‘but only for you.’

  Between them, William and Henry managed to persuade Simon to do just one show.

  ‘Henry has asked me to do it as a favour to him,’ he said when he returned from the meeting at the television station, ‘and I have agreed.’

  ‘Oh, Simon, that’s fantastic,’ I said, restraining myself from yelling at him about our lack of money.

  The first night the show screened I invited some of the neighbours with whom I had formed tentative friendships to watch with us, but all I watched was Simon as he watched himself. Portia and Rosalind were beside themselves with excitement at seeing their father on television, but even his daughter’s obvious delight had little effect on him. ‘Make them be quiet or take them to bed,’ he hissed at me when I went into the kitchen to refill a plate of biscuits. I had splurged on snacks and tidied the apartment, laying colourful cloths over our second-hand furniture so it wouldn’t look so shabby. I had never invited the neighbours in before. Mr and Mrs Stein from next door who sometimes helped with the girls and the Leo family from downstairs joined us. Our landlord also came upstairs and presented me with a rose for the table. We were the only ones in the building with a television set at the time, because the television studio had kindly lent us one for the big night. ‘They said if I continued on we could keep the set,’ Simon told me when he brought it home. ‘It might be worth it just for that,’ I said.

  Everyone who joined us loved the show. They laughed when I thought they should, they commented on each child and their various talents, and at the end they all applauded.

  ‘You’re a star,’ said Mrs Stein, kissing Simon on both cheeks.

  ‘Well done,’ said her husband, shaking Simon’s hand. Simon smiled and joked and performed for the little crowd.

  When they had gone, I bundled my overexcited daughters into bed and then cleaned up. I knew that Simon was unhappy. Throughout the program I had watched the curl of his lip and seen him shake his head. I readied myself to talk him out of his mood. I wiped down the counter in the kitchen and practised the words I would use. When I was done tidying up, I found Simon in our bedroom, lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘I have humiliated myself, Rose,’ he said.

  Oh, I was so tired. Tired because I had spent the afternoon cleaning after being at work; tired because I knew that one or both of the girls would be up during the night with a nightmare or a stomach ache from all the biscuits I had allowed them to eat; tired because I knew that I would have to get up the next day and do it all over again. But mostly I was tired of my beautiful husband and his inability to see that I was drowning and needed his help. I knew that confronting him would achieve nothing. He was nearly forty-four and he was still prone to tantrums and shedding tears on his own behalf.

  ‘No, you haven’t. They loved it, Simon. They laughed in all the right places. They clapped when that little boy won.’

  ‘Did you see how orange my skin looked? How ridiculous that suit was?’

  ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with the television the station gave us. We can get it fixed. It was a huge success, Simon, I promise you.’

  ‘My career is over. One day you will look back at this and know that I sold out and ended my career.’ It was clear to me from the way he spoke that the fault lay at my feet. I had forced him to take the chance by making him aware of our severe lack of money.

  He didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night. I was up and down dealing with Portia, who was prone to nightmares. In the morning he woke up determined to tell the station that he would never work for them again.

  I was juggling both girls and trying to get ready for work. I didn’t respond to his declaration that he was finished with television. ‘Can you just get me some milk from the corner stor
e before you go, please?’ I said.

  He walked out with his head bowed and his fists jammed into his pockets, but when he returned with the milk his whole demeanour had changed.

  ‘She gave it to me for free,’ he said, a light shining in his eyes.

  ‘Why on earth would she do that?’

  ‘She said she watched the show. She said her whole family watched the show and she thinks I’m a natural with the children and she can’t wait for next week. She thinks it’s the best thing on television. That’s what she said—that it was the best thing on television.’

  ‘Did you tell her there won’t be a next week? Not with you, I mean?’

  ‘Do you know, Rose, I think I could get used to this. I really think I could.’

  I managed to hide my delighted smile until he left to inform Henry of the good news. ‘Stupid man,’ I said to the apartment after he’d left, and then giggled at my audacity.

  ‘Who’s stupid?’ said Portia.

  ‘No one, darling. Hurry up and brush your teeth or I’ll be late.’

  I went on with my day of work and laundry and cleaning while Simon had lunch with the producers of the show. He was kind enough to bring me back a dessert from the lunch. I believe it was a chocolate soufflé, collapsed by then but very tasty.

  ‘Quit your job,’ he said as he watched me eat the dessert.

  And so it began. My Kid Can . . . was one of the most popular shows on Australian television. It ran for nearly ten years and set us up for life. The money got better and better, and I do remember at one point reading something about him being the highest-paid television host in history—only for Australia, of course, but it was more than enough. There were endorsements and public-speaking fees and it seemed that everywhere he turned people just wanted to hand him money.

  He occasionally complained about having to work with children.

  ‘The young girls can be very tiresome,’ he always said, but otherwise he loved every minute.

  That’s what he called them—tiresome.

  ‘You need to be patient,’ I told him. ‘Be kind to them, be friendly.’

  A week after Simon had been told about being inducted into the Hall of Fame, a journalist from the local newspaper called about an interview.

  ‘It has begun, my dear,’ he said when he’d finished on the phone. ‘I shall have one last hurrah before I shuffle off this mortal coil.’

  ‘Please don’t speak like that,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Rose, darling girl. How I love you,’ he said, stroking the back of my neck as he walked past me.

  He was always affectionate. I thought that we shared a connection that I couldn’t see in the other marriages around me. It’s strange to find myself so wrong about something. He was not who I thought him to be, and because I was with him for so long, that makes me question who I am as well. Now that he’s gone I cannot ask him, but I would love to have been able to say, ‘If you’re not the Simon I knew, then who am I? Who am I?’

  I pour bleach into the shower recess. Bleach stings the eyes but it’s important that everything smells thoroughly clean before inspection. If we can clean our units, presumably we can clean up our lives. Or something like that. Heather repeats Allison’s words almost verbatim. She is holding tightly onto the rules and the lessons she has learned here. I hope she will still be able to hold on when she gets out.

  The article in the magazine followed soon afterwards. We assumed that the woman had read about him and decided to grab at her own fifteen minutes. She was bitter and jealous, and Eric gave a statement telling the world we intended to sue. Privately he told us, ‘It will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We will be up against the might of a media empire.’

  ‘I don’t care about the cost, Eric,’ Simon said. ‘I will have my day in court.’

  Oh, he was so good, so convincing. Perhaps he really believed that he had done nothing wrong back then, or perhaps he didn’t think anyone else would come forward. He huffed and puffed, and the girls and I tried to get him to see the logic of Eric’s words.

  ‘People always say negative things about celebrities, Dad,’ said Rosalind. ‘You need to just ignore it.’

  ‘My reputation has been compromised, Rosalind dear. I cannot allow that to happen.’

  Eric counselled and I argued and the girls persuaded and eventually he agreed to let it go.

  There was a lull for a week or two and we imagined that we had put it behind us, but then overnight things changed. One woman after another began to come forward. The allegations mounted up and the accusations flew back and forth. ‘Little whores,’ shouted Simon about two women who came forward at once.

  My hand flew to my mouth at his base expression, but I put it down to extreme stress.

  Eric came over daily and went through newspaper and internet articles, television interviews and tweets that went around the world.

  ‘Who is this woman?’ Eric asked Simon each time one came forward. ‘Do you remember this one? Do you know her? Do you know her, Simon?’

  Simon was incredulous. He did not know any of the women. He couldn’t recall their names or faces. He was stunned by the accusations, completely stunned.

  He began to drink more. He debated going to the press with his own story, but Eric advised against it. ‘Until they charge you with something, this is all just rumours, speculation and allegations. Stay quiet until it becomes absolutely necessary for you to speak.’

  ‘Why are there so many of them, Dad?’ asked Rosalind.

  ‘Are you telling the truth about this?’ asked Portia.

  ‘Leave your father alone,’ I told them. ‘Can’t you see he’s suffering? Of course none of this is true. I have no idea why these women would want to hurt an old man like this. What kind of people are they?’

  Yet all the time I wanted to ask him the question. It was on the tip of my tongue as I made him lunch and dinner. It hovered unspoken in the air between us. It followed us to bed and was there waiting for me in the morning. He would catch me staring at him, and instead of asking me what I was thinking, as he had always done throughout our marriage, he would lower his head and go back to his book or his crossword.

  I wrote it down and tried to find different ways to ask it, but all I wanted to do was yell, ‘Did you do this, Simon? Did you do these things to these children? Did you? Did you do this?’

  In the bathroom I slump forward over my knees. It is too much to think about this. I can feel the tears on my face and I pull off the gloves to wipe my cheeks. The bleach smell stings my nose and it begins to run. I try to stand up but can’t seem to move, ‘Simon,’ I call, ‘Simon, I need your help,’ and only when Heather comes into the bathroom do I remember where I am.

  Chapter Eleven

  Everyone has come to help me cover the back half of the aviary. It’s getting cold at night now. I only have two months left here at the Farm. Two months is about sixty days. That’s two more times that Isabel will come and stay with me and then we will live together all the time. Lila says that I can come and live with her. ‘Isabel has already decorated her room,’ she told me, ‘but when you come we’ll do yours together.’

  What if you find a boyfriend and want to get married and have babies? I said in the email when we were talking about where I was going to live after the Farm.

  I don’t think that’s going to happen, she said. I have lots of friends. I don’t want a husband. Lila has always had lots of friends. When we were still at school together she would leave her friends and come and sit with me at lunch. Sometimes she would bring lots of girls with her and then I would feel like I was sitting with friends as well. School was hard for me, because kids are cruel. That’s what Mum said if I told her that going to school made me feel sad. ‘Yes, well, kids can be cruel, Felicity. You have to learn how to deal with it yourself. I can’t save you from everything.’ I didn’t understand what Mum meant, because she hadn’t saved me from anything.

  I left school after year ten and finished up
at a special college where I learned all the subjects but didn’t write the exams. I also learned how to cook and go to the bank and take care of myself. I didn’t mind the special college but I missed being able to sit with Lila at lunch.

  Lila is a good little sister. I don’t think I have been a very good big sister. I thought Lila would be mad at me because I hurt Mum. I had to stay in the jail cell while I waited for my trial, because Mum told Lila that I would hurt her again. I agreed that I would stay because I was also afraid of myself, of the bubbling anger inside me. I didn’t know what I would do. In the jail I thought about all the things that I had been pretending didn’t happen. I thought about Mr Winslow and about Mrs Winslow and about Mum not seeing me. I thought about Dad going away so I couldn’t tell him about Mr Winslow, and then I thought about what Lester had done to Isabel and it was all too much. I cried and cried for all the things I’d been pretending about.

  ‘What happened, Fliss?’ said Lila when she came to visit me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just got so mad. My hand moved so quickly.’

  ‘But why were you mad with Mum? I mean, I know she can be difficult but we don’t hurt each other in this family. Mum never hit us, did she?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I chewed on the last nail I had left. I had chewed up all the others in the night. My teeth caught the end and pulled and I felt the sting and looked down to see the blood. Lila handed me a tissue. ‘Hitting isn’t the only way to hurt people,’ I said. I didn’t know how to explain things to Lila. I would have to use too many words.

  ‘Did Mum say something to hurt you, Fliss? Did she say something about Isabel or Lester?’

  I looked up. ‘Did Mum tell you what Isabel said about Lester?’

  Lila nodded. ‘She did, and I know why you’re angry at him, although I think maybe you should have spoken to him about it. Isabel is only four, Fliss, maybe she made a mistake and he was just, you know . . . being nice and playing with her.’