Loving Daughters

by Olga Masters

  Just when he thought Small Henry’s last cry was a death choke, there was a flutter of a heliotrope skirt through the gums and he saw Violet’s head and waist attached to it, and when she was a little closer he saw her largish face pinched to a smaller size and her mouth anxious. Edwards, feeling partly responsible for her distress, had to be stern with some fluttering in his chest, and fold his arms and tip his head sideways, as was his habit when he combined meekness with authority.

  Violet saw his shape in the doorway and beckoned him in.

  ‘Ned’s been gone all day!’ she said, shouting above Small Henry’s screams, which she appeared to be ignoring. Edwards felt it safe to do the same and sat by the dresser.

  ‘Close that door!’ she said and he obediently closed the hall door, reducing the volume of sound, but hating the miserable hand that performed the act.

  ‘He’s gone off to die like their old Phoebe did!’ Violet said, to Edwards’s astonishment, for he had not heard the story of the Herbert ancestor.

  ‘They haven’t told you that!’ she said with a glance at his face, triumph erasing some of the concern from hers. ‘Well, there’s madness in them, I can tell you and it’s well for you to know!’ She went to the stove and stuffed it with wood.

  ‘You can tell how long he’s been gone, since the place is not roaring like a furnace!’

  She shut the stove door with a shoe scarred and damp from her long tramping. Edwards saw the dead leaves and fragments of bark clinging to her ankles.

  All your body speaks, he said to himself, seeing the wrinkles of worry on Violet’s stockings, more vocal than the wrinkles on her brow.

  ‘Yes, he might be dead! Already dead!’ she said, snapping teacups on the table. ‘But I’m having a cup of tea!’

  She went, however, and raised the blind on the window behind the couch, giving her a view of the bush while she made the tea. Small Henry’s cries grew shrill.

  ‘I could perhaps –’ Edwards said, standing and putting out a hand towards the door.

  ‘You can!’ said Violet, taking milk from the safe so violently it slapped over the edge of the jug like an angry white wave.

  Edwards went into Small Henry’s room. There he lay the covers off him and his soaked napkin, which was so carelessly fastened that his navel, shedding moisture, was exposed on his rounded belly. His toes curled and his legs thrashed and Edwards saw an ear like a pink shell in wet sand. He mopped it dry with the edge of the blanket and the touch stopped Small Henry’s wailing and stilled his limbs and he appeared to focus swimming eyes on Edwards for a moment, then squeezed them shut and pulled his mouth into a piteous shape to renew his wailing.

  Edwards gathered him up, not too efficiently, unable to arrange the blanket between his arm and Small Henry’s rear, to save a spread of moisture on the thin stuff of his jacket. He held him away from his body to bind the blanket, as he had seen Una do, and when he drew him close, Small Henry was tight and still and at peace in his cocoon. Edwards smelled some faint odour from his hair, and the urine, not unpleasant, and shut his own eyes to feel his way to the door, rather than lose anything of the ecstasy. In the kitchen he sat and Small Henry at once gave his succession of warning grunts.

  Edwards got to his feet and swayed back and forth, and Violet gave an odd little burst of laughter.

  ‘You’re his next victim! Thanks to that Una he thinks he can rule like a king. Well, I’m not one of his subjects!’

  She went to the window and looked out, then turned her back sharply on it and sat down at the table. Edwards sat too, gingerly holding his body stiff in an effort to deceive Small Henry into thinking he was standing. Violet had dumped his teacup with a round dryish cake studded with currants on the dresser by him.

  She sipped her tea, allowing herself some small pleasure in Edwards’s predicament. Small Henry, worn out with weeping, had fallen asleep. Edwards dared not loosen his grip of the tiny body to his chest, and red in the face with effort, he brought his right arm close to his cup. No, he would not drink the tea! He sweated with horror at the thought of a splash on the tiny, tender head.

  Instead he took the cake, ducking his head to take a mouthful and showering crumbs into a fold of the blanket. He brushed at them and Small Henry leapt in protest and expelled a long, warning breath.

  ‘I’ll drink my tea cold,’ Edwards whispered to Violet. ‘I often do.’ Violet got up noisily, causing Edwards to rock Small Henry to ward off the disturbance and he kept this up during the clatter she made mixing his bottle.

  Parting is close, he thought, understanding the ache so often in Una’s arms. But Violet dumped the bottle by the cold cup of tea.

  ‘You feed it,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk to the Burragate turn-off. My legs will carry me without effort, since they’ve had a solid morning’s practice!’

  The gate had banged on Violet almost before Edwards realized what was happening. He watched, half believing she might turn back. Then he sat and Small Henry, rather than disturbed by the movement, used it to sink more comfortably against Edwards and sleep on.

  Edwards looked at the cooling bottle and back to the fine streaks of damp hair on Small Henry’s forehead, and under his nose a reddish purple around the nostrils, as if someone had painted a deeper colour there to distinguish the nose from the rest of the face. His lips, thin and purplish too, were pressed together. Those two small nostrils were all that allowed air into Small Henry’s body. That was not enough.

  Perhaps he had died!

  Edwards moved him gently, but his weight settled back heavier. A dead weight, people said. Small Henry dead in his arms! He had cried himself to death.

  Reckless now, Edwards removed an arm and tapped Small Henry on the cheek. He was still warm, thank God, but his head remained where it fell sideways and he did not close his lips after they had fallen open.

  Edwards laid an ear to his mouth but heard no breath. He put his cheek there but felt nothing. He shook Small Henry who settled back after wobbling like a loosely stuffed doll. He pulled at Small Henry’s blanket until he found his gown and raised it to lay an ear on a part of his chest where he thought his heart would be.

  He heard no beat.

  He had died.

  Good God in heaven he had died! He stood and snatched up the bottle, now barely warm, and thrust the teat between Small Henry’s lips. They flapped about lifelessly and Edwards pulled the teat away and held the bottle in shocked fashion in the air. Then he thrust the teat back between Small Henry’s lips. He shuddered, a contented shudder and pushed his legs down so that Edwards, back on his chair, felt their miraculous movement at his groin.

  Small Henry swung his head and moved his mouth a little tiredly at the teat. Then he opened his eyes, blinked once or twice, squeezed them shut while his mouth came greedily to life, and gripping the teat he sucked with his tiny neck throbbing and his knees moving up and down as if there had been a long march and here was the end of it.

  Edwards loosened his grip on the bottle and, tilting it, allowed Small Henry to draw gently upon it. He settled his own body and raised his thighs so that Small Henry’s flesh flowed warmly into his as the milk flowed warmly into Small Henry.

  Edwards too closed his eyes and breathed the most fervent prayer of thanksgiving of all his life.

  32

  When he set the bottle down, not quite finished, he worried about that and the wet and caked rear of Small Henry.

  But he seemed oblivious to any discomfort, having curled his head close to Edwards’s neck, causing Edwards to bend it towards the other shoulder, to keep his hard collar away from Small Henry’s face.

  He was in that pose when Ned came through the bush at the back, his arrival heralded by the fowls, who made a rush to the wire already picking at imaginary seed. Ned walked with the aid of his stick quite briskly across the verandah and into the house. He looked around as if making sure he wa
s in the right house, his mouth round to match his round glass eye, heightening his vacant look.

  Edwards, obeying instinct and training, stood and extended an arm and spread hand from beneath Small Henry’s rump.

  Ned looked to the stove, as if he too needed to obey an instinct and add more wood to it.

  ‘Mrs Violet is out for a short while,’ Edwards said, speaking loudly as did most others when addressing Ned. He felt he should not say she was searching for him.

  Small Henry shuddered at the noise, and Edwards set up a swaying motion, which caused Ned to stare in disbelief, then look with his mouth still hole-shaped, everywhere but in Edwards’s direction.

  Edwards felt he was failing badly in his duty, unable to take the opportunity of attending to Ned’s spiritual needs, which must be great indeed. For all the long hours he spent in the bush, though, he looked far less affected by it than Violet.

  At the back of Edwards’s head the click of the gate and the sound of Violet’s feet told him she was back. She had not hurried, having caught sight of Ned making his way through the gums, as she made hers along the road from the

  turn-off.

  She shed her warm coat in the bedroom and came to the kitchen rolling up her sleeves. Edwards found he could picture her getting ready for a confinement.

  ‘Stove nearly out, Ned!’ she said. ‘Has the bush dried up at last?’ Ned tilted his face towards the ceiling, studying it, then, lowering his good eye, appeared to be taking a last long look at the room before he went through to the front bedroom.

  Violet flung a clean napkin on the table and took Small Henry from Edwards, as if she was plucking a wasp’s nest from a wall. Ignoring his sleeping state she lifted his blue feet and removed his napkin, roughly wiping at the caked excreta smearing his rectum. It reminded Edwards of a ripe plum with a deep incision in it. Violet, taking the soiled napkin to the wash house, returned with a dipper of warm water to sponge him, and Edwards felt relief for him although wearing a worried look for the slack genitals between the flaying legs, wondering if there was some deformity there.

  ‘He’ll grow into it!’ Violet shouted reading his blushing thoughts. ‘The time’ll come when he’ll be smaller there than anywhere else! No one knows that fact better than I do!’

  She turned her eyes as she spoke on Ned coming from the bedroom, and had to snap her mouth shut and pretend she saw nothing unusual in his appearance.

  He was wearing pyjamas and military trousers under a wartime greatcoat, and his digger’s hat. He was not using his stick to aid his walking, but had more clothes bundled in a towel and the towel tied in a knot and slipped over the end of the stick which was suspended across one shoulder.

  Violet found her voice when Ned reached the fowl pens and had to compete with their raucous din, more frantic than usual, for Ned was opening the gate and pushing his way through them, while they pecked at his boots, and stretched hopeful necks towards the bundle on his stick, some leaping on others’ backs in a bid to reach it.

  ‘Where’s the cat?’ Violet yelled. ‘You’re a dead ringer for Dick Whittington!’

  Ned took eggs from boxes and filled two pockets, making his way out, needing to unhook his bundle from a broken end of wire, while the fowls made a fresh onslaught on his legs.

  Violet bound Small Henry in his blanket.

  ‘He’s taking up residence on the farm! It couldn’t work out better if I organized it myself!’

  She stomped to the bedroom to put Small Henry down. Edwards wondered about her voice. Did anger overrule the sorrow, or was it the other way around? He tipped his head sideways in his troubled pose. Marriage! What a state it could become. I want it though, he thought, suddenly anxious to return to the rectory, to picture Una there.

  Violet was back and Small Henry quiet.

  ‘He’s settled down then?’ Edwards said, proud in the use of a new language he would have thought once strictly reserved for parents.

  The closed door said yes, but Violet’s closed face said nothing.

  Edwards felt it his duty to offer some comforting words about Ned.

  ‘I am sure he will miss the comforts of his real home and be back soon to them.’

  ‘Who wants him back?’ Violet said. ‘The way’s clear for me now to go ahead with my hospital!’

  Una would never use words like that. His way would be her way. His dreams and plans hers too. He looked out of Violet’s window to the sky spread with a furrowed cloud. Like a field, he thought, feeling his ankles bogged in softness, light as air, walking with Una. We will keep our eyes upwards and see no ugliness anywhere.

  The clatter of a metal spoon on tin caused Edwards to look downwards. Violet had a basin of stew, removing some for her own meal and pushing the remainder down the table.

  ‘Take this home with you and heat it,’ she said. ‘It will only go to waste here!’

  ‘Thank you, but I couldn’t,’ Edwards said, holding his hat tightly as if this helped him resist accepting it. There was nothing in his larder but bread and eggs, but that would do him until Mrs Watts came tomorrow and cooked him dinner at midday.

  He moved towards the door with his bent face. ‘I’ll offer up evening prayers for the safe return of Ned,’ he said.

  Violet waited until the gate shut before she shouted a reply for only the kitchen walls to hear.

  ‘God’s will, they’re fond of saying. When it’s your will they don’t agree with it! Let him rot in the bush, rot there for all I care, I’m having my hospital!’

  33

  He decided to go and see Jack next day.

  Mrs Watts came and set his soiled clothes to soak in a wash tub, built up the kitchen fire to make him soup, and, as was her habit, put the chairs on tables and pulled the living room couch out to enable her to give the place a good sweep.

  He told her he did not think he would be home for dinner, but he would appreciate the soup for tea. She had been to the church to shyly collect the two brass vases and began polishing them on the space left by the chair legs on the table.

  He said he would not be leaving immediately but would read up for his Sunday sermon on the front verandah. (He was in fact allowing a decent part of the morning to get away before confronting Jack.)

  His words filled her with a terrible inadequacy. Because she could not read or write, she felt she had less right to an existence than those who could, and wondered that he bothered to mention such things to her.

  But had she known it, he had a deep admiration for her and would have liked to stay and watch her hands bring a lustre to the old brass, as her belly in a hessian apron jumped gently and rhythmically under the table.

  How many children had she borne, he wondered. There were older boys who worked with their father on the farm, and some girls and then Wilfred. She was past child-bearing age, he decided, wondering at his thoughts taking this trend, and looking away from her for a clearer vision of Una, trying to see her cleaning his brass.

  He said he was leaving for Honeysuckle after his half-hour’s reading and he would not come back inside.

  She raised sharp, intelligent eyes under straight black brows, and he thought she had been a handsome woman. Which one? the eyes said, and the hand slowed its polishing.

  ‘The child’s christening needs to be arranged,’ Edwards said. He should not be saying this! His father would never allow his mother to talk of anything but domestic matters with servants.

  ‘The young one has made a beautiful dress, I hear,’ Mrs Watts said.

  You and the rest of them hear everything! These little places with ears hanging on every doorstep, at every window! When Una is here we will close the doors to everyone. Or go and become swallowed up in a city. I hear! I hear! Don’t let me hear it again!

  She saw his angry face and bowed her own deeper over the vase. I should not have said that, she thought. But once something
is said, there is no way of blotting it out. This I have learned without the help of books.

  He took up his hat and showed her his stiff, cold back as he went out. I hurt the poor thing, he said to himself. I didn’t intend it, but there’s no way I can amend it.

  He was miserable tramping along the road, but needed to transfer his thoughts to confronting Jack.

  The walk seemed the shortest he had ever taken, and he was within a half mile of Honeysuckle with the beginning of the Herbert paddocks when he saw him.

  Jack.

  There he was by a horse in harness, staring hard at Edwards, and it was an amazing thing that resentment could show on a face at all that distance. Edwards raised his hat high to let the greeting be seen. Jack bent his head but it could have been part of a movement to adjust logs and stumps on a slide, in getting the new paddock ready for spring planting.

  A crop of potatoes for Sydney, something he had never attempted before. Enid thought it was a good idea. Alex saw it as added work, on top of running Halloween. George saw it restricting his visits to Violet.

  Jack had his own dream. Henry was in Sydney. He might help him market the potatoes. Jack saw Henry with one of those fruit and vegetable shops, not stocked with the withered stuff he’d eyed off so scornfully when in Sydney, but carrying Honeysuckle produce, the summer crop of fruit, much of which was wasted, potatoes, pumpkins and melons that could be specially grown.

  What was Henry working at now? They hadn’t heard since he left. He had been putting bicycle parts together in a factory before he brought that girl home. Before that he worked for a grain merchant. He liked that better, and wrote about helping to haul bags of seed from a lorry, the corn inferior to that grown at Honeysuckle.

  They should have bought a lorry, instead of that car, only useful for gadding. Enid did not care all that much for it. With a lorry Henry might have stayed at home and got some carrying work. He could have carried loads of produce to the railhead at Nowra, which would be even better than being in Sydney selling it.