by Joy Dettman
She tucked them in and told them about Jack and Jill who’d walked up the hill, about Wee Willie Winkie who ran through the town. She sang about the black sheep, just to test her vocal cords, then sang about four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Two sets of eyes watched her, neither one complaining about their private concert, so she tried the Twenty-third Psalm. She loved that one, always had — maybe because Norman had loved listening to her sing it, which should have been enough to put her off it, but it wasn’t. And he wasn’t here to hear her anyway. No one could hear her, except the kids. She only knew the old songs, but they came, one following the other until the purple eyes and the green gave up their struggle to remain open.
The lamp cast its meagre light in a circle over the table, barely extending to the open door and not quite reaching the cot. She didn’t realise he was there until she turned and saw his lanky frame holding back the hessian curtain.
‘I didn’t hear you knock.’
‘You would have stopped,’ he said, offering a bunch of roses.
She didn’t take his bouquet. He placed it on the table with the soapy water and the towel she’d used on the kids. She tossed the water on Granny’s rosebush, hung the towel then picked up his bunch of roses and smelled them.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘They’re the last of them for this year. Margaret picked them today.’
Not for you to bring down here, Jenny thought.
‘I was waiting for you to sing The Last Rose of Summer. Remember that one? You sang it at the school concert.’
She shrugged, embarrassed that he’d crept up on her.
‘Do you remember it?’ he persisted.
She shook her head. ‘Granny has gone up to the Robertsons’ —’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I saw her riding past your father’s place when I dropped your sister off.’
He looked awkward. Jenny felt awkward. ‘You’re too early,’ she said.
‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘We were out at the farm. They’ve finished the roof, got a new floor down in the bathroom. Your mother came out with us. Her father used to tell her about the house, she said.’
‘How nice for you.’ She turned her back on him and found a tall earthenware vase which she filled from the bucket of water always waiting ready beneath the washstand. He watched her settle the stems, watched her smell each rose as she placed it.
‘You used to walk past our corner smelling the roses.’
‘I used to wait for them to bloom. I’d never seen anything as beautiful as your father’s roses.’
‘Take a look in a mirror sometime, Jen,’ he said.
That snapped her chin up. She looked him in the eye, knowing in her bones, in her stomach, that he hadn’t been coming down here to question Gertrude about Monk’s house, or to play penny poker with Harry and Joey.
And knowing something else too, knowing that it was within her power to drop a bomb on Sissy, on Vern and Amber, and on Norman too, who sent his cheques in the mail so he didn’t have to come anywhere near his slut daughter.
She picked up the vase and carried it away from him and from the light, not wanting her face to show what she was thinking. The vase set on top of the Coolgardie, safe from the kids, she stood a moment, looking down at the two small heads, the red and the white.
Babies can change the course of history, she thought. If Jesus had died at birth there’d be no religion. If Hitler’s mother had had an abortion, Australia wouldn’t be at war. If Margot hadn’t been forced on me, I wouldn’t have had Georgie. If Mrs Robertson had gone into labour yesterday, or tomorrow, or next week, or during daylight hours, I wouldn’t be alone with him.
Making the transition from child to woman with a belly swollen by a rapist’s leavings doesn’t do a lot for the victim’s psychological development. Nor does making the harder transition from local songbird to town slut because of what they’d done — and while Maisy’s maladjusted pair of bastards, who had found their forte, killing Germans, were making their own transition from rapists to war heroes.
There was no balance to be made there, not in Jenny’s mind. There was no fairness to be found there — and life’s lack of fairness to her hadn’t instilled in her feelings of fairness towards all mankind, or any feelings for Sissy and Amber.
So drop that bomb, she thought. Blow their wedding plans to hell.
Her mind had covered a lot of territory, but Jim hadn’t moved. Perhaps no time had passed.
She shrugged and walked by him to the stove, glanced up at the clock, wanting verification that no time had passed. Harry or Joey could be over soon. She hoped they’d be over soon.
‘I didn’t say what I said to upset you,’ he said. ‘It’s true, Jen. If you could have seen yourself standing there singing to those kids — you looked like one of those pictures of angels they used to give out at church when we were kids.’
‘Tell your father that and watch him laugh,’ she said.
She moved the whistling kettle over the hotplate. It started screaming. She moved it back to the hob. She loathed that kettle, even if it did boil fast — wondered if anyone else in the world loathed whistling kettles — if anyone else in the world loathed their sisters enough to do what she was considering.
How much of Amber’s blood might be running through her veins, how much of Itchy-foot’s lack of conscience had transferred itself to her? Whose frantic heartbeat had she inherited? Maybe Norman’s father’s. He’d dropped dead from a heart attack. Her heart was racing so fast its beats were tripping over each other. She wanted Harry and Joey to come.
I’m scared of Jim Hooper, she thought. Not scared of him throwing himself on me, but a different kind of scared. I’ve known him all my life. He taught me how to keep pushing the ice-cream down into the cone so I’d have ice-cream to the last bite. He read his books to me, showed me a book of fairies most boys would have been too embarrassed to look at. He walked home from school with me, tracked ants through the dust with me, worked out on paper how many yards might equal one ant mile.
I deserted him for Nelly and Gloria, for Dora Palmer — or did he desert me for Sissy?
He grew too tall, that’s all. I didn’t grow tall enough. Sissy was tall enough, and once she claimed him as a friend, she made damn certain there was no room for me.
Sissy had gone with the Hoopers to Sydney, to see the Harbour Bridge opened. She’d gone with them to Frankston, gone with Jim and Margaret to balls in Willama, gone shopping with them. Of course he’d marry her . . .
Unless I save him from a fate worse than death.
Jenny stood, her back to the window, the table between them. Just stood there knowing full well that he knew what she was thinking, and knowing too that her face was flushed by her thinking.
Then that huge hand reached across the table, palm up. She had nothing to give. So easy though to . . . to reach out her own hand.
And thank God she heard the goat fence gate slam. And thank God for Harry and Joey. She walked to the dresser and opened the drawer to get the cards out.
BULL ANTS AND SILENCE
In March Jim spent most of his month’s petrol ration on a trip to Willama, thirty-nine miles there, thirty-nine back and a lot of running around while he was there. Sissy, Amber and Margaret needed to look in every shop for wedding gown fabric. Lorna went her own way.
She met them for lunch, ate steak and onions while the others nibbled and discussed styles, discussed the dressmaker, agreed that pink was Margaret’s colour, that it always looked well with her platinum blonde hair and pink complexion. Jim drove them home at four. Sissy invited the Hoopers in for a cup of tea. Lorna declined the offer. Jim said he had to get out to the farm.
‘You’ve got a manager,’ Sissy said. ‘What do you pay him for?’
Lorna humphed, Jim put the car into gear and the Hoopers left.
Sissy mimicked her as she walked inside. She’d bought a Boston Bun at the Willama bakery for afternoon tea. In the kitchen she removed it fro
m its bag and sought a sharp knife.
‘I told you not to buy that,’ Amber said.
‘I thought they’d stay for afternoon tea.’
‘Your measurements have been taken. You can’t put on weight this time.’
‘I didn’t the last time, and stop telling me what to do!’
A constant catfight in Norman’s house, but an unfair matching of felines — the Bengal tiger versus the feral cat. The tiger snarled, showed its claws and teeth, but the old cat was smarter and more devious, the tiger too lethargic to do much more than snarl.
And into that catfight came the aging bloodhound, his skin sagging, his coat mangy.
Bun on the table, on its brown paper bag, a large triangle cut from it, the last of that triangle disappearing down his daughter’s gullet, a blob of creamy icing filling the too small space between top lip and hooked nose. Norman’s father had had the good sense to die young. Norman envied him.
‘A successful trip?’ he asked.
‘We got the material, if that’s what you mean,’ Sissy said.
‘Miss Blunt will do the stitching of it?’
‘As if,’ Sissy retorted.
‘The woman makes a serviceable gown.’
‘I told you I’m getting it done by Margaret’s dressmaker.’
‘A stationmaster does not have access to deep pockets.’ He had received a refund from the Sydney bridal wear company, though not for the postage.
‘It’s my wedding day. You ought to be pleased that at least one of us is getting married before we have kids.’
Norman nodded and glanced again at the bun. He spent little time at the house. He ate there; it was not yet time to eat. He slept in the junk room; the day was not near done. He had an icebox at the station and two-thirds of a bottle of gin. He returned to his station and gin bottle.
Jim dropped his sisters off at home, then set off again. He needed petrol and the only place he’d get petrol was out at the farm. Farmers received more than their fair share of fuel. Vern’s manager was of the old school, and not yet reliant on tractors and generators.
Since new that green Ford had spent a lot of its life parked in Gertrude’s yard. It made the turn into the forest road and Jim parked it beside the walnut tree.
‘I was wondering if you and Jen might like to take a quick drive out to the farm with me, Mrs Foote. The old place is starting to look good.’
The kids were missing. Jenny was missing. His eyes searched for her.
‘It’s taking a while,’ Gertrude said.
‘There’s a lot to do. Hogan and his chaps are camping out there this week.’
‘Your father was saying this petrol business is holding them up.’
‘That’s the problem with employing out-of-town chaps. They’re doing a beautiful job of it though. They brought up some wallpaper samples I wouldn’t mind your opinion on. Pop’s got no memory for detail.’
Then Jenny came, the redhead under her arm. That was the instant alarm bells should have rung in Gertrude’s ears. Jim’s smile turned his face into Vern’s.
‘I’ve got to get petrol. I was just trying to talk your gran into taking a drive out to see what we’ve done.’
‘Your dad will want to show me over it,’ Gertrude said.
‘He won’t show me over it,’ Jenny said.
‘I’ll have her back in under an hour,’ Jim promised.
Georgie was passed to Gertrude’s hands, and maybe there was a gentle tinkling of alarm bells as Jenny ran to the car.
Vern Hooper’s land was eight miles west of Woody Creek. He’d inherited over two hundred acres from his grandfather and during the early days of the depression had added Max Monk’s seven hundred and fifty to his holding, which gave him a good-sized chunk of land with the creek marking his northern boundary.
Sounds of industry echoed from within the house, the saw, the hammer; outside, a chap stood high on a ladder, splashing paint about. Jim drove by him, by a small truck advertising Hogan & Son, Master Builders. He drove around a stack of timber and parked half in, half out of a shed much like Gertrude’s shed while he pumped petrol from a forty-four-gallon drum, Jenny stood looking at the house Sissy would call home.
‘Over here, Jen.’
She turned to his voice and saw him standing in the middle of a claypan, stamping his feet. ‘Doing a rain dance?’ she said.
An ant dance. He’d disturbed a nest of bull ants, giants of their race, heads on them as big as peas, nippers capable of leaving their mark.
It’s difficult to keep your eye on angry ants defending their territory. One attacked from the rear and got a grip on Jenny’s shoe. She shook her foot, and the old shoe flew. With one bare foot, she hopped back to the car, Jim laughing and fishing for her shoe with a length of wire.
He hooked it and flung it towards her, a few ants clinging on for the ride. He laughed as he flicked them off, while she sat on the running board, brushing grit from her foot, embarrassed by her worn shoe. He wasn’t. He slid it onto her foot.
‘My God, it fits!’ he said, his eyes still laughing.
‘And I was prepared to cut off my big toe!’ she said. Shouldn’t have. He was no Prince Charming and she was no Cinderella. ‘I thought you brought me out here to show me your house, not bull ants.’
He showed her his house, led her in through the open front door, into an entrance hall as wide as Gertrude’s kitchen and longer.
‘My God,’ she breathed.
He led her to his bathroom, where a workman was sticking old tiles to new walls with mud. ‘My God!’ There was nothing else to say. She lived in a hut, slept in a lean-to; she could touch its corrugated-iron ceiling if she reached as she jumped. The ceilings in this house were a mile high, the rooms were huge, the bathroom was as big as Granny’s bedroom.
‘My God.’ She followed him into a kitchen with a shiny sink and the skeletons of many cupboards — and Arthur Hogan, who stopping sawing to stare at her. She’d seen him often at Maisy’s house.
She nodded and walked through the kitchen to a room of shelves, while Jim spoke to him about a stove which should be arriving on the train sometime that week.
He found her standing beside an open trapdoor, looking down into a pit.
‘That’s the best part,’ he said, stepping into the pit. ‘There’s a handrail,’ voice without body said. ‘Watch your footing. The steps are steep.’
The steps were not quite a ladder, yet not quite a flight of stairs. Carefully she followed him into the hole.
‘Your dungeon?’ she said.
‘Storeroom, so Pops says.’ He struck a match and while it burned she made her way down to the floor, hand gripping a rail worn smooth by the grasping hands of the Monks’ many maids.
Then the match went out and they were in pitch darkness.
‘Strike another one.’
‘Let your eyes get used to it, Jen.’
‘What’s down here?’
‘Nothing now. According to Pops, in the old days a bullocky used to bring in a load of supplies once a year. Everything was stored down here.’
‘It smells like an ancient burial tomb.’
‘I’ve found a couple of mouse skeletons,’ he said.
‘I can’t see anything. Haven’t you got a candle or something?’
‘I know my way about.’ He struck a match and the little light gave her an idea of the cellar’s size, or no idea. She saw a wall of shelves behind him, but no other walls. It was huge. It was like finding an underground world.
‘Listen,’ he said when the second match died. ‘Wait until they stop hammering.’ She waited, counting the blows of the hammer. Then silence, dead silence. ‘Where else can you hear that, Jen?’
‘It’s like the world is holding its breath.’
A male voice overhead wasn’t holding his. He yelled and something fell on wood above her head.
‘Granny would love this place for storing her preserves. What are you going to use it for?’
�
�I sleep down here when I camp out. I dragged an old bed down. It’s never colder than it is now, never hotter.’
She’d ventured well away from the steps, and when she turned back to where she’d thought they’d be they weren’t there. He was. She touched him with an outstretched hand, but stepped back fast.
‘Strike a match.’
‘Sing The Last Rose of Summer.’
‘Strike a match and stop being stupid. I’m lost.’
‘Me too,’ he said, and his hands found her shoulders and he kissed her, a soft, achingly sweet kiss; not a Rhett Butler and Scarlett waited-for kiss, but Atlanta was burning anyway, or his underground world was burning.
Jenny pulled away from him, bumped against the shelves she hadn’t been able to find, followed them with her hand to the steps and clambered too fast up to the light. She followed the sound of hammering to the kitchen, nodded again to Arthur Hogan, then got out of that house through a rear door, knowing that he was no better than Bobby bloody Vevers.
She didn’t say a word on the way home, and all he said was ‘Sorry’. She didn’t even thank him when she got out of the car at the boundary gate, just climbed between the fence wires and ran down the track away from him.
BLOOD PRESSURE AND WEDDINGS
That kiss ended the Sunday night poker games. Vern still drove down on Saturdays. Jenny still left when she saw him coming. The days grew shorter, the mornings grew colder, the leaves turned to gold in the orchard and by April they were flying and Gertrude’s rake was busy. Autumn leaves made good garden mulch.
Sissy’s wedding gown travelled home from Willama on April Fool’s Day. Maybe it was an omen. Amber pinned a sheet around it and over it to protect it from dust and interested eyes. With nowhere else to hang it, she used the curtain rod in the parlour.
Norman had been allowed to glimpse briefly what he’d paid for dearly. Certainly it was a pretty thing, all satin and lace. Was it worth the exorbitant price of its making? Perhaps.
