Thorn on the Rose

by Joy Dettman

  Wire door groaning open, Sissy screaming. Norman hurried down the verandah, through his squealing gate and back to the sanctity, the sanctuary of his station, back to his only self-worth, where he poured a little more self-worth into a glass, a bare inch of gin. The glass was wide. He added an inch of water. Gulped down a mouthful, did his best to stifle the resulting burp. Raw cabbage never settled well in his stomach.

  The train was due at seven. It arrived at seven ten and was on its way by seven thirty-two, when he poured another inch of gin, another inch of water into his glass. The station lights turned off, he sat on in the dark, sipping, smoking, listening.

  Voices carried by night. His daughter’s had always carried more than most.

  The contents of his bottle was somewhat depleted before the last light went off at the house. He returned the bottle to his icebox and walked the short distance home to his junk room.

  Amber informed Maisy that the wedding had been delayed. Maisy told her daughters. They told the town. Few were interested, less were surprised, not with Vern stuck in hospital, and from all accounts half crippled.

  Jim was not missed; the cricket season was over and he didn’t play football. He’d spent little time in town since Hogan had started work on Monk’s house. Few noticed he wasn’t about — apart from Nelly Dobson, Vern’s house cleaner. Jim’s bed was never slept in, which in itself wasn’t unusual, but with the two cars at home, it was. She told her brother and sister-in-law that Jim had taken off somewhere, but the Dobsons were known for their tight lips. They kept the news to themselves.

  ‘Is that wedding on or off?’ a customer asked Charlie White.

  ‘She’s still wearing his ring,’ Charlie reported.

  ‘Someone told me he’d joined up,’ Hilda, Charlie’s daughter, said.

  Few secrets remain secret in small country towns. Neighbours look over fences, wave to cars as they go by. Elaine Fulton worked behind the counter at the post office. She knew who received bills, knew if they were paid or not.

  She was sorting mail into pigeonholes when she noticed two matching letters, one addressed to Mr Vern Hooper, the other addressed to Miss Jennifer Morrison. Same envelopes, same army postmark, same handwriting.

  There were ten Fultons and a daughter-in-law sharing the house next door to Charlie’s, and by nightfall every last one of them knew about those letters — as did Hilda.

  ‘What’s he doing writing to Jenny Morrison, Dad?’

  Another letter arrived for Miss Jennifer Morrison, and no one had ever written to her — or not since Elaine had been working at the post office.

  ‘Has anything come for Sissy?’

  ‘Only from that big shoe shop in Willama.’

  Jim’s divergences down the forest road had to a large degree gone unnoticed. Jenny’s first visit to Monk’s house hadn’t; Arthur Hogan had seen her. Arthur Hogan, wed to one of Maisy’s middle daughters, heard via Jessie, who had heard via Peggy Fulton, that Jim was writing to Jenny Morrison.

  ‘He brought her out to Monk’s house one night to show her over it,’ Arthur said.

  Within days everyone in Woody Creek knew that Jim had taken Jenny out to Monk’s house near nightfall.

  Lorna and Margaret could have set the rumour-mongers straight on the day Jim said his goodbyes in Willama.

  He’d parked the car out front of the hospital, its nose pointing towards home, and he’d handed Lorna the keys.

  ‘Stick to the left-hand side of the road and don’t try to pass anything unless you can see a mile ahead,’ he’d said. ‘I’m joining up.’ Then he’d given a sealed envelope to Margaret. ‘Give that to Pops when he’s well enough to handle it.’

  And he’d gone. Left Margaret bawling. Left Lorna feeling the weight, feeling the power of the car keys on her palm. Left two magpies warbling in a palm tree. Left his father waiting an hour longer for his night attire.

  Hospital visiting hours were from two to four. Lorna delivered the case with three minutes to spare. She parried a question or two, lied about Jim being out at the farm, lied about having ridden down with the garage mechanic, then got out of the place.

  Some years ago, the Hooper sisters had been given licences to drive. Neither was capable of doing it outside the farm gates. Between them they’d got the car started, then with Margaret squealing, Lorna elbowing her silent and a truck’s fast application of brakes, they’d got that car out of town. The bridge presented a problem, or its narrow section did. They left a little green paint on one railing, but once on the open road, Lorna’s confidence had grown. Her attempt to drive in through Vern’s narrow gateway led to more scraping of the paintwork, but she’d braked, and that’s where the car remained — for two weeks.

  They’d hustled Nelly Dobson from the kitchen, closed the door on her, and with the help of the kettle’s steaming spout opened Jim’s letter. Its contents sent Lorna to bed with palpitations. Margaret, too distraught to lie still, took three aspros with a glass of sherry. She’d slept, her head on her folded arms, at the kitchen table, with the letter.

  It remained unsealed for ten days, was read daily for ten days, was no longer pristine when sealed once more into its envelope — on the morning Vern was released from hospital.

  He’d been gone for a month. His arrival home was viewed by many from behind lace curtains, from behind shrubbery, by shoppers who chose that moment to walk up for bread.

  ‘It took him five minutes to drag himself out of the car,’ they reported on street corners, over side fences. ‘They got a crutch in beneath his arm, and he hobbled to the verandah like a man of ninety.’

  ‘He doesn’t look like Vern Hooper. He used to take those verandah steps two at a time. He damn near fell in trying to get up to the verandah.’

  ‘Did you see his useless pair of daughters, standing around letting him struggle?’

  A bad, bad day that one. Lorna was exhausted. The car had refused to start until Margaret fetched the garage man who had told them the petrol tank was dry. The big Ford, parked for ten days, nose in, backside out on the street, had tempted a petrol thief. The garage man sold them petrol enough to get to Willama and back. He’d got the car started and pointed in the right direction.

  The drive to the hospital may have shattered a lesser woman than Lorna; the drive home, Vern at her side, near crushed her. He was not a good passenger.

  But they’d got him home, and on her second attempt Lorna had got the car into the yard and parked it so she might circle the lawn if it became necessary to take the thing out again.

  Then he’d wanted to use the toilet. They’d seen him to the indoor toilet and left a defeated man to urinate into porcelain.

  ‘Are you all right in there, Father?’

  He wasn’t all right. He had one good hand and six bloody buttons to undo. He needed his son.

  ‘’ere the’ luddy ell i’ ’e?’

  Difficult enough to understand his speech when face to face, and near impossible with the closed door between them. It took some repetition.

  ‘We will discuss it later,’ Lorna said.

  ‘Are you managing, Father?’

  He managed. Managed to see that the porcelain he was peeing into wasn’t white, and nor was his bath. There was nothing wrong with Vern’s sight, not since an optician chap had come to the hospital and fitted him with a pair of glasses. There was nothing wrong with his sense of smell, either, and his bathroom smelled like a lavatory.

  He emerged, his fly hanging open. He clumped on his crutch down the passage where dust mice skittered, and he asked in his inimitable way, what the bloody hell Nelly bloody Dobson had been doing with her bloody time, and where the bloody hell was their brother, and what the bloody hell were they keeping from him?

  ‘Nelly has not been available, Father,’ Margaret said.

  Much had changed during Vern’s month in hospital. Without him and Jim to add some balance, Nelly had got above herself.

  She’d asked what Jim’s car was doing half in and half
out of the yard, and she hadn’t believed Margaret when she’d said he was staying in Willama to be close to his father.

  ‘If he’s in Willama, what’s his car doing here?’ Nelly had asked — at which time, Lorna had attempted to teach her her place.

  ‘I’m only asking out of concern,’ Nelly had said.

  ‘Your concern is the house, Miss Dobson.’

  That’s when Nelly told her to shove her job up her skinny old maid arse.

  In May 1941, domestic servants were as scarce as hen’s teeth, and anyone lucky enough to have one paid her well to stay and treated her with respect. A girl could find employment in shops, in offices, at the telephone exchange and on the land.

  Margaret quite enjoyed her kitchen, but not the laundry, a rough building out back. Lorna preferred to wash her smalls in the bathroom; she could spend an hour there in washing one pair of lisle stockings while attempting to keep her talon fingernails dry. Neither sister could iron a garment, and washing a kitchen floor, cleaning a bathtub, touching a toilet — other than to sit on — and now they had been given the care of a bad-tempered invalid father.

  Vern’s spluttering speech unnerved them, his colour when he spluttered terrified Margaret, the spittle leaking from the corner of his sagging mouth, his swiping response when she attempted to wipe it away. She dithered around him. Lorna kept her distance.

  Never, in the many years they’d known Gertrude, had they been pleased to see her or her atrocious attire at their door. At five that afternoon, when she slid from her horse, both girls were waiting to welcome her. They stood back while she kissed their father’s wet mouth, uncaring of his spittle; they vacated the room when she sat at his side and buttoned his fly; they hid in the kitchen when he asked after Jim.

  Gertrude told him he’d joined up.

  A devious pair, Vern’s daughters. They brought in Jim’s sealed letter and hurried back to the kitchen to await the results.

  Gertrude opened the envelope and flattened the page. Vern, his complexion livid, did his own reading. Then threw the letter in her face.

  She picked up the page and moved closer to the light, squinted at the handwriting — too small for her to make out more than a few words without her glasses.

  ‘You come in here, crawling all over a man, making a bloody fool of a man —’

  ‘Let me read what he says,’ she said, helped herself to his glasses.

  Dear Pops,

  I’ll be in Melbourne when you open this. I’m joining up. I’m sorry I let you spend so much money on doing up the old place, but it was worth doing. I’ve seen the solicitor and asked him to release some of my money to pay for it, told him that I’d be living in it. He said there shouldn’t be a problem.

  It will do the house no good standing empty. If I were you, I’d speak to Paul Jenner and see if he’s interested in share cropping Monk’s section. He’s a good farmer and he’s struggling to keep his head above water on his land. His wife is the type who would look after the house.

  There’s nothing I can say in a letter that’s going to make you feel any better about what I’ve done, other than to say that seeing Mrs Foote with you the night she brought you back from the dead convinced me that I want a lot more out of life than Sissy Morrison.

  This war is going to change everything. I hope it changes a few of your attitudes. I know I shouldn’t be writing the following, but you’ve got to know sometime and while I’m away it could be the best time for it to start sinking in.

  You used to say once that Jenny was worth two of her sister. She’s probably worth a thousand. I know that you and Margaret were fond of her when she was a kid and if things had worked out the way they should have for her, you would have been as pleased as punch if we’d ever got together. I’ve got to know her again these past months, and whatever happened to her hasn’t changed who she is.

  That’s about all I’ll say right now, other than I hope you keep on improving and they let you come home soon. I’ll see you when I get some leave.

  All the best,

  Jim

  ‘You knew what was going on,’ he said.

  ‘I knew he was joining up?’

  ‘You knew he was on with that hot-pants little slut.’ His speech wasn’t clear. His consonants were lost or garbled, but one word out of two was enough to decipher the gist of his sentence.

  ‘They were good friends as kids. I saw nothing between them.’

  ‘Liar.’ An ugly word, made more so tonight by that twisted mouth, by the froth of saliva dripping white to his chin.

  She stepped back, stung by the word. ‘Calm yourself, or you’ll have another stroke. There was nothing wrong going on between them, Vern.’ Or maybe there had been since his stroke. They’d spent a lot of time together, though she’d been too worried about Vern to go looking for wrong in it. ‘All he says in his letter is that he’s got to know her again.’

  ‘Liar.’ He could get his tongue around that word and he was sticking with it.

  ‘You know me better than to call me that.’

  ‘You knew what was going on. You encouraged it.’

  ‘Wipe your chin. You’re dribbling,’ she said, placing both letter and his glasses down.

  Jim had eaten a few meals with them. He’d spoken openly about calling the wedding off. He’d mentioned going to Queensland. Jenny had gone out to the farm with him a few times, but Gertrude had seen nothing inappropriate.

  ‘You’re reading more into his words than he’s saying, Vern. You’ve raised a fine decent boy in Jim —’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘You know in your heart that I’m the last person in the world who’d lie to you,’ she said, and she left him to his daughters and his dust mice.

  *

  The wedding gown, meant to turn every head in Woody Creek, hung forlorn from the parlour’s curtain rod, its covering sheet removed, the satin and lace of it exposed, the long filmy veil a trap for flies. It should have been packed away, out of sight, out of mind, so Maisy said. Sissy wouldn’t hear of it.

  Amber was no longer entering into arguments over that frock. She spent her days evading her daughter. Spent them in her bedroom, the door locked, staring at walls, at the draped windows, at the green suit, her mother of the bride suit. She’d been counting down the days more eagerly than Norman, Sissy’s wedding like a spring morning after the long winter of that hangdog, bloodhound cur.

  She’d walked Monk’s renovated house with Sissy and Margaret, had walked the rooms, aware that at a given day, at a certain time, she would be going home to live in that house.

  She’d known about it all her life. At thirteen her father had promised to take her away to such a palace.

  She’d waited for him. Looked for him for months. Looked for him for years. And as if she hadn’t recognised him when he’d come back.

  He’d liked them young, the bastard. They all liked them young.

  Amber was too old for him by then, too old for any of them, worn down by the hangdog cur she’d wed. No spring left for her now. Dark winter looming, forever the long dark winter. Cold. Bleak. Empty. Nothing.

  She couldn’t stand the sight of that hangdog cur, the sound of him — or his Duckworth daughter. Couldn’t stand the noise of her, the size of her, the demands of her. In the womb she’d been beautiful. In the womb she’d been Ruby Rose. For a day, a week, her Ruby Rose had suckled at the breast. They’d killed her with old Cecelia’s name. Murdered her with it. There was no name on the tombstone for her beautiful Ruby Rose, but she’d died as surely as Leonora April, as surely as Clarence, and the other two.

  His bitch of a mother, Cecelia, had named them; had named the tiny blue Clarence. He’d had sense enough not to breathe. He’d named the other ones. Simon — his name cut late into the tombstone. Simon Andrew. He wasn’t in that hole. He was rotting on top of old Cecelia. She’d named Leonora. They’d put her in that hole — and the last one. What had he named him? Peter? Paul? Reginald?

  Amber laughed, but quiet
ly, as she walked the cage of her room, walked the L from door to bed to window, turned and walked back — six, eight, ten times. Her legs needed to walk. It was years since she’d walked further than the butcher’s shop. Years since she’d been out to the cemetery. How many years? Barbara Dobson’s funeral. She hadn’t gone near her baby’s tombstone that day. Other things on her mind that day. Tonight she wanted to go there to see what he’d named that last one. She lifted the curtain and peered out. Too much light yet. She’d wait until dark. She liked the dark.

  They didn’t hear her leave the house. She walked too fast, needing to get far away — from them, from his house. She was out of condition. Out of breath. Once she’d been strong. Once she’d been strong enough to do what had to be done. And she’d done it, too. She’d almost got him.

  That lying old bastard, standing down at the creek, staring at that girl —

  She walked faster. Cut across the road and through the park, catching her breath at Park Road, then continued on to the sports oval. There was no one about. Everyone went home at nightfall and left the world to her. She could take her time now as she walked across the oval to Cemetery Road.

  The small gate was always open. She let herself in and, with no need for haste, wandered the dark paths, spat at old Cecelia’s stone, spat in the eye of a winged angel, leaned her weight against the wing. Didn’t have enough weight behind her to snap granite. Walked on, down the wrong gravel path. Turned back and took another path.

  She found her dead babies and sat with them, in the dirt, her back against their stone. Sat and remembered while the lights of the town slowly went out and the slim moon rose up high to light that place of the dead. Cold earth beneath her, cold stone at her back, cold stones in her hand, one for each of them. More stones than names. She’d fix that.

  One stone had a sharp enough edge. She used it to gouge at the stone, gouged and kept gouging until she’d cut her firstborn’s name on the tombstone.

  RUBY ROSE 26.3.1919