by Joy Dettman
He took her to his castle where there were no more tears
And happily ever after reigned a thousand years . . .
TOWN GOSSIP
Maisy and her big-mouthed daughters had started it. All over town, Macdonald voices grated. In Charlie’s, in the butcher’s shop.
‘You can’t put a lid on that sort of talent.’
‘She’s in the right place up there.’
‘We’ll be hearing her on the wireless again one day. You mark my words.’
They’d bruised Sissy with their singing of the stray bitch’s praises. Everywhere she went they cut her to ribbons with their praise.
Ribbons fly away.
Sissy had flown away again to that hangdog cur’s relatives. One day she wouldn’t fly home and Amber knew it.
‘Amber, Amber! Open this door.’
Maisy had been hammering at the door for days. The interfering bitch wouldn’t get in. The doors were locked, the blinds and curtains closed.
‘Amber! If you don’t open this door, I’m going to get Denham. Amber!’
Voice like fingernails on slate, like grit on glass, like razor blades slicing bone.
She could hear him too this morning. Every time Sissy flew away, his smell came back. Smelled him when she turned on the tap, tasted him in the water.
Dry. Dry as a wooden god. Had to keep him out of her.
Couldn’t keep him out of the house. She’d packed blankets against the slits beneath the doors but he seeped in. You can’t block every gap. Could hear him hissing now. Down the chimney. She’d blacked them with newspapers. Paper is only paper.
‘Open the door, Amber, or I’m going to get Denham.’
Pretty bud, near ripe for the plucking.
‘Shut up.’
What is trapped within your core, pretty Amber?
‘Shut up you bastard.’
She’d smelled him in Charlie White’s shop that day. As if she hadn’t known him. She’d spent years waiting for him to come back.
Pretty bud, near ripe for the plucking.
He’d told her he’d take her away. The only place he’d taken her was in the dirt beneath the bridge.
A father’s right, my pretty Amber.
‘Bastard.’
He’d liked them young, liked standing down at the creek watching their screaming play.
‘I know you,’ she’d said that night.
‘You are mistaken,’ he’d said.
Almost got him. That second time she’d thought she’d got him. He was punishing her for it tonight. He wouldn’t shut up.
Pretty bud near ripe for the plucking.
Shall we see what is trapped within your core, my pretty Amber?
Hard to hear him above the ocean roar in her head, the howl of wind in her ears, through a skull vibrating with noise, expanding with the pressure of contained noise.
For months, for years he’d go. He always came back.
She stepped close to the mirror, peering into it, searching for him. Only a wraith of woman behind the glass. Only the erosion of pretty Amber, deep fissures in parched earth. Fingers rose to trace the arid landscape, the ditch mouth, the rutted clay surrounding twin lost lakes.
Ravaged by him. Ruined by him. Burned black by the fire he’d ignited in her belly.
The elements bruise, pretty Amber. The bud unfurls its petals and too soon they fall. A bud should be plucked when in its fullest beauty, my pretty Amber.
Cringed from the memory of what he’d done to her that day — and wanted him to come back and do it again. Wanted . . . to feel . . .
Watched for him by the schoolyard fence, waited for him until she’d grown tired of waiting for him, and she’d wed that hangdog cur for his Queen Victoria vase, his mother’s gold-rimmed tea set, his railway house in the centre of town.
Such a pretty bride.
A rose doesn’t bloom forever, my pretty bud.
‘Shut up!’
‘Something has to be done about her, Mrs Foote. She’s got Norman locked out, she’s had him locked out for days. She won’t even open the door to me now,’ Maisy said.
‘He’s the one to talk to, love,’ Gertrude said.
‘You may as well talk to the man in the moon as Norman. He’s staying over at the hotel again. I think he’s enjoying his holiday.’
Gertrude’s kitchen table was awash with tomatoes but Maisy pulled out a chair and sat. She came most days to pick up her granddaughter.
‘The girls are with Elsie this morning,’ Gertrude said, hoping she’d take the hint and go.
She didn’t take the hint. ‘Sissy knew she wasn’t right when she left, but she went anyway. She wasn’t even home for six weeks this time.’
‘Could you take six weeks of living with them?’ Gertrude said.
‘That’s not the point. Amber has crawled around that girl her whole life. Sissy could give something back to her.’
‘We each seem to end up with what we deserve, and as far as I’m seeing it lately, Norman and Amber deserve each other. Give it up, love. I realised a few years ago that there are things in this old world I can’t fix.’
She couldn’t fix Vern’s thinking and she’d had about enough of him. Maybe he’d ended up with who he deserved, one overbearing witch of a daughter, and poor simple Margaret who had her hair cut more often than necessary in order to spend an hour or two gossiping with Maisy — who was the worst in the world to gossip with. She’d never learned when to keep her mouth shut.
And Gertrude didn’t have an hour or two to waste on gossiping with her, not this morning. She’d picked eight pounds of tomatoes she planned to turn into tomato sauce this morning. Hadn’t lit her copper yet. She hadn’t filled it.
‘Neither one of your granddaughters had what you could call a normal life,’ Maisy said.
‘We did our best for them and that’s all any of us can do. To tell you the truth, I’m pleased Sissy has got a place to go.’
‘Have you heard from Jenny lately?’
Gertrude heard from her most weeks, heard more than she wanted to hear at times, though never what she wanted to hear: that Jenny was coming home. She glanced at her visitor, at the thick stack of letters behind her clock.
‘I wish she’d write and say she’s coming home.’
Maisy balanced a tomato on her palm but made no reply. Jenny’s singing was the talk of the town, as was her engagement to Jim Hooper. Margaret Hooper carried a photograph around in her handbag of the three of them, the ring on Jenny’s wedding finger showing clearly.
‘Jim and my nephew,’ she said, flashing it proudly. She made no mention of Jenny, but at least she hadn’t cut her out of the photograph.
Maisy always took longer than necessary with Margaret’s hair, usually offered her a cup of tea when she was done with her snipping. She got on well enough with Margaret Hooper.
‘I suppose that when you come to think of it, Mrs Foote, the same applies to Jenny as it does to Sissy — only more so. I mean, what you said about Sissy being lucky to have some place to go. I know Jenny has got you, which is different to Sissy having them — but not having to face everyone here, it must be like heaven to her. And to tell you the truth, it eases my own guilt a bit — I mean knowing that she’s finally getting a chance to do what she was born to do.’
There was no accusation in Maisy’s tone. Maybe there should have been. Her words hit one of Gertrude’s nerve endings, made her look at her reasons for wanting Jenny home. She needed her at home. Elsie had enough kids of her own without taking on two extra, and two- and three-year-old girls needed constant watching.
She took up her knife and started cutting tomatoes, sawing them in half, dropping the halves into her preserving pan.
She needed Jenny home where she could keep an eye on her, too. Vern swore that she was pregnant. Gertrude had her own thoughts on that, had spent some nights worried sick in imagining her attempting to expel a Hooper among strangers who didn’t know the family history.
September to March. She’d been in Sydney for six months. She wouldn’t be singing at clubs and parties if she was six months forward, not with a Hooper inside her.
But was she singing in a club? Or was that boy sending home money so she could stay up there? Vern said so.
She cut two more tomatoes. They were overripe, but overripe was good for sauce making.
‘You can’t raise a baby in a rooming house full of strangers,’ Gertrude said.
‘When I was nineteen I was managing two babies and had another one on the way,’ Maisy said. ‘How old were you when you had Amber?’
‘Twenty —’ Gertrude started, but give a detail like that to Maisy and in twenty-four hours everyone in town would know Gertrude’s age. ‘I was wed at nineteen.’
‘We managed, Mrs Foote. I had money enough, no time, no energy, but somehow I got through it. You did too. We do what we have to do, even if at times we don’t know how we’re doing it. Jenny is doing the same. Give me a knife and I’ll help you with those or you’ll be at it all day.’
Gertrude found a second serrated knife and they sat on opposite sides of the table, cutting, tossing overripe tomatoes into the pan. Maisy had been at home in this house since Amber had started at school. She’d done much of her growing up in this kitchen.
‘Has Jenny ever been told about her real mother, Mrs Foote?’
Gertrude shook her head and cut two more tomatoes. ‘I’ve thought about it, but there’s no right way to tell her, and not much to tell anyway. And given her life these past years, I doubt she needs anything more to deal with.’
‘You could be right,’ Maisy said. ‘It’s just . . . no one ever told me about my mother, other than to tell me that she was a slut who didn’t care if I was alive or dead. She was sixteen when I was born. They sent her down to some cousin in Melbourne and she ended up getting married. She sent me money and a card for my birthday every year and Aunty Lily kept them from me. I only found out when I married George and was six months pregnant. Then she went and died of consumption before I got to meet her. I never forgave Aunty Lily for that. People need to know where they come from.’
‘You’re probably right, love, but the longer it goes on, the less I think about telling her — and the less likely it is that she’ll hear it from anyone else.’
‘There are a few who still mention it, particularly now. She got that voice from someone. Italians are known for their singing.’
Gertrude knew where she’d got her voice. He was no Italian. She wondered if he was in jail or out, alive or dead. She’d spent the greater part of her life in wondering if Archie Foote was alive or dead. She cut a tomato, tossed it, and wished she’d cut that sod’s throat with a serrated knife one night when he’d been passed out from the drugs.
‘I’m going to telephone the hospital about Amber. That city place they sent her to fixed her up last time.’
There was nothing Gertrude could say. Nothing she wanted to say. She cut tomatoes.
‘She could be lying dead inside that house for all I know. I was over there this morning knocking for half an hour. I couldn’t hear a sound from inside.’
‘Her father could hole up in his room for days. He came out when he got hungry.’
‘How did you stand it?’
‘I left him, love. I wiped him out of my mind — and I’m trying to do the same with Amber.’
‘Something happened between him and Amber, you know.’
‘What?’ Gertrude’s knife stilled.
‘I’ve got my own ideas. I could be wrong.’ Two tomato halves splashed into the pan and Maisy reached for another. ‘When I look back on how she was in the days after he cleared out — when I look back through an adult’s eyes, that is — she was just like one of my girls used to be when they’d broken up with a boyfriend. Bawling, rotten to me. We’d always been best friends, probably because we were the only two kids in town who didn’t have fathers. Then suddenly Amber had one who looked like Jesus Christ. He used to come to the school gate done up like a toff, and she’d run to him and leave me standing.’
‘He took her out of school?’
‘Six or so times, though she was always back before school came out. I was jubilant when he stopped coming. I told her so, and she damn near scratched my eyes out.’
They sliced tomatoes in silence, sliced them until they were done.
‘Did you ever get to see that Forester bloke Denham locked up for taking advantage of the Duffy girl?’
Gertrude was opening a new bag of salt. ‘What about him?’
‘Amber was convinced he was her father. I knew he’d been dead for years, but I couldn’t convince her. She told me she was going to confront him. I don’t know if she did or not but she stopped talking about him. Remember how she came good after they arrested him?’
Gertrude’s memory of the timing of Amber’s improvement differed. No one had seen her around until the day of Barbie Dobson’s funeral. That was the day Amber had rejoined the human race, long before Forester’s arrest.
‘When they let him off the murder charge, she was livid, Mrs Foote.’
Gertrude glanced at her visitor, then took her time sprinkling salt over the tomatoes, measuring sugar — not as much as she may have measured before rationing. Two cups of vinegar, plus a dash.
‘She swore she saw him back here two weeks ago, staying at the pub. I got George to ask Horrie Bull the chap’s name. It wasn’t him. Alfred Conti, Horrie said. Amber wouldn’t believe me. She’s been going downhill since. She’s obsessed by her father, Mrs Foote. I reckon he molested her.’
Gertrude spilled too many cloves into her tomatoes. That same thought had been dogging her for years. She should have kept that girl by her side while he’d been around, should have kept her out of school. Should never have lied to her about her father being a good man, a clever doctor.
She stood picking out the excess cloves, unsure if she was picking out too many. Took more care in adding the allspice. Her sauce was tasteless without spices but too many could ruin it. Added mustard seeds, cayenne pepper — and a little bit of that stuff went a very long way.
‘Is he still in town?’ she said.
‘He was only here for two or three days. She stopped eating. She went cleaning mad, complaining about the smell in her house. The last time I saw her, which was three days ago, the broom she held in her hands had more fat on it.’
Gertrude lifted the preserving pan onto the stove. There was a good fire burning beneath but it would take a while to boil.
‘You’ve been a good friend to her.’
‘Someone has to care about her.’
‘I care, love. I’ve cared and I’ve cared and there’s nothing I can do. If you get that doctor up here, I’ll pay for him.’
‘I’ll get going then and do it, Mrs Foote.’
TOO MUCH TO CRY ABOUT
Still two days to get through until Friday and Jenny had two shillings in her purse. Living on tips from the club was all very well when there were tips to live on; it was hopeless when there were none. Wilfred and his merry men had one Saturday night booking in March, and nothing so far in April. Summer was the party season. Now it was autumn.
Sydney’s autumn was prettier than Woody Creek’s. The gardens and parks were more colourful. Jenny spent hours walking, showing Jimmy the pretty gardens, picking up pretty autumn leaves — and wondering what Sydney would look like in winter, wondering what her room would be like in winter. Probably freezing cold. She missed Gertrude’s little black stove, missed the black coat she’d lived in through a Melbourne winter.
I’ll have to buy a coat, she thought, and they cost a fortune. And she’d need clothing coupons. She could afford to buy one if she withdrew some of Jim’s money. She hadn’t touched it yet, though she’d have to soon. Jimmy needed a coat too, and new shoes.
He was sitting on the floor, playing with her black sandals, attempting to put one on over his shoe. She sat at her dressing table rereading two letters delivered th
is morning.
Maisy’s letters always sounded like a good chat over a cup of tea.
. . . we got the top parlour window open and boosted Jessie up to get in and open the front door. One look at the state of the house was enough for the doctor. He told me to get Denham and call the ambulance.
They took her away to Melbourne and, according to Norman, she’s back in the same place they took her the last time. Your father paid Nelly Dobson to clean up the house. Me and Jessie gave her a hand and you never saw it in such a state in your life. She’d stuffed newspapers up the chimneys, and the mess she made of the walls. Someone will have to paint her bedroom.
Your sister is staying in Hamilton with one of your cousins. I wrote to her to let her know what’s going on with your mother. I haven’t heard back. That girl needs her backside kicked from here to kingdom come. She knew her mother wasn’t well when she left and after all Amber’s done for her, you’d think she’d have a bit of compassion . . .
Jim’s letters were still censored, though a few missed out entirely on that black pen.
My dear, precious Jenny and Jimmy,
I love your poem. It’s wrapped around my photographs, in my pocket next to my heart. I’ve read it so many times I can recite it, though when I do, I change ‘beggar’ to ‘goddess’. If I was a poet, I’d write ten thousand pages about the goddess who turned a lop-eared drongo into a king.
I needed your letter and Jimmy’s kiss today. We lost Paddy, and Nobby took a bullet in the leg. We’ve lost a lot of good chaps. I probably shouldn’t be writing this. I doubt they’ll let you read it.
I wrote to Pops recently about you and Jimmy and asked him to promise me he’d look after both of you if anything happened to me — which it won’t, so don’t go worrying. He hasn’t written back, or maybe he wrote back through Lorna. I can do without her letters. I’ve always tried to tell myself that she deserves my pity not my anger, though that doesn’t seem to work as well over here.
Margaret writes a good letter. She said that your singing at the club is the talk of the town, and so it ought to be. You handled it the night I was there as if you’d been singing all your life, which I suppose you have been.
