by Joy Dettman
‘Your name is on her papers.’ Jenny put the money in her handbag and looked at the baby one last time. ‘She won’t ever know I exist.’
‘Robert and I will know, and every day of our lives we’ll bless the angel who came into our lives. Now go, pet.’
Jenny touched the tiny hand. By comparison with Jimmy at birth, this one was a midget, weighing in at five pounds five ounces on Myrtle’s kitchen scales. She didn’t want it, couldn’t have kept it even if she had wanted to. She’d just had too much to do with it, that was all. She’d sewn the baby’s gown, and made the sleeves too long. Silly little hand lost in that sleeve. She turned back a cuff and offered a finger. Tiny hand gripping her finger, maybe a baby handshake, thanking her for hot water on tap, carpet underfoot, a fairy godmother. A fragile mite, who, like Georgie, had to go and get herself born with Jenny’s hands. She wished that hand different. She wished she hadn’t given away her pretend name. Didn’t know why she had. Should have let her be Marion or Julia.
‘I promise you she’ll have the best life we can give her, the best schools —’
‘You’ll spoil her rotten,’ Jenny said, easing her finger free and taking Jimmy’s hand.
‘I want Myrtie to come, too.’
Myrtle was weeping. She must have been the weepiest woman in the world. Jenny backed away.
‘I don’t suppose you’d write, get Mr Fitzpatrick to take a photo or two? Just so I know you haven’t killed her with kindness. Just write care of Mrs Foote, Woody Creek.’
Myrtle didn’t reply. Jenny took another step back. ‘Please.’ Myrtle shook her head and Jenny turned and boarded the train.
‘I wan Myrtie to come wiff us.’ Jimmy had begun to understand that this was to be a final leaving. ‘I wan Myrtie to come, Jenny.’
‘She can’t come.’ Jenny led Jimmy to their compartment, where he climbed onto the seat to look out the window, searching the platform for Myrtle.
Still standing there, still weeping. Jenny pressed her fingers to her lips and blew her a kiss, blew another for Cara Jeanette.
Then the stroller and Myrtle disappeared into the crowd.
NORMAN’S STATION
The trip to Melbourne was interminable, but they got there. Jenny bought a ticket to Woody Creek, then walked Jimmy across the road. Myrtle had booked them a single room at a hotel. They had no luggage, other than their coats and a string bag. Myrtle had booked the cases through. It was a long wait until morning. Afraid she wouldn’t wake in time to catch the train, Jenny couldn’t sleep.
Jimmy started at daybreak. ‘Where’s Myrtie’s house?’
‘A long, long way away.’
‘I want Myrtie.’
He kept it up until they got back to the station. Maybe he thought she was taking him back where he belonged. She collected the luggage, ushered him before her into the ladies’ room, and dug deep in her case for her corset, bought in May, discarded in July. She hadn’t fallen as flat as she should have, and she wanted to wear her green linen frock home, determined that when she stepped off the train at Norman’s station, he’d see the singer, not the slut. She found clean underwear, then opened the smaller case packed with Jimmy’s clothes. Blue cable-stitch sweater, navy pants, white shirt, he looked like a little toff. She sat him on her case while she dressed for home, painted her lips, rubbed a smear of lipstick into her cheeks for colour. She looked pale, felt pale today.
They ate toasted cheese sandwiches for breakfast, or Jimmy ate them. She took a bite or two but her stomach, laced tight, wasn’t interested in food.
‘I want Myrtie’s porridge,’ he said.
‘We’ll have some of Granny’s tomorrow. She makes the best porridge.’
‘Where?’
‘After we have another ride on a train.’
‘On Myrtie’s twain?’
‘Another one.’
‘Not anover one,’ he said. ‘I want Myrtie’s.’
God help her. God help him, too. She found a bench seat beside an ashtray, set her cases at her feet, set Jimmy at her side, fed him a toffee and sat smoking while one of the whalebones in her corset took its revenge. Not much she could do about it other than sit straight. She wanted to slump, wanted Jimmy to stop whingeing.
They called her train. She picked up the cases, the string bag. ‘Walk close to me, Jimmy.’
‘I want Myrtie,’ he said, and he flopped down to his backside.
Cases down again. ‘Stand up and walk. I can’t carry you and the cases.’
‘I don’ like more twains.’
‘Me either, but we have to get on one more.’
‘Why did we hab to?’ Jimmy cried.
A soldier, wearing Jim’s uniform, his hat, asked if he could give her a hand with the cases.
‘Please.’
She heaved Jimmy up to her hip and followed the soldier down the corridor to an empty compartment. He lifted her cases up to the wire racks and tossed his army bag after them. She’d hoped he’d help her out then go. He sat. She hated men looking at her. Wished she’d taken after Norman instead of Amber. Wished she’d worn her black dress and no makeup.
Then another soldier came in to stare, and to laugh when Jimmy told her he didn’t like more trains.
‘We came down from Sydney yesterday,’ she explained.
She had apples in her string bag. She bribed Jimmy silent. He’d grown accustomed to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. He wouldn’t survive in Woody Creek. She wouldn’t survive in Woody Creek. He crunched and she sat, her face turned to the window, as an elderly woman and her decrepit husband joined their group, then two more women and a girl, and thank God, the train moved before any more came.
Then the city was sliding by, backyards like junk heaps, one after the other, a paddock or two, a house or three, then the paddocks grew larger and the houses fewer while the train sang her closer to the last place on earth she wanted to be.
She didn’t want to be Jenny Morrison. Didn’t want to live in a two and a half roomed shack, fetching water from the creek. She wanted to be Jenny Hooper, factory machinist by day, singer by night.
All gone, Jenny Hooper. Dead and buried, Jenny Hooper. And Jimmy Hooper, too. How would he like being Jimmy Morrison?
And how was she going to lie to Granny? She’d written fairytales to her these past months, written of the factory and the club. She hadn’t been at the factory for three months, hadn’t been at the club for more. She had to wipe those last months from her mind. Wipe that baby from her mind. Get her mind back to June.
Granny would notice her stomach. Or maybe not. She’d notice the dress, the stockings, notice how tall Jimmy had grown. Then she’d put her arms around her to give her a Granny cuddle, and feel that corset. She’d forgotten Granny’s hugs. Could hear her voice in the song of the train wheels. What are you trying to hide with that corset? Have you come home pregnant?
She’d have to take it off.
Heard Granny again in the wheels. You’ve never had a stomach in your life.
Too much sitting slumped over a sewing machine, Granny. Too little time walking, Granny. Too many of Myrtle’s rich meals, Granny.
She’d fallen flat after the other ones and she’d been so huge with Jimmy. Not enough walking was true. Eating too well was true.
And how did she expect to walk Jimmy home from the station? She’d been crazy to give that stroller away. But she’d wanted to give something, leave something of herself, of Jimmy, to that baby.
It should have been a boy. It should have looked like Hank. Maybe it looked like Billy-Bob. It shouldn’t have had her hands.
‘Look at all the baa lambs,’ she said.
‘I don’ like baa lambs.’
‘Granny might have some baby goats.’
‘I don’ like baby goats.’
‘You used to. You used to drink lots and lots of goat’s milk, too.’
‘I like Myrtie’s milk.’
‘We’ll stop at a big station soon and we’ll buy an ice-cream.�
��
Jenny sighed for a cup of tea, or for Myrtle. Sighed for that bald-headed baby’s hands.
Everything was . . . was not what she’d expected it to be. She’d expected a boy, expected it to come out waving the stars and stripes. She’d expected to look at it and see a rapist in waiting; instead it had been a poor little corset-crushed girl. And it had come so fast, so easy. Like an apology. Like it knew what its fathers had done.
What was it like to grow inside someone who for nine months resented the space you used up, resented the blood supply feeding you, resented every twinge?
Maybe I know, Jenny thought. I know what it’s like to live in a house where every breath you take is resented.
The train stopped for twenty minutes at a station midway between Melbourne and Woody Creek. Jimmy demanded cake and lollies. Jenny bought ice-cream and a bottle of lemonade.
One soldier returned to the compartment. Jimmy, full of icecream and lemonade, stretched out on the seat for a nap.
‘How old is he?’ The soldier asked.
‘Almost three.’
‘I’ve got a four-year-old and a little tyke I haven’t seen yet,’ he said.
‘They’ll be pleased to see you.’ She wished he’d go to sleep.
‘Is your husband in the services?’
‘He died in ’43.’ That stopped the conversation. He returned to reading his paper and Jenny stood and looked down at her skirt, crushed by sitting. ‘Could you keep an eye on him for five minutes for me? I don’t think he’ll move.’
‘Go for your life,’ he said.
That was the idea. That whalebone was killing her.
She stripped down to pants and bra in the ladies’, in an area too small for stripping and too unstable, with nowhere to hang her frock when it was off. She slung it over her shoulder and her petticoat with it, then unlaced the corset, ripped it off and pitched the pinching thing. Bumped her funny bone on the wall while fighting her way back into her frock, and while she was moaning about that, someone knocked on the door.
She picked up the corset. Couldn’t very well walk back to the compartment with it under her arm. Couldn’t fold whalebone and stuff it into her handbag either. Should she stuff it behind the lav and get it later? She didn’t want it later. Never, for as long as she lived, would she lace on another corset. She’d rather shove it down the lav where it deserved to be shoved. She peered down the hole that went through to the lines, the same hole she’d used to get rid of three of Jimmy’s messy nappies two years ago. They’d gone straight through.
‘Ashes to ashes,’ she said. ‘Dust to dust.’ And she released it.
With a little encouragement, the corset fell through to spend its life rotting between the railway lines, or caught up on barbwire fence flapping its whalebones at train drivers.
Whoever was knocking on the door had become desperate. Jenny washed her hands, washed her arm up past the elbow, buckled her belt, ran wet fingers through her curls and stepped out. An unhappy old lady pushed past her to get in.
Jimmy was sleeping when she got back to the compartment. The soldier, having babysat, now wanted to talk.
‘The Russians are hammering Germany,’ he said. ‘They won’t hold out much longer.’
‘Have you been overseas?’
‘I’ve been up north,’ he said.
They talked the last miles away, and they were faster miles. Too fast. Each time she glanced out the window, the landscape looked more familiar. Woody Creek coming to get you, Jenny Morrison.
She recognised the stand of blue gums out front of the Tyler place. Recognised the white clay walls of Lewis’s dam, the crumbling sheds beside the house.
Then the train was hooting, warning the town, warning Norman. Her heartbeat was warning her to put on her armour against this town.
Past the falling-down back fences, the barking brown dogs, the fig tree leaning over the convent’s back fence. Blunt’s crossing. Norman’s railway yard, with stacks of red and bleeding timber waiting to be loaded.
The train slowed, wheels creeping, stopping, the train hissing its ire.
And there he was, thinner from the rear, shoulders more rounded, and looking so old and she, afraid to face him.
She’d have to, she’d have to leave the cases with him.
The soldier carried her luggage out to the platform. She carried Jimmy and her string bag, her snakeskin handbag, its worn strap replaced by Myrtle’s shoe repairer.
Norman didn’t recognise her, or not right away, not while she was with the soldier, thanking him for his help.
‘A pleasure, love.’
‘Enjoy your leave with your family.’
‘There’s not much doubt about that,’ he said, and with a wink directed towards Jimmy, he swung back onto the train.
From the rear he looked a little like Jim — Jim too close in this town.
‘Where did we come to, Jenny?’ Jimmy asked sleepily.
To hell, she wanted to reply. ‘Woody Creek,’ she said.
Norman was staring at her. She met his eyes, expecting a word, something.
Two more passengers were ending their journey in Woody Creek — Molly Martin, who lived ten or so miles out, one of her sons at her side. He eyed Jenny as she dragged her cases into the ticket office.
Norman took the Martins’ tickets, then he was behind Jenny.
‘I’ll have to pick my cases up later,’ she said.
He was staring at a luggage label on which Myrtle had printed HOOPER in big black letters. Jenny ripped it off.
‘Or you might ask Mick Boyle to deliver them if you see him about,’ she said.
Norman nodded and reached out a hand. For an instant she thought he was reaching out to her. Then she remembered her ticket. That’s all he wanted from her. She gave it up, and with a last glance at his hangdog eyes, took Jimmy’s hand and walked west down the platform, away from him.
‘Who is dat man, Jenny?’
‘Your grandfather,’ she said. ‘One of them.’
‘Why?’
It was difficult to explain family ties to kids, not worth the effort when those ties were broken.
They couldn’t get across the lines until the train moved away, she had to stand on Norman’s platform and wait.
‘Why did we come for to . . . to here?’
‘We’re going to visit Granny.’
‘I don’ want Gwanny. I want Myrtie.’
‘We can’t have Myrtie any more. Now we’ll live with Granny.’
‘Why?’
The train was moving at last. She took Jimmy’s hand and walked him over the lines.
‘Cawwy me.’
‘You’re too big to carry. I’ll give you a piggyback later but you have to walk a little way first.’
He walked. The track to the hotel was wider than when she’d left, well used and gravelled now. North Street was unchanged. It smelled the same, of stale beer and peppercorn trees.
‘What’s dat fing?’ Perhaps he meant the grotesque peppercorn tree, or the empty street, or the eddy of wind picking up dust and grit, dancing it down the centre of the unmade road.
‘It’s Woody Creek,’ she said.
‘I don’ like woodycweep.’
‘Me either, darlin’.’
The road down to the forest looked long; an ice-cream might put off the inevitable. She led him past the butcher’s, which stank of dead cows, towards the café, wondering if Mrs Crone was still standing behind the counter, if her bananas were still brown, her apples still withered.
The same old checked lino was on the floor. The same slamming wire door. The same expression on Mrs Crone’s face when she recognised her customer.
‘Two milk iceblocks, please.’ Jimmy would suck on an ice-block longer, and make less of a mess than with an ice-cream.
Pink and brown milk iceblocks, a penny each. She paid for two with a ten-bob note, wanting that sneering, prune-faced old bugger to see she had money in her purse, and she allowed the wire door to slam sh
ut on the way out, too.
Back to the hotel corner then, across the road, praying that the Hoopers weren’t looking through their windows. The road was wide. They mightn’t recognise her. Nothing but space in this town, space and dust and flies, and trees, and the smell of cut timber. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change here.
Jimmy’s iceblock lasted him to Macdonald’s mill. He bawled when it fell to the dirt, wanting her to pick it up and wash it.
‘No taps,’ she said. ‘Want a piggyback?’ He climbed on and she told him about Granny’s horse, how Granny sat on his back and said, ‘Gee up, Nugget.’
‘Why?’
‘So he’ll go fast.’
‘Gee up, Nugget,’ he said.
She didn’t have the energy of a winded cart horse, but she carried him past John McPherson’s land, crossed the road with him on her back and placed him down amid tall trees.
‘I don’ like here,’ he said.
‘We already agreed. Woody Creek stinks.’
‘Woodycweep stinks,’ he repeated.
They chanted together as they headed down the forest road, not a wide road, only a bush track that had found a purpose. Jimmy had no use for it. His head turning from side to side, he sought the road out of this place. There was no way out. Boxed in by tree trunks, bare glimpses of the sky between the overhanging branches, black crows watching from those branches, waiting for prey. The smell of dust, of eucalyptus and honey, the smell of the creek, just a stone’s throw away.
A dusty, rutty road. Country kids learned to look down when they walked. A little city slicker, Jimmy looked up, tripped on a rut, fell. Her grip on his hand saved his knees, but he’d walked too far, and he wanted Myrtle’s house, so he sat in the Woody Creek dust and bawled for Myrtle, and Jenny squatted beside him, wanting to bawl for her too, but bawling did not a scrap of good in Woody Creek.
If I pretend I’m gay, I do not feel that way,
He looked up at her, his eyes big blue-grey puddles. He liked singing that song. Knew all of the words to it. He let her draw him to his feet, brush the seat of his pants. He brushed dust from the hem of her skirt and they walked on, hand in hand, singing their special song.
