Thorn on the Rose

by Joy Dettman

  ‘This shed wasn’t built in 1845.’

  ‘Damn close to it.’

  ‘Stop your swearing.’

  ‘“Damn” isn’t swearing.’

  ‘I’ve heard worse out of your mouth, my girl.’

  Ragged towels were hung, little frocks, checked shirts, cotton working trousers.

  ‘The last time you saw Itchy-foot was when Amber was twelve.’

  ‘Going on thirteen.’

  ‘Where was he between then and when he died?’

  ‘Somewhere between sunrise and sunset.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He was jailed in Egypt for stealing, or so I heard. His family tracked him to a jail in Egypt after his father died, and could find no record of him ever getting out of it. The family had him declared dead back in ’33.’

  ‘Was he a thief when you knew him?’

  ‘He had the conscience of a cobra and the morals of a cockroach.’

  ‘Vern would say it runs in the family.’

  He had. ‘I worry about Sissy being like him at times,’ Gertrude said.

  ‘Sissy? I’m the one who’s like him.’

  ‘You got the best of him. She got his selfish ways. She comes home from your father’s relatives, and a week or so later she’s taken to her bed and Norman sends her back.’

  ‘She’s found a new way to get what she wants, that all.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to that girl.’

  ‘I don’t care what happens to her. I haven’t got a skerrick of feeling for her, just anger . . . anger that I ended up with a sister I can’t stand. The Macdonald girls still stick together like glue. Georgie and Margot aren’t even full sisters and they don’t try to kill each other.’

  They filled the line with washing and before hanging the last load brought in the sheets to make room on the line. Together they folded them, put them away on a shelf in Gertrude’s wardrobe.

  ‘I used to think I’d be in Paris when I was twenty-one, that I’d be a famous singer. And look at me.’

  ‘Look at you, flashing those beautiful legs.’

  ‘I’m twenty-one and I’ve got three kids!’

  ‘And strength enough to handle anything. I don’t know where you got it, but you’ve got the resilience of Indian rubber. I’ve seen it in you all your life. The night you were born, I told Nancy that you were a little survivor. There you were, this wee scrap of a bald-headed mite, but wailing loud enough for her to hear you across two paddocks —’ Gertrude closed her mouth fast and turned away, walked to the stove to check the firebox.

  ‘Nancy Bryant? What paddock?’

  ‘I’ll tell you one day.’

  ‘Tell me now before the kids come home. What’s Nancy got to do with me being born?’ But Gertrude was going out to feed her chooks. ‘Walking away is Norman’s trick, not yours, Granny. I’m allowed to vote. I’m supposed to be an adult. What paddock?’

  Gertrude had got herself into something she couldn’t get out of. Maybe it was time. She’d considered telling Jenny this morning, had considered giving her the stranger’s brooch for her twenty-first birthday. That’s what Ernie Ogden had said to do with it. She’d also promised Norman she’d never say a word.

  ‘Your mother lost a little boy after Sissy —’

  ‘I know all that stuff; it’s on the tombstone. How come I was born in a paddock?’

  Left with nowhere to go but to the truth, Gertrude took the long road to it, hoping to find an escape route on the way. ‘Your grandmother died a few days before you were born. The town was full of Norman’s relatives up for the funeral. Amber had a house full.’

  ‘And she took off on one of her night walks?’ Jenny said.

  Her words offered Gertrude the way out she was looking for. ‘Nancy and her old dog found you. She heard a baby crying and they followed your cry, darlin’, and found you near the railway line, just behind their land.’

  ‘Is that why she hates me? The shock of being on her own in the dark with a screaming baby?’

  ‘Losing Leonora April seemed to be the turning point in Amber’s life — and maybe the ruination of Sissy, too. Norman sent them down to your Uncle Charles.’

  ‘Why didn’t she take me?’

  ‘You had a wonderful time here with your dad. He took you everywhere with him, brought you down here every Sunday. He and Vern built that lean-to.’

  The sun eventually went down on Jenny’s twenty-first birthday and there wasn’t enough water in the tank to shout herself a bath. At seven, she left Gertrude to put the kids into bed and commandeered Lenny to harness the horse up to the water barrel cart. Nugget wasn’t fond of Jenny; maybe he knew she was afraid of him. Lenny led him down to the creek, where the horse snorted his disdain as they backed him up to Gertrude’s water-pumping log.

  Jenny had never fetched the water without Gertrude at her side, but they got the barrel close enough, got the hose into clear water, slapped at swarming mosquitoes and pumped that drum full. Lenny led the horse back and they pumped their load into the tank.

  ‘That will do until morning,’ Gertrude yelled from the doorway.

  ‘I’m twenty-one, Granny,’ Jenny yelled, and she turned the horse and the barrel around and went back for another load, singing as she walked.

  ‘I’m twenty-one today, twenty-one today, I’ve got the key to the door . . .”

  It was growing dark when they returned with the second barrel full, Gertrude waiting out at the tank with her lantern.

  ‘That’s enough, I said.’

  ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you don’t want to do today — you’ll feel less like doing it tomorrow,’ Jenny said, slapping the horse on the rump, showing him who was the boss tonight.

  ‘Don’t turn my own words back on me, my girl. I’ve just got enough sense to stay away from the creek in the dark. There are snakes by the hundred down there.’

  ‘You said snakes don’t like horses, Gran,’ Lenny yelled. He was enjoying himself. He liked Jenny, liked having her to himself.

  ‘At least take the lantern with you. You’ll be sucking up duckweed.’

  ‘Then we’ll drink duckweed,’ Jenny yelled. ‘I’ll wash my hair in duckweed. My grandmother says I can do as I like, I shout hip-hip hooray, for I’m a jolly good fellow, I’m twenty-one today.’

  It was well after eight when they released Nugget to his paddock. No rub down tonight, no bucket of oats in appreciation, and they’d made him wait on the bank looking down his nose with disapproval while they’d had a swim.

  COMING TO TERMS

  She should have seen the bike leaning against the fence. She didn’t. The door was open, the hessian curtain hanging limp and newly wet down. She drew it back and saw the three kids who should have been in bed an hour ago sitting pyjama-clad at the table, Gertrude sitting opposite.

  And him, seated on Vern’s chair.

  She took a step back, almost turned on her heel and took off for Elsie’s house, but he’d seen her lift the curtain.

  ‘You have reached your majority,’ he said.

  ‘That must be a relief to you,’ she said.

  He’d never been good at deciphering sarcasm. He nodded, cleared his throat and held out a small parcel. She remained in the doorway. He cleared his throat again, placed the gift down and glanced at the cluster of her children.

  The circle of yellow lamplight was glowing on the three small faces, on three small heads, glowing in three pairs of staring eyes. He had not allowed for the children, had not expected to see her children, to be introduced to them as ‘Grandpa’. He was indeed their grandfather, though he had not previously considered himself as such.

  He should not have come here.

  He glanced at Jenny. She was a woman but not dressed in a womanly way. Unable to look at her bare legs, at the damp clinging shirt, his eyes were forced to look at her face, to see her disdain. He should have foreseen it, should have foreseen the hurt her disdain might cause him. He had not.

>   ‘The boy has your eyes,’ he said.

  ‘Margot has got the Macdonalds’,’ she replied accusingly.

  ‘Yes.’ He’d never learnt to take his punishment like a man. He cleared his throat and looked to Gertrude for assistance.

  ‘Sit down and stop flashing your legs at your father. You’re embarrassing him.’

  ‘You said he was my grandfatha,’ Georgie said.

  ‘Jenny’s father is your grandfather,’ Gertrude explained. ‘Let that curtain down before every mozzie in Woody Creek comes in for supper.’

  Jenny allowed the curtain to fall, glanced at the gold-wrapped parcel, oblong, book shaped, probably a Bible. No doubt he thought she needed it. She didn’t reach for it but walked around the table to the hot end. There was little space between table and stove.

  Gertrude slid the gift towards her, the kids’ eyes followed it. They’d never seen a present wrapped in gold paper and tied with a blue ribbon.

  Jenny didn’t need a Bible. She glanced at him, watched him remove his glasses, polish them on a crumpled handkerchief. Too much of his face was exposed when he took his glasses off. It was too easy to see those abused bloodhound eyes — those lost puppy dog eyes — all that remained of her childhood daddy who had taken her riding on the back of his bike. The rest of him was Amber’s fool, Sissy’s dupe.

  Georgie’s fingers, itching to touch that gold paper, reached out to finger the blue bow. She’d wished for a grandpa like Jimmy had, and she’d got one, and one who brought presents.

  ‘Fingers off. Jenny will open it,’ Gertrude said.

  Bible or not, she had to open it — if just to see how much he thought she was worth. Maybe Sissy’s hand-me-down Bible? She undid the ribbon, unwrapped the paper. Gertrude took it, folded it to put away, to use again.

  Not a Bible. She’d exposed a small flat box with a brass clip. She looked at Norman. He was watching her fingers, so she flipped the clip and opened the lid. And saw a glitter of blue, a deep and gorgeous blue.

  Something deep down at her core threatened to break open. Her stomach shuddering, the shudder crept up her chest, to her throat. She had to sit down. There was no chair to sit on. She had to think about how he’d tried to marry her off at fifteen. She had to concentrate on that, on all the bad things, or she was going to howl.

  ‘What a beautiful thing.’ Gertrude was on her feet, touching the stones with a work-worn finger. The kids, now kneeling on their chairs, leaned across the table so they might see more.

  Not a word could Jenny say; if she tried to open her mouth, she’d bawl. She stared at the necklet, hardly daring to touch it for fear that it wasn’t really there. But it was, and it had matching earrings, dainty drop earrings for pierced ears. He’d remembered Granny making those holes through her lobes. Or just a lucky accident?

  But it wasn’t. He hadn’t chosen red or yellow stones. He’d bought blue, the blue of her Alice Blue Gown, the one she’d worn when she sang at the school concert when she was ten years old. The blue of her eyes.

  She looked at his hangdog eyes then, and her hand went to her mouth to hold the howl in. Had to hold it in. Couldn’t hold the words in. They wanted out, and whether she howled or not, they came out.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Daddy.’ Her voice was low, but she didn’t howl.

  ‘Daddy?’ Jimmy questioned.

  Thank God for kids.

  ‘’Cause he’s her fa-tha, like Harry is everyone’s fa-tha,’ Georgie explained.

  The kids made it easier. Georgie told Norman that Aunty Sissy could come with him next time and have her and Jimmy’s chairs. Jimmy wasn’t so certain about that, but he’d saved the candles from his birthday cake and he wanted to put them on a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’. A small half of Elsie’s fruitcake had been placed into the tin. They poked bent candles into it, lit them and sang. Jenny blew them out.

  Norman had little to say. He ate a slice of cake, drank a mug of tea, then they walked him out to the gate, watching his bike light fade out of sight.

  ‘What a surprise,’ Gertrude said as Jenny took the necklace from its box and the kids brushed their teeth again, went to bed again. ‘It will go well with the linen.’

  It would. Jenny fetched the blue linen from her room and placed the necklet on it. It was perfect. Nowhere to wear it, but at least she’d own something beautiful. She still wanted to cry for Norman, or for herself, or for Jim . . . or for that fool of a woman who had gone walking along a bloody railway line when she was nine months pregnant! She wanted to go to bed and howl her heart out for things that might have been.

  She didn’t though. She draped the fabric over her shoulders, held the necklet to her throat and tried to see enough in the small washstand mirror.

  ‘I might try to copy the style of the green linen, Granny.’

  Gertrude knew her limitations, and Jenny’s. ‘Get Miss Blunt to make it up for you,’ she said, and she went to bed.

  Jenny returned the necklet to its box, then took the green linen from her wardrobe to study how it had been made. Maybe she’d take it and the blue material in to Miss Blunt. She had money enough to pay for its making and that material deserved better than her homemade efforts.

  Her case, never fully unpacked, was drawn from beneath her bed and heaved onto it, opened. The emptying of it would be the final admission that she was going nowhere — which was exactly where she was going. Like Myrtle’s minister had said, God had a master plan for all. His plan for Jenny was Woody Creek and she may as well stop fighting it. He’d allowed her those two years in Sydney only because of his master plan for Myrtle. What had happened up there was exactly what he’d meant to happen, right from the start, right from the cancelled seat on the train, right from Wilfred and the club. Just components of dear old God’s master plan for Myrtle — as had been the Jap bombs dropped on Pearl Harbor. If America hadn’t come into the war, Billy-Bob would have stayed home on the farm.

  The lamp was burning in the kitchen, wasting kerosene. Jenny wasn’t ready for bed. She carried it to her lean-to, cleared space for it on her dressing table and set it down. The framed photograph taken of her and Jim and Jimmy lived on her dressing table. She picked it up, and considered God’s master plan for Vern. Was he meant to lose his son then have a second go at ruining Jimmy?

  ‘You’re a womb, Jenny Morrison, God’s flesh and blood chalice for the pouring out of his blessings on his favourites.’

  And the girls? Who were they meant for? Maisy had plenty of grandchildren and no one would ever come looking for Georgie. Maybe I foiled his plans. I was probably meant to sign both of them away. Or if I hadn’t had them, I wouldn’t have had Jimmy for Vern. And if I hadn’t had Jimmy, I wouldn’t have gone to Sydney. No baby for Myrtle.

  Jenny kissed her finger and placed the kiss on Jim’s photograph. She’d promised to show the photo to Jimmy every day. For a time she had.

  How easily we forget.

  But it wasn’t forgetting; it was putting away the flight of the butterflies, and knowing that what they’d had had been too close to magic to last.

  She picked up Billy-Bob’s watch. It was still real enough to burn her hand. She dropped it back into the case where it landed on Jim’s letters. Snatched them away from it, not wanting them polluted. With the bundle of letters in her hand, Jenny stood looking at the rose she’d picked on the day of that telegram and dried between the pages of Rebecca. It was in its own envelope now, tied up with Jim’s letters. Dead and brittle, its colour faded, but that dusty old rose scent still clung to the envelope. She had to put it away. Life was for the living, Gertrude said.

  And she had to put that baby away too. She’d done the right thing by it. Even if she’d brought it home, even if Granny had come around to accepting it, Jenny knew she would have ended up feeling about Cara as she felt about Margot. You can control what you say, what you do, but you can’t control what you feel. She couldn’t even control what she felt for Norman. So pleased he’d remembered her birthday. She’d t
hought he’d forgotten her. And choosing blue, and those earrings. Just so pleased.

  She sighed and glanced up at an old shoe box, still there on top of the wardrobe. She lifted it down, wiped dust from its lid with her hand, opened it. There was a sheet of newspaper on top, folded to fit. She took it to the lamp to study the newsprint photograph of the water pistol bandit. He looked even more like Clark Gable in black and white.

  The paper placed down, she removed the embroidered purse she’d seen before, probably Amber’s. She’d done exquisite embroidery and no doubt had embroidered that purse, the pretty pinks, maroons, greens, beads mixed in with the silks, intricate work.

  There was something heavy inside it. She opened it and removed a brooch pinned to a handkerchief, a pretty brooch, but like most of Gertrude’s treasures not worth much. She removed an old luggage label. Someone had written on it with red ink. It must have been raining the day they’d travelled; the ink had bled. She wondered where Amber had been. Or maybe it was Gertrude’s label, saved from her trip home from India. Maybe she’d worn that brooch home from India.

  Just history. Just old history. Gertrude’s house was full of it.

  Had the brooch not been pinned to cover the handkerchief’s embroidered initials, Jenny may have seen the J.C., may have questioned it. She didn’t see it. She read the few words written on the sheet of writing paper she found inside the purse. Albert Forester — old Noah, the swaggie cum abortionist, who would have recognised her as easily as she’d recognised him had she been the one knocking on his door that morning. Dear old God had held her back from the door. He couldn’t allow her to interfere with his master plan for Myrtle.

  Why had Gertrude kept that sheet of paper? Why had she kept that old luggage label? Why had she kept all of that junk in her trunks for half a century? She was a collector, that’s why. Maybe God’s master plan for Gertrude was to collect lost souls and nurse them back to health — and she’d collect Norman if she could. She’d told him tonight he was welcome to come down any time.

  Georgie would welcome him. Jimmy had Vern and his Aunty Maggie. Margot had Nanna Maisy and Mummy Elsie.