by Joy Dettman
Jenny looked again at the water pistol bandit’s face, then carefully unfolded the page of newsprint she’d folded into that box five years ago. She was reading, remembering, until old floorboards creaked. She folded it fast, and glanced over her shoulder, expecting Gertrude to pop her head around the curtain and tell her to stop wasting kerosene. But Gertrude didn’t appear. The house was full of aged creaks.
I shouldn’t have kept that newspaper. I ought to burn it, she thought.
You can’t change history by burning it.
She placed it in the bottom of the empty shoe box, burying it with Jim’s letters and her bankbook, then burying the lot beneath the embroidered purse. The lid on, the box back on top of the wardrobe, she returned to the emptying of her case.
She pulled out the framed photograph of Jimmy in his sailor’s suit; just a small frame, cheap. The photograph of her and Jimmy. She placed them beside the family photograph and looked again at Jim.
If he’d lived. If he’d lived . . .
He hadn’t.
The alarm clock she’d lived by in Sydney, unwound since Sydney, was pleased to be ticking again. She set it on the dressing table, then reached for Billy-Bob’s watch.
Smash it. Bury it.
Gold doesn’t rust away.
Chuck it into the stove then. Let it melt away.
And one morning Granny will find a lump of gold, studded with its many jewelled movements, and somewhere within that lump of metal, his name will remain.
You can’t melt history, can’t rewrite it the way you want it to read. It’s there, behind you, unpleasant but intact.
She wound the watch and held it to her ear. It ticked, like the alarm clock, eager to be in service. She set it to the approximate time and looked at the broken band.
I’ll buy a new band and wear it, she thought. Mr Cox might sell bands, and if he didn’t, he’d be able to order one.
She took the watch and the lamp back to the kitchen, seeking something sharp enough to mutilate the engraving. The point of the tin opener would do it.
And Cara Jeanette might not have been his anyway. His was a convenient name to wear the blame, that’s all — and the mutilation of his name would only make it more obvious.
She’d found that watch on a beach in Sydney, came upon a dog chewing it, an overweight black labrador. The marks of his teeth were on it. He’d chewed the leather band. No need to lie about where she’d found that watch — unless she scratched off the name.
Could I wear it against my skin? I just decided to forget about Cara Jeanette. If I wear his watch I’ll never forget her.
You won’t forget her anyway, Jenny Morrison.
THREE OLD MEN
George Macdonald hadn’t altered in twenty years. He was short and stocky, his only hair his verandah eyebrows and what grew out of his ears. He was no heavier today than he’d been at forty when he’d bought his wedding suit, which he’d worn to seven of his eight daughters’ weddings, and if the eighth ever caught herself a man, he’d be happy enough to wear it again. His legs were short, his head appeared to be attached directly to his shoulders. He had no room for a collar, rarely wore one, didn’t look good when he did, but whatever he’d been made of, like his wedding suit, it didn’t look like wearing out soon. He was the first man at his mill every morning and the last to leave at night.
Vern Hooper resented him more every year. George was no more than three or four years Vern’s junior, he had a young energetic wife, umpteen grandkids and twin sons who had joined up the day war was declared. George was proud to tell anyone, whether they asked or not, that neither twin had a scratch on him. He resented George’s I’m on my way to someplace strut. There was nothing about George Macdonald that Vern didn’t resent.
He also resented Charlie White, who still took it into his head some Saturdays to ride by Vern’s house and keep on riding. Vern knew where he was riding — and what did Gertrude find to talk to him about for three hours? He resented Charlie’s ability to push those bike pedals, resented his muscular calves, and the riding shorts he wore to show off his calves.
There was too much height in Vern’s bones — and every inch of them aching today. His farm was making him money. His mill was making him more. He had money coming out of his ears, and what could it buy him? Nothing that he wanted, not a new set of legs — nor his grandson — though he’d spent enough on solicitors to buy him ten times over.
He resented his big-talking city solicitor too, who kept assuring him that it was only a matter of time. Vern didn’t have the time.
If he’d had his health, he would have gone up to Sydney and claimed Jimmy the day the news had come through. If he’d had his health, he might have wed Gertrude and been raising that boy now, out at Monk’s house. But he didn’t have his health, so he was sitting on the verandah, watching the road and resenting the whole bloody world.
He’d been sitting there at twelve forty when Charlie White had ridden north. His fob watch told him the time was now going on for four and Charlie was still down there. That’s when Vern started doing laps of the verandah, walking the circle, forcing his bones to move when every one of the elongated bastards begged him to stop, when Margaret begged him to stop.
‘You’ll walk yourself into another turn, Father.’
Maybe he would, but he’d go down walking.
He pitched his stick on his second circumnavigation and he forced his mind to recall the morning old Cecelia Morrison died, to recall lifting her out of the dunny and the weight of the coffin he’d helped drop into her grave. That kept him walking. Old Cecelia, weighing in at half a ton, dead in a dunny at sixty.
He had to lose some of his girth. His solicitor had said on the phone this morning that his health would play a large part in the claiming of Jimmy. He’d said that a judge wasn’t going to take that boy away from his mother and give him into the care of a grandfather unlikely to see him through his childhood years, not while that girl had good family support, not when she wore a ring on her wedding finger with his son’s name on it, which more or less made them engaged to be wed.
‘Hot-blooded little half-dago bitch of a girl,’ Vern muttered as he walked another circle. If she hadn’t gone after Jim, he would have been out at the farm today. If she hadn’t gone after Jim, his grandson would have never been born either. He loved that boy.
He’d let things get away from him these past years. He’d given in, become a useless, dependent old bastard.
‘Put your cardigan on, Father, you’ll catch a chill,’ Margaret called as he passed the kitchen window.
Bloody cardigans buttoning up over his fat belly. He’d never worn a cardigan in his life until he’d grown his belly. He’d get rid of it, and his old man cardigans. And he’d get that boy. Out of the top drawer, that one, a man’s boy. He could kick a football. He could run like the wind, he could chant every nursery rhyme ever written, and sing like that wild little bitch who had mothered him. Something out of the box, that boy.
He pushed off from the verandah post and continued his walk.
‘Where is your walking cane, Father?’
Just a matter of time. Just a matter of determination. Just a matter of waiting until the time was right, the solicitor had said this morning.
Time. He had never spent enough of it with Jim. Had never found enough of it to spend with him. All he had now was time, and how much of it he had left would depend on how he used it — or so Gertrude said. Get some of that weight off you and your legs won’t have so much to carry around, she said. Eat more greens and less cakes.
He didn’t like greens and did like cake. ‘Expects a man to chew on cabbage leaves,’ he muttered and did another lap of his verandah, his bad ankle killing him. He’d thrown that leg since his stroke. Gertrude had told him years ago that boots would support his ankle. He didn’t take a woman’s advice easily.
‘You’ve done enough, Father. You mustn’t exhaust yourself. Come inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ Margaret
called through the window.
Drink more water, Gertrude said. Stay away from her cakes and sticky puddings.
‘Get me a glass of water,’ he said.
‘I’ve just now iced a sponge, dear.’
‘Are you trying to kill me with your cakes, girl?’
Maybe she was. Maybe they had some conspiracy. Get rid of the old man and we’ll get the lot. And they probably would. Lorna was more man than woman. She’d manage. She’d taken over the bookwork. She wrote most of the cheques even if he did still sign them. And it wasn’t right that a man had to rely on women. A man needed a son.
He’d get that boy.
Things had changed since women had got the vote, and changed a lot more with the men away fighting. Hundreds of war widows were out there caring for fatherless kids, and in worse living conditions than a two and a half roomed shack. While she was living a decent life, it wasn’t a good time to test their position in court, the solicitor said. No use starting a battle unless we’re dead certain of winning it. A girl like her will put a foot wrong sometime. That’s when we make our move, the solicitor had said.
A girl who looked like her wouldn’t live long as a nun; Vern was willing to place a bet on that. She’d pick up with some bloke soon, and the worse she picked up with the better, or the better for Vern’s chances in court.
Until then . . .
You have to be seen to be doing the right thing, the solicitor had advised him a week or two after that hot-pants little half-dago bitch had locked him out. He’d been doing the right thing these past months, paying a quid a week for Jimmy’s keep, paying it through his city solicitor who kept records of what he sent. He should have started paying sooner, though the courts would take into consideration his ill health at the time Jim went missing — or so the solicitor said. He’d got a letter from Vern’s doctor, itemising his hospital admissions, and on paper it sounded as if he’d been at death’s door. He had to get himself healthy. Had to get a pair of boots, too, though Christ only knew how he was going to do them up.
And he was going down there to see what Charlie White was getting up to. Half past four. What the bloody hell can she find to talk to him about for four bloody hours?
‘Pass my keys out, Lorna.’
‘I’ll drive you, Father.’
‘Your sister not killing me fast enough with her bloody cakes? Give me my keys, I said.’
A TIME OF LEARNING
‘Jimmy gets everything,’ Georgie said. He had wooden cars, books, trucks, a trike, a pedal car, new sandals, chocolate frogs, an aunty who made fancy birthday cakes with candles, a framed photograph of his father.
‘Where did you get his father’s picture from?’
‘From Sydney.’
‘Everything is from Syndey. Why didn’t you get mine too, and Margot’s, from Syndey.’
‘I didn’t have any money.’
‘You could make more shirts and get more money.’
‘I didn’t know how to make shirts when you and Margot were born.’
‘You could make some jumpers then.’
‘I didn’t think of that.’
They’d spent the afternoon unravelling Granny’s old green cardigan. Twenty years had worn the elbows and wristbands ragged, but the wool in the body and upper sleeves was good enough to reuse.
‘I want you to go to Syndey and get one for me.’
‘Syd-ney,’ Jenny corrected. ‘And one what?’
‘Photo. And I can go this time and not Jimmy.’
‘You have to go to school.’
‘When school gets holidays, then we can go.’
‘One day maybe.’
All three kids had watched enthralled as the pieces of that well-known cardigan had become a never-ending length of crinkled green yarn, racing backwards and forwards along leaning stitches. The last inch of the cardigan gone, the knitting needles had come out; now one large dark green ball was becoming something new.
Jenny’s knitting wasn’t growing fast enough for Jimmy. He was outside, riding his tricycle in circles. Margot had gone home with Elsie. Georgie remained to watch.
She’d known she had a mummy who worked in Sydney who could make things. Dresses and new pants had come in parcels, money had come in envelopes and photos, too. She’d always known she had a baby brother. Hadn’t known Vern would be his grandpa, that he’d have two aunties and a photo of a father with big teeth.
‘You’re like a witch,’ Georgie said.
‘I’ve been called worse, kiddo. Why am I like a witch?’
‘Witches can make different things into different things. Witches make people into different things.’
‘Watch out I don’t turn you into a green-eyed lizard.’
Most little girls are cute, some are pretty. Georgie was beyond pretty. She had Jenny’s hands, was a little like her around the mouth. The rest was Laurie. She may also have inherited his desire to get what she wanted from life.
‘You could say some magic and get my father from Syndey.’
‘He might be a big green-eyed lizard.’
Always ready to laugh, eager to learn, easy to love.
‘What will Margot’s be?’
‘Purple frogs.’
‘And Jimmy’s?’
‘A . . . a long skinny stick insect, dressed in a fine black suit.’
‘And Granny’s?’
‘Big Billy Goat Gruff. Who’s that clip-clopping over my bridge . . .’
‘I’ll give you billy goat,’ Gertrude said.
Elsie’s kids had bikes, the older kids rode to school, the younger ones clinging onto seats behind them. Georgie would have ridden a bike if she’d had one to ride. Margot couldn’t ride Jimmy’s trike. Scared of bikes, scared of water, scared of school. There was something wrong with that kid’s head.
Gertrude harnessed her horse each school morning, and until late February she harnessed the horse in the afternoon to fetch them home. Then Jenny started walking in to collect them from school.
Walking the diagonal is always shorter than walking the angles. She brought them home via the diagonal short cut through Joe Flanagan’s wood paddock, which led through his forest paddock to Granny’s back fence and in through her orchard, which was fine until they had a confrontation with Flanagan’s bull. They’d backed off. The bull had put his head down, but they’d made it back to the fence, Jenny damn near dragging Margot through it. That kid had no survival instinct. That was the end of taking the short cut home.
In March Norman came again. He brought a block of chocolate. He wasn’t Grandpa material, didn’t stay long, but the kids enjoyed his chocolate.
Gertrude stitched a mill worker’s finger in March. Paul Jenner drove her out to look at his youngest girl’s throat. Polio could start with a sore throat. Gertrude diagnosed inflamed tonsils, prescribed a salt gargle and aspro every four hours, and while she was out prescribing, Jenny baked her first cake.
It sank in the middle. She did her best to disguise the dent with icing, did her best to write Georgie in pink icing. It was a poor replica of Jimmy’s birthday cake, but Georgie thought it was pretty.
Sissy would have turned twenty-six that same day. Perhaps a Duckworth baked her a cake. Had Norman posted her a gift?
In April, Elsie made Margot a birthday cake, a better cake than Jenny’s second effort, which she hid away. Six candles were placed into Elsie’s fruitcake, and they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ while the rain poured down, turning the yard to mud but filling that tank.
‘I liked my cake best,’ Georgie said.
‘Don’t have any of Margot’s then,’ Joany, Elsie’s ten-year-old, said.
‘I like Aunty Maggie’s cake best,’ Jimmy said. ‘Wiff cream.’
Then out of that rain storm came Maisy with a doll in a box for Margot, and a photograph of Sissy holidaying in Tasmania with two cousins.
‘She looks more like her Duckworth grandmother every day,’ Gertrude said.
‘Margot looks more like her fathers e
very time I see her,’ Maisy said, sounding more pleased about that likeness than she had a right to sound.
‘Fathers?’ Nothing got by Georgie. ‘She said fathers.’ In the plural.
‘’Cause they’re twins,’ too-knowledgeable Joany Hall said.
‘Why are they twins?’
‘Because they look exactly the same,’ Joany said. She had Margot’s doll. Georgie wanted a turn at holding it. It had big blue eyes that went to sleep when it was laid down. There was too much competition today. She couldn’t get a hand on it.
‘Let your sister hold the dolly for a while, Margot,’ Maisy said.
‘Ith’s my birthday prethent,’ Margot said.
‘I bought it for both of you to play with.’
‘Are her fathers for both too?’ Georgie said.
‘You wouldn’t want . . .’ Jenny started. Wrong thing to say. ‘You’ve got your own father,’ she added fast. Also wrong.
‘Where?’
‘Sydney.’
They were drinking tea when Maisy spoke of Amber. ‘She’s on her way down again, Mrs Foote. She’d got him locked out.’ Gertrude made no comment. ‘She was fine while Sissy was home. She was even getting out of the house a bit. I’ve got the doctor coming up on Wednesday. They fixed her the last time.’
‘How did she get broken?’ Georgie said.
That doll would get broken in a minute. Teddy Hall had it, checking out how its head was connected to its body.
You can’t hold a conversation in a room full of kids, and you can’t send them out to play in the rain. Kids can have too much togetherness when the arena of play is limited, and Elsie’s mob still thought Margot was one of their own.
Georgie wasn’t. Georgie had never lived with them — and she couldn’t get a hand on that doll. She gave up and stood beside Jenny and Jenny’s arm went around her. That little girl felt like a part of her. Jenny could almost feel the blood flowing between them. And she kissed her hair, and Georgie leaned closer.
Maisy left at three, her wheels slipping and sliding through mud and sheets of water. Elsie and her mob went skating home fifteen minutes later, Margot behind them with her doll.
