Whisper My Secret

by JB Rowley

  WHISPER MY SECRET

  By JB Rowley

  With shades of the haunting works of Jodie Picoult, Whisper My Secret finds the perfect balance between soft desperation and anger. Jessamine Archer (Zeus Publications).

  Whisper My Secret, the masterful debut by Melbourne author and storyteller JB Rowley, narrates a secret discovered after her mother’s death. JB places facts together with perception, thoroughly researched historical detail, infinite tenderness and respect. Louisa John-Krol

  The opening chapter when the children are ripped from a naïve Myrtle’s arms is heart wrenching. Bendigo Advertiser

  Copyright 2012 JB ROWLEY

  First published by Zeus Publications 2007

  ISBN: 978-1-921240-28-7

  P.O. Box 2554, Burleigh M.D.C. QLD. 4220 Australia.

  Cover: Clive Dalkins, Zeus Publications

  Please note: This ebook uses British English. Readers who are used to American English might notice a difference in the spelling of some words.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated, on behalf of Myrtle, to Kenny, Valerie and Allan.

  JB’s Blog: http://jbthewriter.wordpress.com/

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Three strangers walked across the park.

  Oblivious to their approach Myrtle took Audrey’s hand and traced her forefinger in a circle on her daughter’s palm. Her light touch sent tingles through the child’s body.

  Myrtle chanted: “Can you keep a secret... Can you keep a secret...? I don’t suppose you can. You mustn’t laugh; you mustn’t smile, but... do the best you can.”

  As Myrtle finished the last sentence she quickly ran her hand along Audrey’s arm up to her armpit. Throughout her mother’s chanting Audrey had managed to keep a solemn face but at the moment her mother tickled her under the arm she burst into peals of laughter. Myrtle also shook with laughter, suddenly realising it was the first time she had laughed in a long time. The feeling of wellbeing that resulted took her by surprise.

  Noel lay on the picnic rug trying to eat his rattle but the rattle’s round head was too large for his tiny mouth. Bertie sat on the edge of the rug and picked a yellow, black centred daisy. He picked another one and started to make a chain the way Myrtle had shown him, his fingers clumsily twining the stems around each other. Then with confidence and authority he proceeded to demonstrate the skill of making a daisy chain to his sister. Audrey, a willing and compliant student, followed her brother’s instructions. Myrtle’s heart swelled with pride as she watched.

  Three shadows fell across their picnic rug before they were aware of the strangers. Myrtle looked up. A stern faced woman in a navy suit flanked by two uniformed policemen towered over them. Myrtle’s smile slowly receded. The children seemed to sense danger. Bertie moved closer to his mother and sat on her thigh. Audrey buried her head in her mother’s lap. The cold blue eyes in the stern face stared down at Myrtle.

  “Are you Myrtle Millicent Bishop, wife of Henry James Bishop?”

  Myrtle was taken aback. Amid her confusion her senses seemed to be alert for threat yet her mind could not grasp the possibility of danger.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The stern faced woman in the navy suit continued. “A case has been brought against you in the court, Mrs Bishop. You failed to attend. I am here to tell you that a ruling was made against you.”

  “Against me?”

  “You have been judged an unfit mother.”

  Fear gripped Myrtle’s body. She lifted Noel up and circled her arms tightly around him.

  “We have an order here,” the stern faced woman continued, thrusting a piece of paper in Myrtle’s face, “giving us the authority to take the children and place them where they will receive proper care and attention.”

  Myrtle could not believe what she was hearing. What was this woman talking about? Proper care and attention? She looked up at the policemen. They stood with arms folded, faces expressionless, eyes averted. Myrtle gathered Bertie and Audrey into her arms with Noel and hugged the children close. Strong hands pulled at her shoulders. She tightened her arms around the children, shaking her head in protest.

  “You can’t take them,” she screamed. “They’re my children.”

  Audrey began to cry.

  “You’ll only upset the children, Mrs Bishop. Don’t make it harder on them.”

  But Myrtle knew only that she had to hold tight to her children. She felt Bertie being pulled out of her grasp—saw him being swept up in the arms of the policeman. Her hand clutched his shoe. He called to her; fear in his voice.

  “Mummy.”

  Myrtle released her grip, afraid of hurting him. The policeman gathered him up and turned away from her. Above Audrey’s screams she heard Bertie call again.

  “Mummy.”

  The other policeman bent over and took hold of Audrey. Myrtle felt the child being pulled from her grasp.

  “Nooo!!!” she cried. “No! No!”

  Still holding Noel to her chest with one arm she reached out in vain with the other, at the same time trying to rise to her feet. The stern faced woman gripped her arm and pulled Noel away from her. Myrtle fell back onto the rug. The woman backed away with Noel in her arms. “We’re just doing our job, Mrs Bishop.”

  Myrtle stood up and lunged at the woman. “Leave my baby alone,” she screamed.

  “It’s an order from the court. We have no choice.”

  The woman turned and quickly followed the two policemen to the parked police car. Myrtle ran toward the vehicle, tears streaming down her face. The children had already been put inside before she reached it. The woman restrained Audrey and Noel in the back seat. One of the policemen nursed Bertie in the front passenger seat. The other policeman walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side door. Myrtle ran to him, clutching his sleeve as he made to slide in behind the wheel. He prised her fingers open and released her grip on his shirt.

  “Let go, love,” he said. “Your kids’ll be looked after, don’t worry. We’ll let you know where they are.”

  Myrtle begged helplessly as the policeman took his seat behind the wheel.

  “Please… Please.”

  “I’m sorry, love. They’ll be all right. I promise.”

  The police car moved slowly away. Bertie pressed his tearful face up against the window. Myrtle ran alongside the car, clawing at the glass, calling ou
t.

  “My babies. My babies.”

  When the car turned onto the open road and picked up speed she fell back, but ran and stumbled until the vehicle was far ahead. With faltering steps she walked in the direction the car had taken, sobbing, calling the children’s names. Several miles down the road her footsteps slowed. Perspiration dripped from her face. With dragging feet she wandered off the road into the bush, mindless of twigs and undergrowth. Finally exhaustion overcame her and she fell to the ground. Her body convulsed by sobs, she lay in a crumpled heap under a tree.

  CHAPTER TWO

  How could such a thing happen?

  I struggled to find an acceptable answer to that question for a long time after I found out what had happened to my mother. We children, seven in all, had grown up without the slightest idea that she had even been married before. We found out after her death when we came upon an old silver cash tin while my sister and I were going through her things. I recognised that cash tin. I remembered it from my childhood. My mother kept her secret papers in it. She used to keep it hidden on the top shelf of her wardrobe and I had once opened it.

  One day, at around nine or ten years of age I sneaked into my parents’ bedroom. My mother had gone out and my father was working in the bush. I found the wardrobe key and opened the wardrobe. Crammed in the narrow space behind its dark doors were all kinds of clothes including a couple of my mother’s favourite dresses from her younger days when she used to go dancing. Over the years I had ruined most of those rustling creations of silk shantung and organza, wearing them as dress ups but she had protected her favourites from my brutal assault.

  I found the silver cash tin under some lace cot covers on the top shelf where she stored the few items that had not succumbed to years of rigorous wear or bush fire smoke—white embroidered pillow cases, the Christmas tablecloth and other pieces of linen from long ago. Leaving the cot covers folded back so that I would be sure to replace them as I had found them I sat down on the bed cradling the tin. My brothers were busy playing Cowboys and Indians in the backyard. I could hear shouts of giddy up as they pretended to ride their fine horses across the grassy plain searching the horizon for signs of smoke from the Indian campfire. A delicious sense of triumph at embarking on an adventure more exciting than they had ever experienced swept through me. I was the hero in a real life Secret Seven adventure.

  I hugged the tin close to my body. I sensed that it held a significant family secret. Could it be money from a robbery? Did my father rob a bank? Was he related to Ned Kelly? We surely needed money so if there was any in that tin it had to be stolen for my parents to go to so much trouble to hide it. With trembling hands I inserted the key in the lock and turned it.

  There was no money in that old silver cash tin. All it contained were three pieces of paper. I did not understand their significance. Each one had a name on it. I could barely make out what they were. Then it dawned on me. Birth certificates! The names were foreign to me. Albert Brian Bishop, Noel Andrew Bishop and Audrey Vera Bishop. I was dumbfounded.

  Before I had an opportunity to examine the papers properly I was startled by a yell. My brothers were running and whooping around the veranda that surrounded most of the house. I would have to get out before I was discovered. I quickly put everything back as I had found it and crept from the room.

  That a secret lurked in the warm cosy basket of our family was intensely exciting but at the same time unthinkable. Ours was a family rich in memories of talcum scented nappies, Vegemite coated teething rusks, family picnics and washing lines full of flapping clothes to fit children of different sizes. Always present in those memories was the closeness, caring and protection of Mum and Dad.

  From the time I found that silver tin and its papers it lurked at the back of my mind. As a child I formed my own idea of what they meant. I had a wild and romantic idea that my parents had been spies during WW2. It seemed clear to me that they had changed not only their names but also the names of my two older brothers and myself. Those were our original birth certificates in that silver cash tin. I was really Audrey Vera Bishop.

  As I grew older I realised my theory was improbable but I lacked the courage to question my mother about the tin’s contents, even as an adult. However one day, in response to the urging of friends who forebode the loss of important family stories when my mother eventually passed away. I did make a half-hearted attempt. By this time she was a grandmother several times over. We were having a cup of tea at her place. I ambushed her, hoping the surprise would throw her off balance and startle her into revealing her secret. Looking directly at her I asked her about the papers in the silver cash tin. The expression in her eyes changed. For the briefest of moments fear fluttered there before being quickly extinguished. She responded as though my question was of such little consequence that she could dismiss it and humour me with an absent-minded murmur.

  “Hmmm?”

  Before I had a chance to regroup she created a diversion, a tactic she often used on me when I was a child to distract me from a course of action she disapproved of. She nodded her head toward the window through which we could see the white rose bush.

  “Did you see my roses? I got a lot this year.”

  That was the end of that discussion. She kept her secret well.

  When we opened the silver cash tin after her funeral the three birth certificates I had unearthed as a child were still there. Who were these children? Now the tin also held other papers and after examining them carefully we eventually, slowly and incredibly, arrived at the truth. We were flabbergasted to realise our mother had been married before and had three children before she met my father.

  Why didn’t she tell us? Perhaps she felt shame that a deep-rooted instinct to protect and nurture her children had been violated and remained unresolved. She possibly suffered fear; fear that her current children would blame her, lose respect for her and perhaps ultimately reject her. That rejection would have been unbearable. Perhaps she feared facing her estranged children, afraid of seeing pain and blame and even rejection in their eyes. These feelings must have overlaid her grief. I cannot imagine the turmoil this would have created within her. I can understand why she chose to bury her pain and her memories.

  I gained some insight into how she might have felt when I embarked on my journey to reconstruct my mother’s story with pieces of information gleaned from those who were part of her life at the time combined with my knowledge and experience of her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My mother’s life changed one day in 1930 when she was ten years old.

  At breakfast that day her father smiled at her across the table.

  “You’re good lass, Myrtle,” he said. “You’ll look after your mother in her old age won’t you?”

  Etti Webb, with her hand holding a knife laden with home-made plum jam, poised over a piece of toast, looked at her husband, shaking her head.

  “What are you talking about, Dad?”

  “Well, Mum, even a bonnie lass like you has to get old some time.”

  Bonnie lass was his favourite term of endearment for Etti. It was one of the many Scottish terms he had picked up from his mother, the daughter of a Scotsman whose ancestors had settled in Albury in the late 1800s. Myrtle watched the familiar grin light up his face, the grin that always spread to his chocolate brown eyes when giving cheek to her mother safe in the knowledge that he would get away with it.

  “And, Thomas Andrew Webb, where will you be when I am old, might I ask?”

  He shrugged. His eyes shifted to the window, his grin slowly fading. After breakfast he went to fix the hayshed and did not return to the house at lunchtime. Etti took a thermos of tea and some corned beef sandwiches out to him as she often did when he worked through lunch.

  Myrtle saw him briefly when he came back later. His stocky frame filled the doorway of the kitchen where Myrtle and her mother were making bread. Etti’s deft hands, speckled with flour, lifted the edges of the dough and pulled it in towards
her; her palms pushed it down and out again in quick smooth movements.

  Myrtle loved to watch her mother kneading the bread, awed at the ease and speed of her movements. Having tried kneading dough herself she knew it was not as easy as her mother made it look. Her father watched for a few minutes before being overcome with an attack of coughing. Her mother’s hands slowed as she eyed him with concern. He bent over, gasping for breath. Etti’s hands stopped to rest on the soft white dough. She turned to Myrtle.

  “Get your father some water.”

  He raised his hand in protest, thumping his chest as his coughing ceased.

  “I’m fine… I’m fine.”

  He turned toward the door.

  “Going down the back paddock… reckon I’ll get a few rabbits.”

  Etti nodded in acknowledgement. Shooting rabbits was something he often did not only because the pests destroyed the land with their prolific burrowing but also because he liked to roam across the paddocks surveying the farm. Pretending to be a laird was the way her mother described it.

  Her mother moulded the lump of dough into a round shape, patting its plumpness gently. He reached across the table as he passed and broke off a piece of dough. Etti put out a floured hand in a light hearted attempt to slap his but smiled as the dough disappeared into his mouth. He patted Myrtle on the head. He hadn’t done that since she was very small.

  “You’re a good wee lass, Myrtle,” he said the same way he had said it at the breakfast table.