by Joy Dettman
They stayed for an hour, stayed until the Harpo Marx frizz was spread on the pillow, and her mother content with her nurses and her pills and television show.
‘See you tomorrow, Mummy.’
‘Thank you for coming all this way, my precious girl.’
Outside in the dark, Sally’s smile sagged at the corners and her shoulders slumped.
‘You look tired, love. Want to go someplace for dinner, or will we shove a pie in the oven?’
She lit a cigarette. ‘I thought I’d go home. Clean up the flat for her.’
‘Do it tomorrow.’
Do it tomorrow. Why not?
She followed his ute home to the farm and drank a beer while the pies heated. They ate late, then went to bed. No passion, but a comfortable and familiar bed, a comfortable and familiar partner. Warmth. Safety. What else was there? She slept well.
The Bertram family had owned the farm for sixty years; remnants of three generations lay rusting in shed and paddock. The old weatherboard house, built by a prior owner, looked rusty too. Old and tired of hanging on, it clung to the side of a hill with its rotting stumps, determined not to slide down.
But in the kitchen a modern wood stove never went out, and the open fire in the lounge room had a log burning there all winter. Warmth hid the stained wallpaper and flaking paint, warmth disguised the worn-out furniture. Although she’d been dead for years now, this house was still Mrs Bertram’s house. No chair had been moved from its space, no embroidered cushion discarded, no inefficient ’60s lamp replaced by today’s.
Photographs of Ross hung on the long wall. Ross as a baby, a toddler, a schoolboy. At his side a young soldier in his vintage ’40s army uniform looked down on today with Ross’s eyes. Mrs Bertram, the child, was there beside an old frame holding a so-serious study of an Edwardian bride. So many photographs, and such a continuity of features. Was it any wonder Ross wanted to continue the line? She smiled at the toddler Ross. Her babies would look like him – snowy-headed, snub-nosed.
He wanted six kids. Grow our own farm labourers, he joked. God help her waistline. God help her pelvis too. He ran a mixed farm, fat lambs and prime beef, but it wasn’t labour intensive, and his house wouldn’t hold six kids anyway.
It was a typical farmhouse – dark passages, three bedrooms and the sleep-out, verandahs front and back. Mrs Bertram’s front room would make a good nursery, close to the kitchen and Ross’s room. They’d have to paint it, get new curtains and floor coverings, and they’d need to put up a decent fence around the house. There were two big dams.
So, do it, she thought. Just do it and be done with it. What else was there other than a safe marriage and babies?
Mummy installed in the sleep-out, that’s what else.
There had been a heavy frost last night, and this morning each blade of grass was a small ice sword, but the sun was out and prowling Lakeside. It would be a nice day. Sun on her back, the open fire’s warmth on her face, she looked at a photograph of Mrs Bertram and wished her alive, sitting, chatting in the lounge room – a strong foundation on which a new generation might be built.
Ross came from the kitchen to stand with her before the photograph of his mother. ‘She would have been fifty-three tomorrow.’
She reached up and ran her hand across his scalp. ‘Why do you get it shorn so short, Ross?’
‘Saves combing it. And why did you get yours cut?’
He led her to the kitchen. Porridge bubbling, fry-pan waiting to cook eggs. Toast ready. She’d loved these breakfasts when she was fourteen, loved this dark little kitchen.
‘No porridge for me, thanks.’
He served her a heaped bowl anyway. ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘You’ve lost more weight.’
She ate her porridge, ate a greasy egg on toast too, then they lit cigarettes, sipping coffee and smoking companionably over empty plates.
A sunny day, she spent it in the paddocks with Ross and his laughing dogs, and she bottle-fed three stupid little lambs who thought Ross was their mother. All baby things were beautiful, lovable. She’d love Ross’s babies.
‘Jesus, I miss you like you wouldn’t believe,’ he said that night in bed.
‘Miss me, or sex?’
He might have been a sex maniac, but he wasn’t into talking about it. Solid, reliable, unimaginative Ross. Everyone loved him, trusted him. Why couldn’t she stop seeing his faults?
‘Let’s do it. Get married and get her out of that hospital.’
And confront her misery every morning and her tears every night? Can’t. Won’t. Don’t want to. The supervisor’s tirades were preferable. Old Ron’s recitations and beetroot sandwiches were preferable. The bikie in Number 14 was preferable to living with her mother again.
‘I’ve got the lease, and I can’t just up and leave my job, Ross. I’d have to give notice.’
Liar. She probably didn’t have a job. He didn’t question her words. He didn’t question anything. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t he say, Look, I’m tired of running around after your mother, tired of you stuffing my life around? Make up your bloody mind what you want to do.
He couldn’t, that’s why. It wasn’t his way, that’s why. Like Rusty, his gentle Labrador, Ross’s love, once given, was unconditional.
Face Down
By 10.30 Sunday morning Sally was at the housing ministry flat. A tornado had been through and left its destruction behind. Dust, a chaos of cups and plates, saucepans, an empty port bottle or two. She tossed leftover food into the bin, piled the dirty dishes in the sink and left them soaking.
Where to start with the rest? She rescued the china goose girl from behind a bottle and she washed the pretty china face with the dishcloth.
There were twelve ornaments in all, perched on shelves and tables, on cabinet and mantelpiece. Her grandmother had collected them fifty odd years ago. A round dozen.
She turned in a circle, thinking numbers while staring unseeingly at cheap curtains and purple carpet. Someone had actually paid for that carpet when purple had been having its brief day of fashion. Thankfully most of it lay hidden beneath cheap furniture, leaving only narrow paths of purple in between. She loathed it, loathed its constant reminder that the flat had belonged to another before she and her mother had claimed it.
Her glance swept over her grandmother’s heavy dining room suite, jammed in against the lounge room window. She turned to the cabinet, then, without looking, her hand reached for a photograph. She placed it face down, felt for the second in its matching wooden frame. It went face down too. For the last eighteen years she and her mother had waged their photograph war, Sally turning them down, her mother turning them up again, and not one word said.
Guilt? Unresolved condemnation? Probably. She shrugged and walked to the larger bedroom, where she took a lightweight dressing gown from behind the bedroom door. It was clean enough. Three nightgowns taken from the dressing table drawer followed the dressing gown into a plastic bag. She added a handful of undies, then sorted through the pile of dusty makeup, packing her selection to take with her to the hospital.
‘They had a bad night with her, Sall,’ Deb Davis said. ‘I’d let her sleep.’
‘When are they planning to send her home, Deb?’
Deb, the smart one, had remained at school, gained a profession. Twice now Sally had asked her to be bridesmaid. Greg, her partner, was Ross’s mate, and would be his best man. They didn’t understand why she’d moved to Melbourne. No-one understood.
Deb spoke quietly as she straightened the bed-cover. ‘She’s supposed to go tomorrow, but last night she was screaming with pain. Why don’t you have a word to Dr Sleiman? He does his rounds at five.’
Sally shook her head. She stayed well clear of Sleiman the sleaze.
On Monday morning she was up at dawn and on the road before six, but traffic came to a halt twenty kilometres out. Late for work, the Monday morning pep talk over, the workers were wandering to their desks as she sidled in, sidled up to her phone, hoping she was st
ill among the employed.
‘You coming back, eh?’ The supervisor bore down on her.
‘My mother is sick . . . in Lakeside. The traffic was chaos. I’m very sorry.’
‘Sorry’ was a word the supervisor didn’t understand. Late she did not want to know about. Traffic. What was traffic but machinery obedient to her will? She spoke with a strong European accent, and bias. A hard old dame, a cock-eyed racist, as politically incorrect as old coot Ron at times; they just fought on opposite sides of the racism fence.
‘Is number one Australian excuse. My mother is sick. I am hearing it many time. Ah, so sorry, my poor mother is very sick.’ The supervisor’s fat lips sucked and her neck expanded, blown up with quick gulps of air. Introduced cane toad, spitting poison, its tongue whipping the native fauna into shape. ‘I am not pay to give the ratsus for you sick mother. You want to work, or you not wanting work. Is not material for me.’
Her name was Ras-something . . . Rasputin perhaps, but with a few extra syllables, unpronounceable to the average tongue so they called her Queen Ratsus. She had three minions who scuttled around her, ringing bells, patting backs and preening when the big queen praised. Sue was a minion, she scuttled and preened, but in the toilets she let the truth rip. ‘Fucking old whore. She needs putting down.’
Life was a telephone. By day Sally palavered to strangers, buttering them up to buy; by night she indulged her mother, bribing her with promises. Too many hours spent on the phone, her neck ached, her head ached, her heart ached. Payday on Thursday; pay gone by Friday.
Bloody Friday. She’d made four lousy sales – and felt guilty about the ones who’d bought. The job was getting to her. Too many sad old people eager to talk to someone, even if the chat cost them; she felt like a thief, stealing their pension cheques. Hated the job. Hated feeling guilty half the time and a failure the rest of the time. Hated the lies she told, and the insults she received. Hated the ones who wanted to talk but not to buy. Bloody Friday.
Then Ross called.
Ratsus was probably listening in, but it took only a moment for him to say five little words.
‘Sorry, love. She’s back in.’
It took only a moment for Sally’s response, almost a cry. ‘I called her last night, Ross! She was fine. What’s she playing at?’
Only moments. But the old Queen Rat bore down on her. ‘You spending too much time with personal phone call.’
‘As you probably heard, my mother was just rushed to hospital.’ Hardly rushed. ‘She has cancer.’ Had cancer six years ago. One of the lucky ones, Mummy.
‘How many sale you making?’
‘Four.’ Hospital, the big C, cut no ice with Ratsus. Only sales were important.
‘Four is all?’
‘Yes. Four is all. It’s impossible to make the sales. How do you sell books of raffle tickets for forty dollars? It’s hard enough to sell a twenty cent ticket at the local pub in Lakeside on a Friday night, let alone a whole book of tickets for forty dollars. All I have to say is raffle and they hang up on me. What am I supposed to do? Call them back?’
The supervisor was momentarily taken aback. ‘Impossible?’ She’d misunderstood the meaning of this word when she began keying English into her mental hard drive. Impossible was what she expected from her workers, what she would have. ‘You will do impossible or you go now. Is not material for me.’
The rent had been paid but the Datsun still needed new tyres. Every time she hit the brake she went for a skid. This was supposed to be her year, now it was spinning in circles. Couldn’t stop the wheel and jump off because in Melbourne Queen Ratsus sat in the driver’s seat, cranking it up, and in Lakeside her mother sat tightening the bloody screws.
It was 5.25 when she left the twelfth floor office that night. The roads would be full. Better to wait now until seven, wait until the cars got to wherever they were going.
In number three lift, one hand in her pocket fondling her cigarettes, she decided to give up the battle. She’d pack up her junk, get Ross and Charlie to drive down on Sunday and pick it up. Let the agent try to squeeze blood out of a stone. Anyway her mother was sick. That was number one Australian excuse and good enough to break a lease. She was going home to babysit her mother until they both died of old age.
The lift had gone crazy. It was stopping between floors. It hiccupped at six, but it stopped. A woman stepped in. It had a brainstorm at five. They picked up two young guys who grinned at her when the doors refused to close. Ratsus had keyed one of her pet viruses into the lift’s computer.
Then it stopped at the fourth floor, and as the door opened she saw him against the light. And he . . . God! He was something else. But the doors closed on him and he was gone.
Tall. Tall and fine. Elegant.
The lift jerked. The doors opened again and he was still there. He smiled. At her or the indecisive door.
It gave up. It let him in. What door could deny a god?
There was plenty of room in the lift, but he stood beside her and her heart skipped into top gear as she glanced up at his face, then quickly down. She swallowed. The lift stopped at three. Two more workers crowded in. She didn’t see them. She was riding a time machine and he was riding beside her. He was a Roman god and she his slave girl. She had peeled grapes for him in another lifetime and fed them to him one by one.
God, but he was gorgeous.
A fast glance at the hand holding the briefcase. A long, fine hand. Well-shaped fingernails. Ross’s were grimy stubs. Her eyes studied the slim briefcase, the black umbrella in its sheath, not brave enough to look higher because she could feel him looking at her.
She looked at his black overcoat, a perfect match for her long black overcoat, wool from the same sheep’s back. The lift stopped at two and a herd stampeded in, forcing the twin black overcoats together in the centre of the crush. Wool fibres recognised their own. They cleaved.
Then it was over. They were at the ground floor and he stood back, signalling with an open palm for her to precede him. She sighed out a breath, held too long, as she walked away from him and into misty rain.
But she stilled her feet. Her back pressed against a grey Melbourne wall she was unaware of the rain as she watched the black overcoat walk away, black umbrella unfurled and held high. Strangely silent city. The trams were trundling by, people hurrying, but she was not a part of this movement. She’d been swept into a time warp, carried back to another century, another world.
The rain moved her feet. Rain on her not-yet-paid-for two hundred and eighty dollar coat.
Idiot, she thought. I just decided that I was going home to babysit Mummy and marry Ross, talk cows and bulls until hell freezes over. Have six kids who’ll talk cows and bulls too. There are worse things than cows and bulls. Look on the bright side. No more fighting the bikie for my car space. No more miserable flat. No more dripping taps. No more phones. No more sad old men. No more Ratsus. The year of Sally De Rooze has been cut short. She’s getting married.
But her back remained pressed to the grey Melbourne wall, and though the black overcoat and umbrella were long gone, still her eyes looked off into the distance.
Go then. Start driving.
‘No. I’m going to see him again. I’m going to know that guy.’
The Black Swan
All weekend Sally thought of the guy in the black overcoat. She thought of him while sitting beside the hospital bed in Lakeside, and also when she was in Ross’s bed. She thought of him on the long drive back to the city. Thought of him. Thought of him.
Her mother was going home tomorrow, cured again by attention. If you could only bottle attention, develop a robot with half a dozen ears and matching sets of hands, Mummy would have been fine. The hospital was organising Home Help and Meals on Wheels; two pairs of ears and hands might do the trick – for awhile.
Warmth was in the city air that Monday, the magnolias in bloom, the lawns fresh-cut smelt green. Summer would come and get the year of Sally De Rooze on track. It had
suffered a minor hiccup, that’s all.
At work they had a new client. No pushing people to part with hard-earned cash; Phonepross workers were supplying a service; they were passing on information. Pimples looked relieved. He’d lost his nervous cough. At lunchtime he and Varicose joined the crowd on the rooftop and Pimples took out his own packet of cigarettes. Sally actually heard him laugh. Sunshine bred laughter, and laughter was medicine.
That evening, convinced the god in the black coat would be in the lift, she left work early and rode down in number three. The lift didn’t stop at four.
She rode back to twelve in number two lift. ‘Lost my smokes,’ she lied. They were in her coat pocket. The lift stopped at four, but he was not waiting.
It was 5.15 when she caught number one lift and rode up with three girls to nine, then rode down again with three more.
He didn’t work in this building. Of course he wouldn’t. He was a businessman on his way down from an appointment, that’s all. He’d probably flown in from London for the day and she’d never see him again.
She walked out to Collins Street and looked at the people.
Nothing to do on Monday nights in Melbourne. If she had a video player, she could have hired a good movie, but she didn’t own a video player, and what use was a television without a video player? Old coot Ron swore that the commercial channel bosses had shares in pay TV, that it was a conspiracy – feed the viewers drivel and force them to pay for their viewing.
Hands deep in her pockets she looked above the tall buildings, wanting to see the sky. Grey sky. Clouds were moving in. If she had a cat she’d have a reason to head for South Yarra, but she couldn’t have a cat. No pets allowed in her block of flats. Beige walls and ceilings, cheap brown-beige carpet on the floor, a stone-cold beige squat with the Chinese water torture tap and hours to fill before she could go to bed. Lonely.
She walked back. It was warmer out than in. She rode number three lift to the eighth floor and the place looked deserted. Only a few boxes and a mop in the corridor. She picked up passengers on seven and returned with them to the ground. No-one was watching, so she pressed six and rode up again. Six was occupied. Two men rode down with her. Not the right men.
