Henry’s Daughter

by Joy Dettman

  It’s a waste of time, though. Mavis prefers their loo and she can reach the bolt. Not only has that room got a light globe, but it’s got a higher loo seat and it backs up to the far corner so she’s got more room. She’s never been modest, and she likes to smoke while she’s sitting. The floor gets covered in ash and butts, so Martin and Donny give up.

  Something else is happening too, which probably helps make them give up. Since two months back, Henry has been going to the chemist to buy packets of those women’s things for Mavis because he’s too embarrassed to ask Donny to buy them at the supermarket.

  She’s so happy, so really honest to God happy, like cuddling little kids happy, like laughing happy, like even playing cards with the kids at night instead of watching television, like playing chess with Henry – and she’s looking at him with her beautiful big sad eyes measuring him up, wondering if she can squeeze that baby girl out of him.

  It’s embarrassing, sleeping beside that door now and having good ears that hear everything, even if sometimes they don’t want to hear anything.

  It’s safer, though, due to Martin and Donny have both left home.

  Christmas Tinsel

  It’s a pity that brick room ever got built, really, because it stole a perfectly good back verandah with no broken boards; it killed a cool place where you could always get a bit of shade, find a bit of breeze and also find Mick working on his bikes. Now there is just a big ugly multicoloured mound of bricks with an old green door, and it’s there, in your face, every time you step outside the kitchen door, and due to Greg spending his days sleeping in there on an old mattress, it smells like a wolf’s stinking den.

  Henry has given up on Greg. He and Vinnie moved the big boys’ beds back to their empty bedroom and now Vinnie sleeps there on his own; he won’t share with Greg, won’t talk to Greg. He knows what Greg did. Henry and Mavis don’t know, but even Mavis is now saying, ‘Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.’

  For a few weeks after Martin and Donny moved into their flat, there seemed to be so much more room in the house, but it’s interesting, really, like when Lori had that baby European carp in a jam jar one year and it only grew as long as her little finger, but when she filled up an old baby bath with water and tipped the fish in there, well, it started suddenly exploding, like every day it grew bigger – until a bird got it.

  That’s what is happening to Mavis. She’s filling up the space the boys leaving made. She’s so happy, though. She’s looking after her hair and putting her make-up on every day and not going to the milk bar. She’s going to bed early instead of making her custards and pancakes, though Vinnie reckons he caught her washing up a pile of dishes and stuff one day when he nicked off from school early.

  Henry wouldn’t notice if food was missing. He’s not noticing much at all. Christmas is coming to get him. He’s the one who needs Valium and antidepressant pills now. He’s the one who’s not sleeping.

  He always gets this way at Christmas time, all wound up with sad talk about England and his English parents and about going home to visit their graves before he dies. He’s not that old, and who cares about dead people’s graves? Mavis says she’s never been near her father’s grave, but once Henry gets going on England, he can’t shut up. He’s like an old-fashioned record player with one record, and the arm of the player is broken so it keeps on playing the same old boring stuff, over and over and over again – he never tells anything interesting, like what he did with his friends, just castles, and old villages.

  Every night he’s sitting in the kitchen instead of going to bed, and maybe that’s just sort of self-preservation – except he’s talking, talking, talking to Mavis and she’s pretending to listen while she’s beating him at chess or baking him apple pies.

  He’ll get over it. He always does. The kids have learned to live around the moods in this house.

  So school finishes, and on the last day everyone is giving that rotten old teacher Christmas cards and presents so Lori gives her the wormiest old Bert Matthews apple she can find, and who cares, next year she’ll be at high school. And thank God she didn’t get failed.

  Poor old Vinnie did. He has to repeat year eight so next year he’ll be in the same group as Mick, which is killing him, due to he’s now six foot one and not skinny and already shaving. He looks about eighteen and exactly like the old wedding photograph of Mavis’s father. It’s pure reincarnation. Lori has never seen a photograph of Grandmother Hilda. There is not even one in the photo box.

  Lori didn’t know it, but that bike Mick and Alan have been working on isn’t for Alan. It’s a girl’s bike, and they tricked Lori by hiding the girl’s frame down behind Nelly’s place. They get up with the birds on Christmas morning and go over to Nelly’s to finish putting the bike together, then they bring it back to the east verandah and cover it over with an old sheet. As soon as Lori wakes up, they blindfold her with a tea towel and take her out to the verandah.

  And like super cool wow! Mavis even gave them money to buy brand-new tyres for it, and Mick has painted it bright red and painted LORI on the bar, like a brand name. And Henry bought a carry seat to put on the back so she can dink Mick to and from school each day, which will mean he won’t have to hang around waiting for Henry.

  She loves it, and she loves Mick and Alan too, loves how their faces sort of look nearly happier than her face when she pulls the old sheet off the bike and sees it. This is the best day ever. This is the best day ever in her whole entire lifetime. The Christmas chickens are roasting and the pudding is bubbling in the biggest pot, and the table looks like a picture in a magazine with flowers in a jar and paper Christmas serviettes from Kmart.

  Mavis is overdue, and boy, is she happy today. Henry helped her have a shower and wash her hair, which has just been cut. All of her curls are standing up tall and she’s wandering around smiling, waiting for the food, and peering into the oven, checking on her potatoes.

  Henry isn’t smiling. He’s staring at her back as she walks out to the brick-room loo, like he’s hoping against hope that she’s not pregnant, just late. She probably is pregnant because today Henry looks more grey, like she’s finally got the last of him – even his fingernails look like grey rags. He picks at them as he watches Mavis walk back to the table and he can tell by her smile that it’s no use hoping.

  ‘Six days now,’ she says. ‘And it better be a girl this time or I’ll drown it at birth.’

  He nods, walks to the door, looks at that lump of brick room, looks as if he’s thinking of throwing himself at it, ramming his head into it, or bricking up the door and window, building himself in while he sings ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, forcing that final brick in to silence his song.

  The television is on and some mob are singing Christmas carols. Henry sighs, leans against the door. ‘The date might be the same, the songs might be the same as I sang in England when I was a boy, but the shift, the mental switch to acceptances of southern hemispheric Christmases won’t happen in my head. A pine branch, draped with tinsel, does not a Christmas tree make.’

  Southern hemispheric Christmases? Henry’s off again.

  ‘I was born here. I was born in this land, but my roots are in England,’ he says as he turns glazed eyes away from brick, to the window, then down to the bunch of red geraniums in a jam jar. Apricot jam, Mavis’s favourite. He starts laughing, but it’s not like happy laughter, more like howling.

  The table looks good and the jam jar doesn’t look too bad, though Lori couldn’t get all the label off it. The flowers look good.

  Henry can’t see the good. This kitchen, maybe the whole world, looks as bad as it can get, worse than yesterday when Mavis was only five days overdue, and it will keep on getting worse. He’s got holidays. Four weeks of watching that new baby grow in her belly. Four weeks of thinking of a new baby, thinking of more napkins, more bottles, hiding more tins of condensed milk, thinking of little Matty, who can’t even walk yet, and he’s thinking, when will it end?


  Lori looks at Henry, then by him to the plaster walls. It’s time they were painted again, or wallpapered. Martin helped him wallpaper the middle-sized boys’ bedroom walls when they bought the new bunk beds and those walls still look clean and strong. Back then, those two were always doing something, painting, mopping, sweeping up, keeping the rooms looking okay.

  But Martin has gone and Henry has stopped doing things. Maybe it happened when the big boys left home, or maybe it was sooner, when Greg got kicked out of school . . . or maybe when the brick room turned into a hot white elephant and Henry realised that there was no more, that the most fantastic of dreams all end up stinking like a public loo.

  He used to help Mavis shower most days. He used to get Nelly to make new tents when Mavis grew out of the old ones. He stopped that too, like he stopped nagging the brothers to hang their clothes, like he stopped reading library books, stopped watering his strange flowers in the shed, stopped his singing. He just stopped. Lori waters his flowers now, but half of them look sick from too much water or not enough and she doesn’t know which, so she just keeps on adding water.

  Today Henry has got that wanting look in his eye, that reaching for things he knows he can’t have look, like life in this house is a cruel joke someone played on him.

  ‘Snowmen peeping in the windows, calling children from their beds,’ Henry sings to the window. The sun is hard on him, hurting his eyes, making them wet, making water run from them, trickle down his wrinkles. It’s hurting his head too; he’s rubbing it, rubbing it, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears, trying to think of the words. ‘Dar dar dar the sleigh bells ring, dar dar dar dar – ’

  Greg looks at him as if he’s gone crazy. The closest he’s ever come to a snowman is the supplier of the stuff he shoots up his arms when he can get it. He sniggers, sniffs the air like a diseased hyena.

  Lori moves closer to Henry. She’s standing beside him, wanting him to sing of his snow, wanting him to remember that better place and not be so bloody sad. It’s Christmas Day and she got a bike, which she’s been riding up and down the road all morning. And Martin and Donny are coming home for Christmas dinner. They’ll bring a heap more presents.

  But Henry has stopped his singing. He mops at his face, wipes his eyes with a crumpled handkerchief, keeps staring west. Then he says something weird – for Henry. ‘Had someone told me thirty years ago that I was born to this heat, I would have named him a liar. I had no idea,’ he says. ‘No idea. I thought I was an Englishman. My parents allowed me to grow to adulthood believing I was their natural son. Adopted? Me? Henry Smyth-Owen’s first Christmas spent in an Aboriginal camp? I would have named him a liar, my little lost Lorraine.’

  For a second Lori feels lost, sees a man she doesn’t know. Maybe a man who doesn’t know her, or himself. She’s staring at a wrinkled old stranger and it’s making her afraid of what she is, of who she is.

  Who is she, anyway? She’s half of Mavis and the English and German people of the old photographs before Mavis. Okay. But she’s half . . . like, who is her other half made of? It’s not made of Henry’s Kathleen and Daniel photographs, like she used to think it was. It’s like there’s a gap now, a gaping greedy gap hidden behind Henry and she’s never going to be allowed to see into it. So she is lost. Half of her is lost.

  Lori gets scared, moves in even closer. She’s almost standing on top of him, breathing his air, when Donny comes in. He’s got his presents stuffed into three supermarket bags. He stands in the doorway listening to Henry, who is still going on about Aboriginal camps.

  ‘Ever think about trying to trace your natural parents? They’d only be in their seventies,’ Donny says, putting his bags on the floor, sits down.

  Henry tries to smile. Can’t make it. His face is too thin, like he’s been eroded, like time has dug deep gullies from his eyes to his mouth. No more Henry smile. He looks about seventy, more Indian than pom. Maybe he’s like his grandfather, old Woden, eyes sunk into pits of shadow, looking today like two lost and lonely beetles, trying to find a way out. They search past Lori, search for Alan. He coughs, shakes his head. ‘My parents gave me a wonderful childhood, a wonderful life. I could not have asked for better.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Mavis says.

  ‘Everyone is into searching for their roots these days. It’s the in thing. There are a heap of people in Willama finding out they’ve got Aboriginal ancestors . . . or just admitting that they had them,’ Donny says.

  Henry looks at him, then at Mavis. ‘The thread has been broken, my boy. A late knot would only be another obstacle for me to climb over at this stage.’

  ‘It could be interesting, though. We’ve probably got a heap of relatives out there. You’ve probably got half-brothers and sisters, people who look like us. Ever think of that, Henry?’ Donny is trying to make him feel better but Henry doesn’t want to.

  ‘Not like you, my boy. You and Vincent lean towards the Irish, the Scottish, the German on your grandfather’s side.’

  ‘And double so,’ Mavis says.

  ‘As you say, and doubly so, my dear.’

  Mavis slams the oven door, a baked potato impaled on a fork. She’s blowing smoke, biting at the hot potato. She’s not going to be dieting today. ‘There’s all sorts of help out there these days for people wanting to trace their families. You were one of the stolen generation. Instead of talking about it, why don’t you do something, find your roots and – ’

  ‘And demand compensation for the medical treatment I received, for the education, the love of gentle parents, my dear?’

  ‘That’s not what I said, and you know it.’

  Henry looks at her, smiles again. ‘Dwelling on the past cripples us. We hobble into our future instead of walking forward, head high.’

  ‘Yeah, I noticed that,’ she says. ‘Your head is always held high, Henry. Ha ha ha. You’ve been crawling around this house for days with your tail between your legs and your chin dragging on the bloody ground, and I’m getting sick of it.’

  He coughs, has a suck on his inhaler. ‘And how would you describe your own posture, my dear?’

  Lori’s neck is beginning to crawl. If he keeps this up he’s going to spoil a perfectly good day.

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me how you’d describe it.’

  ‘Ah, you are siren, the earth mother, the huntress.’

  Greg starts laughing, and Vinnie, the moron, joins in.

  Mavis stares at them, then turns to Henry. ‘Yes, I remember that siren. I can also remember a poor, mixed-up, drowning bastard clutching at straws – ’

  ‘That’s enough!’

  ‘You started it. You’ve got a great habit of starting what you can’t finish, Henry. Have the guts to finish what you start or don’t start it.’

  He coughs and checks the oven, silent now. The room is too quiet. Only the sizzle of chicken, the quiet rattle of the kettle lid and Alan’s voice from the verandah. ‘Disappointed has got a double p, not a double s, Mick.’

  Henry lifts his head, smiles, and Lori almost cries with wishing he might smile like that when he hears her voice. ‘That boy has a brilliant mind.’

  ‘Brilliant, my arse.’

  ‘A bad choice of words, my dear, though it is looking excessively brilliant today.’

  He’s gone mad! What the hell is he trying to do? This is so not good. Mavis hates people laughing at her, loathes people making fun of her weight, and Greg’s laughing again.

  Donny gets up from the table, gives him a filthy look. ‘So, what did you get for Christmas, Mavis?’ he says.

  ‘Oh, fuck off,’ she says. ‘And stop trying to change the subject. He started this. I didn’t start it, but he knows that I can finish it, don’t you, Henry?’

  ‘You started something you can’t finish with Alan. I’ll be flying with him to London while I’m off work. I’ve been in touch with Watts. He’s looking after the details.’

  ‘I’d like to see you try that,’ Mavis says.

  ‘What can we offe
r him here?’ he says.

  ‘His mother, his family, that’s what. And as soon as that other one is back on Australian soil, I’ll get him home too. That queer bitch doesn’t give a shit about those kids. She’s never given a shit about anyone other than herself – and you know it better than most. And after what she did to me, you think I’d let her raise my kids? Now you shut up with your maudlin bullshit, and get some dinner on the table.’

  ‘Martin isn’t here yet,’ Henry says.

  ‘That’s his funeral. He knows what time we eat.’

  But Henry is not doing as he is told today. He’s going to wait for Martin. He’s losing his onions – or something.

  Lori watches Mavis spilling over the table. She’s not happy now and her useless, plump, pretty little hands with their long strong fingernails touch the bread plate. They polish her knife on the white tablecloth which Alan found down the bottom of the sheet cupboard. He and Lori set the table and it was like bringing their cubbyhouse play inside and making it real. Martin will get a surprise when he walks in and sees this table.

  They hear the old ute rattle into the drive and Lori and Alan stand together, wait together beside their table, eager for Martin to see what they’ve done, wanting his approval. They miss him. All of the little ones miss him.

  ‘So what are you waiting for now, you miserable old bugger?’ Mavis says.

  ‘Have a slice of bread while you’re waiting. Have two. Eat the entire loaf, my dear. I bought three.’

  Donny’s eyes widen and Lori turns to Henry, wanting to kick him in the shins and wake him up. This was going to be a good day, like a party with Donny and Martin home and Mavis over the moon about being pregnant. Just because he’s feeling miserable, he doesn’t have to make everyone else feel miserable.