by Joy Dettman
Legal is part of the old world, Henry’s world. In his world, Greg might have pinched Mrs Roddie’s car but Vinnie wouldn’t have gone off with him. In the old world, Martin might have got engaged to Karen, but Donny wouldn’t have gone to Albury and Mick wouldn’t have been sent to a hostel. This is a new world so everyone has to make different rules . . . like, even the Prime Minister understands about that.
Her stomach gives in. She has to make a dash for the outside loo, and it’s like fate gave her that pain, like when she found the money for a new parka, because just as she flushes the loo, the sun comes out from beneath a cloud and there is this twinkling star of light coming through a nail hole in the roof and shining down on that black wallet.
Henry is watching her, his eye to a peephole in heaven. Maybe burning those Child Henry papers sort of released him from that mound at the cemetery and now he’s up there keeping his eye on things again, and this morning he’s saying to her, it’s all right, you do what you have to do, little lost Lorraine. It’s time.
She’s crying again, but she’s up and standing on the toilet seat, reaching into the rafters to where she hid that wallet that contains Mavis’s bank things. She’s going to go to the bank for Mavis, but not to get two hundred dollars so Mavis can go down the pub and get someone to get her a new telephone charger. That’s not what she’s going to do.
The sun stays out and it’s even hot, and the mud on the sides of the road sort of starts steaming, trying to dry out fast, like finally the season is turning, finally it’s time to move on into the new world.
She walks fast, walks all the kids fast to the main street, tells them to wait on the other side of the road while she runs across. ‘If I don’t come back, then go to Nelly and get her to ring Martin, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Jamesy is looking at her hard. He knows Mavis has been searching for weeks for that black wallet full of bank stuff. He’s looking at the hand and the wallet, knowing Lori knew where it was all the time. There is not a sign of his twisted grin, he’s looking big eyed and worried as Lori crosses the road and walks up to the ATM.
She always liked that thing, the way people push a few buttons and make the money come rolling out, but she’s shaking, inside and out, as she reads the instructions about umpteen times. Mavis kept a piece of paper with a number on it, which is probably her secret pin number. Lori is holding it in one shaking hand while the other one is too slow at keying it in. The machine gives up, starts beeping for help, then it spits out her card.
There is a lady waiting, staring, so Lori snatches the card and steps away, watches the lady press buttons fast, watches two fifties come out. Lori steps up to the machine again, her heart beating so loud all of Willama can hear it, and all of Willama knows exactly what she’s going to do. The cops will come and stop her before she can do it, or the bank will swallow her card this time like Nelly said it does sometimes.
Her stomach is rolling; she’s going to have to run for the public toilets in a minute, so she pops the card in and the machine starts working again, asking for instructions. She takes each step carefully, willing her hand to stop its shaking, doesn’t know if she should press the savings or cheque account button so makes a guess.
And the cops don’t come and the bank doesn’t swallow the card. It works. The machine gives up twenty dollars. It’s red and crisp and new and Lori’s stomach stops hurting. She looks around. No one waiting, so she does the whole thing all over again, gets another twenty, then she’s over the road with the little kids.
‘Come on.’ She’s pale. Her hands are shaking. ‘Come on, will you? Hurry up.’
They run behind her, away from the busy part of the street, and they go to Mavis’s favourite takeaway where they order a pile of chips and potato cakes and dim-sims. They wait for, like, a million minutes while people stare.
Two cops walk past the door and they sort of look in, look at Lori. Someone has dobbed on her. Her heart is going to jump out of her mouth and land in the fish and chip oil, get fried.
The cops walk on.
Then the lady is wrapping the food, and one twenty-dollar note gets swapped for some change and a huge parcel, and they are out on the street and there is no sign of the cops. Jamesy takes the food and Lori picks Matty up, walks with him on her hip, crosses the road to the little park near the post office where they eat the lot, every chip, every dim-sim. They pig out on delectable hot greasy potato cakes, and Matty wants a drink, so she sends Jamesy to get milk. He comes back with a huge bottle and they drink the lot.
It’s early and though the sun is out, a wind is blowing, trying to help the sun dry out the mud. They go to the supermarket, get a trolley for Matty and Timmy to sit in while they look at all the food and socks and stuff, look at the books. Lori picks up a twin pack of dummies for Matty because he’s chewed through his old one. She tosses them in the trolley. They look at fruit and vegetables and at chocolate biscuits, then they pay for the dummies and push the three little ones in the trolley to the other supermarket.
Neil wants a lollypop. Lori picks up six, walks to the checkout, but there is a mob of people in front of her with trolleys full of meat and vegetables and food, and one of them is a teacher from the primary school. Lori backs off, gives her space to another lady.
She’s got an idea. She puts the lollypops back and Neil howls and kicks the trolley; she lets him howl and kick while she takes five dollars from her pocket and hands it to Jamesy, sends him back to the takeaway for three dollars of chips and the rest in potato cakes. ‘We’ll meet you at the railway crossing,’ she says.
Minced steak is, like, only four dollars for a lump. She tosses a lump in her trolley. Picks up half a cabbage from the bargain bin for 50 cents. Picks up a whole big bag of potatoes for two dollars twenty. She takes one giant carrot, one huge brown onion, two lots of home brand bread, cheap soap and a packet of home brand laundry detergent, all the while keeping the total in her head.
The whole lot only costs a bit over fifteen dollars. The chips and dim-sims and stuff cost twelve dollars and were gone before you could say fish-’n-chips.
Jamesy is waiting for them at the crossing. He’s hugging his parcel of chips and pinching chips through a hole. Lori pinches one for herself and one each for the kids, then she takes charge of the parcel. She’s not feeling guilty at all. She’s feeling new-world powerful. She’s got Matty on her back and nearly eight dollars in her pocket, which is not stolen. It’s pension money from the government so Mavis can feed her kids, and she’s going to feed her kids whether she likes it or not. They share the supermarket bags and walk home, just as school is coming out.
Mavis is asleep on the couch; she looks like stale bread soaked in water. The smell of chips and potato cakes wakes her up, though. She takes the parcel, doesn’t say anything, just starts stuffing chips while the little kids watch, their tongues hanging out for one.
Jamesy gets the fire going with pickets, then he runs over to Nelly to tell her that they’ve got some food. He rips off more pickets on the way back, hacks at them with the axe until they break, and soon that stove is going well. He gets the vegetable knife and starts hacking up carrot. He can remember what this stuff is for. It’s for one of Henry’s stews and he wants some.
The meat starts spitting and Mavis never did like that smell. She tosses the chip paper onto the floor, sort of rolls, gets her feet under her. The little ones scatter, but she’s not interested in them; she’s heading out the back door, holding on to what she can hold on to.
‘The chips must have gone straight through her,’ Jamesy says, watching Neil dive on the white paper, unroll it. There isn’t a chip left. His finger wipes at the leftover smear of oil, and he licks. Lori takes the paper, puts it in the stove, then peels seven potatoes.
She’s trying to conjure up the picture of how Henry cooked his stew. The little ones are watching her, watching Jamesy hacking cabbage, watching that knife work hard. Then the potato saucepan is over the hotplate and Lori is tripping ove
r little ones as she scoops Jamesy’s cabbage into a big saucepan, places it beside the stew.
She cuts up the onion, tosses it in with the meat, tosses in the carrot, stirs, stirs and adds water. She’s still stirring when they hear the scream.
‘What’s got into her now?’ Jamesy says.
Lori shrugs, puts the saucepan lid on, thinks maybe it’s baby-slipping time. Someone always used to ring the doctor when they started slipping, but the baby was always out before he got here.
The stew is starting to boil. Jamesy is poking in more fence picket when they hear Mavis again. She’s bawling. He goes to the green door, opens it slow. Mavis is standing back against the loo and there’s something on the floor.
‘Lori! Lori!’
She walks out to the brick room, the little ones at her heels, and she stands with Jamesy at the door, staring at the floor and at what is on the floor.
It’s like an alien baby. Its head is not right. The little kids start trying to get in but Lori pushes them back.
‘Get over to Nelly. Now.’ She’s shaking worse than she shook at the ATM.
Jamesy herds them over the road and Nelly rings Martin, then the doctor, who rings for reinforcements, and all the time Mavis stands staring at what’s on the floor.
The doctor and his helpers get Mavis into bed, hit her with an elephant dart; they take the poor dead baby away as Martin’s ute drives in. He’s still in his work clothes, like he dropped tools and ran.
The stew has boiled over. The kitchen smells of burned fat. Lori lifts the saucepan, and her hand trembles so hard she needs her other hand to help lift it. She moves the potatoes to the side, watching her hands, feeling her knees shaking in sympathy. Salt, pepper and she stirs the stew with a long spoon. No burned bits stuck to the bottom. She tries to taste what is left on the spoon, but it won’t find her mouth. Today has been a shaky, achy sort of day.
Jamesy takes the spoon from her hand. He tastes the stew. ‘It’s not burned. Probably too much water in it anyway.’ He sniffs the steam then gets the Worcestershire sauce. Lori drips some in. Then a bit more. The doctor, who is finished with Mavis, is trying to talk to Lori but she can’t talk, she’s got to cook Henry’s stew. That’s all she’s thinking about. Won’t think of that alien, new-world baby. Won’t. She turns her back, looks through the cupboards for Henry’s curry. Can’t find it. She’s doing things, just finishing what she started.
The doctor gives Martin a prescription for more Valium and a heap of other stuff. Lori takes the prescription and puts it on top of the cupboard and she finds Henry’s curry up there. What’s it doing up there? Who put it up there? It doesn’t matter. Got to concentrate on doing, not thinking, let that picture of that baby go away. Got to let it go away.
She adds a teaspoonful of curry to the meat, stirs it. Sees the baby’s head in the mince steak and carrot. Sees the rest of that poor baby in the steam.
It was going to be a girl. A poor mixed-up little baby girl. It was trying to be a little sister for her, until Henry killed himself, then it turned into a monster, like life in this house turned into a monster.
The doctor leaves and Martin looks in the brick room, closes the door and walks back to the kitchen.
‘It didn’t breathe,’ he says.
How could it breathe? It didn’t have a proper nose to breathe with.
He stirs the stew. ‘Have you got any rice, Splinter? It makes the meat go further,’ he says. He doesn’t care about the little sister. He didn’t see that head that looked as if it was trying to be two heads and ended up as –
Martin goes off in his ute and comes back with two big bags of rice, a huge bottle of tomato sauce, ice-cream, cornflakes, two bottles of milk and some floor-washing stuff, then he goes out to the brick room while Lori tosses a handful of rice into the stew. Jamesy chucks in a bit more. Lori shakes in a heap of tomato sauce, Jamesy adds a bit more curry and more salt. Lori stirs the cabbage. Jamesy looks at the potatoes, now boiled to a pulp. They’ve soaked up all the water and almost mashed themselves.
It’s starting to smell familiar, though. The smell is seeping into Lori’s brain. That baby is dead and it wasn’t a baby anyway. It stopped trying to be a baby when Henry died and the old world ended.
She moves the stew pot over the centre hotplate, gets it boiling again, and she stirs. Stirs. Shadows play out her movements. Arm shadows, head shadows, shaky shadows. Too much rice, she thinks. It’s soaking up all the meat juice and looking thicker than Henry’s stews. She stirs it, adds a spurt of water from the kettle.
‘It smells like Henry’s stew. Can you remember what we put in it?’ Jamesy says.
She shakes her head.
Martin walks in smelling of disinfectant. He sniffs, lifts the lid on the stew, tests to see if the rice is soft.
No Mavis in this room. No television with its canned laughter. No more babies.
Nelly turns up with the little kids, but Lori isn’t talking. She pats Lori’s shoulder then leaves, and the little kids sit quiet around the table, wanting to go to sleep but wanting some of Henry’s stew more.
‘Get some plates out,’ Lori says.
Martin eats with them. He doesn’t talk about the baby. He says that he knows he’s deserted Lori and the kids, that he should have been here for them. He eats while he talks and he talks as bad as Henry talked at Christmas time. The little ones eat every rag of cabbage, wipe up the stew juice with bread. They eat ice-cream, eat until they start falling asleep, ice-cream melting on their plates.
Martin helps wash small faces and hands, carry little ones to bed. He talks to Lori while she gets a load of washing in the machine. ‘I wish I hadn’t taken her on that day. If I could go back and undo that day, I would, Splint, but I can’t go back, so I have to find a way to go forward.’
Lori is working on automatic and so is the washing machine. Press a few buttons and it does the lot. She’s sorting the underwear and the light clothes from the dark clothes, like Henry did – not touching the socks, though, just kicking them over to wait until last. Not thinking about socks. She’s thinking of the bank stuff, and thinking should she tell Martin about it.
But he said it, didn’t he? He said you can’t go back, so you have to go forward – and she’s not going to go forward into a home for unwanted kids. She’s not.
She’s still seeing the baby’s head too. Can’t kill that picture. Can’t kill the image of its perfect little legs and girl parts; it was perfect from the chest down.
Jamesy saw it, but he hasn’t said a word. He saw Lori get the money from the ATM and he hasn’t said a word about that either. It’s like he was born knowing about life, and that’s why he never dobbed when she used to wag school in the good old Henry days.
‘I’ve tried, Splint. I’ve done all I can with her and I can’t do it any more.’ Martin is still doing a Henry, talking, talking, wanting words to make it all right, and she wishes he’d shut up with his words and let her just . . . just . . . do the washing.
She sighs, pours some washing detergent in, and it doesn’t look enough so she adds a bit more. ‘I know you tried, Martin. I know Nelly tried,’ she says, just to shut him up and make him go home to rotten Karen. That’s what she wants. Then she can keep the bank stuff, keep getting the money out and keep making stews. And she’ll feed Mavis too, even if she is a monster man-eater, and she’ll get Nelly to buy her tons of cigarettes and . . . and . . . and if Mavis gets cigarettes and food, and everyone gets food and shoes and stuff, then no one will have any excuse to split the kids up. And . . . and if they ever let Mick come home, then he’ll have a place to come home to.
Martin won’t go. He’s washing the dishes, washing the pile of saucepans. She stands beside him, dries them.
‘You’re an incredible kid, Splint. Do you know that? That was an incredible meal.’
‘I-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e,’ she spells the word out loud. ‘That baby was incredible. It was probably trying to be twin girls until Henry died, then it gave up tr
ying to be normal – like we all did. Everybody. Not just Mavis. We just gave up. At least you have to try, don’t you, and you have to do it the best way that you can, don’t you?’
He doesn’t say yes, just helps put away the saucepans and the dishes.
Then he is going home to Karen. He even calls it home. ‘I’ve got to go home, Splint,’ he says. ‘Will you be all right with her tonight?’
She’ll be all right. She got born tough, got born into tough. She locks the bunk-room door with the chest of drawers and crawls into the lower bunk with Matty, holds him close, feels his perfect little head, kisses his perfect little head, now covered with reddish fluff; it helps take the image of that other head away. She holds him close, closer. She’s never thought much about loving him, didn’t know that she loved him. He howled so much when he was little and she’d wanted him to be a sister, but he’s sort of grown himself into being loved, lovable. And he’s not ugly – not now that he’s got some hair.
Sleep wants her. Her mind starts to wander away into a half dream in which Henry is singing ‘Danny Boy’. She listens to him, thinks of his stew, thinks of what she put in the stew. Salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, curry, and some tomato sauce. Meat and rice and onion and carrot. She can remember, and she’ll do it again too. Tomorrow.
But should you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be.
You’ll come and find, the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread upon me,
And all my grave shall warmer sweeter be.
For you will kneel and tell me that you love me,
And I will sleep in peace until you come to me.
And so she sleeps and dreams of Alan and the cubbyhouse.
They’re making fractions with apples.
Falling Down
Mick came home six weeks before Christmas, which wasn’t much of a Christmas, just sad, just like you wanted it to be over so a new year could get started. He’s still the same Mick, a bit taller, his freckles not so dark and his new brace lighter, but miracles don’t happen in real life; his leg still looks like rubber and he’ll grow out of this brace like he grew out of the last.
