Henry’s Daughter

by Joy Dettman

  Having him home has been truly excellent, though. The first thing he did was to fix Lori’s bike, then he fixed up Vinnie’s for Jamesy. Next, he fixed up Henry’s woodman by paying the bill off a bit at a time. That wood is expensive and it needs cutting, so he fixed that too by getting Nelly to ring up the sawmill to deliver a huge truckload of mill-ends, which are cheap, because they are just bark and leftover bits of wood off the sides of logs, all cut up into foot lengths. They’re a bit green, make a lot of ash, but you don’t have to chop them and if you mix them with a little bit of the woodman’s dry stuff, they burn.

  It’s working. Most of the time it’s working well, but Mavis is dying anyhow. The doctor said so to Mick. He took some of her blood when she had a fall in late January, and he got it tested, and he told Mick that Mavis’s system is being poisoned and that her heart isn’t pumping well enough to get rid of the fluid. She’s gone all puffy, sort of swollen from her feet to her eyes. He gave her a heap of new prescriptions, like she’s supposed to take about ten pills a day – not that it matters much; she prefers lollies. The doctor said not to buy her lollies, but the kids still buy them. She yells and throws stuff if they don’t, so what else can they do? He also told them not to buy cigarettes. That’s a joke. She’s still smoking like a chimney. Nelly or Martin used to get them for her until Nelly found out that supermarkets are allowed to home deliver cartons for housebound people, so she wrote a note and Mavis signed it. Lori keeps it in a plastic cover with that old withdrawal slip for two hundred dollars, like they are her licences to buy food and get money out of the ATM. No one has tried to stop her getting the money out yet, due probably to no one usually sees her. She and Mick get it at night now.

  It’s mid February, and hot again. Lori turned thirteen yesterday. She looks older, or that’s what Mick said when he came home. He said she looked heaps older. She sure feels heaps older. She’s standing at the sink, peeling potatoes and tossing them into a baking pan when Nelly’s hat wanders past the west window. A few seconds later it pops in through the back door, has a look around to see if it’s safe to come in, then she steps in and her mouth starts going ten to the dozen.

  ‘I just got a call from young Alan, Smithy. He’s coming home.’

  ‘Alan?’

  ‘Yeah. He said he got the morning train to Albury, but there’s no bus until tonight, and he wants to know if Donny is still working in Albury. I didn’t know which supermarket he was at. Anyway, he said he might call back and if he didn’t, then he’d be on tonight’s bus, and to tell you to meet him and bring Matty’s pram because he’s got two cases and they’re heavy.’

  ‘What’s he think he’s coming home to?’

  ‘He didn’t say no more, Smithy.’ She looks at the potatoes, watches Lori pour oil into the baking pan. ‘Christ, you got enough there to feed an army.’

  ‘They’re cheap. She loves roast potatoes.’

  Nelly nods. Maybe she sees the sense in it. ‘Do you want me to ring up Martin for you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Lori hasn’t seen Donny since he went to Albury but Martin sees him. Maybe she doesn’t blame Donny for staying away. Maybe she does. Martin still comes on Fridays, but he never comes inside. Maybe she doesn’t blame him. Maybe she does. She shrugs, places the potatoes in the oven.

  But Mavis is up. There is thumping and blowing as she comes slow, sidles slow and sideways through the curtain door. It’s after four o’clock and she’s just out of bed. She’s panting, hanging onto walls, swaying herself along the walls.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ she says. She’s unwashed, uncombed, wearing one of her petticoat tents, which used to be cream but she’s been wearing it for weeks; it’s the only thing that nearly fits her, like it’s stretchy material, stretched to fit and showing everything, pulling up at the back too; she’s a terrible awesome sight and each shuffle she makes on those swollen feet is a painful effort. She’s always barefoot now. Lori bought her a huge pair of slip-on slippers but she can’t see where she’s putting her feet so she never wears them.

  They leave her alone and stay out of her way. She’s gone nutty as a fruitcake. Even Nelly keeps her mouth shut these days. She gives Mavis a bit of a stare then heads for the back door, which is no longer hanging on its hinges. Mavis finished it off the night she fell over; she tried to grab it and it came down on top of her. The doctor had to ring the ambulance men, who rang for more assistance. They couldn’t get her up with the strap beneath her arms like they did the last time, so they got her onto the door, then all of them lifted it until her feet hit the floor.

  Mick hasn’t bothered to fix that door. It’s easier for Mavis to get out to the loo with it off and the doctor might need to use it again anyway. Some of the louvre windows are broken now and a few of the cupboard doors, but what’s the use of fixing them? Mavis would just unfix them again. Her hands aren’t pretty any more, they’re puffy, and so weak. She can’t get lids off jars, can’t use a tin opener, so she throws stuff if someone isn’t around to do things for her. About the only thing she can do is make her custards, which she still cooks in the night, and pancakes. She makes an awesome mess of the kitchen, burns saucepans, leaves junk all over the place.

  ‘You’re too skinny for my liking, Smithy. You’re feeding the masses, but not feeding yourself properly,’ Nelly says. ‘Do you eat anything?’

  ‘I eat heaps.’ Maybe it’s true. She is thin and it’s probably like Nelly says, she’s taken on too much responsibility too soon and it’s showing on her face, like it’s pretty bony and her eyes look as if they’ve sunk in deeper. They were always dark but now they’ve got smudgy half moons beneath them so they look even darker.

  Those eyes are watching Mavis work her way towards the couch, watching her stop to light a cigarette, watching – but she doesn’t want to watch any more. Alan is coming home, and God, she’s missed seeing him. She walks to the door. ‘Mick.’ He’s down at the bottom garden, checking his silverbeet for snails. ‘Mick, Alan’s coming home.’

  ‘What for?’ Mick replies.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The kettle boils over and Lori runs to it, lifts it to the side, then makes Mavis a mug of tea, places bread in the toaster, while Nelly stands by, her head through that doorway.

  Mavis has made it to her couch. The couch groans, burrows deeper through the wall.

  Poor old house, it’s falling down around them, like it knows it only has to stand up until Mavis dies, which will happen soon. It’s not even a sad thought because Lori won’t let herself think of that day. Won’t let herself think any further than today. There is no future any more, there is just the now.

  She makes six slices of toast, spreads butter and jam on them, then sets them on a folding table-tray at Mavis’s knee, and not one word spoken. It’s like she’s offering sacrifices to some primitive god figure so it doesn’t bring destruction down on this family.

  Without the Mavis figurehead there would be no pension, no bankcard and no ATM, so without her presence there will be no family. While she lives the house will stand and the kids will stay together. Lori is hoping to continue making these daily sacrifices for two more years when Mick will be going on seventeen and she’ll be fifteen, then no one will be able to split up this family. Just two more years. That’s all she wants and each day that passes is one day less.

  Poor old house, it must have been nice when it was built, like a hundred years ago. It’s got good touches, wooden panelling, which has come back into fashion, picture rails, open fireplaces in two rooms. Someone cared about this house once, spent money building it, making it nice. Now it’s only fit for the bulldozers, while Nelly’s house, which is nearly as old, has smaller rooms and no panelling, still looks like a good home, because it’s had ongoing care. Life is about making the things that belong to you better, not worse.

  ‘I’ll go now, Smithy, and give Martin a call for you,’ Nelly says and her hat disappears.

  She pops over most days, just to see how the kids are getting on. She
has taught Lori heaps about cooking and sewing up stuff that gets ripped. And since Mick came home, Nelly and Martin have totally stopped plotting about the kids going into homes.

  This year there are only two little ones left at home during the day, due to troublemaker Neil has started school and he’s giving his teachers hell with his face-pulling. Timmy is a good little kid, he doesn’t say much and he’ll be four in June, but he’s smart enough to work the video player. Lori and Mick leave him in charge of Matty on school mornings. They give them breakfast, cut their lunches, then turn on the television. They’ve got half a dozen kids’ videos from Henry’s days, so the little ones watch them over and over until Mavis gets out of bed, then they go to Nelly, watch her television or go shopping with her. She’s so good. They’d never cope here without her, but they can pay her now with eggs and vegetables, like Henry did, so they are not bludging any more.

  Mick has got Henry’s garden growing. He’s got tomatoes and some pumpkins that planted themselves, and he planted onion seeds and the silverbeet, carrots, but no broad beans. Everyone still hates broad beans. He bought a book on gardening, picked it up for fifty cents at the Willama West Trash and Treasure market and he loves reading it, loves standing out there watering his vegetables while Jamesy pulls out a few weeds. Mick’s bad leg makes it hard for him to get down low enough to pull many weeds.

  Henry could squat there for hours. Just squat and pull, toss what he pulled over his shoulder. Henry used to –

  Mick got most of the chooks penned up too, and those chickens the old speckled hen hatched in the potting shed are already half grown. Two other hens are now in the potting shed sitting on eggs, so there should be more chickens soon. They’ll have too many chooks but heaps of eggs.

  Henry used to only let the chooks hatch chickens when – Lori sighs, thinks Alan, thinks he’s going to be in for a shock, thinks maybe she’ll make Nelly’s bread pudding for dinner.

  For the next two hours Mavis sits staring at the television, smoking up the kitchen, missing her ashtray most of the time and dropping ash and butts on the floor. She used to wash her hair, shower herself a bit with the hose spray, flood the bathroom but she got herself clean. She doesn’t worry about showers any more because that was the first time she fell over and they had to get the men in to get her up. It took them almost an hour. The doctor said he could get the district nurse in to shower her, but as sure as hell is hot, that nurse would order her another chequebook and another phone, which would make the house fall down sooner.

  Time, that’s what Lori is trying to buy. Just two years of time.

  Mavis needs new tents too, which Nelly would make, but Lori is too scared to spend money on material. Mavis costs too much already. And there are so many bills, there is wood and electricity and school stuff. And the council rates, they cost thousands, due to owning two blocks. It’s scary to think about the new rates coming when they still owe most of the rates from last year. Since Mick finished paying the woodman’s bill, he’s been taking a hundred dollars a fortnight to the council to take off the bill, and it’s getting smaller, but the next one will come soon and swallow up this little bit of safety they’ve made for themselves.

  Dinner is on the table by six-thirty. Mavis gets hers on her tray. Mick sits with his back to the tray because Mavis’s petticoat tent has worked its way up and she’s flashing two tons of spread thigh. She eats fast; they eat faster, leave the dishes then go outside to wait for Alan.

  It’s almost eight when Martin’s ute drives up. All the kids are waiting out on the street. They’re just dying to see Alan, but when two of him step out of the ute, Lori’s head starts seething and buzzing like Henry’s electric drill is inside her brain, trying to drill its way through to some sort of sense. It’s not getting there. What the hell is he doing up here?

  ‘Ah, home sweet home,’ Eddy says in his posh pom voice, his eyes laughing at their house, and probably at them. Everyone stares at him, stands back from him, so he walks to them, offers his hand as if he’s a grown-up.

  Mick takes the hand. Lori doesn’t.

  ‘I’m your long-lost brother,’ he says.

  ‘I’ve got enough already, thanks,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah, well, up you too, Sticksville. Now you’ve got another one.’

  They are eyeing each other like a pair of young roosters, their hackles up. This is starting out wrong.

  Alan takes Lori’s arm, draws her away, walks her to the front verandah while she keeps looking over her shoulder at the other one who is following behind, sort of smiling, or sneering. She hopes he falls through a broken floorboard.

  ‘What did you think you were going to find?’ she says. ‘What does he think – ?’

  Martin comes behind them with a case, drops it off in the bunk room and goes back for the other one, then he leans against the passage doorway, sort of peering around the brown curtain, looking for Mavis. She’s in the loo, so he steps into the kitchen. ‘You crazy pair of little buggers. Eva will have a search party out after you.’

  ‘Eddy gave her a call from Albury. He told her Mavis arrived in a furniture van with a kidnap team and they got us at the tram stop,’ Alan explains. ‘He’s not staying.’

  ‘I’m planning my escape tomorrow or the next day,’ Eddy says, and he sounds like Henry with two plums in his mouth.

  ‘What about your cases?’ Martin says. ‘Did Mavis pack them for you?’

  ‘We packed them weeks back, left them in a luggage locker at the station,’ Eddy says. Then there’s no time for him to say more. Mavis comes out of the brick room, heaving those giant thighs forward. She stops at the doorway, holds on to the frame, doesn’t comment – probably she’s used to seeing double – until she sights Martin.

  ‘Get out.’ Wasted energy. She’d be better off saving it to heave her foot up that twenty-centimetre step, gain a foothold on the kitchen floor. It’s all too much effort. Breathing is too much effort, but one shapeless foot is up, and the floor timbers shake as she bears down, gets her other foot inside the room. It’s awful. It’s terrible to watch, but they’re all watching. She hauls her feet to the couch, flops down, flashes flesh while the couch digs deeper into the plaster.

  Eddy, slack jawed and bug eyed, freezes, like, what the hell is that that just walked in? ‘Shit!’ he says, but it’s a long drawn-out, shiiiiiiiiit. He’s standing close to the couch and he’s, like, mesmerised. ‘Shiiiiiiiit.’

  Jamesy walks by him, pushes him towards the table and out of harm’s way while Lori tosses an old sheet over Mavis’s lap as if she’s a piece of embarrassing furniture. She’s staring at Eddy, wondering what his game is. Alan, okay, she can understand him coming home for a visit, but Eddy – he’s excess baggage she can do without, as she can do without him and Martin stirring Mavis up.

  ‘Sheeeiiiiiiit.’ Eddy’s still saying it.

  They don’t know it, but he’s been fantasising his welcome home for a month. He’s been planning this meeting with his blood mother, had it all worked out, what she might say to him, what he might say to her. She’s not saying it and neither is he. He’s just standing there staring at the worn-out sheet with its faded yellow roses and finding that same word but expressing it a bit different each time it comes out, like higher, lower, longer.

  ‘Shee-iiiiiit.’

  He phoned Eva so she wouldn’t have a meltdown, told her he was calling on Mavis’s mobile while she was buying petrol. Eva started talking police, so he yelled, ‘Don’t do anything until I call you. She’s talking court case and taking us back permanently, Mum, and she’s got one of the Willama policemen with her, leading the SWAT team. He’s driving the furniture van.’ It’s not as if Eddy is planning to stay; give him two days without his computer and his homework and he’s in withdrawal, but those two days might just be long enough to gain him some bargaining power.

  He and Alan want to go on a school camping trip to Tasmania and Eva won’t let them. They want to board at the school too. Old Alice has been pushi
ng for boarding school for months now, ever since Alan came home, and maybe if Eva thinks Mavis kidnapped them, she might change her tune about letting them board; she might even change her mind about a camping trip being too dangerous.

  ‘Sheee – ’

  ‘Shut up, you redheaded little bastard,’ the flesh factory says, and Eddy jumps back, shuts up, looks around the table, around the room. Lori is making cocoa, like this is just a normal day, like, will you join us for a drink?

  ‘Grab me some biscuits,’ she says to Jamesy, who goes out back, returning a minute later with two packets of biscuits which he tosses onto the table.

  ‘How many are left?’

  ‘Only three more in the trunk – unless you put some somewhere else.’

  It’s like a science fiction novel. It’s like lock up the biscuits, here comes the cookie monster. Lori keeps staring at Eddy and every time he catches her eye, that eye says fuck off. He’s starting to wonder when the next bus leaves for home. He can remember Mavis from the last visit, but her face had looked okay that day. Fat, but okay. Her dress was big but pretty. Eddy turns his stare again on his birth mother, trying to relate the misty image he’d taken with him to England to the gruesome image on the couch.

  It can’t be done.

  Martin is silent, standing beside the table, shaking his head. He picked the twins up at the bus depot and thought he was seeing double – the silly little buggers. It’s just a lark to Eddy, but Alan reckons he hates Melbourne and he’s never going back, and it looks like he’s found some heels to dig in too. ‘I’m never going back,’ he kept saying. ‘I’m never going near that place again. I’ll hang myself like Henry if you try to make me go back to them.’ He’s still saying it too, though omitting the hanging bit in front of the little ones.