If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  Ah, so Ra Zacharia did not know everything.

  ‘Her name’s Leafsong. She can’t talk,’ said Bronnie Lee from behind the counter, with more sympathy than Leafsong had expected from a stranger.

  ‘But she’s a lovely girl,’ added Mrs Weaver hurriedly. ‘They’re such sweet young people up at the commune. All hard workers.’ It was perhaps the greatest compliment anyone in Gibber’s Creek could give, even if it wasn’t quite true — not of JohnandAnnie anyway.

  The man’s smile grew warm. Snakes could get warm, if they basked in the sun long enough. ‘Are the others on the commune like her?’

  He doesn’t mean are they good cake-makers. He means are the others deformed too, thought Leafsong.

  Bronnie Lee pushed Leafsong’s grocery bags towards her. ‘They’re nice people,’ she said sharply. ‘Here you are, love. All done. That’ll be four dollars exactly.’

  Leafsong handed the money over, smiling her gratitude, and picked up the two big brown paper bags.

  ‘There’s a box of empty jars waiting for you on my veranda,’ Mrs Weaver said to Leafsong.

  Leafsong smiled her thanks again. Mrs Weaver’s empty Vegemite and honey jars would soon be filled with more autumn jams and chutneys. She walked to the door, then halted as the man in white put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Why can’t you talk, my dear?’

  Leafsong said nothing. Even if she’d had a notebook to write in, she had no wish to explain that when she was seven years old she’d had her tonsils out. And how, after the operation, she had discovered the power of silence.

  ‘Feeling all right, love?’ the nurse had asked her. For a moment Leafsong had been too groggy to reply. And the nurse had looked at her. Really looked at her, instead of instinctively avoiding a not-quite-right face. For the first time in her life Leafsong felt connected to the world. Only Carol had ever really looked at her before then. But as soon as she stopped speaking, Mum, Dad, even the kids at school had had to look at her, to see what she was thinking or might do.

  Could she talk now? Leafsong didn’t know. It had been nine years since she had spoken. She did know that if she ever spoke a single word, the spell would break.

  ‘Dear child,’ the white-clad man’s voice was as full of sympathy as a nasturtium flower’s tail was of nectar, ‘one day you will talk, I promise you.’ He added quietly, ‘All you need is to want to.’

  Ah, thought Leafsong. Perhaps this Ra Zacharia had really looked. But he was still speaking, his voice louder now. ‘One day all who are crippled will walk, all who are dumb will speak, all who are in pain will dance in joy. Nor will the world end tomorrow night, no matter what the papers say.’

  The customers shared grins around the shop. Everyone knew this End of the World stuff was a game, printed in the newspapers for fun, not as a warning. The world couldn’t end. The world could never end! Most people, thought Leafsong, never really accepted that while tomorrow was almost always like today, one day it wouldn’t be.

  She smiled at the other customers, and stepped out of the shop, carrying the two big brown paper bags of groceries.

  She had End of the World cakes to bake.

  Chapter 2

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, March 1972

  Correction: Last Thursday’s ‘Sale of erotic shrubs at the Rectory in aid of Overseas Missions’ should have read ‘Sale of exotic shrubs’. The Gazette apologises to all concerned and congratulates the Ladies’ Guild on their success.

  SCARLETT

  Scarlett guided her wheelchair along the footpath towards River View. She was NOT crying.

  A passer-by might think she was, but her face was twisted anyway. A waif’s face, a cramped cripple’s face, marked by fourteen years of fighting to sit up without cushions or a harness to help, to make her arms and hands move of her own volition, instead of being guided by a therapist, to be free to go to school on a motorised wheelchair built by the technicians at River View, where she had lived since she was a few months old, because why would parents want to keep a child who looked like a mutated elf?

  But looking like a mutated elf wasn’t why she was the only girl in the class not to be invited to Barbie’s fourteenth birthday party. A girl in a wheelchair COULD go to a party, even if she couldn’t dance. She even had a purple mini skirt, which Jed had bought her in Canberra, and long purple boots with pink flowers that made her skinny legs look normal.

  If being in a wheelchair had been the reason Barbie hadn’t invited her, Scarlett wouldn’t be crying. Not that she WAS crying.

  Scarlett brushed the tears away, then pressed her wheelchair’s controls to go faster down the footpath. Old Matilda Thompson had bullied the council into concreting the path between town and River View the year before so the River View kids who were mobile enough could get to school by themselves.

  Those kids had found friends, kids who liked the novelty of having a mate in a wheelchair, or could look beyond it to the person. But not her. And that was why she WASN’T crying. The dumb girls at high school didn’t like her because she was too intelligent, talked too much about things they didn’t KNOW about, like plate tectonics. Didn’t they even CARE that Australia was drifting north? That the mountains beyond these gold-grassed plains were slowly rising?

  Barbie and her ‘barbarians’ didn’t like her because Scarlett saw too much, and said too much too. Like how Deirdre had her period twice as often as everyone else. But had Deirdre been GRATEFUL when Scarlett had told her to ask Dr McAlpine about it? NO!

  Scarlett suddenly pressed the stop button of her wheelchair.

  The footpath in front of her was blocked by a burst bag of flour, a bag of icing sugar and a half-empty bottle of cream. A strangely bulky girl kneeled next to the mess, trying to wrap what was left into the remains of the sodden grocery bag, which was mathematically IMPOSSIBLE when you calculated the mass of the shopping and what was left of the bag . . .

  ‘Do you want to borrow my basket?’

  The girl looked up. A crooked face. Odd. But odd was interesting. Scarlett reached behind — still a triumph to have arms and hands that could reach, she’d be WHEELING HERSELF soon — and lifted her schoolbag out of the basket on the back of her wheelchair, then held out the basket.

  The girl smiled. Her smile was crooked too, her big teeth erratically uneven. But it was still a good smile, and her hair was lovely, long, parted in the middle and blonde and decked with dried everlastings. She stood, took the basket, and began to pile the shopping into it.

  ‘I’m Scarlett O’Hara,’ offered Scarlett. She’d chosen the name years back, when she had assumed a new glamorous name each week. Scarlett waited for the girl to give her own name.

  The girl picked up the bag of icing sugar, scooped up as much of the flour as she could, and the half-empty bottle of cream. She still didn’t speak. ‘What’s YOUR name?’ Scarlett demanded at last.

  The girl reached into her shoulder bag and brought out a card. Scarlett read the single word on it: Leafsong. ‘Is that your name?’

  The girl nodded.

  Interesting. Had the girl chosen the name, as she had chosen Scarlett? Or had her parents been idiots? Because some parents WERE idiots. Like hers, Jed said, because they didn’t know the treasure they had lost when they signed a crippled daughter over to River View. And if Jed thought Scarlett was a treasure, then she WAS, because Jed always told the truth . . .

  Scarlett inspected the girl. The almost flat face was odd. Not Down syndrome, but as if her face had once been slightly twisted by some giant hand. ‘Can’t you talk?’ Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be, the snubs of the afternoon still wriggling inside her like vicious worms.

  A smile, a shake of the head. And the anger worms vanished. Scarlett smiled back, considering the many reasons this girl might not talk. Facial deformity, tumour of the larynx . . . she could just imagine Barbie’s face if she’d even MENTIONED tumours of the larynx. Impulsively Scarlett asked, ‘Did you have a tumour of the larynx?’

  Leafsong gr
inned and shook her head.

  Interesting. This girl knew what a tumour of the larynx was.

  ‘Problem with your palate? Tongue? Birth defect?’ Scarlett added hesitantly, ‘Brain injury?’

  A headshake to all of them. And the grin. A grin that looked at her, not away. Scarlett said impulsively, ‘Do you want to come back to River View with me for a swim? We’ve got a swimming pool.’ Friends could use it too, after therapy sessions finished at four-thirty.

  Leafsong pointed to her groceries and shook her head. Then, slowly, she gestured to Scarlett, to herself, then made walking motions with her fingers, back to her own body.

  ‘You want me to come to your place?’

  A nod. Leafsong pointed to the sun, then put up a single finger as if to say, ‘One.’

  Scarlett LOVED puzzles. ‘You want me to come to your place tomorrow?’

  Another nod. Leafsong held up four fingers to say, ‘Four o’clock.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  Leafsong pointed along the river, grinned and pantomimed playing a guitar.

  ‘The commune!’ It was a few kilometres out of town on the road that led to Dribble, where Jed lived and where Scarlett stayed whenever Jed was home from uni. The name ‘Dribble’ had been a joke — what else could you call a house between Drinkwater and Overflow?

  Leafsong lifted her arms, twisted her body in a dance that clearly said, ‘Party,’ then pointed to the ground, then north. Impressive. None of the barbarians even KNEW where north was. Leafsong waved her hands in a wild explosion.

  Scarlett laughed. Laughed at the ridiculousness, at the wonder of communicating by only expression and gesture, of having someone who might just want to be her friend.

  ‘You’re having an End of the World party? Groovy!’ That was one in the eye for Barbie, Scarlett thought gleefully. A proper grown-up party, not just schoolgirls and a record player.

  And even groovier to be going to the party from Dribble, because Jed would be home tonight. Jed would let her borrow her eyeshadow and lipstick, which Matron Clancy never let her use even though EVERY girl in class used lipstick now.

  But it would be mean to ask Jed to drive her to the party and not stay. NO ONE should be left out of a party.

  ‘Can I bring my sister?’

  Leafsong nodded again.

  Far out! Though one day soon Scarlett wanted Leafsong to see where she really lived most of the time. Not in a house with a mum and dad and three point five brothers and sisters, but in an institution, no matter how many butterflies it was decorated with.

  But she had Jed, and Nancy and Michael as her adopted aunt and uncle, and the twins who let you cuddle them for ten seconds before they squirmed away, and Matilda, who was a cross between a grandma and the empress of Gibber’s Creek. Which might be BETTER than a normal family, though it was impossible to extrapolate any valid conclusion about that without a LOT more data . . .

  A commune and River View had a lot in common, Scarlett thought, watching Leafsong pack the last of the groceries neatly in the basket. The kids had to share nearly everything at River View. Only their clothes and wheelchairs belonged to them alone, and a few things like books or the dream catcher Jed had given her to hang from her window in the dorm she shared with three much younger girls. Everyone at River View these days was younger than her, and . . .

  . . . just like her. Cripples, in their chairs.

  A car slowed down next to them, then stopped. A white car, dust free. Even the hubcaps were shining white. A man in a white suit looked out, smiling at Scarlett, ignoring Leafsong. A white-clad young woman sat next to him, smiling vaguely. Another in the back seat, asleep. ‘Do you need a hand?’ the man asked gently. His voice was warm and deep.

  Leafsong put her hand on Scarlett’s shoulder and shook her head urgently. Why? thought Scarlett. The man was only trying to be kind.

  ‘We’re okay,’ said Scarlett. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Would you like a lift back to River View?’

  Scarlett froze. She had never seen the man before. You got to know everyone at least by sight in Gibber’s Creek. How did he know she lived at River View? ‘No. Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure? It would be no trouble. Your wheelchair would fit in the boot.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She turned the wheelchair, so her back faced the car. ‘Can Jed and I bring anything to the party?’ she asked, making conversation till the car left. And then it did, its engine purring along the street, but not in the direction of River View.

  Not an axe murderer trying to lure two girls into his car, and anyway, he already had two girls and neither of them had looked worried. Just one of those strangers who thought a crippled girl ALWAYS needed help, thought Scarlett, dismissing him from her thoughts.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said to Leafsong.

  Leafsong nodded, glanced at the basket and touched her heart and lips briefly in a way that somehow said, ‘Thanks,’ even more clearly than if she’d spoken the word. She walked a little way, then turned and waved at her.

  Odd. Weird. But then Scarlett was weird too. And not a single one of her adopted almost-family was normal. Normal, decided Scarlett, with a rush of happiness and of pity for all the Barbies in the universe, was BORING.

  And Jed would be there that afternoon. Impossibly wonderful Jed, who wasn’t quite a sister, aunt or mother, but was bits of all of them and better. Jed was NEVER boring.

  And now, perhaps, thought Scarlett, shifting the speed button on her chair to maximum as she ALMOST whizzed down the footpath, feeling the hot wind upon her face, smelling of sunstruck lawns and wilting geraniums, I also have a friend.

  Chapter 3

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, March 1972

  No Hot Pants or Boob Tubes at the Club Please!

  Mr Bruce Briggs, President of the Gibber’s Creek RSL Club, reminds readers of the Gazette that patrons must be dressed decently and respectfully, due to complaints by members. Ladies: proper skirts, please.

  ‘We must uphold family values,’ said Mr Briggs. ‘Any visitor wearing a skirt more than an inch above the knee may be asked to leave.’

  RA ZACHARIA

  He had been a fool. Ra Zacharia was rarely a fool. But today he had let his eagerness show.

  He would not make that mistake again.

  He had hunted for perfect Sacrifices for two years, until he had heard of River View at Gibber’s Creek. What better place to find the Sacrifices the Elders demanded than a rehabilitation centre for crippled children in a country town?

  It wasn’t until his community buildings were almost complete that he discovered that River View was designed for children who needed only a year or two of therapy, and then went home to almost normal lives. Ra Zacharia had no need of ‘almost normal’. He already had enough of those.

  He should have trusted in the harmony of the universe! For there she was, perfect, on his first visit to town. That small defiant girl, her shrunken legs dangling over the chair in a way that made it clear she had never walked. Never could walk, without a miracle.

  Ra Zacharia smiled as he turned the car onto the road that led to his community. Once he controlled that girl, he would create a miracle indeed.

  But he must move slowly. Must, somehow, convince her to be his, absolutely. The perfect willing Sacrifice to offer to the Elders.

  Forever.

  Chapter 4

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, March 1972

  The Lions Club wood raffle was won by Mrs Andrew Green, with $67.82 raised for the Gibber’s Creek Hospital. Lions Club President, Mr Martin Sampson, thanks all volunteers. Baked goods are still needed for Friday’s street stall.

  JED

  Jed waved cheerily to Miss Elsinkop, her tutor, as she raced out the doors of Ursula College, then shoved her bag into the back of her blue sports car.

  Miss Elsinkop would know perfectly well that:

  a. Jed was heading off to Gibber’s Creek mid-week — why else would she carry her suitcas
e? And that:

  b. Jed had no permission to do so.

  But Miss Elsinkop would say nothing. No one would. Because after two and a bit years at ANU and Ursula College, Jed’s tutors, lecturers and even the dean knew that Jed Kelly would get high distinctions even if she cut every lecture; and that if they threatened to fail her for non-attendance, she’d just grin and say, ‘Okay.’

  The wealthy, generous and . . . to be honest, not modest, thought Jed . . . beautiful Miss Kelly could also get away with wearing clothes that were slightly too gorgeous to bring to university. Rumour said that Jed Kelly’s clothes came from Paris designers in the 1920s and ’30s, via her great-grandmother’s wardrobe, altered to fit Jed’s generous curves.

  Rumour was right.

  Today’s dress was low-waisted green silk with dappled autumn leaves, leaving her arms bare; they were brown from helping to dag sheep in the summer holidays. Her long dark hair was topped with a floppy hat and a scarf that exactly matched the dress. Only her sandals were modern: the wedges worn by half the girls at college.

  Jed’s tutors and lecturers also knew that even if this girl missed the occasional lecture, she cared deeply about their subjects. Jed Kelly was not at university to learn her way to a profession, nor, as many girls still freely admitted, to find a husband studying for a suitably lucrative profession. Jed might also turn up at her tutor’s office at lunchtime, almost dancing with excitement about a research paper she’d discovered. Her essays were insightful and sometimes disconcertingly original.

  Besides, Ursula College, and even the entire Faculty of Arts at ANU, listened when Matilda Thompson summoned her great-granddaughter to Drinkwater. Mrs Thompson had become a generous donor, now that her great-granddaughter was a student at ANU. Mrs Thompson was equally generous in making it quite clear that if she wanted a small favour in return, it would be granted.

  No, thought Jed happily, no one would object to her taking a few days off. The days of people ordering her about were gone.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’