If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  ‘She’s never used her money to buy me. Or Nancy.’

  ‘She bought a newspaper to make the entire area think the way she does! You just don’t see it, do you? Other people do!’ Barbie’s malicious face flashed before her. ‘You bought Sam.’

  Jed stared at her, her face white under its tan. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You used your money to get him back here. To keep him with you.’

  ‘That . . . that’s not true.’ Jed’s voice wobbled.

  ‘He was happy up at Nimbin. There were people with the same ideas as him. Communes like Halfway to Eternity, all kinds of alternative ideas, more people coming to the region every day. But you had to buy him a factory down here —’

  ‘Leave Sam out of this!’ Jed stood up. ‘I’m going to pretend we never had this conversation. And then we can drive up to Sydney and see the apartment. And when you realise it’s exactly what you need, maybe you’ll apologise.’

  ‘If you’re waiting for an apology, you’re going to sit there till you’re grey haired. You are NOT my mother. You’re not even my guardian. You’re . . . you’re just trying to keep me a child because you don’t have the guts to marry Sam and have kids for yourself.’

  ‘That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.’

  ‘Is it? Maybe it’s time that someone told rich Jed Kelly the truth, instead of sucking up to you.’

  ‘No one sucks up to me.’

  ‘Don’t they? You’re the one providing the money for this new business. You don’t know a dipole from a monopole, but everyone shuts up when you make mistakes because they can’t correct GENEROUS Jed Kelly, who’s paying for it all. How could Sam afford to go to California without your money? And Leafsong provides your food whenever you ask, even if she’s bushed from working since five in the morning, because it was kind Jed Kelly who bought the Blue Belle. You’ve paid for every one of us. And now you’re still trying to buy me.’

  Jed stared at her, white faced. ‘That isn’t true. Any of it. And I am not buying you.’

  ‘Too right, you’re not. Because I can’t be bought. Not any more. I had to accept things before. Now I don’t.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Jed. And left.

  Scarlett watched her go, strong bodied, beautiful, dark hair flowing over the light tan shirt and 1930s green linen trousers as she strode down to the river. Jed, who had everything, who could buy everything she didn’t have.

  Including a sister. Jed, who had to be grateful to the Thompsons, to Tommy, to Matilda, had bought herself a little sister who had to be grateful to her. Always, and for everything.

  For despite all that she had just said, she had few choices. Whitlam might have made university free. He might have outlawed discrimination. But nature had discriminated against her. No law could change that.

  Jed was right. She needed Jed’s money to go to uni, even if her scholarship covered living at the Women’s College. A scholarship would not pay for taxis, or the physiotherapy that she’d need to pay for once she left Gibber’s Creek.

  An hour ago she had thought she was free. She’d been fooling herself. Accepting Jed’s charity to pretend she could be independent. And Jed . . . how could Jed do this to her?! She’d thought Jed trusted her. Admired her! And yet Jed had hired a private investigator to investigate her FRIEND! Had thrust her dependence at her. OF COURSE you need me. OF COURSE I’ll give you everything you want.

  But she DIDN’T want it! Didn’t want the flaming flat. Didn’t want Jed to keep helping her. She wanted to be free. To show Jed she COULD be free!

  She sat, clenching and unclenching her fists, watching Jed stride along the river till she vanished in the trees. She didn’t want to be there when Jed came back, much less stay on for months until she went to uni. Or till Jed delivered her to the flat she didn’t want.

  But what choice did she have, if she didn’t accept Jed’s help to go to uni? Back to River View? Or Overflow? Both would be charity.

  Without help — a lot of help — and a heck of a lot more education, the only job a girl in a wheelchair might manage to qualify for would be a typist. Not even a secretary — you needed legs to run errands. Nor would a job as a typist bring her the money needed to fit out a place where she could live with dignity.

  Her whole life had been spent with ramps or lifting bars provided for her. Her whole life suddenly seemed a prison of obligation, impossible to escape.

  The breeze from the window flickered the papers on the table. There was a letter on top, unanswered.

  She had accused Jed of buying her to be the sister, even the daughter, she didn’t have. But she was someone else’s daughter. Someone who had given her away, a long time ago, but who seemed to be clumsily trying to make amends now.

  Being helped by your family — your REAL family — wasn’t the same as accepting charity, was it? And the Taylors lived in Sydney, not even too far from the university. Maybe Mr Taylor . . . her father . . . could drop her there on his way to work. That’s what families did.

  Scarlett wheeled inside and picked up the letter, looked at the phone number, then wheeled out to the living room. She lifted the receiver and dialled.

  A man’s voice. She almost asked, ‘Dad?’ But no father had written to her. Only one person so far had claimed her.

  ‘Could I speak with Mrs Taylor, please? Tell her it’s Sc— Sharon.’

  ‘Sharon?’ The man’s voice held shock, and something more.

  And then the woman’s voice, eerily familiar from their last meeting. ‘Sharon? Is it really you?’

  ‘Yes. You . . . you said you wanted to meet me soon. Can you come down to Gibber’s Creek? Now?’

  A pause and then, ‘It’s quite a drive . . . Lunchtime tomorrow?’

  Excitement fizzed at the immediate acceptance. Mrs Taylor did want her! ‘Could we meet at the same café? It’s got a new name now, a sort of new name . . .’

  ‘I know where it is. Sharon, this is wonderful. I hoped . . . I’ll see you tomorrow . . .’ a pause, and then a carefully pronounced ‘. . . darling.’

  Scarlett put the receiver back in its cradle. ‘Darling.’

  She had been a fool. What else could her mother have done back in the 1950s with a child who couldn’t even lift her head? They’d told parents back then, ‘Don’t visit your children in hospital. Only let them come home from boarding school once a year. Your daughter must get used to her new life without you.’

  She was wanted. She had a family. She could have had one for the past two years if only her stupid pride hadn’t got in the way. And her excitement at living with Jed at Dribble, so much more romantic than a suburban Sydney home. An exotic sister who gave her all she wanted . . .

  Yes, she had been stupid. And the Taylors’ home was big enough for her. She had seen that in the photo: a standard three-bedroom house. She didn’t need much equipment now. A bar above her bed; a chair in a shower. Maybe a ramp up the back steps. Anyone could build a ramp. You just heaped up dirt and tamped it down and put down concrete. She had seen it done half a dozen times.

  The Taylors weren’t rich — she had seen her mother’s clothes, her car. But they had a house. And she didn’t eat much. And she’d have her scholarship, which would pay for putting in the lifting bar, and even taxis, if she didn’t have to pay rent because she was HOME.

  Tomorrow.

  The river glinted out the window. The river she had always known, its sullenness in the 1960s drought, its crashing belligerence in flood. The ground thrushes who sang that snakes were near. The termites that filled the air before the rain. The swallows who nested above the back door and dropped mud on you as you came inside . . .

  And Jed, who she did love, in spite of everything. And Leafsong and Nancy and Matilda and Matron Clancy and . . .

  But she would have to leave them all to go to uni anyway. And once she had a home — the home that she had been born to — she could come back here. Spend holidays in Gibber’s Creek. Work at the café. Begin ag
ain with Jed, as friends and equals . . .

  And now all she had to do was pack a bag and call Nancy and ask her to pick her up on her way to River View the next day, to drop her at the café. Nancy always left with the birds, long before Jed got up, at least when Sam wasn’t there.

  She could tell Nancy the bag was so she could stay with Leafsong for a few days now her exams were over. And if she kept her bedroom door shut when Jed came back, they needn’t talk at all, not until she was with her . . . her family, and she didn’t need Jed’s help ever again.

  Her life would change. All would be well.

  She did not try to analyse why she was crying.

  Chapter 77

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 11 November 1975

  According to an unnamed source, not far from the Gazette office, Prime Minister Whitlam intends to meet the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, today to formally request a double dissolution of parliament . . .

  RA ZACHARIA

  A lesser man would not have slept.

  Ra Zacharia was not a lesser man.

  But even so, he fasted instead of breakfasting with the small remnants of the Chosen, watching the dawn light, fragile as glass, the bright sun stroking each object in the Star Room.

  The world was . . . different. He was different. For the first time since his diagnosis even the shadow of the brain tumour that had once inhabited him had vanished. His body was no longer entirely his. His feet felt the earth, but were not part of it. Was it because the Elders were so close? Or because he had perfected himself so entirely that he was no longer planet-bound?

  He stroked the top of a chair. There was sensation, yet his body felt as if it had lifted across the universe, as if every wind of space blew through his body, and he controlled them all.

  He smiled, glorying in the light, the darkness, the light again as the universe spread throughout his mind. If he were already this, what would he be tonight?

  Who were the Elders? Where had they come from? How long had they been travelling? He’d had no way to ask them questions. Yet from that moment he had first been drawn to that starlit pulse he had known them, not just in the fibres of his flesh but in the reaching mind that soared across the universe. Whatever bodily shapes they had, they were like him, but more than him.

  By tonight place and time and body would have no meaning.

  At last he called Mark 23.

  The young man looked pale, and was blinking badly. Ra Zacharia had no need to hunt a smile for him this morning. By evening the young man would be healed.

  ‘Excited?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Of course.’ And yet the young man did not look excited. He seemed scared. Determined.

  Ra Zacharia felt his smile envelop all of Gibber’s Creek. ‘We each have our role today. Call the girl now.’

  ‘Her name is Scarlett.’

  ‘Call Scarlett now, before she has a chance to go out. Tell her you need her, urgently. That I will drive her here, to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Mark 23.

  The universe quivered. Ra Zacharia steadied himself, a hand on a chair. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’m not going to call her. You told her she has a choice.’

  ‘That was years ago! The foolish girl did not choose!’

  ‘She has chosen,’ said Mark stubbornly. ‘I promised I wouldn’t force her. And I won’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love her.’

  ‘For pity’s sake.’ Ra Zacharia hauled in every thread of steadiness across the stars. ‘If you love the girl, you want her to walk.’ Ra Zacharia was glad he had never given anyone a hint of what would happen then.

  ‘When the Elders come, she may decide she does want to walk. The whole world will see and change. But it has to be her choice.’

  ‘You have no conception —’ Ra Zacharia stopped. If he gave too much away, the boy would never do it. He had to think. Plan. Somehow, someway, he must force Mark 23 to bring the wheelchair girl. Or should he try to grab her himself?

  Not today! Today was for calmness, meditation, joy! Not scrabbling with a blinking boy who prattled about love. What did Mark 23 know of the true love between the stars?

  He felt the unity of stars and darkness slide away. He grabbed them, trying not to show the effort on his face. He must stay calm.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Reflect. Think how you will face the Elders and say, “I did not believe enough. I failed.”’ He turned his back as the young man left.

  Think! If Ra Zacharia had to grab the wheelchair girl — easily done, with such a small weak body, provided no one saw him, and why should they, way out there — why not take the boy as well?

  It might take an hour for anyone to realise he’d been taken during his afternoon sleep. Most of the staff took their lunch breaks then. Ra Zacharia had observed them well.

  Easy to overpower a wizened girl in a wheelchair. Possible, surely, to take the boy. Pursuit would not matter, for it could not find them in time. All he needed was an hour, for the Sacrifice.

  Ra Zacharia took a deep breath of stardust, sun power, light. And after the Sacrifice, the Elders would arrive.

  The universe was light and darkness; suns spinning into life and burning to a small crisp crust of death, or black holes swirling with energy that both gave and took.

  This was what the Elders would bring: death and life and energy, the breath that was the universe, that mortals could not understand.

  All would change. And at last, he would not be mortal. For the first time since the brain tumour showed him the face of death, he would be free.

  Chapter 78

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 11 November 1975

  Stalemate Continues in Canberra

  LEAFSONG

  Someone banged on the front door at seven am. Leafsong opened it, took one look at Scarlett’s face, put on the kettle, made toast, spread it with blackberry jam and took out the powdered ginger. Chocolate ginger hedgehog was the best mood lifter she knew, and it was quick to make: no bake. And Scarlett needed it.

  She listened as Scarlett poured out her story, the suffocating prison of Jed’s overwhelming generosity, the right to live her own life, how Jed had DARED to hire a private investigator, how she didn’t even TRUST her to be sensible, as she mixed smashed biscuits, sugar, cocoa, ginger and melted butter, pressing them into the tin, pouring on chocolate and ginger icing while the mix was still hot, so both would meld together, covering the tray with alfoil and putting it into the fridge so it would be set in half an hour.

  It would be needed.

  The hedgehog was ready on the plates in the glass case below the counter and Scarlett had eaten four pieces when the middle-aged woman came in at eleven am, looking a little like a nervous guinea pig, despite her freshly curled hair and recently applied lipstick. She wore what was probably her best dress, a floral print mini dress with lace at the collar.

  She approached the table where Scarlett sat, using its bulk to partially hide the wheelchair and her helpless legs dangling from it. The woman hesitated, then bent and hugged her, pressed a lipstick kiss to her cheek. ‘Sharon! It’s . . . it’s so good to see you.’

  ‘It’s good to see you . . .’ a pause, as if she tasted the word first ‘. . . Mum.’

  The woman smiled, more genuinely this time, and sat. Leafsong was ready with a pot of tea, the cups and milk jug already there and, once again, the Closed sign on the door.

  ‘I’m so glad you wanted to see me! I was afraid you were so angry about . . .’

  ‘About your leaving me at River View?’

  Mrs Taylor nodded. She had glanced at Leafsong, then glanced away, in a look Leafsong knew well. Ignore the unpleasant if you can.

  ‘I . . . I think you did what you had to do,’ said Scarlett. She took another hedgehog slice and nibbled it.

  Mrs Taylor mirrored her actions, then had a sip of tea and then another. The tea seemed to give her courage. ‘It turned out for the best though, didn’t it? Here you are, adopt
ed by a lovely rich family.’

  Scarlett put the hedgehog slice down.

  Mrs Taylor prattled on. ‘I can’t tell you how glad your father and I are for you. It’s like you won the lottery!’

  Can’t she see Scarlett’s face? thought Leafsong desperately. But the woman was one of those who never looked. Aggressive ignorance. Do not look at the distorted face of the girl who served your tea. Do not think of the baby you abandoned at the hospital. So very, very practised at not looking . . .

  ‘I thought you’d be too high and mighty to want to know us! But now I have my own little daughter again.’

  Scarlett didn’t speak. Her hands sat in her lap, to stop them trembling. ‘Yes. But I wondered . . . I wondered if I could come for a visit?’

  ‘Of course . . . darling.’ Again the slight hesitation on the word. ‘We’d like that more than anything. That lovely sister of yours can bring you, can she? There was an article about her in the Woman’s Day six months ago. It was such a surprise. I said to your father, “Look, that’s Sharon’s sister in Woman’s Day!” That sports car of hers! Your brother said a car like that must cost as much as your dad earns in two or three years! Tell you what, why don’t you come for your dad’s birthday dinner next week?’

  ‘I was thinking more of staying a bit longer.’

  Mrs Taylor laughed. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t like our house after the grand place you must live in now. And of course the wheelchair and all . . . Your father’s back isn’t up to lifting you, you know. But we could have Dad’s birthday dinner in the backyard. He loves a barbecue.’

  ‘I can lift myself.’

  Mrs Taylor didn’t hear. ‘That was really what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s . . . it’s a bit urgent, you see. It’s about your dad.’

  ‘He isn’t ill?’

  ‘Oh, no. Just had . . . a bit of . . . bad luck.’

  ‘What kind of bad luck?’

  ‘On the gee-gees. The horses. Always one for a flutter, your dad. But since he was laid off at the factory — well, he thought he had a system. He even won for a while. Of course he might come good again . . .’