Verna put the kettle on the stove and kept up a stream of light-hearted chatter as she took her Royal Doulton cups with the country roses design from the dresser. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, they were a wedding present from Alf’s mum and dad but I’ve never used them. I always kept them for best, but I’m beginning to wonder who I’m saving them for. So I reckon now’s as good a time to get them out as any.’
Kath nodded absentmindedly. She realised that Verna was trying to distract her, but she was too upset to respond.
Verna bustled about setting out shortbread biscuits on a plate, and poured their tea. As the steam rose from their cups and swirled towards the ceiling, Kath told her what the doctor had said.
‘That’s terrible,’ Verna said, shaking her head. ‘No wonder you’re upset. Isn’t there anything else they can do?’
Kath’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘Apparently not. I can’t bear to put him in a place like that, but I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Don’t give up hope, love,’ Verna said. ‘Sometimes help comes when we least expect it.’
‘It’ll certainly be unexpected,’ Kath sighed.
‘I’ve been wanting to ask you something,’ Verna said as they drank their tea. ‘Did you know that Miss McNulty got an anonymous note in her letterbox a few months ago?’
Kath shook her head. ‘What did it say?’
‘It was about Mr Emil, the foreign gentleman. She thinks you were the one who sent it.’
Kath’s eyes widened. ‘Me?’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘Why on earth would I be writing anonymous notes about that man, and to her of all people! I know she looks down on me, but this is going too far, accusing me of things like that. As if I didn’t have enough to think about!’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Verna said. ‘I knew it wasn’t you.’
Kath was fuming. ‘She’s got a nerve, spreading rumours about me. Why did she think it was me anyway?’
Verna shrugged. ‘Old people get funny ideas sometimes. Don’t take it so hard.’
But Kath wouldn’t be mollified. ‘She can’t go around accusing me of sending anonymous notes.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘Did that note have anything to do with the cops taking Mr Emil to the police station?’
Verna nodded.
‘So the old busybody must have given the note to the police. I bet she told them I’d written it too. So any day now they’ll be coming for me as well, to charge me with creating mischief or something like that. I’m going to go and give her a piece of my mind.’
Verna sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Without waiting to finish her tea, Kath thanked Verna and rushed out. A moment later she pushed open Maude McNulty’s gate, stormed up to the front door and pressed the doorbell. The white lace curtain over the front window fluttered and the old woman opened the door.
Kath thought she looked like one of the dried-up grey moths she sometimes found under the sofa.
‘Yes, what is it?’ Maude McNulty said in her querulous voice.
‘I have a bone to pick with you,’ Kath said.
‘What about?’
‘The anonymous note you took to the police.’
The old woman’s sunken eyes darted from side to side to make sure no one was listening.
‘You’d best come in then,’ she grumbled. ‘But don’t be long about it.’
Ignoring the fact that she wasn’t asked to sit down, Kath threw herself into one of the armchairs, ruffling the lace antimacassar on the back. Maude McNulty sat straight-backed on the edge of a wooden chair as though to indicate that she expected their conversation to be brief.
Kath came straight to the point. ‘What do you think you’re doing, telling people I sent you an anonymous note?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Never mind. The point is, I want to know why.’
Maude McNulty looked down and Kath saw that her eyelids were as crinkled as tissue paper. She started to explain about the torn page from the exercise book and the childish handwriting when Kath interrupted.
‘Well I don’t go round sending anonymous notes about my neighbours, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be sending them to you.’
Maude McNulty was fidgeting in her chair.
‘But if you thought I wrote it, why didn’t you just come and ask me? And what about Mr Emil? You know you got him arrested, don’t you?’
Kath was shocked at her own belligerence, but she couldn’t control herself. All her pent-up anger was pouring out. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough trouble? I’ve lost my job, my son is ill in hospital, and the doctor said he’ll never walk again.’
She hadn’t meant to say any of this, or to show any weakness in front of the heartless old witch, but it had just slipped out, and now Miss McNulty was staring at her like a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights on a country road.
Bidding her neighbour a hasty goodbye, Kath strode out, but her relief at venting her anger was short-lived. It had done nothing to resolve the real cause of her distress.
After Kath had left, Maude McNulty continued sitting there. No one had spoken to her like that in all her adult life, but she had made sure no one would ever have the opportunity to hurt her again the way they’d hurt her when she was young.
It hadn’t taken long for the other children to find out her father was the hangman, and they’d tormented her in the playground, chanting nasty things that made her cry. They never let her join in their games, and whenever they played that horrible game called Hangman, they’d point at her and giggle.
In the end, she had what the doctor described as a nervous breakdown. Thinking back, it struck her that, in a way, she’d been as paralysed then as Kath’s son was now. She never went back to school after that, and her mother taught her at home.
In spite of her limited education, she was bright enough to be admitted to a secretarial college and get a job in the public service. She was a quiet girl, not pretty, but neat and well turned out, in her high-necked blouses with the leg-of-mutton sleeves that were fashionable at the time, and her thick brown hair coiled on top of her head. Unlike the other girls, she didn’t giggle and whisper about the boys in the office, but kept her head down and took dictation without a single spelling mistake or misplaced comma.
She was twenty-two when she caught the eye of the second in charge of her department. She couldn’t believe her luck when this dashing man, with his luxuriant moustache and celluloid collar above his dark suit jacket, singled her out. When they walked out together through Centennial Park on Sunday afternoons, her arm through his, she felt she was walking on air. She had never imagined she could be so happy. They spoke of getting married, and he was about to come and ask for her hand when someone took him aside and told him about her father’s occupation. After that, he made lame excuses about being too busy to see her and got himself transferred to another department.
She suffered another breakdown, more serious than the first, and it took many years before she felt strong enough to go out by herself or hold down a job, and when she did, she kept to herself and didn’t mix with any of her workmates. She wasn’t going to be rejected again.
When her parents died and left her the cottage at the top of the cliff at Ben Buckler, she preferred to let it go to rack and ruin than to admit she had any connection with it. She didn’t mind that some people thought Nosey’s cottage was haunted. As far as she was concerned, it was.
She hadn’t thought about the past in a long time, and she sat in the dark with her memories. She glanced at the calendar and realised it was her birthday. She had just turned ninety-two, and no one knew or cared.
Chapter 30
Kath sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair in Dr Tennyson Wilkie’s waiting room clasping and unclasping her hands. She looked at the sketches on the wall depicting characters from children’s stories and decided they must have been pasted onto the cardboard backing a long time ago because mos
t of them were coming away at the corners. In between Alice in Wonderland and Peter Rabbit, Christopher Robin was kneeling at the foot of his bed, hands clasped in prayer. An apt image, Kath thought, in a place where people often prayed for their children’s recovery.
She wondered how doctors coped when they had to give parents bad news about their children. It was sad to think how quickly people hardened their hearts to the tragedies of others. Even where their own family was concerned. Her sister, who lived in the country, was run off her feet looking after the property and her large family and had no time for Kath. Her brothers had joined the navy, probably to escape from the responsibilities of everyday life. Apart from exchanging Christmas cards, they had little contact. And then there was Gran, hard and unforgiving.
Kath looked up when she heard a meek voice saying, ‘Thank you, doctor.’ The door opened and a thin woman with downcast eyes came out, blowing her nose into a handkerchief patterned with rosebuds.
As soon as Kath felt Dr Wilkie’s clinical gaze on her face, her composure faltered, and a swarm of butterflies fluttered wildly inside her stomach.
‘I came to thank you for everything you’ve done for Meggsie now that he’s leaving the hospital.’ She spoke quickly to get it over with.
He tamped his cigarette in the glass ashtray and nodded. ‘You’ve made the right decision. As I told you, the home for crippled children is the best place for him.’
She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘But I’m not putting him in there. I’m taking him home.’
He stared at her, at first in astonishment, and then with disapproval. ‘I see,’ he said in a tone that showed he was affronted by her defiance. ‘I can only repeat what I told you before: for the boy’s sake, for yours and that of your family, he should be in a home for crippled children where he can be looked after properly.’
Her heart was beating fast, but she stood her ground. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m his mother and I feel in my heart that I’m doing the right thing.’
Dr Wilkie shrugged, and his voice was cold and dry. ‘What you’re doing is not only foolhardy, it’s against the boy’s best interests, and you’ll regret it. But you’ve decided to ignore my advice, so I have nothing more to say to you. Good day.’
As Kath walked from the surgery, her knees were wobbling so much that she had to lean against a wall to steady herself. She didn’t know how she’d found the courage to confront this eminent specialist and tell him she was about to ignore his advice. Nor did she understand how she’d come to this unexpected decision after having convinced herself that it was impossible. Perhaps she was being foolhardy in allowing her heart to rule her head, and perhaps she’d come to regret her impulsive decision, but her instinct as a mother had triumphed over all other considerations.
Meggsie cheered when his mum told him she was taking him home. ‘Yippee! This is the best day of my life,’ he exulted.
He told Nurse Cecily that he felt like Edmond Dantès when he’d finally tunnelled his way out of his prison in the Chateau d’If.
‘Keep the book. Whenever things get you down, just think about Edmond Dantès and remember that nothing is impossible,’ she said, and gave him a hug. ‘And don’t forget, one of these days I expect to see you walk in through that door.’
Nurse Cecily was the only one he would miss. He certainly wasn’t sorry to see the last of Sister Danglars. He couldn’t believe his eyes when his mum had shown him Ted’s article, and he’d read it over and over again. Now everyone knew what a rotten bully she was. When, a few days after the article appeared, she had been moved to another ward, Meggsie was jubilant.
He often went over the sequence of events in his mind, proud that he’d played such a big part in getting rid of her. This was how Edmond Dantès must have felt when he finally got his revenge. And it had all happened because he’d asked his mother to see Betty, and she’d talked to Mrs Browning, who had told Ted, who had written the article which had made so many people send in money for Betty’s mother. And Betty had been transferred to a hospital for children who were getting better. But he was the one who’d started the ball rolling. Then he thought about the note he’d written, which had got Mr Emil into so much trouble, and he didn’t feel proud of himself any more. It took only one person to make trouble for others, but a lot of people were needed to put things right.
The next day, as the ambulance sped him away from the hospital, Meggsie thought he’d burst with impatience. He couldn’t wait to be home again, in his own bed, seeing his brothers and Hanny. But in spite of his elation, he felt a nagging sense of guilt. He didn’t deserve this lucky break. He hadn’t told his mother about the night he’d sneaked out to spy on Mr Emil, or about the note he and Hanny had written and slipped into Miss McNulty’s letterbox. His mother didn’t know, but God did, and that’s why He’d struck him down with infantile paralysis.
Chapter 31
The rare sound of a car engine in Wattle Street made Emil look out of his window in time to see the ambulance pull up next door. He watched as the ambulance officers jumped out, opened the back door and carried the red-headed boy out on a stretcher. The mother walked beside them, carrying her worn leather bag in one hand and a small brown Globite case in the other.
Emil had never forgotten Kath’s kindness the day of the bonfire, when the sole of his shoe had come unstuck, but that had made her treachery all the more difficult to understand. Her son must have told her what he’d seen that night, but why had she gone behind his back to report him, when she could have just asked him what he was doing? She was the only person he’d met in Sydney he felt he could trust, but he’d obviously been wrong about her.
It had taken him several weeks to get over the shock of being interrogated and humiliated at the police station, but he’d learned his lesson. From now on, he wouldn’t trust anyone. These people smiled to your face but you never knew what they were thinking. At least the old battleaxe across the road made her dislike of foreigners quite clear, but the others were hypocrites. Just the day before when he was in Attwaters, he’d seen the white-haired woman from across the road watching him. He could tell she wanted to come over and start talking, probably so she’d have something to gossip about.
He unwrapped the material he’d bought in Attwaters that day, and spent a long time looking at the two lengths of satin, lost in thought. With a sigh he opened one of the coffins and tried draping the blue satin inside it in various ways. When he was satisfied that he’d figured out how to line the coffin, he cut a small piece of the fabric. Then he took a brown paper bag from under the table and pulled out a thick wad of cottonwool, letting his hands luxuriate in its fluffy softness before he spread it on the base of the coffin. When the cottonwool was evenly spread, he tucked the blue satin around it like an eiderdown cover. Next, he filled the small offcut with cotton wool, shaped it into a pillow and placed it on top of the eiderdown, patting it down to make sure there were no lumps.
When the first coffin resembled a cosy little bed, he repeated the same procedure with the pale pink satin. When both coffins were finished, he lit two candles and sat in front of them for a long time, his head in his hands, harsh sobs escaping from his throat.
If he still believed in anything, he would have said it was the prayer they used to recite for the dead, in the days when God still existed. In those days he’d regarded God as a kind of benevolent elderly relative who lived far away but watched out for you. He hadn’t needed God back then. As the Great Novello, the legendary magician of Berlin, he’d created his own world and made his own rules. People spoke about him in hushed tones, wondering whether they had really seen the miraculous feats he performed in front of their eyes. All over Europe people queued to see him, but his biggest following was in his own country. And that was his salvation as well as his downfall.
Not satisfied with tricks other magicians performed, he perfected acts that left his audiences open-mouthed. He thrilled them with the substitution trunk, the bullet-catch trick, and the buzz-s
aw illusion. Death sat constantly on his shoulder but he didn’t see its face. Not yet.
‘You think people come to see how clever you are,’ an old magician once told him with a mocking smile. ‘But you’re wrong. They come to see you fail. Sometimes to see you die.’
At the time Emil had been shocked at the old man’s cynicism, but these days he no longer had any trouble believing in the dark side of human nature.
Like him, the old magician was Jewish, and that’s when Emil realised that magic and Judaism were somehow connected, and that he was part of an ancient tradition. Back in the days of the Old Testament, the Jews had survived by performing magic tricks.
How else could you explain Moses walking across the Red Sea, or Aaron’s rod turning into a serpent and swallowing up the serpents of the Egyptians? Like all magicians, Moses had made use of natural phenomena to produce what to the gullible appeared to be magic effects. In the New Testament another Jew had seduced his simple followers with a series of magic tricks like walking on water, turning water into wine and producing the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
You could win everyone over with magic. Lurking in the depths of human nature, concealed by a gossamer-fine layer of sophistication, education and rationalism, lay a primitive belief in the supernatural, and a childlike willingness to believe in the occult, and that was what Emil exploited, exulting in the power it gave him.
But Emil had overestimated his power. When Hitler began waging his war against the Jews, Emil had thought himself immune. His father had fought for Germany during the First World War and had been awarded the Iron Cross. Kristallnacht had shocked Emil, but he regarded it as an aberration, a hate crime committed by a group of brown-shirted thugs who were out of control. He thought that Dachau was a prison for society’s undesirable elements, that the Nuremberg laws would never work, and that the Nazis were a flash in the pan and would soon be ousted. In any case, being Jewish was an accident of birth, and he and his wife Gisela were patriotic citizens, even more German than Hitler himself, who was Austrian.
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