The Science of Appearances

by Jacinta Halloran

  ‘Swim? In my underthings? Mary Quinn, you do make me laugh. But perhaps I’ll duck out and get a bit of breeze.’

  Mary waits by the oven while Molly takes a breather and a nip of something from the flask she stashes in the tea-towel drawer.

  When the kiosk has closed for the evening, the four of them sit to sore feet and leftovers. Mary makes fresh tea and Eric, Tom’s father, pours beer for them all. ‘Just half a glass for you, Miss Mary.’

  Tom counts the takings, consults his notebook and sticks his pencil behind his ear. ‘We’re up three pounds five shillings on last Sunday.’

  Eric raises his glass to that. ‘It’s the beer that brings them.’

  ‘Good,’ says Molly. ‘That means I can stop making scones.’

  Eric squeezes her hand. ‘No love, don’t do that. We’d be nowhere without your baking.’ As if to demonstrate, he smears a scone with butter and takes a savage bite.

  Mary looks out to sea. The setting sun spills pink onto the water, and a flock of gulls reels — one last dip and turn before bedtime. The beer slides sweetly down her throat. If she concentrates, she can feel the kiosk sway as the water laps at its footings. She’s grand, light, deep and slow: time is hers to bend; anything is possible.

  Tom’s at the jukebox. ‘Play something special,’ she calls to him. He shakes his head at her and Perry Como begins to sing ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’.

  He waltzes around the room. ‘This is for you, Mary, you sweet old thing.’

  She kicks off her shoes and they dance together. Tom breathes into her ear. Oh, she knows she owes him her freedom, her new, sweet life, but her heart belongs to Robbie. Always Robbie.

  Molly Jessop flows through this world like the Campaspe in summer, running brown and slow, picking up sticks and discarding them without the slightest swirl or eddy. Unruffled, that’s what Molly is. Broadminded. Either that, or she hasn’t the tiniest speck of curiosity. ‘What are you doing all afternoon in your bedroom with that boy?’ Or, ‘If your poor mother knew!’ There’s none of that whining from Molly. Instead she says, ‘That Robbie’s a handsome boy,’ and, even better, ‘You two make a very nice couple.’

  ‘Have you thought of writing to your mum?’ asks Molly, as they make sausage rolls for the weekend ahead. ‘Let her know what you’re up to?’

  Mary squeezes mince between her fingers, picks up a handful and squeezes again. ‘She doesn’t care what happens to me.’

  ‘That’s not true, love. It might sometimes feel that way, but she’ll be worried sick about you. Any mother would be.’

  The thought of her mother brings on a scooped-out, sickly emptiness. It begins behind her breastbone and spreads like spilled milk, and she has to go to the bathroom and splash water on her face. She imagines Ellen in the presbytery, climbing those grand stairs in her tired hat and coat, sitting on the edge of a chair in Father Clancy’s study.

  ‘Mary’s a wicked girl,’ says the priest.

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ says her mother in her tired old hat.

  There’s a rap at the door and a jingle of keys. Miss Doherty brings them tea on a tray; it’s hot and strong and laced ever so lightly with poison. It’s really meant for Father Clancy. Still, how can she prevent her mother from taking a sip or two?

  ~

  A missing persons advertisement in The Argus costs him a pound three shillings. Eager to know the whereabouts of Mary Elizabeth Quinn, formerly of Kyneton …

  The only photograph he has of Mary is one taken by Joan Corrigan’s mother in the Corrigans’ backyard, while Mary was still at school. Joan’s in the picture too, her arm around Mary’s waist. To the desk sergeant at the Coburg police station, he says, ‘It was taken three years ago. She’s the one on the left.’

  ‘Why’d she run away?’ the copper asks.

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Trouble at home? A boyfriend?’

  ‘No. Nothing we knew about.’

  ‘How d’you know she came to Melbourne?’

  ‘The Kyneton stationmaster saw her take the Melbourne train. And we’ve had a letter. It was postmarked St Kilda.’

  ‘St Kilda? Not the best place for a young girl to hang about. Have you been there yourself? Taken a look around?’

  ‘Not yet. I only got here yesterday.’

  ‘There are a lot of people reported missing,’ the sergeant says, ‘especially young women. We’ll do what we can, but I suggest you take a trip down there yourself and ask around.’ He dangles the photograph, his thumb over Mary’s face. ‘Can we keep this?’

  ‘It’s the only one I have.’

  ‘Get some copies. You have a negative?’ He pushes back his chair, the interview done. ‘You can fill out a missing persons report and we’ll send it over to the St Kilda station. But let me say again: don’t get your hopes up. A lot of missing people are missing for a reason, if you get my drift. They don’t want to be found.’

  After leaving the police station, he boards a tram to St Kilda. It’s Sunday, and Dot and Bert’s son, Trevor, is coming to lunch with his wife and baby. Dom had made his excuses, concocting some story about a university welcoming barbeque, out of respect, or so he tells himself, for Dot’s nerves. The true story — a missing sister, perhaps destitute in St Kilda — would be too stimulating for Dot, to say nothing of the quivering speculations he’d have to endure. The true story … could destitution really be the theme of Mary’s life? Not the Mary he remembers. He thinks of her singing in the choir at the front of the classroom, her voice rising above the rest so that he put his head between his hands, shamed by her enthusiasm. She’ll have made something of herself. If he’s found the determination to get this far, then why not she, who was always the more determined of them both?

  He leaves the tram in Fitzroy Street and walks towards the sea. The clouds of morning have cleared, and through the crowds on the footpath he catches glimpses of palm trees and a swathe of silver water. To think that land’s edge is a few blocks away. He picks up his pace, eager to reach it, but at the lavish George Hotel he pauses. Could Mary work in a hotel? The place is full of them — he’s passed at least three already. She’d be fed up to the back teeth with cleaning; still, he could see her flitting around in one of these grand old places with a feather duster in her hand.

  At the hotel reception desk, which is sandwiched between two life-sized black plaster swans, he asks unsteadily, ‘Do you know of a Mary Quinn? I’m looking for her. She’s my sister.’ Half his life in those words.

  The man at the desk arches an eyebrow. ‘Mary Quinn?’ He calls across the foyer to an older woman, dressed in thick stockings and a fur, reading in an armchair. ‘Hattie, do we have a Mary Quinn here? She’s not that girl that sometimes comes in with Clive?’ The woman considers the possibility and shakes her head. ‘There, we don’t, then. Hattie’s lived in this hotel for thirty-five years and she knows everyone, even the maids.’ He leans on his elbows, spreading long yellowed fingers, laden with glittering rings. The wave of his hair is the colour of apricot jam, but at his scalp it’s an ordinary, thinning grey. ‘Of course, your sister might use another name. You know, an alias. A lot of people do around here.’

  On this day of bright sunshine and southerly breezes, St Kilda seems more wholesome than the sergeant had led him to believe. Shirtsleeves rolled, he sits on a stone wall and takes in the sea: the mesmerising movement of the water, the caps of white that form and dissolve with each wave. He lies with his head cradled in his hands, watching babies squeal at the water’s edge, children splashing in the shallows, couples stealing kisses in the deep. He scans the water for a familiar dark head, and listens for Mary’s laugh. He takes a turn of the sea baths, avoiding the eyes of the blokes who lie stark naked, tanning themselves on the concrete. Jesus, he hopes Mary hasn’t been exposed to that.

  ‘Mary Quinn,’ he says, at the ticket booth at St Mori
tz ice rink. ‘Dark hair, about so high?’

  The girl winks at him through the hole in the glass. ‘Your twin, you say? Is she as nice-looking as you?’

  Despondent, he retraces his steps to the beach and wanders onto the pier, where a seal has just finished entertaining a crowd. A shiny-faced bloke, about his age, proffers a cap while the seal — no, it’s a sea lion — dives into the water. For a moment he waits, his eyes fixed to the spot where the sea lion has vanished, but the creature doesn’t return.

  Back in his Rose Street bungalow, he writes to his mother: So far no news of Mary. I’ve put in a police report and have been to St Kilda and asked around. This early burst of activity makes for a comforting letter, but what will he write if the weeks pass without any news of her?

  He puts aside his pen and turns to the botany book his mother bought, idly thumbing the pages. Mary is cleaved from him now. In the quiet of the bungalow she returns to him, in her bed at home, one arm escaped from the blankets. In his mind he puts his fingers to her pulse, feeling the blood ebb and flow. Surely he’d know if she were dead. There’d be a formal means of discovery: a police investigation that would lead back to his mother and so to him. But he’d know, wouldn’t he, in other ways — by the tenor of his dreams, and the heaviness of his heart on waking?

  As he kicks off his shoes in preparation for bed, a fine shower of sand falls to the floor. He hopes Mary’s strolled along the very same beach. Dear God, let her be happy. Let her be safe, above all.

  9

  All the nerves Dominic’s ever felt come back to plague him on that first day. The letter, received weeks ago, hasn’t helped to ease them. Please report to the Botany School lecture theatre at 9.00 am on Monday the 19th of February 1951, where you will be advised about course subjects. Compulsory first-year subjects are as follows: plant pathology, soil science, crop agronomy, weed and pesticide science, microbiology …

  He leaves the house in Rose Street at eight o’clock. Dot stands at the front door in her quilted dressing gown, already flushed with heat. ‘It’s going to be a scorcher,’ she says in a tremulous voice, and he again hears his mother’s words: She’s drawn to the sensational.

  There are no spare seats when he mounts the tram at Bell Street. By the time he gets to the university he can barely breathe, lest the expansion of his chest send someone flying out the door. Men ride the running boards and squeeze into the unused driver’s cabin while the conductor, unable to reach the transgressors, yells at them from an open window. He leaves his exit manoeuvring until it’s too late, and has to run back from the next stop at Peel Street, so he’s in a sweat by the time he reaches the campus. Removing his jacket, he washes his face at an outside tap, taking care not to splash his shirt.

  All his senses register the foreign nature of the place: the sulphurous odour of the dark corridor; the chill of the solemn lecture hall, its tiered wooden seats rising above him so that as he climbs the stairs to reach a middle row he finds himself breathing hard. The echoes of tapping heels, the squeak of lowering seats, the growing murmur of conversations — each sound seems amplified, distorted. One hundred and fifty people his age and he doesn’t know one of them. At home he couldn’t go anywhere without a chorus of hellos. All over town, a greeting from one to another, countless permutations and combinations of greetings, the background hum of daily life. He took it for granted. Now he feels its absence, more than ever on this day when everything is beginning, everything new.

  He spies a spare seat at the end of a row. ‘Is this free?’ he asks the redheaded bloke next to it, hearing his voice come out faltering and hoarse.

  ‘It’s yours,’ the redhead says. He extends his hand. ‘John Tibble.’

  ‘Dominic Quinn.’ They shake.

  ‘Quinn? You’re a Catholic then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A Newman fellow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not Ormond, surely? They wouldn’t let you in.’

  ‘No. I’m staying in Coburg.’

  ‘The Bluestone College?’

  Dom hasn’t a clue. ‘I’m sorry —’

  Tibble nudges him encouragingly. ‘You know, Pentridge Prison.’

  The penny drops. ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Trying to.’

  Distraction arrives in the white-coated form of Professor Taylor, the head of the School of Botany, a small man with a neat grey beard and round, rimless glasses. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announces. ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of plants. Let us begin with the Krebs cycle.’ A slide is projected onto the screen, showing an endless circle of chemical compounds punctuated with arrows, and carbon and oxygen molecules in head-spinning array. There’s a rustle of paper, a collective sinking of hearts — this, on the very first morning! The slide fades from view. ‘My little joke,’ the professor says. ‘You won’t be needing that until next year. Forewarned is forearmed, however.’

  The lecture turns out to be nothing more than a list of the school’s achievements, rhapsodies on the capacities of the new electron microscope, the names of PhD candidates and their fields of research. The hall is stuffy. Tibble stretches his long limbs and jiggles his feet. I’d rather be at Sorrento, he scrawls across his open notebook, glancing at the girl next to him and edging it her way. So would I, she writes underneath. She smiles across Tibble at Dom. Is he expected to join in? He takes up his pen. I’d rather be anywhere than here, he scrawls on Tibble’s page. It isn’t true, but circumstances dictate.

  When the lecture is over, the three of them file out and congregate in the corridor. The girl’s name is Elspeth. Tibble promises to look for her at lunchtime. ‘She’s a goer,’ Tibble says when she’s wandered away. ‘Sadly I think the calf eyes were for you, Quinn.’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’ Not the eyes, particularly, but he’d seen the breasts: full, honed to points in her flash brassiere.

  ‘You did so,’ Tibble insists. ‘You’re just playing it cool, and you’re right, you know. Got to survey the field first. No point in rushing into anything. We’re at university, after all. Gorgeous women everywhere.’

  They leave the building by the east door and emerge into a walled and well-tended garden. An octagonal tower in the centre of the lawn pricks in Dom the memory of Robbie Cameron’s school, the towers and buttresses that he’d imagined as Robbie talked. Tibble lights a cigarette. ‘Coburg,’ he says. ‘That’s a bit of a hike. What’re you doing out there?’

  ‘Boarding, with some people called Neville.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun.’ Tibble blows a smoke ring and spears it with a freckled finger.

  ‘I’m not there for fun. Their bungalow costs one pound six a week, breakfast and dinner included.’

  He tells Tibble about his father, and Nuala Egan’s endowment — a shortened version of events, already rehearsed for times such as this. It’s his life writ short, all the pain excised, so that what remains is a kind of bland reportage. He doesn’t mention Mary.

  Tibble’s the youngest of three, Dom learns. He’s living at home, in a place called Camberwell. ‘Dead as a doornail. Can’t wait to move out, but no dosh at present. The olds keep me on a tight leash. I won’t be shouting a round very often, just so you know.’

  Dominic nods. They have that in common, at least.

  He and Tibble follow the crowds to Union House. In the foyer, the clubs and societies have set up their banners and tables. They see Elspeth beside the rowing club banner, surrounded by a posse of broad-shouldered blokes. ‘Look at that,’ Tibble mutters. ‘She prefers the brawny type.’

  ‘Want to look round with me?’ Dom asks, by way of distraction.

  Tibble’s not convinced. ‘I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would, et cetera.’

  ‘How about the drama society?’ He can’t think of anything worse, but for Tibble’s sake he takes a pamphlet from their table. ‘A lot of girls
seem to take part’ — he opens the pamphlet to a photograph and waves it in Tibble’s face — ‘mostly in various states of undress.’

  Tibble grins. ‘Where do I sign?’

  At the next table, Dom’s cornered by a type in a bowtie. ‘Charles Reed-Hamilton, president of the debating society.’ A hand is rapidly extended. ‘You?’

  ‘Dominic Quinn.’

  ‘Quinn? You’re a Mick then.’

  ‘Guilty as charged.’

  ‘Interested in debating?’

  ‘No experience of it.’

  ‘Sign up anyway. You’ll be joining the Newman Society?’

  Dominic smiles. Catholic equals Newman, it seems. ‘Is it compulsory?’

  ‘Practically. A man’s got to be part of something. It’s either sticking with your own — Newman or Labor — or going across to the Communists.’

  Dominic hesitates. He doesn’t believe a Communist has ever set foot in Kyneton; still, he knows about the Party. No one could fail to know, especially since Korea. The Commies are detested at home, just as much as Archbishop Mannix is revered. Revered, that is, by the Catholics of the town: the Protestants are for the Country Party. He knows exactly where his mother stands, and has always presumed that he stands alongside her. But here in the city, on campus — two worlds removed from home — he needs to test the waters. ‘Are you a Party member?’ he ventures.

  ‘Christ, no! They’re a rabble.’ Hamilton-Reed strikes the table with a debater’s fist. ‘Look, they’re completely misguided. First they’re all for Tito, then they’re against him — but that’s old news. They know Stalin’s on the nose but they won’t admit it. The Party’s on the wane. You know they’re contesting Menzies’ dissolution bill? Who knows, they might win the day in court, but it’ll be a hollow victory. Don’t go over, that’s my advice. Forget the image of the university radical: stick with your own lot. The Micks are doing all right for themselves these days, especially in the law. Look at that Santamaria bloke, a brilliant debater. What are you studying?’