Antarctica

by Claire Keegan

  Betty becomes concerned about the garden. Strong winds have shaken the rose bushes, scattered the blooms across the gravel, and Betty, picking them up, feels sorry and strokes the dusky-pink petals, smooth as eyelids in her fingers. There are greenfly on the leaves; they are spotted and drowsy. She has been too busy with domestic chores to tend her garden.

  She is standing there, thinking about her poor flowers, when Edward approaches her. Elderberry blossoms are being cast about like confetti in the wind; a light drizzle is falling from a sky of fragmented, greyish cloud.

  ‘Aunt Betty?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who will own this place when you die?’

  She’s shocked. The words are like a hard, stinging slap.

  ‘Why? I –’ She can’t think of anything to say.

  Edward is standing there looking at her with his hands in the pockets of his linen trousers that are almost impossible to iron. She feels the sudden threat of tears, backs away from him.

  ‘Go inside and help your mother!’ she barks, but he does not move: he just stands there looking into her eyes. His eyes are narrow and blue. She retreats, walks through the ruined garden, down the avenue, and takes refuge in the woods where she cannot be seen. She sits on a damp, mossy stone under the swaying trees for a long time, thinking.

  For the first time since her father’s death she gives in to a flood of warm, salty tears. Things come back to her: she sees herself at Christmas time wringing turkeys’ necks, a mound of feathers at her feet; as a child running in to warm her hands at the fire and running out again, hearing her mother say, ‘She’s such a hardy little girl.’ Her mother going out to the meadow, then laid out so unexpectedly, rosary beads entwined between her fingers. She sees Louisa in a grey suit leaving on the boat to England, coming back with a wealthy husband, pictures of babies in christening robes; her father taking pride in his grandson. She remembers Cyril Dawe sitting under the hawthorn in autumn with his arms around her, holding her tight as if he was afraid she would get away. How he reached down and took a stone from under her, an act of tenderness. All her life she’d worked, she’d done the right things, but was it right? She sees herself stooping to pick up the pieces of a china plate her father broke in temper. Is this what she’s become? A woman with broken plates? Is that all?

  It seems to her now that there is nothing new under the sun. Edward thinks he’ll step into her shoes, just as she stepped into her mother’s. Inheritance is not renewal. More than anything, it keeps everything the same. All that is left, all that’s sensible, is to clutch on to what is hers by right. Nothing shall ever stop her.

  It is getting dark. How long has she been away? She walks up between the trees. She pacifies herself by concluding that it is only a matter of time before Louisa leaves. The children will have to be back to attend school in a fortnight’s time. Come September, Betty will be able to get a good night’s sleep, listen to the wireless, get rid of the dog hairs, cook when and what she likes, not have those awful children asking her what will happen when she dies.

  When Betty arrives home, Louisa has spread a piece of blue cotton on the parlour floor, is putting an edge on her dressmaker’s scissors with the file Betty keeps for sharpening the knives.

  ‘I was thinking we could make some new curtains for the bathroom. Those ones you have are ancient,’ she says. She puts the blade to the edge of the fabric and begins to cut.

  ‘Do as you please,’ Betty says, and goes upstairs to lie down.

  *

  The weather does not take up in mid-August. Huge grey clouds provide a sullen parchment overhead. Frogs crawl in under the door on rainy nights, and Betty finds it almost impossible to get the clothes dry. She hangs them on a clothes-horse round the Aga, lights the parlour fire, but a down-draught pushes black smoke into the room. She watches the bees robbing pollen from her crimson flowers outside the door, and counts the days.

  She gets a lift into town with the insurance man and checks the balance in her bank account. Her money for August and September is used up. She takes money set aside for October and becomes imaginative with meals.

  She is frying pancakes for tea one evening, the fat spattering lightly out on the draining board. The children are outside. The goslings have tried to follow the goose down the steps outside the front door, but their legs aren’t long enough. They have fallen on their backs, their legs paddling the air. Ruth and Edward are turning them right-side-up with a long stick while the goose hisses at them and flaps her wings.

  Louisa is sitting up next to the Aga with a blanket round her shoulders.

  ‘When will Stanley be coming?’ Betty asks. She takes an enamel plate from the gas oven.

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘You can’t say or you don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The children will have to be back in school in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Well do you think he’ll come before then?’ Betty says, and accidentally pours too much pancake batter into the pan.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She watches the heat dimpling the edges of the batter, wondering how she’ll turn it. ‘You’ve left Stanley.’

  ‘Those pancakes smell nice.’

  ‘You’ve left Stanley and you think you can stay here.’

  ‘Would you like me to set the table?’

  ‘Do you know that’s the first time you’ve asked that since you arrived?’ Betty has turned to face her.

  ‘Is it? Edward! Ruth! Come on in for your tea!’

  ‘Louisa!’

  ‘I have a right to be here. It’s in Daddy’s will.’

  Ruth runs in.

  ‘Wash your hands,’ Louisa says.

  ‘I thought you said it was ready?’ Ruth says, staring at the empty table.

  ‘It will be, love. Soon.’

  *

  Louisa gets out of the kitchen that evening. She builds a small fire in the parlour, sits in the big armchair and starts reading War and Peace. Betty goes out to milk the cow. She feels a strange soothing mood of crystal clarity descend. It is all beginning to make sense. When she comes back inside, Louisa has taken a bath. She is sitting in front of the fireplace with her back to Betty, rubbing cold cream into her neck. Her hair is wrapped turban-like in a towel. Two glasses on the mantel are filled to the brim with vodka.

  ‘Are the children in bed?’

  ‘Yes,’ Louisa says.

  She hands a glass of vodka to Betty, as a peace-offering, Betty supposes. They sip in silence while the light drains out of the day.

  ‘Let me do your hair,’ says Betty suddenly. She goes upstairs for the comb. When she comes back, Louisa is sitting in front of the overmantel looking into the mirror.

  Betty takes the comb from her apron pocket, gently removes the towel from Louisa’s head and begins to disentangle the knots in her hair. It is waist-length, smelling strangely of fern and fruit.

  ‘Nice shampoo.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Moonlight begins to shine brazenly through the French window. They can hear Edward snoring in the big room above their heads.

  Betty pulls the comb’s teeth through the damp, gold strands.

  ‘It’s like old times,’ Louisa says. ‘I wish I could go back. Do you ever wish that?’

  ‘No. I’d just do the same things,’ Betty says.

  ‘Yes. You’re the clever one.’

  ‘Clever?’

  ‘Poor old Betty, slaving away. You got what you wanted.’

  ‘Didn’t you? A husband, children, a nice house. Father was no picnic.’

  A silence falls. The room seems unbearably quiet. Betty has been so busy, she has forgotten to wind the grandfather clock. A slice of winterish air slides in under the door.

  ‘There are no satin curtains,’ Betty says.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘The dishwasher, the tumble drye
r. You made it up. It’s all made up.’

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  Louisa is still admiring herself in the overmantel. She sits there like someone drugged, who cannot take her eyes off her reflection. She won’t meet Betty’s eyes in the mirror. She doesn’t care that Betty did without, sent pound notes to her children, carried buckets through the yard, threw over a chance of marriage, spread dung and washed her father’s underpants for decades. She believes she can come and live here, encroach on Betty’s ground, have her running around like a slave after her and her young family till the end of her days.

  Betty reaches into her apron pocket. If Louisa feels the cold, high up on her neck, she doesn’t react. She does not see the gleam of metal, the blades newly sharpened by her own hand. Betty holds the scissors, makes one swift cut. It only takes a second. Betty has great strength in her hands. She is still holding the scissors when Louisa, sensing the difference, sees her hair on the carpet.

  Louisa is screaming and saying things, half-truths. Something about greed and a big house all to herself and having not an ounce of sympathy. But Betty isn’t listening any more.

  Louisa cries. She cries all night, while she packs, and all morning as she leads the children and the dog from the house. Betty says nothing. She just stands in the doorway looking out at the fine blue morning and smiles her terrible smile.

  Louisa looks nothing without her hair.

  A Scent of Winter

  Whenever he thought about it afterwards, Hanson never could say why he took the kids and the young nanny down to Greer’s that Sunday. Greer was in a bad way, deep in something Hanson shouldn’t have been next or near to. But the fact of the matter was he did go. And he did take the children.

  It was a hot fall day, but the evening wind had about it the scent of winter. It blew down casually from the North and shook summer from the trees. Hanson left his wife, Lily, heavy with their third child, sleeping on the couch. He did not want to wake her, so he left a note: ‘Gone to Greer’s, be back soon’, with kisses, xed in pencil. He stuck it to the refrigerator door with a magnet.

  Hanson took it easy, drove with the windows down. A smell of burnt leaves, smoke from a fire, and something else too, like burnt flesh, wafted into the station wagon. It made Hanson uneasy; maybe it was some farmer burning a dead sheep. The boy whined and the nanny put her arm around him, read a story from a picture book as they drove. When Hanson slowed at a steel gate, the nanny took her cue, got out and opened it, and fastened it behind them. They turned down the long, dirt road, where a path of green weeds grew up between the tyre marks. They passed a brick shed with a heavy, bolted door, quarter horses grazing inside a barbed wire fence. Tall shrubs shaded the road, their limbs beating softly against the wind.

  Ted Greer came down the back steps wearing a straw hat, and shook Hanson’s hand. A stocky, indecent-looking man with muddy pants and a creased white shirt. He smiled half-heartedly, showing teeth too white to be real. ‘Hey there,’ he said to the kids, and mussed up their hair. They carried fishing poles and the ice-box down to the lake, and stood on the white sand. The lake was round and silver as a nickel. Ted Greer reached into a feed bag and sprinkled food on the water’s surface, and a barrage of hungry catfish swam to the surface and gobbled up the pellets. The nanny undid the knots from the children’s lines. They didn’t need bait. The catfish snagged on the bare hooks and the children backed into the shore and watched them die on the sand.

  ‘Must be up to three, maybe four pounds,’ said Hanson.

  Ted Greer bit his lower lip with his false teeth. ‘Must be.’

  The young nanny’s heart wasn’t in it. She was tired of coming to the country every weekend and catching fish they never ate. She was tired of working on Sundays. She told the kids to be careful of the hooks and slid most of the catch back in the water with her tennis shoe. The children too grew bored fishing. They scratched themselves and swore oh so softly.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, son?’ said Hanson. ‘Never seen a bug before?’

  ‘He’s tired, that’s all,’ said the nanny. ‘He didn’t take his nap.’

  They put some dead fish in the ice-box and the nanny, sensing the men wanted to be alone, took the children for a walk.

  ‘How is she holding up?’ asked Hanson, when they were gone.

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Did you get a doctor?’

  ‘Doctors’ll do no good. Doctors’ll put her in a hospital and drug her up, and then she’ll start talking, and Christ knows what’ll happen if she talks.’

  ‘Have you told anybody about this … predicament you’re in?’

  ‘Predicament!’ Greer shook his head. ‘You lawyers use the nicest words. That’s what I was afraid of all along.’ He kicked something imaginary in the sand. ‘Hell, no, Charles, I haven’t told a damn soul. I’m sorry I told you, getting you mixed up in all this. I got myself in a real mess.’ Greer dumped what was left of the feed in the water; feed dust floated on the ripples. They stood there watching the fish fight each other for the food. They stood there a long time watching that, until the food was devoured and the fish swam off into deeper water.

  Greer’s house was wooden, painted all over in the colour of raw liver. A row of pecan trees shaded the back rooms. Sunlight broke through the leaves and threw crumpled yellow shadows across the board floor. The kitchen smelled of ammonia and soup. Several half-eaten, greasy plates stood on the counter tops. Greer reached into the pantry shelf and his hand fastened around the neck of a whiskey bottle. Hanson noticed all the empties in the garbage can.

  ‘You been taking comfort in the bottle?’

  Greer held his gaze. ‘You think maybe I should get a girl in?’

  ‘Look, it really is none of my business. Just watch it doesn’t make you careless, is all I’m saying.’

  He went to the window. The nanny was kneeling on the yard with his children, turning over something in the dirt.

  Greer wiped sweat from his forehead.

  ‘And how about him? Is he healing?’

  ‘Oh, he’s healing. The nigger’s on the mend. My wife is starving herself to death, but there’s no end to his appetite. He’s fatter ’n a hog.’

  Hanson put his hand on Greer’s shoulder and for one terrified moment thought Greer was going to cry. Instead he turned and reached into the cupboard for two glasses. They were dusty and he rinsed them under the tap.

  ‘It’s what happens after, what’ll happen after, that’s what’s got me worried,’ Greer said. ‘I can’t see any end to it, can’t keep him locked up for ever. There’s only one ending now, far as I can see.’

  ‘You’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t talk.’

  ‘You ever know a nigger could hold his water?’

  Hanson couldn’t answer that. There were things about Greer he never could understand; they never could see eye to eye on that one. They took the bottle into the lounge and sat down. The armrests were frayed with years of arms resting. Above the mantelpiece was a framed photograph of Ronald Reagan, smiling, on a campaign trail.

  ‘If it’s a question of money –’ Hanson started.

  Greer shook his head. ‘Money’ll only make it worse. No sir, money can’t fix this one. I give him money, he’ll come running back, looking for more.’ Greer looked into Hanson’s eyes. ‘Oh shit, Charles, don’t think I’m not grateful –’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Hanson dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘You’re under a lot of pressure –’

  ‘Pressure. Hell, sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.’

  The children were climbing the pecan trees, shaking the nuts, pop, pop, down on to the concrete outside the window. The nanny had a rock in her hand. Hanson heard her say they had to be careful, to crack the shell open without smashing the pecan. She was always telling them to be careful.

  The men drank in silence. A clock ticked on the wall, ticked slow like the battery was low. Hanson looked up at the clock. Suddenly, he stood up.

&nb
sp; ‘Can I see her, Ted? I’d like to see her.’

  ‘Won’t do no good,’ said Greer.

  ‘If I can see her, then maybe I can understand.’

  Greer put his head in his hands. Hanson looked into his whiskey, watched the ice melt while Greer composed himself. A little bubble burst on the surface of his drink. Several minutes passed. Greer put his hand in his pocket and took out a silver key. He drank his drink down and got up. There was blood on his throat where he’d nicked himself shaving. His hands were anything but steady. Hanson wondered if that’s what a man looked like going to his execution. He supposed it was.

  Greer led the way down a carpeted hall to the last door. He knocked softly, twice, then unlocked the door. Inside smelled strange and sour, not like anything human, anything living. The room was dim. On the wall above the bed hung a colour photograph of a woman with her hand cupping the muzzle of a bay Morgan horse. Beneath it lay the woman, drastically altered, her elbows sharp as hinges. The arms were doll-like, bruised. Greer’s wife couldn’t have weighed more than seventy pounds.

  Greer sat on the bed and took one of her hands in his.

  ‘Hey, my lady,’ he whispered. He patted her head with his fingers.

  Slowly, she turned her back on them and brought her knees up to her chin. Nobody said anything.

  When they came out to the other room, Hanson said, ‘Whatever you gave him, it wasn’t enough.’

  ‘Tell that to a court of law,’ said Greer.

  He sat down like he was made of lead. Hanson heard the wicker strain.

  ‘I should have shot him, but it’s too late now. I just didn’t have it in me,’ said Greer. ‘I could have claimed self-defence. Now it’s killing me. Most of the time I think I should’ve got the police. I really do. He’d have done time, real time, if I’d got a decent lawyer, somebody like you. But I look at her, my own wife, starving herself to death in that room, and I know I wouldn’t be satisfied. Someday, maybe a couple months from now, I’d go down to the store and he’d be sitting out there, drinking lemonade on the porch, out loose, a free man again. Nobody does time any more. There’s no justice. Whatever happened to justice in this country? That’s what I’d like to know.’