by Joy Dettman
‘Could be.’ She’d known a Freddy Foote, a younger cousin of Archie’s.
‘Frederick is a pharmacist,’ the doctor said. ‘He was the son of a Doctor Gerald Foote, cousin of Miss Virginia Foote.’
He led her into his fancy office, seated her, seemed more interested in finding a common connection than in why she was there — or maybe he thought he was relaxing her. She wasn’t feeling relaxed. Her shoes were crippling her, so she gave him the connection in the hope he’d move on.
‘Virginia Foote was my sister-in-law. I knew her as a girl of fourteen.’
He pointed a finger and smiled. ‘Which makes you the family scallywag’s missing wife? Archie’s wife.’
‘We separated before my daughter was born.’
‘My word,’ he said. ‘So, we are here to discuss Archie’s daughter. What age would she be, Mrs Foote?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘You were obviously a child bride,’ he said.
Cheeky sod, she thought, but sent a silent thank you to Vern for her suit and fancy shirt and hat.
It was six thirty before she got out of that office, and Vern nowhere to be seen. She walked out to the gate, hoping he hadn’t gone off somewhere and forgotten where he’d left her, but he was holding up a lamppost, sucking on a cigarette.
‘I’ve been visiting with a long-lost cousin,’ she reported as they walked down to the tram stop. ‘I probably said too much but he was a disarming sort of chap.’
She’d poured out Amber’s life, other than her attack on Jenny and her attempt to bury her last baby alive. He’d known of Archie’s addiction, had known more about him than she. Archie had become the skeleton in the Foote closet, and a well-documented skeleton.
She was still relating her tale when they walked into the hotel room, and she couldn’t get those shoes off her feet fast enough, get those stockings rolled down.
‘Anything else coming off?’
‘Sit down. I’m talking,’ she said. ‘He told me how Archie died, Vern. He and two of his ne’er-do-well friends got themselves involved in selling stolen artefacts in Egypt. He died in prison, Vern. He’s buried in a unnamed grave, and it may not be very Christian of me, but you don’t know the relief I’m feeling tonight. The hearing of it from one of the family.’
She talked for an hour, talked through dinner, too wound up to eat, but sipping on wine, and her face colouring up with it.
‘He and half a dozen others were caught going over the wall and they shot him. You’d think I’d care. You’d think that somewhere deep down inside me, I’d feel pity for him, and all I’m doing is rejoicing.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Now you can marry me.’
‘You’ve had three wives. Quit while you’re ahead. I trust that chap, Vern,’ she said. ‘I told him everything. He’s treated Archie’s sister. She’s been in and out of hospitals for most of her life, thanks to her bastard of a brother. He’ll do something for Amber. I know he will. It’s like I was led to him, like Archie’s money led me to him. Maybe he’s hanging around out there somewhere until he makes restitution. There’s something bigger than us, guiding our way. There’s some reason why I was sent to that particular chap. I’ll have to go out to that asylum again though, let her know what’s happening.’
‘For Christ’s sake, woman. Give it up. She’s not capable of taking anything in! She’s a spitting, clawing, raving lunatic —’
‘She’ll take it in. She’s as mad as hell because life didn’t turn out the way she planned it to go. She’s her father all over again. I’ve seen him worse; and seen worse than that asylum too.’
‘You walked away from him.’
‘I hated him.’
‘And she hates you.’
‘I know you don’t understand, but I have to try, Vern.’
‘You’ll be going by yourself then,’ he said.
‘I’d never find the place. You don’t have to go near it. Just get me somewhere close and I’ll go in alone.’
She was his wife in bed, maybe the only place she’d ever be his wife. He tried to talk her into marrying that night. She talked him into taking her back out to the asylum.
He went as far as the gate and watched her walk off, clad for comfort in her sandals and the skirt and blouse she’d worn to Amber’s wedding. He sat under a tree and lit a cigarette. He didn’t expect she’d be in there long.
The attendants kept Gertrude waiting for half an hour, and when they let her in to see Amber, she knew why they’d kept her waiting. Her daughter was in a cage of a room, her hands strapped to the arms of a chair, and in no mood for visitors. With no other weapon available, she used what she had, her saliva.
The woman attendant stood at the closed door making it obvious that she didn’t need the interference of visitors, but today Gertrude was prepared and that long greasy hair, that rag of a dress, the spite and spittle wasn’t as shocking.
‘You’re putting on a damn fine show, but I’ve got no time for it today. Vern is waiting for me.’
Amber spat again. Her aim was off.
‘Your father is dead. He died trying to get out of a place much like this, though maybe worse. They locked him up for stealing.’
She dodged to the side, almost evading a good aim, but not quite. She took a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her skirt.
‘Do you want to die caged up like a spitting wild animal, the way your father died?’
‘I wish you dead.’
‘I knew you were in there somewhere.’
‘I hate you, you lying old trollop.’
‘You hate me seeing you like this, I know that much. And I hate seeing you like this. I’ve got a doctor coming out here sometime next week. His sister is married to your father’s cousin. He knew your father, knew your grandfather, he knows your aunty, and he’s prepared to help me get you out of this hellhole.’
The woman who’d brought her to the room didn’t like that. ‘Are we ready?’ she said.
‘A minute more.’ She turned again to Amber. ‘I’ve done as much as I can. It’s up to you to decide if you want to get out — or to die in a cage.’
She stepped back as Amber spat.
The woman opened the door and Gertrude turned to her. ‘How long is it since her hair has been washed?’
The woman shrugged.
She’s just an outsider, Gertrude thought, paid a pittance to do a terrible job. She feels nothing for her charges, doesn’t care if their hair hangs in greasy clumps, doesn’t smell the stink of this place. She’s here for the money. Folk will do terrible things in order to eat.
Gertrude was halfway out the door when she remembered the photograph she’d been carrying in her handbag since she’d boarded the train in Woody Creek. She turned back.
‘Cecelia has grown into a big girl. She’ll be as tall as me before she’s done.’ She removed an envelope and slid the photograph free. ‘Vern took her up to see the new Harbour Bridge when it opened,’ she said, holding the photograph up, at a distance.
It was Cecelia’s prized possession, a four by six inch print of Lorna and Jim posed behind Margaret and Cecelia, the arch of the bridge behind them. She’d given it to Gertrude to show to her mother. Norman had tried to keep the facts from the girls and from the town, but most knew Amber had been found — found sick in hospital.
Maybe, just maybe, she saw a glint of interest in Amber’s eyes. She held the photograph a little closer, ready to save it from spittle.
‘She wanted to come down with me to see you —’
‘Get out,’ Amber screamed, and Gertrude left.
Sixteen days in all Gertrude spent away from her land. The shine can wear off a city in less time. A hotel room can grow small, a forty-year love affair stressed by proximity, and a smart black suit and fancy hat grow commonplace. In sixteen days, feet can become accustomed to walking in high-heeled shoes — accustomed, though not happy in them.
The first doctor had brought in a surgeon and a specialist of the mind who
ran his own clinic. On the fifteenth day, Gertrude sat in the surgeon’s office at Norman’s side. He was Amber’s husband. She’d be paying the bills but it was up to Norman to make the final decision on what was to be done.
Two men sat on the other side of the desk. The specialist, an Englishman, was in his forties, a balding, bombastic chap suffering a permanent case of sunburn to the face. The surgeon might have been fifty, a smaller man. He opened the conversation.
‘The fact that gonorrhoea is not so prevalent amongst women as amongst men is the salvation of the human race,’ he said. ‘In almost every case found in the female patient, the disease so mutilates the reproductive organs that conception and childbirth are impossible.’
Norman’s mind was with his girls, taken in once more by the good folk of Woody Creek. He was wishing he was with them, or at the hotel with Vern listening to the cricket match. He did not want to be subjected to this. Did he want her cured? He would not take her back — with or without her diseased uterus. The thought of her repelled him. He sat, hands almost folded in prayer, index fingers tapping his lips, holding what was within him in, while the doctor continued the lecture on topics unfit for general discussion. He harped on the female functions and Norman, seated at his mother-in-law’s side, bowed his head, hoping to hide his flush. It was a relief to him when the Englishman spoke.
‘The patient has a hysterical mania, which is a state in which the ideas control both body and mind, Mr Morrison, thus producing morbid changes and functions. The mania appears to be increased during the menstrual cycles. I would suggest the patient has also an inherited instability of the nervous system. This, aggravated by the loss of her four infant children . . .’
The specialist of the mind continued but Norman heard nothing beyond inherited instability. Those two words jammed in his mind and his thoughts returned to Cecelia, who had begged, demanded, screamed to accompany him to the city to see her mother.
He had achieved much with her during the past year. The influence of the Macdonald boys removed, the womanly influence of Margaret Hooper, Sissy’s friendship with Jim, had steadied the girl. She’d slimmed down a little, had taken an interest in her appearance, could peel a potato, iron a frock.
There was no closeness between his daughters. Their personalities so diametrically opposed, it was unlikely that a closeness would ever grow. Jennifer was a gentle, silent child, eager to please. Cecelia had a dominant personality. In any group, Jennifer was standing silently within the inner circle, Cecelia demanding on the outer. She had the size and desire to push her way to the centre, but when she did, the group quickly reformed, leaving her again on the outer.
He pitied her. His early years had been spent standing outside the circle. But that had changed. An organiser, Norman, a methodical man, on every committee, he had found his way to the inner circle in Woody Creek — since his wife had left home.
He did not want to be here. He had argued against making the trip. He had not seen his wife, did not wish to, would not see her.
Did he want her out of that place?
The doctor was still speaking. Norman heard nothing, or heard nothing until he heard the one word he did not wish to hear.
‘. . . home.’
It penetrated.
‘Home?’ he repeated, aghast.
‘Indeed, Mr Morrison. In two such similar cases, I have achieved quite remarkable results and returned formerly demented women to their homes and families where they continue to lead useful lives.’
Norman stood too quickly. This was not why he was here. His chair fell to the floor. He picked it up, stood it on its legs, his own legs trembling with the need to run. But he could not run. He had come here to make a decision and one must be made.
Always decisions. He did not make them lightly.
‘I have . . .’
I have heard enough. I have done enough.
‘I want . . .’
I want to run. I want to return to the place of peace I have found.
Like a hamster surrounded by killer dogs, his eyes darted from door to doctor, Gertrude to door, from the doctors to the medical forms Gertrude had brought him here to sign.
‘If she’s left in that place untreated, she’ll be dead in six months,’ Gertrude said. ‘She’s sick, she’s angry, but she’s not mad. She shouldn’t be in that place.’
‘I don’t . . . I don’t . . .’ His eyes pleaded with her to release him.
‘I don’t know either,’ Gertrude said. ‘All I know is that I’m paying these two men to tell me what can be done. If the operation is as safe as they say, if there’s one chance in a hundred of it getting her out of that place, then you have to sign those papers and give her that chance.’
‘Take . . .’
Take this cup away from me and from my children, Mother Foote.
‘She’s thirty-seven years old, Norman.’
And I am not yet fifty, but today I feel . . . I feel that my life is ending.
The red-faced specialist of the mind was offering his pen. Gertrude took it. She offered it to Norman. It was a very fine pen. He could not refuse it. He studied it a moment, glanced at Gertrude, at the doctors, then sighed.
Knew he was signing away his life, and the lives of his girls. He knew it, but he signed. N.J. Morrison. N.J. Morrison.
BOOK TWO
COMMUNICATIONS
Each fish, each frog in the creek will create its own ripples. Amber Morrison’s ripples, always more problematical than most, began washing against Woody Creek in March of 1933.
Gertrude was never seen in a bank, then two Fridays in a row she was seen walking out of the National Bank, and on the second occasion she was clutching what looked like a chequebook.
‘What does she need with a chequebook?’
It was rare for her to receive a letter. Each Friday now she queued for her mail and usually received something — and replied by return mail.
7 April 1933
Dr J.T. Waters,
Please find enclosed cheque in payment of your accounts to date, with my appreciation.
Yours faithfully, Gertrude Foote
15 April 1933
Dr W. Rouse,
Please find enclosed cheque in payment of your account, with my appreciation.
Yours faithfully, Gertrude Foote
There were whispers regarding Amber’s finding, of her major surgery, spoken of behind hands with the occasional whispers of growth in her female organs. There were whispers too of a private sanatorium, which, to many rumour-mongers, spelled consumption.
‘Does anyone know how they found her?’
‘Someone said Ernie Ogden found her.’
‘Maisy would know then. Her second girl has just got herself engaged to Ernie Ogden’s oldest boy.’
‘If she knows, she’s not saying anything.’
Mr Foster, Woody Creek postmaster and, for a short period, neighbour of Amber Morrison, felt the ripples. He knew the address to which Gertrude addressed her letters, but few spoke to Mr Foster. Most took their mail and got out of his pokey little office.
Ripples usually die a natural death, but those created by Amber Morrison continued to widen. Charles Duckworth, who for the past six years had been hard pressed to post off the obligatory Christmas card to Norman, now sat to put pen to paper.
7 May 1933
My dear Nephew,
It is with a heavy heart that I put pen to paper this day. It has been brought to my attention by my good wife that, during her charitable work amongst the unfortunate, she came upon the woman who was your wife. My further enquiries ascertained that she was admitted to the institution with your full knowledge.
I sympathise with your situation, and might add that I would expect no less from you. Certainly the deserving amongst these wretched women should be treated with all care. However, I stress, and in the strongest terms, nephew, that under no circumstances should you involve yourself again with that woman, nor consider allowing her to come within a hund
red miles of your impressionable daughters, nor should you waste more of your limited funds on the rehabilitation of a woman who, to quote her treating physician, has neither conscience nor remorse.
Trust that these harsh words have been written with only your best interests and the interests of your daughters at heart.
Your loving uncle, Charles Duckworth
1 June 1933
Dear Doctor J.T. Waters,
Please find enclosed cheque for April and May accounts. Yours sincerely, G. Foote
23 June 1933
My dear Nephew,
In my capacity as a minister of God, I have taken it upon myself to attend the clinic where the woman is being held, and this day spoke at length to the treating physician, who is convinced that a cure for many forms of madness and immoderate behaviour can be effected by the use of electrical current applied to the brain, which he believes can readjust the thought processes of his patients and in some cases erase all previous memories. The treatment is experimental, and considered to be without merit by his colleagues, however, when the woman was brought into the room and introduced to me, she greeted me civilly, as she might a stranger.
My fear, nephew, is that he will indeed be successful, and that you will consider it your Christian duty to take that woman back into your home.
Thus, though it pains myself and my good wife, we feel it is our duty now to inform you that seven years ago, whilst that woman was a guest at the manse, and during a period when she was considered to be sane, her deeds were such which cannot, will not, be forgiven by myself and my wife — nor should they be forgiven by you.
Your cousin, an inexperienced and impressionable young minister, who sought only to bring comfort to a bereaved cousin, became hypnotised by her wiles and was led by her from his chosen path in life. To this day your cousin remains in Port Moresby, consorting with natives and leading the life of a drunken waster. I do not write these words lightly. Do not read them lightly.
With my best regards, your uncle, Charles Duckworth
