Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  ‘It’s more than a guilty conscience. There’s something in her eyes that she doesn’t want you to see. She’s like a snake, hiding her venom until she’s ready to strike.’

  ‘When have you seen a snake getting ready to strike?’

  ‘I don’t have to. I know what one would look like.’

  ‘Gertrude says she’s better.’

  ‘That’s something else too. Gertrude hasn’t been to Norman’s since Amber moved back home.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I watch her, that’s how. She drops her eggs off here, then takes a basket down to the station.’

  ‘How do you know she doesn’t go in through his side gate?’

  ‘Because she always went in through the front gate, that’s how I know.’

  ‘You’re getting to be a gossip in your old age, Jeanny.’

  ‘Only to you, Charlie, and you don’t count.’

  A smart businesswoman, Jean White, not a hard woman, but one not easy to take down. She knew everyone in town, knew who was in work and who wasn’t, knew who she could trust to pay their bill when things picked up, and who’d take what they could get and run. She trusted Norman, couldn’t say that she liked him, but trust was enough at times.

  ‘You mark my words, Charlie. She’ll turn. A leopard can’t change its spots.’

  DAFFODIL YELLOW

  Someone had once told Sissy that a person’s life was measured in seven-year segments, and at the end of each segment there was a change, until you reached seventy, the three score years and ten written about in the Bible. In her case, it had been proven. For the first seven years of Sissy’s life, her mother had made her world the way it was supposed to be. Those years were followed by a seven-year drought of life without her mother. Now she had returned and the only drawback was the sharing of her bed and bedroom with Jenny, a price Sissy was willing to pay.

  Life continued to improve, even at school. She liked being on stage in the school concerts, but for the past two years had only been in the choir. Ian Abbot had a good voice — he always sang alone on stage, as did Jenny. Nelly, Ian’s sister, was wearing the fairy princess costume this year, and for the first part of that item she’d have the stage to herself. Johnny Dobson did magic tricks, Gloria Bull tap-danced. Then, out of the blue, Miss Rose turned to Sissy and asked her if she’d like to do a recitation this year, which meant she’d have the stage to herself.

  ‘I’ll do the daffodils one,’ Sissy said quickly. She already knew the first verse of it from back in the days of bike-riding with her father — and he knew it right through.

  ‘It will mean memorising it, Cecelia,’ Miss Rose said.

  ‘I know,’ Sissy said. ‘I can.’

  Jenny’s life didn’t fit any seven-year plan. She didn’t mind having her mother at home, apart from losing her bedroom. She liked being able to say ‘my mother’ like Nelly and Gloria and Dora could say ‘my mother’.

  Amber cleaned like a mother, washed and ironed, but didn’t do much shopping, didn’t go to church. She put Sissy’s hair in rags two or three nights a week — which made sharing that bed even worse, because Sissy couldn’t find a comfortable place to put her head on rag-curl nights.

  Amber cooked like a mother. She made treacle puddings with custard that didn’t even have one lump in it. She made individual meat pies; her mashed potatoes were as smooth as cream, her beans were green instead of grey, and her cabbage, shredded so fine then fried fast in a pan with flavours, was delicious. Norman had cut his cabbage into chunks which he’d boiled up until the chunks softened, which meant the bits that weren’t chunks turned to grey slime.

  But Dora’s mother could cook too, and she could talk and laugh while she was cooking. She could threaten to slap backsides but rarely did it, and if she did, she ended up kissing whoever she’d slapped. She had so many kids she sometimes forgot Jenny wasn’t one of them and kissed her too.

  Jenny’s mother never slapped, laughed or kissed. She was like the plaster Mary that Mrs Crone had standing on a table in the corner of her café, with a sign propped against it: Please do not touch. Amber’s sign was invisible but Jenny could read it. She didn’t touch.

  Sissy wasn’t much of a reader. She leaned against Amber in the kitchen, sat beside her in the parlour and leaned her head on Amber’s shoulder; then in November, she led her by the hand down to Blunt’s shop where they stayed for half an hour.

  Mr Curry’s students were encouraged to participate in the concert, though not coerced, and not supplied with costumes. The fitting of a shapeless child presented few difficulties, as did the stripping off and cladding of small children by the costume ladies. This was not the case with the older children. They were asked to present themselves at the hall in suitable clothing.

  At the Friday practice, Johnny Dobson did his magic act and told Miss Rose his mother had made him a magician’s cape from one of her old black skirts and was making him a cardboard hat to wear. Ian Abbot said he was borrowing his big brother’s long trousers for the night.

  Sissy recited the first verse of ‘Daffodils’, was prompted through the second, then she told Miss Rose she’d be wearing a daffodil yellow dress which her mother was paying Miss Blunt to make.

  ‘We bought some crepe paper too, yellow and orange, and Miss Blunt is making us a bunch of daffodils. Some of them my mother is going to pin in my hair, and some I’ll just hold, and we’re going to —’

  ‘I’m sure you will look delightful, Cecelia,’ Miss Rose said. ‘Now, can we run through the third verse, please.’

  ‘Can I read it today?’

  ‘You may read it today, but I want you word perfect next Friday.’

  Gloria Bull practised her dance. She’d wear her sister’s outgrown dancing costume.

  ‘Jennifer?’

  Jenny sang ‘Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown’, and when asked what she might be wearing on the night, she shook her head.

  ‘Do you have something blue?’ Miss Rose asked.

  Perhaps she did. Perhaps Amber was paying Miss Blunt to make her a dress. She looked at Sissy. ‘Have I got —’

  ‘You’ve got that one,’ Sissy said. Jenny’s school frock was navy blue.

  Thus began the torment of William Wordsworth’s ‘I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud’, which forever more in Norman’s house would become ‘Daffodils’. Sissy practised on the verandah, in bed, between seven and eight from Monday to Thursday, and she couldn’t get past the second verse.

  ‘The waves beside them danced, but they . . .’ Norman encouraged. ‘Give me the next line, Cecelia.’

  ‘I’m tired of it, I said.’

  ‘I too am tired of it. The waves beside them danced, but they. . .’

  ‘I’ll read it, I said.’

  ‘You chose to learn the poem. The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t even rhyme!’

  ‘That is not your concern.’

  ‘Well, it’s stupid.’

  ‘Many critics would not agree with you. Recite with me: The waves beside them danced, but they . . .’

  ‘I told you I was tired!’

  ‘Do not raise your voice to me! The waves beside . . .’

  At the Friday practice, Sissy could make it through verses one and two, then her mind went blank.

  ‘The stupid thing doesn’t rhyme. It throws me out of rhythm every time,’ she argued. ‘It’s plain stupid.’

  ‘You chose the poem. You have until Wednesday afternoon to decide if it’s stupid or not, Cecelia. Who is next?’ Miss Rose said.

  The last of the children gone by four thirty, Miss Rose went to the costume cupboard seeking something blue. She’d decided today that her ‘Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown’ must be clad in blue. Plenty of pinks in that cupboard, a purple and gold cape; she considered it. She also considered a frilled yellow, but she wanted blue. She thought of the relief bin at the town hall, though anything worth wearing that ended up in that
bin didn’t remain long in it. And Jenny’s father, who clad his girls plainly but well, may consider a relief bin frock an insult.

  Had he been an approachable man, she may have approached him. He was not, so she picked up her purse and hurried down to Cox’s newspaper shop, catching him just as he was about to close his door.

  ‘Crepe paper,’ she said. ‘Blue.’

  He offered a choice of three. Only one fitted her mental image of ‘Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown’.

  ‘Three rolls should be adequate, thank you, Mr Cox.’

  Miss Rose lodged with the Blunt family, and that evening greeted Miss Blunt at the front door with an apology, the crepe paper and a plea. ‘Please, could you see your way clear, my dear Julia?’

  Miss Blunt had already made two frocks for the Morrisons, Cecelia’s yellow and Amber’s olive green. She’d spent hours making a bunch of daffodils — and received little appreciation for her labour. But by seven that night, Miss Rose’s scissors were snipping blue paper and Miss Blunt’s sewing machine gathering while in Norman’s kitchen, the torment of Wordsworth’s poem continued.

  ‘For oft, when on my couch I lie. Continue, Cecelia. For oft, when on my couch I lie . . .’

  Sissy stared vacantly, her hair a mass of white rag sausages.

  ‘In vacant or in pensive mood. We have been over this, over and over it. Repeat those lines with me.’

  ‘I’ll read it. She let me read it at practice.’

  ‘You agreed to learn the poem.’

  ‘I’ve learned enough. I’ll do the first two verses.’

  ‘The poem has four verses. For oft, when on my couch I lie . . .’

  On Wednesday afternoon, Sissy told Miss Rose she was only doing the first two verses.

  In all of the years Miss Rose had been dealing with that girl, neither her method nor tone had altered. ‘Thank you, Cecelia. That will be all.’

  ‘I’m doing just two?’

  ‘No. You will be assisting the ladies in the dressing room. Good afternoon.’

  Sissy didn’t want to assist the ladies in the dressing room. She wanted to stand on that stage alone, in her daffodil yellow dress with her daffodils pinned in her hair over her left ear, her hair curled in rows and pinned back at one side. Amber had already tried it that way, with the flowers and the dress.

  ‘All right then. I’ll know those rotten two verses by Saturday.’

  ‘You were told to know them by today. That will be all.’

  ‘I’m not helping dress kids!’

  ‘That is your choice. Good afternoon, Cecelia.’

  Dismissed for the third time, Sissy stood open-mouthed, blood flooding her brow, her cheeks, her heavy chin.

  ‘Well . . . well, you go to hell then, and you can take your stupid poem with you too, and your stupid school as well, and your stupid haircut. If you didn’t know it, that style went out of fashion ten years ago,’ she said, and she ran for the sanctuary of her mother.

  Norman saw her run across the station yard. He heard doors slam, watched something yellow fly from his back door. He gave her five minutes by the station clock, then followed her home where he found the unworn yellow frock lying in the dust and several paper daffodils blooming on his lavender bush. He picked up the frock, shook it, plucked the flowers from the shrub and went inside.

  She was in the kitchen, head on the table, Amber behind her, patting, soothing, kissing. He placed the frock down, the daffodils on it. Cecelia lifted her head long enough to swipe the frock and daffodils to the floor. He picked them up, placed them again on the table.

  ‘I will deal with this, Mrs Morrison.’

  She moved away but didn’t leave the kitchen.

  ‘Explain your infantile behaviour, Cecelia.’

  ‘She said I’m not in the concert,’ Sissy yelled, and the frock flew, narrowly missing the stove. Her chair fell as she stood, then an enamel dish Amber had been about to use for her treacle pudding flew, hit the stove, clattered to the floor.

  ‘Go to your room.’

  Sissy ran to Amber. Norman turned his back, picked up the chair, the chipped bowl, the frock, the daffodils, one from the stove, slightly singed. He drew two deep and calming breaths, then turned back to the battle.

  ‘Remove yourself from that girl, Mrs Morrison.’

  She tried, but Cecelia clung.

  ‘Cecelia! You will obey me. Release your mother and hang up your frock.’

  ‘You can go to hell too,’ she howled. ‘If she said Jenny couldn’t be in it, you’d go down there and tell her off, wouldn’t you?’

  Norman had never told anyone off in his life. He took his daughter’s arm. Sissy shook him off and ran to her bedroom.

  ‘That woman has always hated her, Norman.’

  ‘That woman has attempted to train her in good habits of self-control, Mrs Morrison, and Cecelia is too old for these displays of infantile spleen.’

  Amber was looking at the yellow frock. He claimed it and walked across the passage to his daughter’s room, where again he took her arm and attempted to lead her to the wardrobe — and got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble.

  ‘She’s disappointed, Norman. Leave her to me.’

  ‘Your interference, madam, is not helping matters. Go to your room.’

  ‘You’re on the school committee. She’s right. You’d be down there fast enough if it was —’ Caught her mouth in time, almost in time.

  ‘You are employed to care for the house. Care for it.’

  ‘She’s my daughter —’

  ‘Which you chose to forget for some considerable time.’

  ‘Don’t you come at me with that.’

  He turned, walked away. But the years, those aching years he’d put into that girl. He stepped from foot to foot in the passage, every nerve ending urging him to go. And he must not. His housekeeper must go. The key to his room was in his underwear drawer. He retrieved it and returned to Cecelia’s room. She was a heavy girl. It was no small task to manhandle her from that room, fight her into his own, close the door and hold it while inserting the key, but he got the door locked.

  Panting, heart racing, he turned to Amber. ‘Your services are no longer required, Mrs Morrison. You will leave my house tonight.’

  ‘You’ve always leaned to that other one —’

  ‘Pack your bags, madam.’

  ‘You think I don’t know why?’

  ‘Pack your bags.’

  ‘If I go, I’ll take Cecelia with me.’

  ‘And train her in the ways of a whore?’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘If I am so, then it is you who have made me so, madam. Out.’

  His spectacles lopsided, the bridge wire twisted in the scuffle, he faced her in the passage, his lips a small tight split in the sagging pink cushion of his face.

  She went to her room and closed the door. He walked out to the verandah where he stood attempting to adjust his spectacles while waiting for his heart rhythm to steady. Oddly enough, his shoulder, which required little excuse to ache, had tolerated the unaccustomed exercise well. He flexed it, drew a deep steadying breath, set his spectacles back on his nose and returned to his station.

  BLUE ANGER

  She watched the side gate close, then walked to the locked door and stood listening to Cecelia’s injured bull bellow. She knocked, but was ignored, or not heard. Walked around to the window, but the curtains were drawn. Attempted to open a window that had never opened, not when they’d furnished that room as a nursery fourteen years ago. She tapped gently on it, wanting her girl to pull back the curtain. Cecelia screamed, and Amber turned towards his station. He was watching her. He wanted her gone.

  This was her house. She’d wed him for this house, and for his mother’s furniture, her bone china tea set. And wanted to run from him on her wedding night . . .

  She’d tried that. What else was out there? Worse than him, that was what else. Choices had to be made, the bad measured against the worse.

  They’
d taken her memories in that place where she’d been; this house had brought them back. Her hand on a familiar bowl, and she remembered using the bowl. A tablecloth spread, and she remembered embroidering it.

  She walked around the house and inside via the front door, where she stood a moment staring at the hall table. Loved the grain of that timber, and the vase she’d always set on it, a delicate thing Norman’s mother had sworn was a gift from Queen Victoria to some Duckworth long since dead. She walked into the parlour where she squatted before the crystal cabinet, her finger tracing the rim of gold decorating a dainty cup. Eight dainty cups, saucers and plates, a tiny milk jug, a delicate sugar bowl, the large cake plate. All there, all perfect. Didn’t want to leave them, or leave her big-as-an-ox baby, her plain-as-mud baby, but her baby.

  ‘Take a pill,’ she said. ‘Take a pill, slow down and think.’

  They’d given her two bottles when she’d left that place, a hundred in each. She took what she needed, and who knew better than she what she needed.

  He had at one time kept the key to that door on top of the kitchen dresser. She felt for it, but didn’t find it. Even if she had, she couldn’t let her girl out. He wanted her gone from this house. She had overstepped her boundaries. She didn’t like boundaries.

  ‘Cook him some dinner,’ she said. ‘A broth of oleander flowers, a stew of its twigs. A tea sweetened with pills?’

  She smiled and looked at the pill on her palm. Too precious to waste on the beast and his stray. She washed it down, then stood on at the window, looking out but only seeing in.

  ‘Make a start,’ she said. ‘Let him see you have made a start.’

  Back in the bedroom, she climbed onto a chair and got his mother’s case down from its place on top of her wardrobe. Underwear in, hat on the open lid, shoes on the bed. He’d see it when he came in. He wouldn’t see her. He’d think she’d gone to Maisy’s, gone to her mother’s, gone to the hotel. He’d believe what he wanted to believe. Always had. Hadn’t changed since the day she’d met him.

  Not a brutal man, though. She’d known brutal men. Remembered that too. Remembered everything now.