Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  She caught a drip of tomato sauce and licked it from her finger. He was a weird old man, but hardly a stranger. And he was related to the Duffys in some way, because she’d seen mail addressed to him sent care of Mrs Duffy.

  ‘Your father has been calling.’

  She turned to Norman’s house, knowing she’d be in huge trouble when she got home — which was why she couldn’t eat that sausage, even though the smell of it was urging her to eat.

  ‘Have you had any dinner?’ she said. She’d only taken one small bite.

  ‘I smell hot sausage,’ he said.

  ‘You can have it if you like.’

  ‘I like.’

  He didn’t rise to get it. She walked close enough to pass it with an outstretched arm. Wanted, wanted so badly to ask him about those earrings. She didn’t. She stepped back and watched him take a bite, chew with relish, tomato sauce dripping red to his beard.

  ‘God will provide,’ he said, mouth full. ‘If too little, and a little too late.’

  ‘He doesn’t provide much,’ she said as she turned to walk the diagonal across the road, tucking her blouse into her skirt as she went, pulling up her socks, pushed escaping hair from her eyes.

  They were eating. That brown dress hung over the back of her chair.

  ‘Hang up your frock before you eat, Jennifer.’

  She eyed the muddy brown thing, knowing this was the moment her stomach had been scared of for hours. This was when she’d win or forever lose.

  ‘She must have bought it for Sissy. It’s not mine, Daddy.’

  He paled, reached for his key from the top of the dresser, but she wasn’t backing down tonight. She didn’t need to be told to go to his room. She led the way there and sat on his bed while he turned the key.

  GALLERY OF FOOLS

  The junk room had once been Jenny’s room. She could remember her green iron cot being in this room. It smelled different now, smelled of Norman’s cigarettes and his shoes and trains and newspapers. She reached for a bundle of newspapers, flipped the pages, glancing at old news while plates rattled in the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry. Tonight, eating would have been more punishment than being locked in here.

  She read about girls who were too selfish to marry.

  Women once wed to gain their freedom. Now a ring on the finger means the loss of freedom. Every year we see more and more girls joining the workforce, girls loath to relinquish that newfound independence . . .

  Jenny closed her eyes and wished she could join the workforce, buy her own frock, her own shoes. Sissy didn’t want to work. Her one ambition in life was to be a Hooper. Only one way she could do that—and God help Jim.

  The room was airless with that door closed. She kneeled on the bed and tried to open the window, knowing it was wasted effort. She’d tried when this room had been her own. It had never opened. Sissy’s window opened. Amber’s window opened. The parlour window opened.

  Loved this room. It was too crowded for Amber’s clean to get in and rip its heart out. She polished its little floor space, but Norman’s ashtray, on its fancy stand, killed the smell of her polish. His shoes strung out in a row along the wall had their own smell, so did his shirt tossed over the end of the bed. A homely room, like home used to be, like Granny’s home, where you could put things down and they stayed put down.

  The light was fading. She reached to turn on the light globe, then decided against it, and instead lay on his bed, her own dear single bed, to watch old shadows creep across the ceiling–and to wonder at the cleverness of Amber. She’d chosen the exact frock Norman would have chosen. She was too clever to be really mad.

  Better not to think about her. She concentrated on the ceiling, wondering if she kept on staring until it was pitch dark whether her eyes would keep on adjusting to that dark, or if there would be an instant between near dark and the total dark that she might catch.

  Norman ruined her experiment. He opened the door and let the kitchen light in, then asked her if she was ready to hang up her frock.

  ‘Tell her to burn it like she burned Sissy’s daffodil dress, Daddy.’ He was closing the door. ‘Tell her to throw it down the lav like one of them threw my Alice Blue Gown dress down the lav.’

  In a war, even when soldiers are taken prisoner, they don’t bow and scrape to their captors. They find a way to fight on—or to escape.

  The key turned.

  Sissy and Amber would be enjoying this. They’d be sitting in the parlour listening to every word. Sissy had spent a lot of hours locked in this room before Amber came home, and a few since. Amber had been locked in here. Now it was Jenny’s turn, but no real punishment. She had her own room back, her own bed, and she could hear everything. She heard Sissy walk by on her way to the lav.

  ‘Don’t forget to take that dress with you, Sissy,’ she yelled. That was what a prisoner would do, torment from behind bars.

  She heard the legs of Norman’s chair squeal, heard his newspaper pages turning faster.

  It was interesting to lie on your back in the dark listening to the sound of life, forcing the ears to compensate for the eyes. She could see better if she closed her eyes, see him so plainly, see his face turning to the locked door, see him glance towards the clock, towards that brown frock, which, as the hours passed, grew bigger, wider, more brown, a monster frock swallowing up the back of her chair.

  It would swallow her if she let it. And she wouldn’t. Never. If she lived to be ninety-nine, she would never wear that rotten thing. And she wouldn’t hang it up either. It could hang over the back of that chair until it rotted, until the chair rotted. She almost giggled at the image of her chair turning to powder and that dress falling to the floor.

  The world had long ended, the houses had turned to dust, but one chair remained, protected by that gruesome gown . . .

  It tickled her funny bone. She got the giggles. Sissy’s voice stopped them, and gave her the hiccups.

  ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

  Tossing their heads in sprightly dance . . .’

  Only a wall between this room and Sissy’s, a thin wall. Norman must have heard every word when she and Sissy had been exchanging insults.

  ‘The waves beside them danced, but they

  Out-did the sparkling waves . . . in glee.’

  Jenny rapped with her knuckles on the dividing wall, beating time with her knuckles.

  ‘A poet could not but be gay

  In such jocund . . .

  In such a jocund company . . .’

  The rapping became louder, faster, until Norman’s chair squealed again and he added his own thump to two doors. ‘Desist,’ he commanded. ‘Both of you.’

  Jenny desisted, as did Sissy for a minute or two, then she began again, so Jenny practised her song, loudly and off-key.

  Norman thumped. ‘Enough, I said. I will have quiet in this house!’

  ‘I have to learn it. Mum isn’t going with me,’ Sissy whined.

  ‘Then learn the thing in silence!’

  A whisper can irritate when it continues too long.

  ‘For oft . . . for oft . . .’

  ‘When on my couch I lie,’ Jenny sang to the tune of the twenty-third psalm. ‘In vacant or in pensive mood.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Shut up yourself,’ Jenny yelled, then continued with her psalm while Sissy stopped reciting to hammer on the wall.

  Norman threatened dire consequences, but that locked room was about as dire as it could get, and it was his fault she was in there anyway. He should have let her choose her own dress.

  She heard him leave the kitchen. Heard him outside her door, then the back door opened and his footsteps hurried east along the verandah and out the squealing side gate. He was vacating the premises. She wished he’d let her out to go to the lav before he’d gone, but with him gone, she upped the ante, began that poem at the beginning and sang it right to the end, which brought Amber into the war.

  It was delicious being locked in. It was freedom.
Amber could belt against that locked door until she wore her fist down to the elbow, but she couldn’t stop Jenny’s singing. She sang the Macdonald twins’ version of the poem, or the parts of it she could remember, sang it soprano and off-key. It was surprising how well the words fitted with the tune.

  ‘Oh, Jim, please kiss my drooling mouth,

  Before you venture way down south.’

  ‘I hate you, you evil, filthy-mouthed stray dog,’ Sissy screeched, which was preferable to her recitations.

  The war might have continued for hours had Jenny not been desperate to go to the lav. No chamber-pot under Norman’s bed, but the big blue-green vase was on top of his wardrobe. It matched the parlour curtains. It used to be in the parlour, holding a bunch of peacock feathers. She’d need light though, to lift it down.

  Hard to find the light cord in the dark. Norman had tied it in a knot so his head wouldn’t keep hitting it. She had to reach high, but she got it, got the light on, got the curtains pulled, then lifted the vase down. It wasn’t an ideally shaped vessel for the task required of it, but desperate people couldn’t afford to be choosy. She’d barely avoided a catastrophe when she heard someone at her window. Thought it must have been Norman. Pulled her pants up and her skirt down, moved the vase in against the wall and lifted the curtain.

  It wasn’t Norman.

  It’s a shock to the mind when you see what you’re not expecting, when you’re looking from light into dark. She could barely see her features, just the monster’s anger, and seeing it up so close was scary. Jenny let the curtain fall and stepped back. It was all very well to say she wasn’t afraid of Amber, but a part of her was. What if she got the axe and broke that window? It was a good three foot off the ground. She’d have to climb on something to get in, but she’d get in if she wanted to. She was strong. She walked for miles some nights.

  Wished Norman would come home.

  Turned the light off then and sat on the bed. In a war, someone had to stop the killing first. She wasn’t surrendering though, just regrouping her troops. She lay down, her eyes turned to the window, for a time expecting an axe to fly through. Eyes grow weary, they stop watching, close just for a moment—

  She was asleep when he opened the door. She sprang from bed, ready to dodge an axe. Saw his bulk in the doorway, smelled his smell, which was the same as he smelled when he came home brave from his poker nights. She’d forgotten it was Friday.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she said.

  ‘Late,’ he said. ‘Go to your room.’

  ‘I want to stay here.’

  ‘You will learn as you grow older that life is not about what we want. Go to your own room.’

  ‘This was my room until she took yours.’

  ‘The hour is late. No arguing.’

  ‘Can I please change that dress, Daddy?’

  He sighed, stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. His hand knew were to find the light cord. The room flooded with white light, blinding her for an instant. Then she remembered the vase and what it contained and she moved to pick it up, and with two hands hold it to her breast.

  He reached to claim it, to place it back where it belonged. She shook her head and he frowned, confused by her attachment to it.

  ‘Does a beautiful rose require a colourful vase, or does it show a truer beauty when placed alone in clear glass?’

  She knew what he meant. ‘You wouldn’t poke it into a rusty old jam tin, though.’

  His hand reached to brush back her bed-tumbled hair. ‘You will look well enough in your rusty jam tin. Now please depart. I require my bed.’

  ‘I’m not wearing it, Daddy. Never. I promise you.’

  ‘You have the world at your feet, Jennifer. What more do you require?’

  ‘The blue dress I asked Miss Blunt to put away.’

  ‘Go to your bed.’

  ‘It’s Sissy’s bed, and she hates me.’

  She moved towards the door, the vase still cradled in her arms. ‘Why do they hate me, Daddy?’

  He sighed, waved her to be gone.

  ‘You know they do.’

  ‘You are a colourful singing bird, Jenny-wren, hatched into a nest of grey sparrows; a classical picture framed in gold and hung in a gallery of fools, and I the greatest fool of all. What is your attraction to that vase?’

  ‘I have to empty it.’

  ‘Empty . . .’ he began, then waved his hand again for her to go.

  But he followed her out to the rear verandah where he sat on the old cane chair and lit a final cigarette. She emptied the vase on the garden, rinsed it at the garden tap and returned to stand before him.

  ‘May I please sleep on the couch tonight?’

  ‘If man could foresee his future, little Jenny-wren, he may well choose to die in the womb. Use my room,’ he said.

  He was feeling his way to the couch when he saw Amber’s open door. It was rarely left open at night—or not while she was sleeping. She walked on moonlit nights. No moon tonight. He peered into the dark of her bedroom, renewing his acquaintance with his beloved wide bed. And perhaps she was in it, her door left open tonight to gain a breath of air. On stockinged feet, he stepped closer to listen, and he heard her breathing. He backed away. But she was deeply, heavily asleep. For minutes he stood looking at the slight shape of her, barely enough to lift that sheet. So little woman, he thought. So much bed.

  During his manhandling of her on the night of the argument, her lack of weight had surprised him. Her heavy sleep did not surprise him. She swallowed pills each night, pills he now procured for her, paid for and controlled, supplying her each day with three, placed each morning in a medicine glass on the top shelf in the bathroom.

  He had promised himself nil involvement with her when she’d returned. Involvement had been forced on him when he’d caught her feeding her pills to Cecelia. That girl had problems enough—and a wide bed. He stood recalling a dawn of years ago when he’d come upon mother and daughter in that bed. He recalled the taking of Amber on this bedroom floor, between the bed and dressing table. She had fought that day to return to her daughter’s bed. Perhaps she may learn to like it again.

  She offered only a drugged murmur of protest as he lifted her, flung an arm at her disturber as he carried her into Sissy’s room. No sheet covering the large hump of his daughter spread across that bed. Perhaps she thought Jennifer had come. She moaned, but made enough space. His burden down, he dusted his hands and walked to his reclaimed bed where he bounced a little, enjoying the firmness of the springs. He removed his winnings from his pocket. They played for small silver coins. He’d won a handful. And had drunk three glasses of ale—or was it four. Had followed them with a small brandy, then a second. He smiled, stripped off his shirt and flung it merrily over his shoulder, blessing the ale and the brandy and the child who had wanted her room. If not for child, ale and brandy, he would not have found the courage to reclaim his wide bed.

  But he had. And he was in it, and could feel the heat of where she’d lain. How many years since he’d slept in this bed? How many years since she’d shared this bed with him?

  Fingers counting on his pillow, but too weary tonight for mental arithmetic, he closed his eyes and slept, slept very well.

  GOLD CREPE AND BEADS

  Vern’s car would carry six in comfort. Jim was picking the Morrisons up at six o’clock. Contestants in the talent quest had been told to present themselves at the Willama theatre by six forty-five, that the concert would begin at seven sharp. Sissy’s item was listed at number nine, so they couldn’t afford to get there late. Jenny was on at number twenty-two. Margaret, who was having second thoughts, was number thirty.

  Sissy slept badly the night before the quest. Her hair in rags didn’t encourage a good night’s sleep, and she couldn’t blame her bedmate for keeping her awake either. Once her mother’s head was down, she didn’t move. Her deep sleep annoyed Sissy, or the pills she took to get that sleep, pills denied to Sissy, annoyed her. She’d pleaded for
one last night, Norman had ignored her plea. She’d been pleading with her mother to go with her to Willama, just in case she stumbled on the third verse. She knew the first and second, knew the last, but that third verse always sent her mind blank.

  Norman and Jenny, pleased with the new sleeping arrangements, had slept soundly. Amber hadn’t complained; she’d won the war of the dress. At breakfast on the morning after the epic battle, Norman had asked Jenny to hang up the frock and she’d hung it in Sissy’s wardrobe, which didn’t count as hanging it up now that Norman’s wardrobe was once again her own. Winning that bedroom back was a huge victory.

  She’d be wearing her pink dress to the quest, which Maisy had repaired. She’d taken the side seams in, which had got rid of a part of the rip and a portion of the sweat-faded circles, then she’d reinforced both armpits with the material cut from the sleeves. It was a nice pink, and with her stockings and Dora’s sandals it looked good enough. She didn’t take it home, had no intention of taking it home.

  Sissy was in a foul mood. She’d gone beyond demanding Amber go with her to Willama to sulking and throwing things because she wouldn’t. Around midday, Amber capitulated and went in search of her beige suit, unworn in years. She sponged it, hung it on the line to air, polished her best shoes. She was ironing when Jenny came home at three to bathe and wash her hair. Sissy’s green frock had miles of fabric in the skirt, fabric, Amber was attempting to explain to her, that would not travel well.

  ‘Wear your floral. It doesn’t crush, and if it is a little creased, it won’t be so obvious.’

  ‘I told you, I’m wearing the green,’ Sissy said.

  They were still arguing when Jenny emerged half an hour later, her hair dripping. The iron had been put away. Cecelia was now seated between sink and table, Amber working around her, untying strips of sheeting, freeing thirty corkscrew curls and not doing it gently. Jenny stood in the doorway combing her hair and watching them, listening to a pair of cats snarling.