Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  ‘Mongrel polecats,’ she said.

  Icy air was coming with the music through that gap; she climbed down and opened drawers, opened her wardrobe. Most of what she owned was at Maisy’s, but Norman’s carton of Sissy’s hand-me-downs was still underneath the bed. She found an old cardigan, an old winter skirt, a long-sleeved sweater; hoped no one was looking in the window as she stripped off the remains of the ballgown and pulled the sweater over her head. The skirt was too long, but warm. The cardigan, hand-knitted for a larger frame, reached her thighs. Almost smiled at her new reflection in the window glass, almost laughed. It must have been past midnight: Cinderella had returned to her fairytale and Jenny in hand-me-downs was back. Warm hand-me-downs, though.

  Warmth gave energy, and those rotten old baggy clothes renewed her determination. She belted the window with the heel of her sandal, belted it top and sides, and on her next heave when it moved a good four inches she called it enough.

  The cardigan was too bulky. She took it off and dropped it through to the ground, dropped the sandals too, wished she had her school shoes and socks, but she didn’t.

  Up onto the window ledge then, one toe gripping the top of the lower sash, and she got a leg out. Easier then. She had to flatten her body, she had to wriggle, but she got through, got both feet on the outside sill, then jumped to the ground. The sandals had chilled. They chilled her feet. The cardigan was still warm. Blessing whoever had knitted that thing, she buttoned it as she ran out the side gate and along the fence to the road.

  The ball must have been winding down. They were playing a slow waltz. Still a few couples standing out the front of the hall, but they were more interested in each other than in a shapeless old woman hurrying diagonally across the road towards the park.

  She had no plan other than making it to the bandstand, which didn’t offer much shelter but had a roof. A couple had already claimed it. They were kissing. They didn’t see her. The sports oval had a shelter shed. She’d stay there until daylight.

  Through the park then, head down, over the road to the oval. Its fence, a low, white-painted post-and-rail, encouraged her to sit a while. There was no light in the street. No one would see her sitting there swinging frozen feet in time to the music.

  Wondered what time daylight came, wondered what Granny would say when she turned up at her place for breakfast. Wondered what Norman would say when he unlocked that door and found the bed empty, the window that wouldn’t open left wide open.

  The chill creeps into your bones when you’re sitting on a timber fence in the middle of winter, no overcoat on, no beret to keep your ears warm. Pretty little Jenny Morrison, swinging borrowed sandals above the frosty ground, hugging her old cardigan close. Pretty little fourteen-year-old girl on a collision course with her future.

  They crept up on her like a pair of mongrel dogs rounding up a runaway lamb. She didn’t even have the good sense to bleat.

  EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED

  Few recognise evil when it comes in a familiar shape. Adolf Hitler had been around for years, his goose-stepping troops were running amok in Europe, but on the night of the ball few recognised him as a real threat to world peace.

  ‘There is no likelihood that the British Empire will be dragged into the European turmoil,’ Chamberlain, the British prime minister said. ‘A communiqué protesting Germany’s actions in the strongest terms will be sent to Herr Hitler,’ he said. His protest was about as effective as a teacup of water thrown on an out-of-control forest fire. It didn’t raise a splutter.

  Norman’s protest to Gertrude when, on the Sunday after the ball, he rode down to bring home his absconding daughter caused more than a splutter.

  ‘I have been remiss in my handling of the girl, and it ends today,’ he said. ‘Given her . . . her known family history, when added to the difficulties of . . . of pubescence, the girl requires a mother’s firm hand.’

  ‘I’ve seen the marks of your wife’s firm hand, Norman, so don’t come down here spouting about her firm hands to me. She’s got no love for that little girl and never has — and if you can’t see that by now, then you’re more fool than I gave you credit for.’

  ‘You forget yourself —’

  ‘I’ve forgotten a lot — and forgiven more. I wanted to raise that little girl ten years ago and made the mistake of sending her home. She’s old enough now to decide where she wants to live, and she wants to live with me.’

  She hadn’t invited him to enter. Now she invited him to leave by closing the door, but she changed her mind and opened it again.

  ‘I carried Amber home from India under my heart and in my heart, Norman. I saved her from the crazy swine I’d wed, and for what? No mother should live long enough to wish her child unborn, but I’ve lived that long. Your wife has got her father’s bad blood in her, and I’m past denying it. Now go home. You’ve upset me enough.’

  ‘I . . . the girl has school to go to. She is being primed for a bursary.’

  ‘I’ll get her to school.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her . . .’

  ‘You won’t. She saw you coming. She’s gone.’

  Gertrude closed the door.

  Norman stood a moment, then walked away, his stomach burning. He walked to his bicycle and stood staring down at the machine he had purchased with so much happiness, remembering other days, that bike leaning against the walnut tree. The child who had ridden behind him was gone. The child’s seat had long been removed. He turned, looked back at the house. His mother-in-law was not a harsh woman. She had never been a harsh woman. He shuddered, picked up his bike and mounted.

  The forest road had been built up in recent years. There was a steep rise to negotiate where Gertrude’s track joined the road. He dismounted and walked his bike up the rise. He did little riding these days; his calf muscles were protesting.

  The mind at times is an evil tool. It can choose to replay one’s worst hours over, over and over again. Once a gate to the dark sections of the mind is opened, there is no locking of it. It swings on screaming hinges.

  No mother should live long enough to wish her child unborn . . .

  For weeks after the talent quest, Norman had kept his distance from his house, but at its best a hotel is not a home, and Horrie Bull’s hotel was far from the best. It had worsened once taken over by the city police, worsened to such an extent Norman had spent his days staring at his house, craving his own bathtub where he might spend more than five minutes without someone hammering at the door to get in. He had made wild plans, had considered throwing that woman bodily out of his house. He’d come up with the idea of offering her a hundred pounds for vacant possession. Then the little Dobson girl’s funeral, and a letter from Cecelia, followed by an invitation to dinner.

  ‘We need to talk, Norman,’ his wife had said.

  Certainly they needed to talk. She’d asked him to come by at six. He’d agreed. She’d served him a fine meal: her braised lamb shanks with mashed potatoes, one of his favourites, followed by an apple pie. He had praised her skill in the kitchen, sipped tea from his own large cup while waiting for her to raise her concerns. She had not.

  Having moved to the parlour, he’d sat leafing through an old newspaper, his mind wandering over the road to Jennifer, wandering to the city to Cecelia, his eyes glancing from the pages of the newspaper to his housekeeper, willing her to get to whatever was on her mind.

  He had fed her pills to the fishes. Perhaps she intended asking him to procure more. He would not. Or had she heard again from Cecelia? The girl required more money, no doubt. No doubt.

  ‘You have heard again from Cecelia,’ he said.

  She had not. She said she had seen Jennifer at the post office, said she saw her walking by from time to time. He said that Jennifer was well, that he spoke to her daily, that he had been proud of her maturity at the Dobson funeral.

  ‘A sad day,’ Amber said.

  He’d asked after Gertrude. She said she had been to the house twice. Their conversatio
n deteriorated to the weather. Then came the silence, long, longer.

  ‘A woman of my age still has needs, Norman.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. The seven shillings and sixpence housekeeping wage he had been paying her had, since the talent quest, gone towards paying for his own accommodation — and rightly so. But no doubt she had some womanly need and had invited him to the house to speak of her missing wages. Relieved, he’d folded his newspaper.

  ‘I have been considering a small sum, Mrs Morrison, enough to give you a little security. As you know I am not a rich man, but perhaps fifty pounds could be found —’

  He had misunderstood her womanly needs. She had surprised him, made advances towards him in his mother’s parlour, in a room bright with electricity. His position in the deep chair made evasion difficult, though he had fought valiantly to evade her. He’d hit her with his folded newspaper, hit her until the thing had fallen apart — as had his resolve.

  His experience of women began and ended with Amber; began late, ended early. Show me the middle-aged fool who will refuse a willing woman and I will show you a man who is not a man. Norman was a man. He had taken her on his mother’s velvet carpet — or she had taken him. Thankfully, his mother’s heavy drapes had been drawn.

  He’d escaped. Had returned at a loping run to his hotel bed, though not to sleep.

  A long night, followed by a longer day, his face burning for much of it as he recalled intimate details. He would remove her. He would go to Denham and have her removed. Instead, he returned to that house of carnality — only to pay her for services rendered, seven shillings and sixpence, which he placed on the kitchen table.

  She hadn’t wished him to leave. Again she had her way with him — or he with her. The following afternoon he’d given up his room at the hotel.

  Certainly his wife was not the girl he had wed. From the earliest days of their marriage she had never been a willing partner in the bedroom and had considered his Saturday evening requests for relief as excessive. In the days between his return to the house and Cecelia’s return from the city, Amber had encouraged him in excesses. Her knowledge of things carnal appalled him — after the event. His knowledge of where she had gained her vast experience of the male body appalled him — and excited him. Others had paid for her sinful service. He could partake of the service without the sin. She was his wife — and this knowledge appalled him.

  He was on the slipway to hell — but for a time it had been a very fine ride.

  Cecelia again installed in his house, had offered some respite from fornication, though not from the bitching of his bitches.

  ‘You should have seen her today, Mum. She was wearing that red dress of Dawn Macdonald’s and it hardly came down to her knees.’

  ‘She’s heading for big trouble.’

  And in bed at night — after servicing. ‘We made a mistake by taking her in, Norman. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

  ‘Indeed you cannot, my dear.’

  Cecelia was his proof of that. Hours and a small fortune had been spent in attempting to shape that girl into that which she was not. A sow’s ear is a sow’s ear — as a Duckworth is a Duckworth, and that rainbow taffeta ballgown, purchased at an exorbitant price, only adding to her Duckworthness. And his Jenny-wren standing on stage in moth-eaten blue, singing like an angel.

  I didn’t do anything wrong, Daddy.

  He had locked the door that night and thought little more about it. They’d come home late and heard no sound from the locked room. He had not felt the chill from that open window, not then. His whore had required his assistance in getting herself from her gown.

  A heavy frost covered the earth by morning. He’d risen late, had felt the icy draught coming from beneath Jennifer’s door. The window that refused to open was open. In his rush to close it, he’d tripped over the curtain rail. The noise of his landing brought the whore from his bed.

  ‘Her mother was an unwed harlot, Norman. What else can you expect?’

  What makes Sissy worth an eighteen-pound dress and me worth nothing, Daddy?

  ‘It’s in the blood, Norman. That girl will lie until she’s blue in the face. She’ll tell you that black is white and look you in the eye while she’s lying.’

  She stuck a needle halfway through my leg when I was ten, Daddy.

  ‘We did our Christian duty by her, Norman. We gave her a good home, fed her, clothed her, gave her our name — now she’s intent on dragging it through the dirt.’

  I’ve never lied to you, Daddy.

  ‘I saw what she was doing with those twins, Norman. And I can tell you straight, it disgusted me.’

  What makes Sissy worth an eighteen-pound dress and me worth nothing, Daddy?

  Your mother, the whore. Your father, the fool, my pretty songbird.

  ‘It’s in the blood, Norman.’

  See what treasures we find when we discount blood, Mother Foote . . .

  Your wife has got her father’s bad blood in her, and I’m past denying it . . .

  Norman didn’t go home that Sunday. He walked his bicycle into town where he leaned it against the fence in the hotel’s back lane. It spent the remainder of Sunday afternoon there, also the evening, his bike quite at home against the fence, Norman at home in the dining room. He drank quickly to forget, and by eight that evening he’d been so successful, he’d forgotten what it was he had wished to forget.

  The share market was making up lost ground. Unemployment was down to eight per cent. There was room for optimism, the newspapers reported.

  Little optimism for the farmers. Wool prices were down to eleven pence a pound, well below the last five-year average; wheat was bringing in two and six a bushel.

  September came with its scent of almond blossom and milking cows and crushed grass, but little hope.

  The situation in Europe was becoming critical, the newspapers reported.

  “I propose to come over at once to see you, with a view to trying to find a peaceful solution,” Chamberlain wrote to Hitler. “I propose to come by air and am ready to make a start tomorrow. Please indicate the earliest time that you can see me and suggest a place of meeting.”

  ‘Give him six months, twelve at the most,’ Charlie White told anyone who would listen.

  ‘The Germans don’t want another war,’ many argued.

  ‘They’re ready for this one. You mark my words. We’ll see a war like the world has never known,’ Charlie said.

  Woody Creek was at its best in spring, but winter was coming in Europe.

  By November, Norman had dropped two stone in weight. He looked ragged. His knees felt ragged. He spent too much time on them, prayed each night beside his junk room bed.

  ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation . . .’

  ‘For God’s sake, Norman, will you shut up your praying and get into bed? You’ll catch your death of cold, and give it to me and Cecelia again.’

  He had given them everything else. Why not a cold?

  December, and the green of Woody Creek surrendered to brown, the bush road surrendered to dust, and Norman surrendered to depression. He forgot where he was going, forgot the time, forgot to wake in the morning — or wished not to. He forgot to bathe, to shave. Forgot to forget.

  In December, Miss Rose finally surrendered to John McPherson. She wed him in the Catholic church on the Sunday after the school concert.

  ‘She’s years older than him. What does she think she’s doing getting married at her time of life?’

  ‘Such a pretty wedding,’ Margaret Hooper said, still unready to surrender to spinsterhood.

  A magical wedding, trapped by the groom’s own camera, Joss Palmer behind it that day, given instruction on what to press and when to press it, while John took his proud place, for once on the wrong side of the lens.

  On the final evening of December 1938, half of Woody Creek said goodbye to the old year at the Town Hall Party. Gertrude had
spent the evening preparing fruit for her apricot jam. Now she sat reading, catching up on her newspapers.

  Looking back over 1938, which for the world was a year of tremendous shocks and difficulties, Australia could be grateful for coming through it so well. Although there was a decline in the volume of international trade, a heavy fall in the prices of some of our major exports, and the effects of the drought were felt on our agriculture, as the year draws to a close Australia finds herself in a better position generally than most other countries.

  There have been wonderful advances in our manufacturing industry. The number of hands employed in these industries increased by twenty-two thousand. An aircraft-manufacturing plant is now at work in Victoria on the first large order of modern planes for the Royal Australian Air Force. Australia is a step nearer to manufacturing cars. A company with fifty thousand in capital to invest is now setting up a factory which will produce radiator assemblies.

  She turned the page and glanced towards the green curtain. Jenny had been in bed since nine. Hard to believe that fifteen years ago tonight, Nancy Bryant had carried that tiny mite into her house. Fifteen years? ‘The older I grow, the faster a year goes,’ she murmured.

  Her mind far away, she sensed rather than heard movement behind her.

  ‘I hope that’s you and not a burglar, darlin’.’

  ‘Hold me, Granny?’

  Gertrude held her, held her closer when she felt that slim nightgown-clad frame trembling.

  ‘What is it, pet?’

  ‘Can you put the light out?’

  It came out in the dark, came out shredded like the skirt of that blue-green gown, came out at times like a cat dragged backwards through a hole, fighting and clawing all the way, but it came out.

  ‘I was so stupid. I was so stupid. I wasn’t even scared. I was mad because Dad had locked me in, I was madder at them because it was all their fault. I called them names, Granny, and told them to go to hell. I thought it was just another one of their tormenting games.’