by Joy Dettman
And how could any mother live with thinking something like that? How could she keep it down inside her? Her head spun with it, her heart ached with it, her bones howled with it. Her mouth opened now to let it out to Denham. Then closed, swallowed those words —
And found others.
‘Speak to Charlie White about what’s between that little girl and her mother. He saw what she was capable of doing to a three-year-old baby. Mr Foster saw it. Talk to him. And Vern. Ask Vern about the asylum. And the chap who used to be up here before you came — Ogden. He’s still in Mitcham. One of the Macdonald girls is married to his son. If he’s got a phone number, Maisy will know it. Talk to him.’
Maisy was bawling and moving her clothing into the back bedroom. George wasn’t accustomed to her tears. He wasn’t accustomed to having his dinner thrown at him either, or to having jailbird sons. He was paying his solicitor to fix this, and he wasn’t fixing it.
Norman no longer played poker with him on Friday nights, but the two men had a history of friendship. He had to talk to him, see if they could fix this man to man. At seven that night, he walked over the road and knocked on Norman’s door.
‘We’ve been friends for years, Norm,’ he opened the conversation. ‘Our wives have been friends for forty. There’s got to be a way we can work this out between us.’
Norman stood in the doorway, head down. He had nothing to say.
‘I’m not denying that they should have known Jenny was under-age, but they swear black and blue that they didn’t. I’m not saying that what they’re saying is fact either. Those little bastards will tell the same story blindfolded and twenty mile apart, but they are telling the same story and the solicitor says she won’t have a leg to stand on in court.’
Norman flinched.
‘Court’s not what you want for that girlie. It’s not what any of us want for her.’
Norman shook his head. He had no words left.
George, uncertain if the shake of the head meant Norm did or didn’t want to go to court, continued. ‘I’m not for ten seconds saying that this is fact, but they swear that Jenny came looking for them, hopping mad at her mother, and asked for their cigarettes. You know her mother told our solicitor chap what she saw — that she caught her with them earlier in the night.’
These days there was less of Norman to cringe, but he cringed more. His jowls hung like rags over his collar, his jacket hung from his rounded shoulders, his trousers sagged, bagged, around backside and knee. His hair, gone grey overnight, they said, looked more grey because there was more of it. He hadn’t sat in the barber’s chair since a week prior to Christmas. Tufts jutted above his ears. Too much of his life spent now in leaning head in hands.
‘The thought came from the boys when I spoke to them this afternoon. Maisy will back me up on this, but both of them have had eyes for Jenny since she was a twelve year old. They’re talking about a wedding, Norm, a fast wedding before the infant comes.’
Norman’s jowls lifted off his collar, the hairs on the back of his neck quivered. His wife the whore was behind him.
She stepped around him and out to the verandah. He stood staring at the dark green paint peeling from his front door. He picked off a flake, which jammed beneath his fingernail, and while his whore and neighbour spoke of weddings, he stared at that green flake. He’d kept this thing covered up. In a month or so it would have been over and Jennifer could have come home. His lower lids, drawn down by sagging cheeks, were red half-moons, his hangdog eyes constantly wet, his spectacles continually fogged. His shoulder ached, his gut burned . . .
Cecelia, her hair half up in rag curls, half hanging wet to her shoulder stood beside him.
‘Mum?’
‘Go back inside. And either come out or stay in, Norman.’
He came out. His whore closed the door.
‘It’s a terrible time for all concerned,’ George said. ‘Maisy is over there bawling her brains out. Your girl has been like one of her own.’
Sissy placed an ear to the door. She could hear the mumble of voices, hear their footsteps as they left the verandah, but little more.
The wireless was on in the parlour. She turned it off, then went to see where they’d gone. They were at the gate, George and Amber on the street side, Norman on the path leading out.
Until the twins were arrested, Sissy, like everyone else, had believed the singing lesson lie. And she’d resented the money Norman was spending on Jenny when he complained about every pair of stockings Sissy bought. She knew of a few girls who had got themselves in the family way and been rushed to the altar. She knew of one boy who had got out of town, and the bride’s father and brother had gone after him and dragged him back to do the right thing.
The window was open at the top where the wireless aerial had been fed through. She stood on the couch, placed one foot on the arm and got her ear close to the half-inch gap.
‘It’s a mess all round, but locking those boys up for twenty years won’t do your girl’s name a skerrick of good in the long term, Norm. A fast wedding will. That’s all I’m saying,’ George said, and clearly.
Wedding? Sissy wanted a wedding, her wedding.
She was a bottom-heavy girl, most of her weight in her backside and legs, which should have offered stability, but the arm of the leather couch was rounded and covered by one of Amber’s antimacassars. Her foot slipped; she grasped what she could, the curtain. The rod slid from its hooks, one end brushing the peacock feathers, which overbalanced the blue-green vase. It fell, then Sissy fell, landing hard on her well-padded backside and her not so well-padded funny bone — which is never funny. In other circumstances, she would have bellowed. Not tonight. She sprang to her feet and, through the now undraped window, saw the three walking out to the road.
Then she saw why. Maisy was coming. Still rubbing her elbow, Sissy opened the front door and crept out, crept down to the side fence, where she crouched low.
‘Get home now, George, or by God, I’ll get in that bloody car and go out to Patricia’s and I’ll stay there.’
‘They’re eighteen-year-old boys. I’m the first to admit that they’ve got some growing up to do, but they’re not going to do it with their necks stretched, are they?’
‘She’s fifteen years old, and she loathes your bloody sons and so do I,’ Maisy howled.
‘They’re not all bad. Look how they saved old Miller and his missus from the fire. One eggs the other one on, that’s all. You know as well as me that they’re different boys when we get them separated.’
‘Then shoot one of the little mongrels and separate them, George!’
‘Who’s going to marry her if not one of those boys?’
‘She’s a child,’ Norman wailed. ‘A child!’
‘Maisy wasn’t much more when we wed. It did her no harm.’
‘It didn’t do me much good either,’ Maisy yelled.
‘You’re the only bloody woman in town who drives around in her own car.’
‘And the only fool in town who walked around pregnant for ten years too.’
‘All I was going to say, before you put in your tuppence worth, was we have a fast wedding, pack both of those little bastards back to Melbourne and Jenny moves in with us. She liked living with us. You liked her living with us. You can help her look after the infant. It’s got a name, and there’s no court case. Do you want a nameless grandchild, Norm?’
Grandchild? Norman cringed. He’d given no thought to the infant, had spent the months since New Year almost believing his own singing lesson lie.
Maisy had thought about it, had thought about raising it. She had two grandchildren in Melbourne, but rarely saw them. She had three in Willama, saw them once a month, if she was lucky. She had one on a farm twenty miles out of town.
‘All I’m saying is that we need to talk to her — or you need to talk to her, Norm. For all any of us knows, she might be more than willing to get a ring on her finger before the infant comes.’
‘What
choice has she got?’ Amber said.
SORTING THINGS OUT
It had been a bad, bad day. Elsie came over at seven with the newspaper. She stood at the curtained door, looking at the girl lying unmoving on the bed.
‘Do you want Harry to ride in and get Vern, Mum?’
‘She seems to be sleeping. Let her sleep. He’ll be down in the morning, and if he’s not, Joey can ride in for him.’
Wednesday, 19 April 1939: the front page of the newspaper was full of Bob Menzies’ defeat of Billy Hughes in a battle for the leadership of the United Australia Party. Gertrude knew nothing about it, knew nothing about Bob Menzies. She hadn’t looked at a paper in weeks.
Harry liked the look of Bob Menzies, so Elsie liked the look of him. If there was ever a match made in heaven, it was Elsie and Harry. Why it worked, Gertrude didn’t know, but it did.
At seven fifty, Elsie went home, and Gertrude sat on alone, staring at the photograph of the chap who’d no doubt end up prime minister. He looked like a round-faced boy and he made her feel old — as the half-inch of white showing at her hair partings made her feel old — as did her bones. They were moaning about their age tonight.
‘Exercise. That’s what I need.’
She’d had little exercise these past weeks. More often than not, Joey milked the goats. He cut greens, fed her chooks, carried water, collected her eggs. Charlie’s son-in-law still picked up the bulk of them. Harry took the rest into Mrs Crone and to a few regular buyers. Harry carried Gertrude’s shopping home. They’d kill her with kindness before she was much older.
At eight thirty, she checked on Jenny. She was tossing and turning but sleeping.
A strange little girl with a strange little mind, always full of life and questions. Who would have believed it could come to this? Who would have believed Amber could become what she’d become? Life played out its cruel games and there was no way to dodge its barbs.
She walked to her door, opened it and looked out at the moon. Amber had loved moonlit nights when she was small, loved to go walking in the moonlight. They’d had some good years.
She sighed, and walked out into the moonlight, out her gate and up her track to the road. She’d feel better for some exercise. What was she always telling Vern? ‘Walk,’ she said. ‘Get out of that car and walk. Legs were meant to be walked on.’
Tonight she took her own advice and walked. One moonlit night she’d walked Amber out to Macdonald’s bush mill, near on three mile further out her road — and she’d carried her girl home on her back. Only in her thirties then. A lifetime ago in years, but in living time it seemed like yesterday.
She walked too far, determined to prove she could still do it, and when she turned back, she wished she hadn’t been such a dogmatic woman, wished someone was with her to carry her home. She’d cut through her eastern paddock and was walking by her shed, eager for her bed, when she heard it and, like Nancy Bryant on a darker night fifteen years ago, recognised it.
She looked towards Elsie’s house. Elsie’s Teddy was eleven months old. What she’d heard was the cry of a newborn. She ran, or raised something faster than a walk, swung her door open, knocked a chair over on her way to the lean-to where she saw what she hadn’t expected to see for two or three weeks more. It was on the floor, Jenny standing, her back to the wall.
‘I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m sorry —’
‘Is it all out?’
‘Hop into bed. You’re bleeding.’ Gertrude stepped over the infant and tried to lead her to her bed.
‘Is it all out?’ Wild-eyed, staring at the wailing bloody thing on the floor, shuddering. ‘Is it all out?’
‘Elsie! Elsie! Harry!’ Gertrude called. ‘Elsie! Harry!’
‘Is it all out?’
‘Yes,’ Gertrude said. ‘Yes. It’s all out, darlin’.’ She was holding her up, Jenny’s shuddering shaking her. ‘You have to lie down for me, darlin’. We have to get your head down flat before you fall down.’
‘Get it out of here!’
‘I will. You get into bed, and I will.’
She got her on the bed, grabbed a towel and wrapped the baby, and was placing it on her kitchen table when Elsie came through the door, barefoot and nightgown clad, Harry behind her, still doing up his trousers.
They took it away. Teddy was still at Elsie’s breast. She fed the baby its first meal.
SEPARATION
The town learned of the birth the following morning. Harry told Vern, who told Norman, who told Amber. She told Maisy, who told her daughters. They told the rest.
The twins learned of the birth when Maisy pitched clean shirts and two bananas between the bars. Like apes, they allowed the shirts to fall to the floor but snatched the bananas, and, like apes, ate them.
The cell was ten by ten. Two narrow bunks fixed to the walls left little room to move. They had a tin dish for washing, a bucket for squatting, spent too little time at the dish, too much time at the bucket, and their cell smelled rancid.
‘Have a wash. You smell like Duffy’s dogs.’
‘It’s our shit-can, not us,’ Bernie said.
‘When’s he letting us out?’ Cecil said.
‘When they fix a date for the hanging,’ Maisy said. ‘And I hope it’s soon.’
They weren’t overly worried about their predicament. Their father would fix it. He always did. Their stink had got them down for the first few days. They’d grown accustomed to it now, though not to the bars and lack of space.
Too much togetherness when the togetherness is not of your own choosing, when you’re locked in together isn’t good. After five days of it, had they found the space to do it, one may have killed the other. Lack of space saved them.
Their one serious attempt at mutual murder had knocked over their mutual bucket, which, after hours of complaints, gagging and high-stepping, they’d been forced to clean up with newspaper. Their wars were now largely verbal, somewhat repetitious, and reserved for the safe end of the cell, well away from that bucket.
‘You shouldn’t have dared me, you ugly bastard.’
‘You bloody wanted me to dare you, you ugly bastard.’
Denham listened in. He made notes, and at times looked on his catch as a big-game hunter might look on something yet unnamed that he’d found in his trap. Sooner or later he’d be forced to pass them on to a larger zoo or release them back into the wild, but for years he’d been tracking them, studying their habits from a distance. Now he had them.
Each morning he woke with a delicious lurch of sweet recall, knowing he had a focus to his day: the feeding of his beasts, the giving of them fresh water, the hosing down of their cage — and them. He was a happy man that April, or he was until that infant was born, until George’s solicitor got the Willama sergeant involved.
There was more traffic than usual down the forest road during the final week of April. Maisy came to spend an hour or two with Elsie and her new granddaughter. Brand new babies are addictive to some. Once that scent seeps into the nostrils, they can’t get enough.
Vern, always a regular down that road, didn’t share that addiction. He could take babies or leave them, and until they learned to talk back, he preferred to leave them.
The Willama sergeant drove down in a sleek black car, Denham at his side. They had spoken to Norman and to Amber.
‘We need to speak to Jennifer, Mrs Foote,’ Denham said.
She didn’t argue today. She led them into her kitchen, where Jenny sat knitting beside the stove, knitting green, not white. She kept her eyes on her knitting, kept her mouth closed, but she listened, and at times shook her head.
They left, and Norman came, on his bike.
Jenny wasn’t knitting. She was seated at the kitchen table, setting out worn playing cards. She glanced up when he filled the doorway.
‘Come to take me home already?’ Her eyes derided him. They were not a child’s eyes.
‘A decision,’ he said. ‘It must be made.’ He stepped inside, glancing around for t
he crib, the infant. It was not there. ‘Sergeant Thompson . . . He spoke to you?’
Jenny shrugged and placed a card.
‘They were here yesterday,’ Gertrude said. ‘Vern is taking the baby down to the hospital in the morning.’
‘Ill?’
‘It’s sturdy enough.’
They stood side by side, Gertrude and her son-in-law, watching the cards fall, watching an ace placed down, listening to the rhythmic slap of cards, three, then three more. Nothing was as Norman had expected. Perhaps he had visualised the young mother seated, the child at her breast.
‘I had expected —’
‘Elsie has been caring for her. I’ll fetch her over.’
‘Don’t bother, Granny,’ Jenny said, but Gertrude was out the door.
Norman stood watching the six of hearts placed down, then the jack of diamonds, a black five on the red six.
She looked up and caught his eye. ‘Want me to get married, Daddy? Is that why you’re here?’
He shook his head and stared at the cards.
‘Maisy said you think I should marry one of them — for my good name’s sake. Is that what you want?’
‘Forgive me,’ he said.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I won’t. Ever.’
She placed a card, flipped three more, then three more, concentrating on those cards, not wanting to see his face, to see the weight of his spectacles drawing his lower lids down, forming pouches beneath his bloodhound eyes. She’d warned him. He wouldn’t listen. It was too late now.
Black ten on the red jack. She’d almost missed that one. You needed to concentrate when you played Patience. And moving that ten gave her a space for a king — if she could still get that red king from the pack. Once more through, but the king was buried. ‘Damn.’ Once more those cards were slapped down. Three, and three more, and three more, until there were no more.
‘When there are no more moves, the game is over,’ she said, sweeping up the cards, shuffling the pack. Sooner or later she’d win. It just took patience, that’s all. That was the name of the game.
