by Joan Phipson
The day of the Red Cross Fair dawned warm and bright. At seven o’clock a female voice came faintly through the bedroom door.
“Kitty!”
It was quite easy to mistake it for something else—anything else, a noise in the street outside, a bird, even a moan among the springs of the mattress as she moved. The dark blob on the pillow that was Kitty’s head grew smaller as it retreated beneath the blankets. After a tactful interval the bedroom door opened cautiously. Even under the blankets she heard the click of the latch and found it insupportable that her mother should find it necessary to come into her room so furtively.
“Kitty dear, are you awake? It’s a lovely day and it’s time to get up.”
Her head shot out from among the bedclothes. Mrs. Hartley noticed, sadly but without surprise, that her expression was not that of one just woken from a deep sleep. The hostility in the wide open eyes of her daughter was familiar, if daunting. Mrs. Hartley steeled herself and said, “It’s the Red Cross today, you know. There’s such a lot to be done.”
“I hoped it would be raining.”
“Yes, well—you did say you’d help, and Diana—”
“I suppose Diana has been up for hours, beavering away.” Suddenly the hostility drained away. She saw her mother’s face, kind, concerned, baffled, as it so often was under her sudden attacks, and remorse made her fling back the bedclothes and spring out to clutch Mrs. Hartley painfully round the ribs. “Don’t worry. I’ll come.” A sudden thought made her release her mother so that she staggered back. “I don’t have to wear a skirt, do I?”
Mrs. Hartley recovered her balance, and at the same time knew that another kind of balance might shortly be lost. She said carefully, “You’ve got some very nice dresses—”
“You know I didn’t mean dresses. I don’t see why—”
Almost too late Mrs. Hartley said hurriedly, “Oh well, I suppose as it’s the vegetable stall—”
Over Kitty’s glowering face the clouds dispersed. “After all, Mum, I’d look pretty silly handing out pumpkins in a dress, wouldn’t I?”
Mrs. Hartley said, with a shade too much enthusiasm, “Oh, quite. It hadn’t occurred to me. Yes, by all means. Jeans. A clean pair.”
For a moment there was silence. Mother and daughter looked sombrely at one another. Then Kitty smiled. Triumph? Remorse? Or perhaps amused affection. Mrs. Hartley never knew. She left the room, saying only, “Breakfast as soon as you’re ready. I want to be there by nine if possible.” If there was a reply she was too far away to hear it.
At breakfast Kitty noticed that her elder sister was wearing a dress. As usual, it was a dress that enhanced her dazzling prettiness. She looked as if she found the prospect of a day behind a Red Cross stall both pleasing and stimulating. She gave Kitty, in her clean though threadbare jeans, one look, opened her mouth, glanced at Mrs. Hartley and shut it again. She took a breath. “Morning, Kitty,” she said.
“Morning.” Kitty found it unnecessary to look up from her plate. Too often she found Diana’s existence offensive. In a way she regretted the jeans. Too late she realized they emphasized her youth. A dress would have made her look nearer seventeen than her fifteen and a bit. In jeans she could be any age, and the poise she lacked, compared with Diana’s effortless assurance, would be put down to lack of years and not to the constant turmoil that she struggled always to keep screwed down inside her.
Mr. Hartley came in late, greeted his family absently, ate hurriedly and left, looking at his watch.
Breakfast over, Kitty said, “I’ll wash up.”
Mrs. Hartley and Diana looked at her in surprise. “Oh, but I thought we’d—”
Diana interrupted Mrs. Hartley. “Good idea. You and I know what goes into the cartons. She doesn’t. It’ll save time.”
The weather was warming up for Christmas and the approach of the long Australian Christmas summer holidays, and the ladies on the charitable organizations like Mrs. Hartley’s Red Cross group knew it was wise to fit in their stalls, fairs and functions before the holidays began.
It was just a quarter past nine when the Hartley car turned in at the hospital gates. In the hospital garden there was already activity. Some of the best places were already taken. The spot they eventually chose for the vegetable stall faced the lawn and backed on to the drive.
“Thank goodness,” said Mrs. Hartley. “We’ve got the cake stall under the trees. They always sell better when they’re not steaming with heat.” Then she went off to inspect the numerous other sections that were her responsibility, and Diana and Kitty were left to erect the stall. Even before it was completed busy women in laden cars kept coming with offerings picked that morning from their own vegetable gardens.
“What a sensible place to have the stall,” said one. “Just beside the drive, so that we don’t have to carry the things too far.” She dropped a bag of potatoes thankfully on the grass.
By eleven o’clock the stall was in business. Kitty sat behind it on an upturned box with the loose cash and a few notes on a tray beside her.
Diana looked at her, frowning. “Think you’ll be all right if I go and see if I can help Mum? There won’t be many buyers for a while yet.”
“What do you think is liable to happen to me? Murder, rape or somebody absconding with the petty cash?”
Diana sighed gently. “I just thought you might have trouble giving change. People do when they begin.”
“My math teacher says I have considerable ability and a clear mind. Buzz off for God’s sake.”
But Diana was studying her with new interest. “Does she really? Do tell Dad. He’ll be—” She stopped.
“Be what? Relieved that I’m normal in some respects?”
“Never mind. There’s no dealing with you.” This time, without turning she heard Diana’s brisk steps on the gravel of the drive and knew that she had offended again.
“God give me patience,” she said aloud, and found herself looking into the mildly astonished face of her first prospective buyer.
For perhaps an hour she was left to deal with the stall on her own. No frightful problems occurred and her temper had quite subsided by the time Mrs. Hartley returned, her mind by now full of other problems, other assistants. Seeing her younger daughter unexpectedly calm and even contented, she smiled, told her she was doing splendidly and hurried off.
The morning wore on and the hospital grounds began to fill up. In between her bouts of rather dour salesmanship Kitty sat back and watched the activity at the other stalls, of which there were now quite a number. Her own produce was diminishing rapidly enough, though there were still a few beans, quite large numbers of carrots and the usual big bunches of silver beet. Also there were a few late pumpkins and half the bag of potatoes. For some reason the pumpkins were the slowest of all to sell.
The sunshine was warm, though still pleasant. Across the lawn the cypress trees that bounded the hospital grounds shaded a line of stalls, in the middle of which the cake stall stood discreetly back, in deeper shade than any. The jams and preserves stall, she noticed, was catching the sun at one corner, so that the jars of honey shone golden and the pots of quince jelly a warm, ruby red. Handiwork was right on the edge of the shade and would soon be in the sun. She could see the bootees and baby jackets and bonnets in their pinks and blues and occasional startling yellows from where she sat and was glad that fate had given her the vegetables. But it was the cake stall that attracted the most custom and soon, unless more cakes turned up from somewhere, they would be out of produce. She wondered if the ladies would then be allowed to go home and decided suddenly to try more aggressive salesmanship.
An elderly woman walked across the lawn. She had a mild, approachable face and she carried a shopping bag. When Kitty saw her looking at the vegetable stall she picked up a bunch of silver beet and waved it, not quite under the woman’s nose.
“These are lovely and fresh,” she said and to her own ears her voice sounded false and greasy with invitation.
&
nbsp; Not being acquainted with her normal tones the woman stopped and smiled. “That’s very kind of you, dear. But my doctor won’t let me eat spinach.” She did not mean to sound patronising, and perhaps it was the fault of those misleading jeans.
“It’s not spinach; it’s silver beet,” said Kitty. Her voice was no longer ingratiating and her amiable expression had given place to a formidable frown.
“It’s the same thing, dear. They should have told you.” She walked on, her eyes now on the cake stall and Kitty already forgotten. For a moment Kitty stood watching her, as the retreating matronly hips swayed beneath a rather tight beige skirt. She had got away too easily and Kitty knew why. With a great effort she swallowed her annoyance and searched for her next victim.
It promised to be the rector’s wife, who now bore down on her, gaunt and earnest and with her eyes fixed on the price tags. She was not given to patronising except at social gatherings, and she now muttered, “Good morning, Kitty. Nice to see you lending a hand,” as her eyes roved over the vegetables. She picked up a bunch of parsley. “This has no price tag. How much is it?”
Kitty had never bought a vegetable in her life and she cast about feverishly in her mind for a likely figure. “Fifty cents,” she said at last.
The rector’s wife put the parsley down at once. “That’s far too much.”
Kitty hurriedly picked up a small cabbage. “This then, Mrs. Brooks. Look, this is only thirty cents. It feels lovely and soft.”
For the first time Mrs. Brooks smiled. “Crisp is what you should say, Kitty. Not soft. No one wants a soft cabbage. I’ll come back later and see what you have left.” And she followed the matronly lady to the cake stall.
Clearly her future did not lie in salesmanship and for a time she gazed, brooding, into space. People came through the hospital gates, walked over to the vegetable stall, and moved on. Kitty barely saw them. Then, when she was beginning to think it must be lunch time, and to wonder whether she was expected to starve in defence of her unwanted vegetables, a young woman with an enormous shopping bag came crunching along the gravel, bustled up to her stall and said, “What have you got? I’m in an awful hurry and this is my only chance to get the week’s vegetables. Let me see now. . .I’ll have this—and this—and this.” And one after another bunches of carrots, cabbages, plastic bags of early beans, several bunches of silver beet—
“That’s silver beet,” said Kitty.
“I know. I want several.”
—and finally a bag of potatoes, went into her bag. She pointed to a pumpkin at Kitty’s feet. “And that, too, please,” she said. She looked at Kitty, whose mouth was slightly open and who had not moved for some moments. “Well, aren’t you going to add it up?”
By the time Kitty had found a piece of paper and a pencil it had all come out of the bag again. Together they added it up, the money was passed over, the young woman gave Kitty a bright smile and hurried off. Kitty looked at her depleted stall and her good humour returned. Her mother came then, sent her off for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and when she returned, all seemed set fair for the remainder of the day. Mrs. Hartley went off more confident than she had expected to be.
Her produce was going down nicely. Only one pumpkin remained, a few potatoes and a bunch of parsley, now marked twenty cents. Kitty sat on her box and placidly watched the cake stall across the lawn folding itself up for the day. A woman with a small boy walked up and the woman looked long and hard at the one pumpkin. Kitty, her mind for the moment elsewhere, sat and gazed into space and did not see the small boy reach out for the bunch of parsley.
During the day the sun had passed over and now shone on to the lawn from behind Kitty’s right shoulder. It shone on the small boy’s face, right into the open mouth that was about to receive half the bunch of parsley. At the same time there was a sound of footsteps on the gravel behind her. She did not notice them, and she did not really hear the male voices as they passed by, either. But the shadow of their passing fell across the stall, darkened the face of the small boy, and for a moment it seemed to her that night had come. It came, not only across the bench in front of her, on to the boy and his mother, but she thought in that moment that it passed right through her like an X-ray, and it carried with it a kind of turmoil of confusion and fear and rage. And before she had gathered her defences the rage broke through, and she bent and picked up the pumpkin and threw it at the child’s still open mouth.
It hit him, not in the face, but fair on the chest and he went over backwards, the astonishment on his face dissolving into a roar of pain and protest. By the time his mother had picked him up, still clutching the bunch of parsley, the shadow had passed and Kitty was standing gaping and white-faced.
“You—” said the mother and there was murder in her eye.
Kitty tried to say she was sorry, tried to say she had not meant to hit the child. What she could not say was that for one moment it had not even felt like herself, that something beyond her control had taken charge and she had been helpless. She began to say it, but stopped because suddenly she doubted if it could indeed be true. All she could do was to come to the front of the stall to help console the child. But he shrank away as she came near, and his mother pushed her roughly away.
“You keep away,” she said, and her face was very red. “I’m going to report this.”
It was not necessary to report it, for Mrs. Hartley came up at that moment and it took her a long time to calm both mother and child. When she achieved it and they had eventually moved off she said to Kitty, “What made you do it?”
Kitty shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then her voice suddenly rose to a scream as she said again, “I don’t know.”
The shadow had quite gone from the bench. Away down the drive four indistinguishable male figures were just turning out of the gate. But neither Kitty nor her mother saw them go.
There followed the usual reproofs and apologies and attempts at explanation that they had learned to accept as normal in Kitty’s erratic progress to maturity, and in time, like everything else, it was forgotten. But in Kitty’s mind it was not forgotten, and it lingered at the back of her memory—a dark and unexplained cloud. How could she explain the feeling that was always there, that inside her there was and had always been a gap waiting to be filled? In her mind? In her heart? She did not know. But it was there, and she knew it caused all her difficulties. If she told them they would not believe her. Or they would say it was the same with everyone and other people managed to behave in a civilized way. And she would know that was not true and so she could get no help from them. It had to remain her secret until one day she found the answer.
Chapter 2
The next time the girl came to the garden, made bold by success, it was broad daylight, a Saturday in early summer. The internal fires that had driven her through it the first time still smouldered, but there had been no recent incident to fan the flames. This time it was more the satisfaction of defying the two uncompromising notices and some curiosity that took her in again. And this time she knew the way. The bright morning light prevented her from taking the direct route the darkness had made possible. There was no point in letting herself be seen and stopped. Besides, there was the dog. She stayed beneath the trees, avoiding the open spaces and keeping to the shrubby parts of the garden. Even this circuitous course to the town was infinitely shorter than the legitimate route. She had calculated a difference of two miles and she challenged those two big notices to stop her taking it. As for whoever cowered inside the big house, the world had not been made only for them.
On this bright, warm morning everything in the garden was busy. There had been rain in the night and the air was full of insects intent on eating and avoiding being eaten, mating, laying eggs, making cocoons, hatching, spreading damp wings, buzzing, clicking, humming. And a multitude of birds were noisily preventing them doing so. In the damp and fecund earth plants were busy, too. The garden sang with growth. This time the girl, whatever her thoughts and
feelings, had no effect on the garden at all. She passed through and made no impact. The composite life about her held no part for her and there was not even a ripple in the air as she went by.
This rejection may have given her the idea that she was to some extent invisible, for she stopped once when she was in full view of the house to look about her. The garden came down the hill in a series of terraces and the house stood on one of the upper levels. The front windows were open now and from one of the upstairs ones a white curtain intermittently ballooned out and sank out of sight again as a draught from inside the house fitfully caught it. Unlike the garden that surrounded it, the house seemed still and lifeless. Nothing moved, not even the dog she had heard before. The creepers—jasmine and climbing rose—that grew lustily at each corner of the front façade appeared to be intent on smothering it for good. All the life there was about the house came from these two samples of the proliferating garden. Among so much that was exuberant and even joyful the house stood forlorn—pathetic rather than sinister.
Suddenly the girl gasped and sprang back into the shade of a big rhododendron. There was now a face at the upstairs window from which the curtain blew. It was a gaunt, lined face, and there were dark shadows beneath the cheekbones. It was looking straight at her, and because she had not, after the first brief glance, looked at the upper windows again, she did not know how long it had been there. She waited for a long time without moving, half expecting the front door to open and the dog to come bounding out. She did not dare glance over her shoulder to see if she could reach the boundary before the dog reached her. Instinct kept her motionless, scarcely breathing. But the door did not open. The dog did not come. And after a time she cautiously moved on.
