by Joy Dettman
Through that summer they met at the river, until her father caught them swimming one evening.
‘I won’t be allowed out for a month, but just over the bridge, almost opposite Green’s house, there’s a dead tree with a hole in it. I’ll write to you and put it in the hole,’ she whispered. Then she swam one way, and he swam the other.
He still had that first letter, five pages of it, still in its envelope.
My very dear friend, Chris,
Lord, you should have heard my father when he got me home! He was sizzling, Chris. I won’t be getting any spending money for a month. For a week, I wasn’t allowed to set foot outside the house. I’m allowed out now, but still not allowed to leave the property, except to go to church, so I won’t be able to see you for a while. I will probably go mad of boredom, and will definitely go mad, unless you write to me. I’ll write every day, though I may not be able to post my letters every day. He barely allows me out of his sight…
Months of letters – and a few stolen meetings, sweeter meetings because they were stolen.
They’d laughed about their first kiss, but then there had been more kissing and not so much laughter – then more than kissing. Breathless touching, and the finding of secret places; they’d done everything – almost.
It was early spring when she came knocking on his window, her frock and hair wet from her swim. He gave her a towel and a blanket, and he took her to the washhouse.
‘I had to see you, Chris. We’re going to England to bring Arthur’s wife home.’
‘When?’
‘Next week, but we’re going to Melbourne tomorrow. We’ll be away for months.’
She took her frock off, wrapped herself in the blanket and sat drying her long hair with his towel. She had a yard of it back then, so he lit a fire under the copper, and they sat close while he held her frock before the flame.
‘Are you as much in love with me as I am with you, Chris?’
‘More,’ he said.
‘Do you want to be married before I go away?’
‘You said you were going tomorrow, and we’re too young. They wouldn’t let us.’
‘Butterflies only live for a day, so they have to do everything in one day – hatch, fly until they meet their mate, lay their eggs, then die. And I don’t mean married in the church – just married like the butterflies. They don’t need butterfly priests or their parents’ permission.’
They found two brass rings in one of Joseph’s boxes of bits and pieces, one too large for her, one too small for him, but they spoke their marriage vows to the moon, lifted those rings to be blessed by the moon, then consummated their union on that blanket, on the floor of the washhouse.
She giggled when they were done, and he thought she was laughing at him.
‘I was just thinking that if that was all mating was about, butterflies wouldn’t bother crawling out of their cocoons.’
‘I was . . . was just practising.’
Too cold near dawn for swimming, he walked her the long miles over the bridge. They practised again in a clearing, in Squire’s wood paddock. She didn’t laugh that time. ‘I love you, Christian Reichenberg. I don’t care if your father is a German or not. I love you and I love your name and every part of you. Each night before I go to bed, I’ll close my eyes and think about you and you have to do the same. Please don’t forget me.’
Forget her? He’d been afraid she’d forget him.
It was March when next she came to knock on his window, a hot and sultry night. They made love on the haystack, thunder cracking overhead, a lightning show in the western sky, and they were oblivious to it, and to the prickly hay.
‘So that’s why the butterflies fight their way out of their cocoons,’ she said, and they both laughed, thunder shaking the earth and their haystack.
It was always that way with them, always fun and laughter and love, so much love. They’d shaken that haystack many times with their lovemaking, they’d shaken the earth at the swimming bend, shaken the trees in Squire’s wood paddock, never considering the consequences, thus there were no consequences – until last September. If only…
Christian turned to the house as a small light moved away from the porch. Kurt and his lantern.
‘Let there be light, and there was light,’ Christian said.
‘No luck?’
‘It’s in his locked room. I’m going to take that door off.’
‘Touch that door and he’ll go for his shotgun.’
‘It’s coming off tonight.’
‘You won’t find any money in there.’
‘Where is it, then?’
‘No one lives forever,’ Kurt said.
‘He’ll take that money with him to the grave.’
Kurt turned the wick higher then walked to Elsa’s garden, to the east of the barn, and he placed the lantern close to Elsa’s carrot patch, lighting a circle there. ‘He has worked hard, has bought good land – not for him. It will come jointly to us.’
‘Have you seen his will?’
‘No. I’ve read his list of instructions, brother.’
‘Always the crawler.’
‘If you say so.’ Kurt turned away, walked to the barn, stepping off the length of the eastern side, heel to toe, heel to toe. Ten steps. Then, at a right angle, twelve steps more, which took him into that circle of light, the toe of one boot on Elsa’s carrot patch. ‘Where is your prod?’
Christian was at his side, the prod offered, taken and driven deep by his brother. For too long Christian had sought this hiding place. He was on his knees when he heard the scrape of metal against glass. Kurt stepped back, leaving the prod in the earth.
‘You’ll need a shovel.’
‘It will be another bloody bottle. I’ve found half a dozen or more.’
It wasn’t a bottle. A foot down he unearthed a small jar, sealed by a rusting lid.
‘That list has been pinned behind the door since he was sick with the influenza in spring. He didn’t plan to die and take his money with him,’ Kurt said.
‘You’ve known this was here since September? You knew I wanted money to get her away. Why didn’t you tell me then?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me why you wanted to get her away? Why didn’t you tell Mutti there was to be a grandchild? She would have given you all of her money. You told no one. You wanted what you wanted and no explanation,’ Kurt said, taking up the shovel to refill the hole and tidy the garden bed.
‘Do you want half of it?’
‘No.’
Christian worked the lid of that jar. It wouldn’t budge. He turned away, walked into the dark. ‘Rachael has gone beyond your reach and beyond mine, brother,’ Kurt said. ‘If you leave tonight, whether you are arrested or not tomorrow, I have also lost you.’ He picked up the lantern and followed Christian to the washhouse. ‘Wait until Tuesday. I’ll go with you to the funeral. Mutti will go with you. Perhaps our father –’
‘You think I’d want that mean old bastard there?’ Christian said, swinging around to face him.
‘Rachael would want him there. She knew he cared for her, as I know he cares for us, as Mutti knows he cares for her – in his own way.’
‘Bullshit, he cares.’
Kurt placed the lantern on the floor then checked the copper’s firebox, added more wood. ‘We’ve been good friends for a long time, brother. What we were to each other before, we can be again. I need your friendship.’
‘If I pitch this jar at that wall, it will break into a thousand pieces. That’s how I feel now – as if some bastard has pitched me at a wall.’
‘Glass shatters. A body heals and the scars make you stronger.’ Kurt stood, placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You feel solid enough to me,’ he said. Silence then, only Mutti’s jars of peaches rattling as they bubbled in the washing copper, and the steam. The washhouse had been turned into a steam bath tonight. Kurt walked to the door. ‘Come back to the house. Sit with us. Talk to us.’ Then he was gone.
&
nbsp; Christian stood on, rubbing the jar clean of earth, feeling the movement of what was sealed inside. Here was his share of that money, come too late. Why hadn’t he used his prod in Mutti’s garden? He’d prodded everywhere else. Why not there?
Because he hadn’t believed his father capable of showing such trust in Elsa, such trust in Kurt – and such great disdain for his youngest son. Always Papa’s good little boy, Kurt. Always knowing the German words, always reading Papa’s new lists, working hard to read them when he was small. Always a good brother, sharing his knowledge.
‘We have to clean out the hen house today and pen that clucky black hen. Papa wants to get some more chicks.’ And later: ‘We have to start on the post holes in the back paddock, brother.’
Six items on that list behind the door. Six jars, or tins. Kurt would know where each of them was buried, yet he sat on a milk cart each morning and churned butter for pennies.
The lid frustrated Christian’s fingers. Easier to smash it, but he worked at that lid, worked it until it moved. Then it was off, exposing a plaster of paraffin wax, which he could not move. Elsa’s knife, used for cutting soap into the washing copper, was on the window ledge. He cut the wax in half, then in quarters, removed it, and pulled out a roll of notes wrapped in oil paper and tied with string.
He had earned that money. With his blisters and his sweat, he had earned it. It was his by right. If he’d had it back in September he could have taken Rachael away to where her father would never have found her. She’d be alive now, holding him, loving him, laughing with him, growing round with his baby.
Too late for money. Too late for everything. Not yet eighteen, and his life was over.
He sucked a long slow breath between clenched teeth, holding that breath, hating his brother for having known where the money was hidden and not telling him. Hating him, too, for his words, and because he hadn’t even looked at the money. And hating him more because it was his words and that hand on his shoulder which had brought the tears. Christian never howled, hadn’t howled in years, so why was he howling now? Wasted water, that’s all it was, but it was washing down his face, dripping down his nose, from his chin. He’d got what he wanted, hadn’t he? He’d got his share of that money, so why bawl?
He walked across to Dolan’s fence. No grog over there, not tonight. Plenty of money to spend on grog and no place to buy it. There were places in Willama. He’d heard blokes talking about always being able to get a beer over there. He could ride his bike across.
And Rachael lying dead over there. Dead.
Maybe he should ride there, find her and beg her forgiveness.
How could the dead forgive? The dead couldn’t hear you.
She’d heard him last night.
‘So Rachael, the thief of dreams has turned to stealing money. I spit on that gimpy bastard and his money, Rae.’ That’s what he’d said to her last night.
‘Do you spit on me too, Chris?’
‘You think you can keep changing your mind, me one week, that piece of crippled dog-shit the next, now me again. Yes, I spit on you, Rae. You chose your bed, so go home and lie in it.’
‘I love you. We were married by that moon, Chris. We swore that it was forever.’
‘Yeah, well, you were married by your priest to Kennedy, and your father approves of him, so stay away from me.’
‘I wrote you a note, and you didn’t come. Every day I was in Melbourne, I looked for you and you didn’t come.’
‘Day after day I looked for your note, and you sent me nothing. Then I heard that you were married. You didn’t even have the decency to tell me yourself.’
‘I was never married to him. I kept my promise to you. Every night before I went to bed, I thought of you. And every minute of every hour of every day since that wedding, I’ve planned this night. Come with me. When we’re away from here, you know we can work it out.’
She’d clung to him then, so he’d pushed her, walked away from her. And this was the memory he must carry with him for life. He didn’t deserve to live. Better if they did hang him – or he hanged himself.
He turned, walked to the barn.
Moonlight painting patterns on the floor, the rope dangling there. He reached for it, reached high, allowing it to take his weight. Then he swung across the barn, as he and Kurt had swung on that rope since childhood, when their father wasn’t around. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up, knowing now what he had to do. He’d tie a noose in that bloody rope, and when that mean old bastard came out here to carve his wood at dawn, he’d find his son swinging on his precious bloody rope.
Up he went until he could throw one leg over the rafter, reach a hand over his head and hold on to a cross beam. And he was up, and perched there. I am the barn owl, he thought, though never so wise as the owl. I am the fool who killed the girl who made me a man, and without her I am not a man. Better that I am dead and with her.
It was dark in the rafters, but he tied a good noose halfway up the rope and slipped it over his head. ‘So jump. Swing, you arrogant bastard,’ he said.
He couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the guts. And he didn’t want to die, anyway. He wanted to fly an aeroplane over that bastard of a country that spawned his father, and drop a bomb on it.
His fingers found the knot attaching the rope to the rafter. Too many years since it had been tied, it wouldn’t respond to his prying fingers. He needed a knife, or one of the woodcarving chisels. Gripping the rafter with his knees, he looked down at the workbench. Plenty of knives down there.
No knife in his pocket, though, only that roll of notes, which, now that they were in his possession, had lost their power. His desire had been to find that money, and to let his father know that he’d found it. What he wanted now was a knife. How much, at this moment, might he pay out of that roll for one sharp pocket-knife? He should have thought ahead, found his equipment before he’d climbed.
He never thought ahead. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Since changing his mind about taking the long jump, he now wanted to see that rope fall. His wilful fingers had always taken what they wanted. Again they worked the knot. He tried pushing at the stump, pushing while twisting it, and maybe something moved. With total concentration then, he worked that rope stump until his thumb felt raw; maybe he gained a little slack. He ignored the rafter attempting to dissect him and worked that knot until it eased enough for him to push the stump through. Finally he had the end of it, and he held it high, wanting to scream aloud, until the stupidity of it hit him.
Just another one of his pathetic bloody victories, as meaningless as the notes in his pocket. His hand opened and the old rope fell heavily. He wasn’t expecting its weight; the tug on the noose that was still around his neck almost toppled him from his perch. An upside-down hanging, he thought, slipping the noose off and flinging it to the floor where it lay in a defeated coil.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘How do I get down?’
Kurt, the old man’s bootlicker, would have considered the consequences of this action before taking it. He would have looped the rope over the rafter, slid down it, then pulled it to the floor.
‘Fool.’ He’d have to crawl across to the wall, use the window as a ladder and climb down to the work bench. And when he got down, then what? Get on his bike and ride? Where? Better to remain up here where no decision needed to be made, other than to crawl forward or backward, and nothing to do while deciding, other than count his father’s money.
He worked the string binding off that roll and the notes, long enclosed, crept free. He thumbed through them. So much money and nothing he wanted that it would buy. All he’d asked his father for was ten lousy quid. How much did he have here? It was hard to balance on a narrow rafter when he had no hands to hold on with, but he locked his knees together and began counting. A futile task too. How could you count your riches when you couldn’t see the colour of the notes you were counting, couldn’t see if they were banknotes or worthless bits of paper?
He folde
d a note, making a dart that he sent spiralling to the moonlit floor. He couldn’t see where it landed, couldn’t see if it was blue, red or green. He folded another note and sent it out after the first. Then another, and another.
Katze came from his bed in the corner to watch a while, then to chase these new night flyers.
He removed and pocketed one note, and maybe it was a tenner – that’s all he’d asked for, all he’d wanted. He spread the rest of the wad, fingered it, then tossed it high. Just a swarm of paper moths fluttering in the moonlight.
the sound of baby tears
Nine o’clock and the town was settling down to another night of sweating heat. Tom couldn’t settle – he still had a good hour and a half to wait for that train – so he wandered, forcing his eyes to stay open. He considered his veranda and a quiet puff – plus Murphy’s gramophone. They were at it again. He considered his bed and forty winks – couldn’t mess up that bed, Jeanne had changed the sheets and made both beds up, hospital tight. And he couldn’t lock the front door until she came in, and he didn’t dare close his eyes until that door was locked.
There was a sad, lonely sort of feeling about this town tonight, Murphy’s gramophone playing sad, lonely songs, old Mrs Wilson out searching for one of her cats. ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty.’ A baby’s plaintive wail coming from Bill’s house behind the garage. Too many memories were triggered by the sound of baby tears.
He’d fed and watered his prisoners, fed them bread and plum jam sandwiches. They weren’t getting his meat. He’d tossed Vern a tin of smokes. Nothing more to do now, and no one to do it with. Company, that’s what Tom needed, someone to talk to, someone he could try his ideas out on. He’d popped over to tell Rob Hunter what he’d learned about Ruby’s misfortune, but Rob and Joan had gone early to their pillows. It could wait for tomorrow. And if that little girl didn’t make it through until morning, then maybe it would be better for her infant if Tom kept his nose out of it.
