by Joy Dettman
‘It’s after two. Has that fool come back here to further disrupt this house?’ Nicholas said.
She opened the courtyard door but Dave’s truck wasn’t there, and she was about to close it when she sighted Rachael’s frock, white against the bluestone courtyard wall. She was perched on a small stone table, taking her shoes off.
Nicholas stepped around Helen and out onto the terrace. ‘God save me from daughters,’ he said.
‘Or better still, dearest Daddy, God save daughters from you,’ Rachael replied.
‘Did you take his savings?’
She looked like a naughty pixie, perched on a mushroom, a pixie in white. And why was she wearing that dress she’d worn at her wedding? She detested it. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted, dearest Daddy,’ she said.
Rule: Daddy was a term used by the lower classes. It was not to be used by a Squire daughter.
‘Your husband has been here looking for you. I know all about your latest game, Missie. You’re driving that man insane.’
‘Then I do hope the men in white coats take him away soon, dearest Daddy, and I hope they have room for you on board. Can you get my old walking shoes for me, please, Heli, and find me a few clothes. Everything I own that still fits me was in my case, and he found it.’
‘He brought it over here. It’s in the sitting room, Rae.’
‘Oh, give that hero another medal. I thought he’d burn everything.’
‘Go to your bed, Helen, and stay there. And you go with her, Missie. We’ll discuss this in the morning.’
‘You forget, Daddy. I now belong to another.’
‘Get inside! Do you give no thought at all to the precious burden you’re carrying? Have you no memory of that last infant we buried!’
Helen heard no more. She remembered Jennifer’s tiny girl’s death, remembered Arthur holding that baby for hours, howling over it. Didn’t want to remember that.
She went to the sitting room and stuffed everything back into the case. She was opening the sitting room’s French windows when she heard Olivia call out.
Left alone to make Arthur’s scrambled eggs, Olivia had cracked two into a bowl and ended up with a third on the table because Arthur was in the pantry, looking for his liquorice maybe, but he found Mrs Johnson’s cooking sherry instead. He’d been drinking the night he’d attacked Ruby, so now he was only allowed to drink alcohol in his own room – if he agreed to Nicholas locking his door.
Helen found the liquorice, hidden behind the flour tin. It was probably stale and hard, but she pushed the bag at him. ‘Here’s your liquorice, Arthur. Mummy doesn’t like to see you drinking.’
He tried to speak. Maybe he tried to say Helen, or liquorice, or go to hell, but with only part of his tongue left to speak with, and a throat that produced appalling sounds, all words sounded much the same. He drank again from the bottle, then offered it in exchange for the bag as the kitchen’s rear door opened and Rachael’s head popped through.
‘I’ve got to go, Heli. Chris might be looking for me. Where’s my case?’
‘Here.’
‘Don’t choke on that, Artie.’ She was halfway in when Nicholas entered via the walkway, saw her case and kicked it beneath the table, where Olivia was attempting to scoop up egg yolk with a knife – egg sliding off her knife, Arthur standing there in his brown striped pyjamas, stuffing liquorice into that gap of mouth, Rachael out that door fast.
Helen took charge of the mixing bowl. She placed it beneath the lip of the table and scooped the egg yolk in with her hand – too bad about the bits of shell. The task in more capable hands, Olivia left the kitchen.
Helen placed a knob of lard in the frying pan and moved the pan over the central hotplate. Arthur’s few teeth working hard, tongue working hard, he listened to the war in the garden.
A Squire never raises his voice in argument.
A Squire keeps family secrets in the family.
A Squire does not pursue his daughter around the vegetable garden at 2 am. Nicholas was breaking his own rules.
‘Get inside that house now and settle down, start behaving like a married woman. You are carrying my grandchild, Missie. Get inside and sit down.’
Mustn’t mention grandchild in front of Arthur. Mustn’t mention scars. Mustn’t mention war, or Germans, or learning to read again with his fingertips. Mustn’t mention a slate and chalk –
‘It’s got another set of grandparents too, and it’s got a father, and unless you accept its father, you won’t get within a hundred miles of your grandchild.’
‘By God, I’ll have you put away, you defiant bitch of a girl.’ Nicholas angry was Nicholas real, and when he was real his voice rose high. He sounded like a woman.
The lard still a white lump in the pan, Helen cut it in half, wanting it to melt fast. She cut it in quarters then poured in the eggs. Arthur was quiet, standing at the window trying to see into the garden, fighting a mouthful of liquorice while that verbal war raged on, and for once Nicholas wasn’t winning. Rachael was going to Melbourne and she wanted her case.
And Helen was going with her. There was heaps of time. The train didn’t leave until eight on Sunday mornings. Just get those eggs cooked. Just get Arthur out of the kitchen and back into bed with a dose of his calming medicine. No one could handle him, not his paid companions, not Nicholas. All anyone could do was keep him away from alcohol, dose him up with an opiate and give him whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it – except what he really wanted. He was thirty-five years old, a strong man with a strong man’s needs and the face of Frankenstein’s monster.
Her concentration on the eggs, and her ear tuned in to Rachael and Nicholas in the garden, for a moment she didn’t notice that Arthur was choking. Until he stumbled towards her, his mouth black, his few remaining teeth black – rotting from the inside out. She stepped back, watching him, wanting him to choke, to fall down dead on the floor so at least that cruel tale would finish.
‘Nicholas! Nicholas.’ Olivia had entered carrying a decanter of wine.
But a powerful survival instinct was built in to Frankenstein’s monster, and he vomited black liquorice all over the floor. Olivia, disgusted, turned away.
Nicholas came inside and cleaned up the mess with newspaper, then a tea-towel, throwing the whole mess into the firebox. He snatched away the bag of liquorice before Arthur could help himself to more and tossed it into the firebox to sizzle and leak stinking smoke while he wiped the floor with a dishrag that he also threw into the firebox.
Olivia, dodging, poured wine into a thick glass tumbler. Arthur squawked and felt for his bag of liquorice, smelling it burn, coming after it. Helen stirred the beaten eggs in the pan. His hand on her back, his monster face too close, that crawling centipede wanting to crawl on her own face and bite.
‘Your sister is cooking your supper, son. Will you sit down quietly and wait! Olivia, get back to your room.’
Rachael nicked in for her case and wanted out again, wanted to change her dress, wanted comfortable shoes and Chris and out of this place, but she stood at the door, watching the chaos and shaking her head, like what the hell else can I do, Heli? She put the case outside and walked back in to take charge, as she’d always been able to take charge of Arthur. ‘What are you up to, Artie? Disturbing the peace again?’ she said.
The change that came over his face was immediate. He turned, his hands searching for Rachael, attempting to speak.
‘Freddy’s cackleberry mush. I know what you’re saying.’
She stepped forward, took his arm and led him to a chair, sat him down then sat beside him, an arm around his shoulder. If anyone loved him when Nicholas brought him home from hospital that first time, it was Rachael. If he made his twisted smile for anyone, he made it for Rachael. If anyone could understand his garbled speech, it was Rachael.
Olivia’s glass empty, she wanted the decanter but Nicholas had claimed it, poured his own tumbler full of rich red wine.
Poor panting little man
, sitting on an old chair at a battered table where he never sat. Poor stained Nicholas Squire, grandson of a convict, born out of wedlock, drinking expensive wine from a cheap glass tumbler, and twisting at the sagging skin of his neck. That’s what he did when the world got too bad, twisted at that hanging skin. Helen, willing those eggs to cook, scraped congealed bits off the sides and bottom of the pan.
Arthur opened Mrs Johnson’s table drawer, and took out two wooden spoons to use as drumsticks, offering one to Rachael. And they started drumming out a rhythm on the table, Arthur squawking too many words that all became one. Nicholas watched them, his grandchild safe at his side, his daughter singing Freddy’s song.
Marching into war with the chooks laying,
Marching into war with the spoons playing,
Listen to the spoons what are the spoons saying.
Mush, mush, cackleberry mush time. Soon they’ll cook.
And Arthur making that terrible black liquorice smile.
His blue-ringed bowl on the table, bread broken into small pieces, but not too small, Helen called the eggs good enough. She lifted the frying pan from the stove, took it to the table and placed it down so she could spoon the eggs into Arthur’s bowl.
‘Cackleberry mush all done, Artie,’ Rachael said, standing, kissing the top of his head. ‘Now I’ve got to go, but I’ll write long letters and Heli will read them to you.’
‘You’re not going anywhere. Running around in the dead of night in your condition. You will consider the child you are carrying and you’ll go to your bed now. We’ll discuss this situation in the morning.’
Then Helen said it, and she shouldn’t have said it. Her head was so full of so many things she wasn’t supposed to say that sometimes they just came out and sort of said themselves.
‘If you want a grandchild so much, Father, why don’t you claim Ruby’s? No one else will want it.’
Then everything went still and that kitchen sort of looked like one of those old masters’ paintings she’d seen in the city with Aunt Bertha. An old lamp, the rough plank table, a small man in shirt sleeves and a midnight blue vest, cheap tumbler of wine held to his lips, Frankenstein’s monster in brown striped pyjamas, woman in a dusty pink wrapper, half in shadow, girl in a beaded white dress –
She turned her head fast, saw the bridge railing. Mustn’t think about that painting. Tomorrow at Aunt Bertha’s, perhaps she’d paint it, get it out of her head and onto canvas.
She put the case down and shook her hand, her smallest finger numb. She couldn’t feel it at all and could barely straighten her other fingers, but she’d passed Green’s place while she’d been thinking, and the dogs hadn’t barked. She hadn’t even noticed she was walking on wood, the rustling, whispering river flowing beneath her. Crossing over to safety, Heli Squire, it whispered – or Rachael whispered. You’ve gone and been and done it, Heli Squire.
‘I did it for you, Rae,’ she said. ‘I did it for you.’
She glanced over her shoulder, at the wood paddock and she saw him, a lumpy figure moving fast – running, or someone riding a bike. Nicholas had looked in her room! He’d sent the Johnsons out to get her.
She was almost off the bridge, or off the part of it that was over the water, but she was still locked onto it because of the steep sides. With nowhere to run she picked up her case and flattened herself against the bridge railing, the case held before her, prepared to defend her right to run if whoever was on that bike didn’t ride by.
He didn’t. He stopped his bike and placed one foot on the ground, balancing a heavy load tied to his pack rack. ‘Going somewhere?’ he asked.
Only Mike Murphy, who she wasn’t scared of in the least, and who she had no intention of speaking to. She picked up her case and continued walking.
‘Going far?’
She walked on and he followed her, walking his bike behind her past the dairy and into Railway Road.
‘Catching the train to Willama?’
She needed to put the case down, so she did, then turned to him. ‘Where I’m going is none of your business, Michael Murphy.’
‘That’s a moot point,’ he said, and he snatched her case, propped it on his pack rack and walked on ahead, singing the song she’d heard someone whistling down near the river:
Ain’t she sweet, ain’t she grand, watch her walking down the strand.
Turned up nose and come-on eye. She’s my gal and I’m her guy…
moon madness
Sunday, 9.55 pm
Tom woke with a start, leaving a dream incomplete, and just as he’d got to a good part. Something had woken him. He listened, raised his head from the twisted pillow and rubbed his neck, near seized in the position it had been forced into on that pillow. He rolled his feet onto the floor, slipped his arms into his vest, got his legs beneath him and walked down to the kitchen, yawning. The clock on his mantelpiece told him it was five past ten, which probably meant it was five minutes to ten. Still a good half an hour to train time. The kettle boiling and heat enough in the stove to keep it boiling, he vacated his kitchen and crept by Rosie’s bedroom door.
Something was wrong in there. That snore sounded too civilised. He eased the door open and stood peering at the bed. There was enough moonlight to show one head snoring on one pillow where there should have been two. Rosie was up, and he’d left the doors open! That’s what had woken him!
He ran barefoot to the lavatory and got a bindi-eye in the heel for his trouble, and got one of its killer thorns in his finger while pulling it out of his foot, getting two injuries for the price of one and letting go with a couple of expletives. Paling fences gave the illusion of privacy.
No Rosie in the lavatory, nor in the washhouse. Gingerly he walked back to the kitchen where he checked out his heel. It was bleeding, which probably meant he’d got the thorn out intact. He gave it a bit of a squeeze and his finger a bit of a suck before continuing his search. That woman chose her times to try him, and that was a fact.
‘Rosie! Where are you, love?’ he called low. ‘Rosie.’
He was hopping, pulling on his socks, pulling his boots on. He couldn’t creep in his boots, but he returned to Rosie’s room, had a bit of a feel under her bed. Dangerous occupation, that; her chamber pot was under there and he knocked it over, and thank Christ it had been emptied. Say what they liked about young Jeanne Johnson, she was efficient.
‘Wha . . . who?’ Jeanne muttered. Tom made a fast escape and closed her door, not too concerned. Rosie wouldn’t have gone far. She was probably on the veranda, pitching saucepans out on the road.
Taking the lamp with him, he made a thorough search of the other rooms and checked out his office. He left the lamp there before heading outside where no artificial light was necessary, the moon having turned night into silvery day.
She wasn’t on the veranda. He circled the house, the lock-up – no snoring going on in there – and he was back where he’d started and shaking his head.
‘Where the hell would she go?’ He walked around the town tree, walked the circle, checked the shop verandas, double-checked the post office lane. ‘Rosie!’ he hissed into every shadow. ‘Rosie!’
No Rosie anywhere and time was moving on. A few kids were skylarking in the memorial gardens. ‘Have any of you seen Mrs Thompson about?’
‘No.’
A hot, airless night after a hot, airless day, and more heat coming tomorrow. No lights showing through the hospital residence windows. Tom didn’t knock, but as he completed his circle of the hospital grounds, Rob’s screen door complained and he stepped outside.
‘Are you after my beer or my missus?’ he yawned.
‘I’m looking for mine, Robbie. I thought she might have wandered over here again. Go back to bed. I’ll find her in a tick.’
Rob disappeared but was back two minutes later, having retrieved his hurricane lantern from its hook on the rafter while Tom completed a circumnavigation of the Catholic church. He’d found her there one night, found her on Rob�
�s veranda twice. Until he’d got into the habit of locking his doors, she’d taken off frequently in the night.
As the two men walked back to the tree, a few screen doors started slamming and folk came wandering out towards the apologetic glow of Rob’s lantern.
‘Rosie’s gone sleepwalking again,’ Tom lied to one and all. ‘If you don’t mind checking your verandas and back yards for me…’
‘When did you last see her, Constable?’
‘Half an hour or so back, Miss Martin. She was sleeping. Rosie! Rosie!’ No use trying to keep his voice low, not now. ‘Why the hell she had to go and do it tonight with those Russell Street boys coming in on the train, I don’t know.’
‘It’s the heat,’ Rob said. ‘We all go a bit mad in this heat. Throw a full moon into the equation, and hell breaks loose.’
‘Did you hear if they found those missing children, Constable?’
‘Not by sundown, they hadn’t, and not a lot to gain searching at night. Those poor little tykes will be exhausted – if they’re still alive.’
‘They reckon someone took ’em.’ Bill Morrison from the garage was out and hitching up his braces.
‘I hope to Christ someone took them,’ Rob said.
‘We tracked down that old hawker bloke early this evening,’ Bill added, tying his bootlaces. ‘He reckoned he had nothing to do with it but we took him in anyway. This must have been around seven, but when we got him in there, the coppers told us those kiddies don’t belong to that farmer chap they’re living with. He took up with a city woman who’d cleared off from her husband taking their kids. They reckon that the husband could have tracked them down, and taken those kiddies back – and I’m not lifting one finger to find him. A woman’s got no right to take a man’s kiddies away from him.’
Tom and Rob left the group talking and walked to Merton Road, looking down the hill towards the school. He’d found her down there once, sleeping on the school house veranda. He walked a few yards more, then bellowed, ‘Rosie, will you answer me, girl?’
