They sat and talked about nothing in particular, skirting around the edges of smoky suppositions, wary lest they enter into places that required an honest response. They ate scones with jam and cream and drank tea in fine china mugs. ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Marie and she reached over to stroke Jeanie’s hair. She imagined they looked good together, one black, one white, but for her, still a difficult concept to reconcile.
‘What do you see when you look at me, Marie?’
‘I see an Aboriginal girl made good. And one who is a friend.’ Marie licked cream off the ends of her fingers. ‘Matthew could look after you a bit better, but heck, you can’t have everything.’
‘Why not, Marie? Why can’t I have everything?’
Marie thrust her arms out towards Jeanie, palms up. ‘What is it you want?’
‘I don’t know, a proper husband, a proper relationship, a …’
‘Whoa, this is Leonora, not Paradise!’ exclaimed Marie, stretching out the ‘Leonora’ with a nasally twang.
‘Look, I accept that. Coming here fourteen years ago was an adventure for us. We really had no idea what we were to expect.’ She looked across at Marie. ‘You know what?’
‘What, love?’
‘We didn’t ever have a dream for Leonora. It was just excitement and that drains out pretty quick. And now,’ head in hands, ‘I want a better life.’
Marie shared out the last of the tea between the two mugs. ‘What’s Matty think about it?’
‘Who, Mr Responsibility? Yes, he made a vow to look after his dad but he has obligations to his own up here. Six days a month doesn’t cut it.’ Jeanie wasn’t angry, she was just telling it as it was. ‘I’ve got to be mother and father to those kids.’
‘There’s a lot of single-parent families all over …’
‘But I didn’t sign up for that, did I?’ She drained her cup. ‘Dad has offered more than once to put us somewhere in Perth but I just don’t know. Matthew, I guess, is waiting for nature to take its course.’
She wanted to say more, to talk about love and desire and the romance of things exotic. Of forbidden things. But they just talked around the more mundane issues of their lives. Outside, blackness pressed against the house and showed itself at the windows.
When they said their goodbyes, the doors shut once more on different existences and Jeanie was left to carry home her burden-bag of troubles, woes and things incomprehensible. She walked back along dark streets and past houses that flickered and glowed in the restlessness of night. Voices came from shadows, loose words carried on the sweat of a hot breeze, a scramble of meanings floating off into the huge mouth of the desert, to be gobbled up and gone. Jeanie wondered if it would take her, too.
8
Delores always considered Matthew to be an inept individual, someone who had failed at almost everything he had attempted except impregnating his wife, which he seemed to do at every opportunity. Now he wanted to become an author, a writer of realism, he says, whatever that may be. Delores likes the earthier novels that women read ‘for companionship’, her being alone in her house at times, lying in her bed with only the sound of the wind and the traffic to keep her company. The romance of the written word gave her what a man like Matthew would find most difficult to do, and that is to love a woman as she would like to be loved, rather than in the self-serving and insensitive fashion of most males.
Her own husband never made the grade. Oh, he made it with other women, just not with his wife, and he left her the house with a lot of loneliness. For a few months, everything was tear-stained, the rising damp of a broken heart. Then she took on the job as carer for Archie, who she thought was obnoxious and exasperating, those characteristics giving her distance from him, a separation that allowed her to function properly in her role.
She heard a vehicle pulling into the driveway. It was not the hum of Matthew’s Ford but through the dirty window she could see a twin-cab utility pull up. Matthew climbed out of the passenger side and took his bag from the back seat. A short man in overalls followed Matthew up the path and Delores could only imagine what had happened to Matthew’s car.
The bulk of the old wooden door closed behind them. Vince looked down a long hallway of high, tinned ceilings and peeling paper. A single bare bulb hung above them and another, further down, unmoving in air thick with the odour of stale sweat, urine and the mustiness of age. ‘Nice place, mate.’
‘Tactful, Vince, tactful. It needs work but I guess that will be done when … you know.’
‘In the lounge room, Matthew.’ He always thought Delores’s vocal cords had been dipped in port wine and honey, such was the mellowness of her voice. An angel incarnate in more ways than one. ‘Beer’s in the fridge.’ She always undid the top buttons of her shirt on Matthew’s arrival.
‘We have a guest. How’s Dad?’ Matthew put down his bags to one side of the archway and walked into a room with chairs for two and air for no one. ‘Oh, don’t tell me the air-con’s had it!’
‘As you can see, your dad’s dozing and, yes, the air-con died today.’ Delores gave Vince a cursory glance. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Bloody hell! Everything happens …’ Matthew was going to say, ‘Everything happens to me’, but he controlled his petulance. He slowly wiped his hand down his face, hoping for something better, he didn’t know what. ‘Sorry, Delores. This is Vince Jones. I broke down out of Kal and he gave me a lift.’ Matthew disappeared down the dim hallway to the kitchen. Fridge opened, fridge closed, and three little, brown bottles clinked together.
‘Pleased to meet you, Vince.’ She offered him the other lounge chair. ‘We don’t often have visitors here. Make yourself at home.’
‘Thanks. And my name is Vince Romano. Jones is just the name on my ute.’
‘Actually, while you’re here, we’d prefer it if you were Vince Jones.’ Delores looked at her fingernails. ‘You know, true-blue son of the Southern Cross from Western Australia somewhere. Old Mister Andrews, you understand, has a few problems with tolerance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘British Protestant, Vince. Liberal Party. Right-wing nationalist.’
‘Oh, okay, I get it. Matthew sorta explained. Is that part of his sickness?’
Matthew returned with three stubbies clutched to his chest. ‘No, he’s just a prick.’ With his spare hand, he dragged a dining chair to the doorway, thinking it may be cooler there.
‘Shit, it’s stuffy, even with those fans going. How about I open the front door? Let some fresh air in, hey?’ Matthew handed out the beer and kept walking into the hallway.
‘Your dad wanted it closed,’ said Delores. ‘There’s been a homeless person pushing his trolley up and down, today.’
‘And Dad doesn’t want them here, I gather?’
‘That’s right.’ Delores checked her nails, again. ‘But I suppose the homeless bloke has got his rights, too.’
‘I reckon you’re right,’ replied Matthew, cautiously, ‘but we have a duty to uphold the values of society. No one likes to see homeless people lying around everywhere, do they?’
‘Oh, shit, Matty, I can’t believe you said that.’ Delores, aghast.
‘Said what?’ Matthew, hands open, indignant. ‘Look, I feel sorry for them and that but they’re an eyesore, which is the truth. I’m writing about that very thing now. People have been homeless for practically ever. We don’t know how to deal with it.’
‘I don’t think it’s homelessness that is the worry,’ said Vince sheepishly. ‘The building just gives us safety and shelter. Homeless people don’t have much love and we don’t have, what’s that word, com, com …’
‘Compassion!’ Delores spoke and swilled down the last of her beer.
‘We should be grateful we’re not in their position,’ said Vince.
‘What position is that, mate?’ Matthew took a good gulp and burped his satisfaction. ‘We all have free will. We all have that wonderful liberty to make decisions, either right or wrong.
’ A sudden thrust of memory pierced his heart: ‘Make a decision, Matthew.’
‘That’s a bit simplistic, Matty’, said Delores, leaning forward in her chair, her cleavage exposed and long since past the sculptured outlines of youth. ‘It’s not like whether to have a cigarette or not.’
Matthew said nothing, knowing she was probably right.
It was past nine when Delores finally left to walk home. Vince offered to drive her but she said she needed the exercise. The twin-cab drove slowly away and Delores followed shortly after. She gave Matthew a brief wave and soon disappeared from view. For a moment the street was quiet, almost peaceful. He lit a smoke and sat on the veranda till he finished the last of his beer. He’d best ring Jeanie and let her know about the car. He’d let her know what a shit of a day he’d had and she would understand. No one did it harder than Matthew Andrews.
9
The house was in darkness. Vince stared at the empty carport, and slowly made his way to the front door. Already his mind was flooding with streaky scenarios and hopes as the key wobbled about in his hand, unwilling to unlock the door lest he discover the truth. He breathed deeply to steady himself and, after some effort, the key shot home. The door opened. Vince turned on the lounge-room light and walked through to the kitchen. On the bench was a note on a piece of copy paper, written with cruel brevity: GONE TO MUM’S. NOT COMING BACK. SORRY. SOPHIE.
10
‘Jaylene, you awake in there?’
‘Shoosh! C’mon take Little Albert.’ Jaylene was in a big armchair, tatty and bulky and built for a grander house than found anywhere in Leonora. It seemed about to engulf Jaylene and her brother completely. The twins and Nadine lay slumped together on the three-seater couch in positions of improbable comfort, where sleeping is possible only for the very young or the very drunk.
Jeanie carried Little Albert through to the bedroom he shared with Nadine, and she placed him in his cot. It was obvious as he lay there, stretched out sleeping, that he would soon need a bed. The bedrooms were cluttered enough as they were: it would only get worse as the children got older. She looked down at Little Albert and heard his gentle breathing. It wasn’t always like this.
‘Matty! Stop your bloody snoring!’ Jeanie poked Matthew roughly in the ribs. There was no room for niceties here: 2am, between feeds, deprived of sleep and a jumble of murderous thoughts.
‘Shit! What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ He raised himself onto one elbow, rubbing his free hand over his face, his eyes battling desperately to remain open.
‘Shoosh! You’ll wake the baby.’
‘Christ, woman! Do you know what time it is? Bloody hell.’ Brain cells raced to engage. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
‘No. It’s okay.’ She got up and checked on Little Albert, named after her father, Albert Bayona. ‘Let’s try and get back to sleep.’
‘But I’m awake, now. Jeez, it will be good when he’s sleeping in his own bed, in his own room.’
‘And when he gets older? Can’t have a boy in a girl’s room. Things’ll have to change.’
‘The old man will be gone soon. We’ll have a nice juicy inheritance. Build anything we want. Things will change all right.’ Matty lit a cigarette and thought. Jeanie fell back asleep. They had just been voices in darkness.
‘Mumma.’
‘Sheesh! You scared the hell out of me, daughter.’ She drew Jaylene into an embrace. Hold her tight, Jeanie, lest she explode into womanhood, sprout wings and fly away into the night.
‘What’s happening to us, Mumma?’
‘It’s change, I suppose. Waiting for it. Having it happen and feeling the effects. It’s a worrying time. We’re all under stress.’
‘Dad rang. Said something about his car breakin’ down, or stolen, or something. He’ll ring you in the morning, he said.’
‘Oh.’ They sat down on Nadine’s bed and talked for what seemed like hours until Jaylene couldn’t stay awake any longer. Jeanie cradled her slumbering daughter and thought about the sakes: my sake, her sake, our sake. She reached over and turned on Nadine’s lamp to read her watch: 11:55.
Before she fell asleep she resolved to tie off the loose threads of the tapestry of her story before it unravelled completely. She just didn’t quite know how to do it.
MONDAY
11
The boom years between 1896 and 1920 had been kind to Leonora, and to its conjoined twin, Gwalia. Together they rode the gilded wave of the gold rush until, finally, it washed up on the beach of desert dirt and saltbush and petered out to a mere trickle, its resource mostly spent. Mining continued at a reduced capacity, sustaining both towns at subsistence level, as if nature and economics were engaged in some cruel, sadistic game; down in the pits, as the years wore on, the unseen hands of Destiny slowly choked the life out of the golden seam till Gwalia breathed no more.
While Gwalia dwindled to the status of ghost town, Leonora continued to survive, feeding off a few hardy pastoralists, well acquainted with lean times, and the growing demand for nickel. The skeletal remains of Gwalia, with its dusty streets and empty shanties, lie unburied. Occasionally a tourist stirs the mouldering of memories, kicking up the spirit of better days, but with each passing footfall, the tenuous connection to the past diminishes a little further. They look at Hoover’s house, sentinel upon the hill, and in nearby yards the rusted cogs and shafts and engines that once were the pumping heart of the Gwalia mine. They look into the yawning maw of the pit where men from here and foreign places dug out their lives in sweat and toil, and sometimes more. Then the tourists drive away in their cars and caravans, symbols of a more modern and materialist world, and leave Gwalia to its abandonment.
Across the highway, down at the end of Memorial Drive, is the cemetery. Just rows of shallow pits full of soulless, sightless, silent corpses. Sometimes when the wind whips up and passes through the stands of spare gums, it sings nature’s sad requiem to the dead. Most tourists will drive on and leave the past behind.
Jeanie Bayona had a strange dream. There was a desert in the suburbs somewhere, maybe Cottesloe, and a man lay on the ground, still. A woman stood nearby and she was afraid. Dingoes circled, baying and growling, moving closer, and all the time a gentle rhythmic singing, calling out her name.
She woke early; Little Albert had made sure of that. Now he lay there beside her, his head tucked between her breast and upper arm, sleeping peacefully. As she looked down at him, she wondered at the miracle of re-creation, how he had once been inside her. From conception to birth and now nearly eighteen months old; every day brought change as he moved along his lifespan into the unknown. Her nostrils twitched. Little Albert’s nappy needed changing: food in, crap out, the cycle of life. That much she was certain of.
The sun shot in through the bedroom window at a low trajectory. Jeanie heard Jaylene in the kitchen, already making tea on six hours’ sleep, firing on all eight cylinders. From the lounge room came the low murmur of the television, probably one of the morning shows, with presenters smiling no matter what the hour or circumstance. Smooth operators all, those presenters, a shiny veneer as thin as a television screen, trust clothed in an oily sincerity: a Mr O’Leary smile.
Jaylene brought in a mug of tea and some raisin toast on a tray. She was a slender girl, fine bones wound with dark copper skin, fair hair like her father. There the comparison ended. Jeanie thought her eldest daughter had some nous. Clever girl, that. Perhaps a little conniving, too.
‘You’re up early, daughter. Didn’t you sleep well?’
‘Tossed and turned, Mumma, and I don’t feel well. Maybe I’m comin’ down with something.’
‘Maybe you are. I’ve decided to take a few days off work to think things over.’
‘What? About Dad? Why is it his fault?’
‘I didn’t say that. I just need to try and work things out. Your dad and I need to resolve a few issues.’
‘What about Ben?’
‘He’s a friend. And he listens to me. He pays attention
to me in ways you wouldn’t understand. There are things I need.’
‘Sex?’ Jaylene made a face as she spoke.
‘God no, daughter! Where’s your mind?’
‘Well, what things?’
‘Just things, girl, just things. Most of all I need to work myself out. It’s time I found out more about my family, to see where I fit in. You said that yourself. I thought that you could help.’
‘Do I have to go to school?’
‘No, I really do want your help. Okay?’
‘Okay. Where do we start?’
‘The cemetery, I suppose. It’s always a good place to think about the past.’
Noises from the kitchen. Nadine dragging a chair over to the counter: breakfast or bust. ‘Hang on, Nadine, I’ll do it!’ And then Jaylene was gone, thin legs skittering across the lino, moving as only the young can. Rastus wandered about in her wake, hopeful of food or a good scratch. He lifted his black head skyward and let out a brief, gravelly howl. Jaylene threw him a crust from her toast and, thus satisfied, Rastus waddled outside into the sunshine, farting as he went.
‘Mumma! Nadine spilt the milk. It’s everywhere!’
‘Didn’t, liar!’
‘Can you clean it up, Jaylene? Please. Get a towel from the dirty washing.’
‘Mumma, Rastus smells.’ Georgina was awake. Robyn wouldn’t be too far behind.
‘It’s ’cause he’s old. You’ll get old one day and smell like that.’ Jaylene was fiercely defensive of the dog, her companion since she could remember.
‘Mumma, Jaylene says I’ll smell.’
‘You do smell, Georgina! Already!’ Jaylene stirred the pot.
‘Aw, Mumma, she said …’
‘Can someone bring me a nappy and the wipes?’ Jeanie spoke over the sounds of kids in the kitchen who were devouring their kill and starting on each other. ‘Please!’
‘I’ll do it. Anyway, Georgie, I’m not goin’ to school.’ Jaylene’s tongue darted in and out, lizard-like.
The Wounded Sinner Page 5