The Old Balmain House

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 16 - 1905-1908 – Balmain’s Children

  Sophie raced down the street like a wild urchin, dark hair streaming behind. Chasing her was Matty McNeil, her best friend, almost 2 years older, their birthdays only a week apart. Today was a special day. It was her birthday. Her Mum had read her a story about someone who was five and how grown up they were, and now she was five too. For a present today her Dad gave her a three wheeler trike; he had made it himself. It had pedals and round wooden wheels and a basket on the back to carry her work things. He had painted it bright red, her favourite colour.

  Tonight there would be a party, and her Grandma Alison and Grandpa Charles would be there. Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Mick would have come too, but they were away on a trip, gone to somewhere with a long name that she couldn’t quite remember it. They would be back soon and perhaps they would bring her some presents too.

  She loved her Grandma Rosie too but Gran Alison was best. She could tell when she looked into your eyes what you were really thinking. And at times when Mummy and Gran Alison and her all looked at each other together they all knew what each was thinking. It sounded a bit complicated (now that was a big word for a little girl – or so her Daddy said), but sometimes it was easier to understand things like that than explain them. It was like you could pass your thoughts across to somebody and they could see them too.

  The only other person she could do that with, just a tiny little bit, was Matty, but he was too nice and sometimes she did not want him to see what she was thinking, most especially if she was trying to trick him or be mean. Plus, she wanted to marry him when she grew up. She certainly did not want him to know that, or perhaps he would forget to ask her, ever so politely.

  Matty headed home, time for him to his chores and get dressed before he came back to her party. Inside, her mother was bathing baby Rachel and Alexander was playing with Daddy and helping him hang decorations for the party. Alexander was almost four. Even though he was almost as tall as her she could run much faster. She knew there was a beetle named Alexander too but didn’t think it could run very fast either.

  She heard her father call her name to come for the bath. She did not want to come inside but then inside meant getting ready for the party, so that might make it happen sooner. There was a big cast iron bath in the wash room and her Dad had filled it up, almost to her knees, with warm water. Alexander was already in it playing with the soap and a duck. She was too grown up now to play with the duck, and really she thought she was too big to share a bath with Alexander, but perhaps that could begin tomorrow after she had finished turning five. So they both washed and played.

  In five minutes their Dad came in with two towels. He told them to stand up, grabbed each under the arms and whisked them out. Before they knew it they were wrapped in towels and going to their bedrooms. It was cold, but it was winter, and her Dad had the fire lit in her room. On her bed was her favourite pink dress, with ruffles and long sleeves, which her Aunty Heather had given her, and with it was a pink ribbon for her hair.

  She was half way through brushing out her wet hair when there was a knock on the front door. She peeked through and saw it was Granny Al. Sophie flung herself into her arms. Daddy and Mummy were there too and everyone was welcomed into the sitting room, where another fire was going. Except for her own room, with the pink fireplace and cosy chair next to the bed, it was her next favourite room.

  At times, when she was tired, she would lie with her head on her Daddy’s lap and gaze up at the beautiful ceiling he had made. It was like living inside a picture, she could see herself running through all the flowers and leaves and waves he had placed there. He told her he had done it specially to make her Mummy happy. She did not know who she loved the best in the whole world, her Daddy or her Mummy or her Gran, Al. Perhaps it did not matter and she could love them all the same.

  She climbed on her Gran’s lap in front of the fire, handing her the brush and ribbons. “Please, will you brush and do my hair and make me look pretty. I like it when you do it the best.”

  Alison looked at her small grand-daughter, like a little changeling, with dark hair, but with those eyes of her Maria, like her own eyes, which her Da had said were the same as those of her Mum, Hannah’s. She had an instant powerful sense of life’s continuity. This small girl would hold a special place in it; she too shared the deep wisdom of a memory keeper. She gave Sophie her own special secret smile and brushed with love embedded in every stroke.

  A year passed; it was time for another birthday party. This time it was at Grandma Alison and Grandpa Charles place. All her cousins were there and some other friends too, of course including Matty. But she was a bit mad at him today. Her older cousin Elizabeth was there and Matty was talking to her more than anyone else.

  Well, she would show him. She went and knocked on Grandma’s Al’s bedroom door. Gran opened it, dressed in a wrap. “Oh Sophie, my pet, do you want to come in. I was just fixing my make-up and hair, perhaps you could help.” She handed her a silver necklace, saying, “Could you do up the clasp at the back. It is getting hard for my clumsy fingers.”

  Sophie saw her take out a small pale blue-green perfume bottle, covered in beautiful silver patterns, just like the waves on the sea. Gran touched her finger to the top and touched a dab behind each ear.

  Sophie’s eyes grew wide as she looked at the bottle. “Gran, that is so lovely. Please tell me where it came from?”

  Gran looked at her with serious eyes. “First I will put a dab behind your ears. I used to do this to your Mum too when she was a little girl.”

  As Gran touched her skin with the tip of her finger, Sophie felt a smell flow over her. It was like a mixture of apple blossoms and summer sun, with a hint of the smell of ocean breeze and a shady forest. It made her feel happy all the way through. It was her mother’s smell and Gran’s smell, but so much more as well.

  “This is the place where I keep all my happy memories” said her Gran.

  Sophie knew it was no ordinary bottle but something really special.

  Gran said “I was thinking that one day soon it should be yours. First I must tell you its story, like I told your mother a long time ago. After I told your Mum I still needed it for myself to put in more happy memories in. Now it is full, almost to overflowing. But there is not the time today. So it will be my gift to you when you turn seven. Then I will tell you its story.

  The year flew by and it was mostly happy but sometimes sad for Sophie. Her Daddy and Mummy loved her just as much as ever, and they were talking about having another baby, once they built another room on the back of the house. But they were both busy a lot of the time and so it seemed the room would have to wait.

  Rachel was now two. She had moved into Sophie’s room a little while ago, too big now for the cot in her Mummy’s room. At first Sophie was cross, because it meant there was no longer any room for her favourite cosy chair, they called it Sophia’s chair. But then she was happy again, she could tell her sister some girly things she could not say to Matty or Alexander, and she loved to sit on her bed with Rachel and read her stories from the books she brought home from school. Sometimes Rachel would fall asleep. At first this made her mad, because no one would fall asleep when they were really interested, but then she remembered that Rachel was just a little girl and little girls needed more sleep. So now, when it happened, she would carry Rachel over to her own bed, tuck her in and give her a kiss, just like her Mummy or sometimes her Daddy did.

  But Matty made her sad, he was turning nine soon now and seemed to have decided Sophie, still six, was not grown up enough. He often ignored her and went and played with older boys who lived in the next street. Even when he talked to her he mostly seemed cross. He said that his Mummy and Daddy shouted at each other a lot and sometimes his Dad would go off to the pub and come home so drunk he could hardly walk. The next day his Mummy would shout at him even more.

  Still now that Alexander was more grown up she could mostly play with him and th
ey could have great games of hide and seek in the garden. Also, now she and Alexander were both going to school, they could walk there together. Often Alexander would carry her bag as well as his own, just like Daddy did with Mummy.

  Before she knew it Sophie was turning seven, and it was coming up to her birthday party again. This time it was held at Granny Rosie’s place. All her friends from school came and they played lots of games.

  Granny Alison was there too, but because Sophie was so busy with her friends she did not have much time to talk to her. Mostly Gran just sat with Grandpa Charles, holding his hand and talking quietly to him. At times she smiled at Sophie and a few times she got up and talked to others.

  Sophie hoped that when she was grown up and married to Matty he would sit and talk to her like that and look at her the way Grandpa Charles looked at Gran Alison, it was like she was just as young and pretty as the day he first met her, even though they were both starting to look quite old and their hair was going grey.

  At the end of the night her Gran came up to her, before she left, and gave her one of her special hugs and kisses. Then she held her face in both her hands. “Sophie, I have not forgotten my promise to you to give you my perfume bottle for a special present. Perhaps, on Saturday, you can come and visit me and we will have a picnic together. Then I will tell you its story.”

  When Saturday morning came Sophie said to her Mum. “I have to visit Gran today, she wants to give me a special present, I think it is her perfume bottle, you know the one she puts all her happy memories into.”

  Maria picked her up and hugged her. “Oh, Darling of course you must go. I remember when I was little she used to put perfume from it on me and it would make me feel warm and happy all over. After I had been away and came back all sad, one day she sat with me while I cried. When I finished, she took out that bottle and touched my tears and put a tiny drop inside. She said that even though it was a sad memory, one day, while it was still inside the bottle, it would turn into a happy memory. That’s what happened when you came along. I am so glad she wants you to have it.”

  So Sophie skipped down the road and before long she was at her Gran’s house. It was just her and her Gran there today, all by themselves.

  Gran brought her out to the table on the terrace. There were two chairs and a little cake with strawberries, just big enough for two, and two glasses of lemonade. Sitting in the middle of the table was a little present wrapped in gold and silver paper with a blue bow. Alison said, touching the present, “This is for you my dear. But before you open it I must tell you its story.”

  She told Sophie the story that had come to her from long ago, of how the bottle was passed, over hundreds of years, from mother to daughter and granddaughter until, after all those years, it was filled with good memories.

  She went on, “When I was a little girl, about as big as you are now, my Mummy died, and I was so sad. Soon after, my brother died too. I was even more sad and my Daddy was very sad too. He had to go away on a long trip. Before he went he gave me this bottle as a special present from my Mummy, Hannah, even though she was not there anymore. He said it was given to my Mummy as a special present from Gran Mary. Gran Mary loved my Mummy and me just the same as your Mummy loves you.

  “Next day, after my Daddy was gone, I showed the bottle to Gran Mary. She told me how, for all the years she had it, she had put her own happy memories inside it. Then, when she gave it to my Mummy, Hannah, she also put her own special memories in there; things like when I made her laugh, or when Daddy made her cross and then hugged her and it made it better.

  “So, each night while my Daddy was away, I would take it out and smell it, and sometimes I would put a tiny drop on my cheek, and sometimes, when I cried, I would put a tear inside. Each time I held it, it was like Mummy was sitting next to me and, when I smelled it, it was like a warm summer breeze making me happy.

  “Then, when I was grown up, and Charles and my babies came, I put those happy memories in it too. Now it is full of all my memories and it is time for you to start putting your happy memories in there too. Some will be about your friends, some about your Mummy and Daddy and your brother and sister, some will even be sad things. But, after they have stayed in there for a long time, most of them will turn happy too.

  “Now I am old and one day I will be gone. But you will have this bottle to help remember. So, my dear Sophie, now it belongs to you and is full of my love for you,” she said, passing her the bottle.

  They ate their strawberry cake and drank their lemonade. When it was finished her Gran said, “Now I want to show you something, a place I have not been to for a long, long time. Perhaps I will not be able to find it, because I was only about as big as you last time I went there. I want you to come with me and we will try to find it. First you have to put on some old clothes and walking shoes, I am sure we will have a pair in the cupboard to fit.”

  So off they went with her Gran leading the way and carrying a little bag on her shoulder. It felt like they walked a long way, at first along streets and then through bush, climbing up and down over rocks. Sophie was amazed; even though her Gran looked old she could climb almost as good as she and Matty could. Even when they had walked a long way, her Gran’s legs did not seem to get tired the way her own legs did.

  At last the came to a rocky headland poking into the sea. Her Gran led her along a rough path, like a wallaby path around the side of the hill. They climbed up over a couple of big rocks. Behind the rocks and a bush, where no one who did not know could see it, Gran showed her a small opening into the hill, just big enough for her and Gran to squeeze through.

  Inside was a little cave, just big enough to stand up in or lie down. It had sand on the floor, and light came through a gap in some rocks, up high. In one corner was a small box, a couple bottles and some other things.

  A smile lit up her Gran’s face. “Imagine, it’s still all here. It has been so long, but I did not want to come here again without another little girl to share it with, and to see it like I used to see it.

  “Perhaps I could have brought your Mum or Heather but there never seemed to be time, or maybe the moment just was not right.”

  They sat on the floor and unpacked the bag. While they ate cakes and oranges. Alison told Sophie the story of her little aboriginal friend, Ruthie, all those many years ago, and how she had really missed Ruthie when her Dad made her come and live in Newcastle, and never saw her again.

  She had tried to find out what happened to Ruthie when she came back on holidays and stayed with Tom and Mary, but no one knew where she was gone. Once she had walked to the place where Ruthie had lived, but no one lived there anymore. Only a couple broken house walls with the roof fallen in and a few empty bottles remained.

  So at last she was back in the cave where she last saw Ruthie. She said she was happy to share this place with her grand-daughter, even though there was a tear in her eye, which trickled down her cheek.

  Sophie took out her perfume bottle. With great seriousness she touched her finger to Gran’s cheek, where the tear was, and then to the bottle and she replaced the lid.

  Suddenly they were both laughing, and Gran said, “That’s just what Ruthie and I would do, we would sit here and tell stories and then suddenly we would start laughing. Then, later at night, I would put that laughter into the perfume bottle to keep our happiness safe.”

  Sophie thought of one more thing she wanted to ask her Gran. “Gran, at times when you look at me and I look at you and we both look at Mum, it is like we are all sharing our thoughts together and we can see what each is feeling. I like it when that happens, because we can share happy thoughts together. So why did you give this bottle to me and not to Mummy?”

  Her Gran looked at her intently, “Your Mummy looks much the same on the outside as me, and on the outside you look different to me. But on the inside it is you who is most like me and your Mummy is more different.

  “We can all share our thoughts, but for your Mummy it is di
fferent. There is a place inside her, like a broken place, where pain lives. The happy memories in the bottle cannot take that pain away, like it can with you and me. When I first saw your Daddy, he was standing at the grave of your great grandmother, Sophia. I could feel in him the same sad and broken place as is in my Maria. Together they heal each other and make each other whole. Even when they fight, which I know they do sometimes, together they are stronger that all my other children. Maria and Jimmy tell me this each time I see them look at one another. So together they do not need the perfume bottle, apart it cannot really help them.

  “For you and me it is easier, for them it is harder. But you can help find and fix that sad place which your mother has, through sharing nice thoughts with her. That is why I have given you the bottle, so that when I am gone you can still help me make her happy, wherever I am and wherever you are.”

  At last all the talking was done so they packed to leave. As they came outside Gran carefully looked around to make sure no one could see them before they came out into view.

  As they walked back along the path she said to Sophie. “I want this to be our secret, just for you and me. When we were little Ruthie and I made a promise that we would not tell anyone else. I have told you now but that is alright. I know Ruthie would understand. If you want you can come again and bring a special friend, but apart from that it should stay secret, sometimes secrets are best.”

  Sophie nodded her head.

  When they got back to her Gran’s house and changed their clothes, her Gran said, “I will bring you up to your own house now. I want to talk to your Mum and Dad. Charles and I are planning a boat adventure.”