Marjorie untied her jumper from around her waist and pulled it on. ‘Home,’ she said, glaring at Jesse.
Jesse studied her for a long moment. ‘Tank stands generally don’t volunteer to catch on fire.’
‘Well, this one did.’
‘Who set the tank stand on fire, Marjorie?’
‘I bloody didn’t.’
Then Marjorie was mortified to find words wouldn’t come out of her mouth properly and she was shaking for no apparent reason. And Jesse was beside her, and was putting his arms around her, and was making her sit on Jimmy’s bench. Jesse made tea. He rolled a couple of smokes. And the Mallee night listened once more while Jesse heard about burning sketches and burning scrub. And the invention of tablets to repair a possible major nervous breakdown which was apparently, at this stage, only a minor nervous breakdown.
‘I can’t stop her,’ said Marjorie. ‘I’m trying as hard as I can. Ruby’s had to come home early to help. I can’t fix it, Jesse. I can fix the ute. I can fix the tractor. I can even almost fix the sewing machine. But I can’t fix this.’
Marjorie was speaking in a whisper now. The peppercorn tree swayed and rippled in the summer night-time air, its fronds straining and fluttering to hear. Jesse hardly spoke. Because there was nothing to speak about. Because he knew he couldn’t fix it either. ‘Come here,’ was all he said. He pulled her tight against his chest. Marjorie buried herself there, safe inside the circle of his arms. Surrounded by the smell of him. Listening to the steady beat of his heart – solid and dependable like the train. And they just sat. There on the old blue bench – sitting until the train, ever faithful, reminded them it was time to go home.
*
‘I won’t be committing myself to a mental institution,’ Elise said some days and many burnt tablets later. ‘I don’t have time for that. I am committing myself to the convent. I am going to become a nun.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t be a nun. Nuns are virgins.’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Marjorie. You are speaking sacrilege,’ snapped Elise.
‘Shut up, Marjorie. You’ll only make it worse,’ said Ruby. But it was too late. As if to demonstrate the sublime difference between impertinence and piety, Elise moved around the room collecting all the exquisite nativity statues. And started to kill them. All the while adorning the deaths with pronouncements. ‘There is no place for guile in the sanctuary of a convent, Marjorie.’ As sheep were crushed into lumpy humility. ‘Fleshly self does not cohabit with piety, Ruby.’ As royalty and their gifts were smashed into plasticine oblivion.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ screamed Marjorie, while Ruby tried to salvage the tiny statues. But between the three of them, they succeeded in destroying every one. Most, Elise grabbed and pulverised, others Marjorie and Ruby killed – collateral damage – during the saving of them. And Elise was satisfied.
Bill and Pa came home to a lumpy indiscriminate plasticine graveyard tended by two frightened young women and a serene novitiate of the convent. Pa’s mouth opened. It hung there before shutting again because nothing came out. His eyes opened wide before screwing themselves tight.
Bill’s lips turned on the dead smoke clinging to his bottom lip. And chomped on it. Up and down. Up and down. Like his lips couldn’t stop. ‘I thought I told the two of you to look after your mother?’
‘We couldn’t stop her,’ said Marjorie. And Ruby’s stricken look agreed.
‘How about a lie-down, love?’ said Bill as he gently led Elise from the killings and the kitchen.
*
‘I’ll have to build bookshelves everywhere,’ said Jesse.
‘What?’
‘Our house,’ said Jesse, poking the fire.
‘You’re getting a new house?’
‘No,’ said Jesse, shaking his head at Marjorie. ‘A house for you and me. Next year. When we leave here. It’s going to need a lot of bookshelves to hold all our stuff. Especially all those books you are going to be making. They will be everywhere.’
Marjorie shook her head then.
‘What? I can build bookshelves!’
But Marjorie was shaking her head to try to shake some things out. She was trying to make room because the bookshelf house was having difficulty fitting into her mind along with everything else that was in there now. But it just wouldn’t fit, no matter how much her head shook. So she had to toss it out and leave her mind to be filled to the brim with Elise. And talk of nuns and convents. And scenes of tank stand fires and lumps of plasticine. ‘We smashed the plasticine nativity set,’ she said.
*
‘Where will we live, do you reckon?’ asked Jesse at the next visit.
But Elise was crammed tight into Marjorie’s head now. She was crouching in every corner, taking up every available space. Before, there was no room for a house. Now there was hardly any room to fit Jesse in either – her head couldn’t hear him. ‘My mother told me my endless selfishness and pride might be redeemed if I look after other people and not just myself for once,’ said Marjorie instead.
‘Why aren’t you taking your mother to the city?’ said Jesse. ‘She needs help.’
‘How can I bloody take her?’ Marjorie swung from the fire to shout into Jesse’s face. ‘What do you suggest I do, Jesse? Shove her into an empty wheat bag and throw her into the back of the ute?’
Jesse put his arms around Marjorie. He held her tight and stroked her hair. Once again, he listened for hours and hours. Marjorie talked, with the comfort of someone to listen to what she was saying. She had so much talking to do she didn’t have time to do any listening herself. Because they both knew, despite all the consolation of words and campfires and old blue benches, there was nothing either of them could do about Elise.
Chapter 13
It takes a deal of time and energy to round up a couple of thousand head of sheep and properly yard them all. And the hardest part is not getting that mob into the yards; it is drafting them – separating them once they are in the yard. Everyone knows that. But what people generally don’t know is that it also takes quite a deal of time and energy to round up a few hundred tablets and properly yard them too. Elise was tried and Elise was tested. To see if her claims of piety and service were up to the mark. She had her cross to bear: daughters constantly at her side – watching and proffering and preventing; Pa turning up and sitting, fingers drumming on the kitchen table, eyes glaring at her; Bill tending and doting. But Elise was resolute. Because despite the cloying, ignorant love of her family she had a vocation. Elise smiled serenely. And Elise steadfastly, privately, fervently rounded up and burnt.
‘Look after Elise,’ Bill pleaded. Anxious to stay but that wheat needed harvesting and that dry paddock needed a man’s desperate, lonely tears. ‘Look after your mother, you two.’
But Marjorie didn’t have the energy to look after her mother. She didn’t have the talent. Marjorie and Ruby would take turns to sit at the table and watch their mother, day after day. Elise sat quietly near her fire and lulled them both into inattention.
After weeks of tablet fasting, a glittering, joyous evening arrived. It was Marjorie’s turn to watch her mother and Elise chose a moment of inattention and darted for the kitchen door. Before Marjorie could understand that the moment of spiritual action had arrived, Elise was running down the hallway and into the spare bedroom. She snatched her art folio from under the bed and dashed back for the sanctification of the fire.
‘Out of my way,’ said Elise, shoving Marjorie aside as she raced to kneel before the blessed, expectant stove.
‘Don’t do it, Mum. Give it to me,’ said Marjorie. She moved towards the fire and made a grab for the folio. But Elise was too quick. She pushed Marjorie with the strength of the zealot. Marjorie stumbled and fell. By the time she’d scrambled back to her feet, Elise had embarked on her holy mission.
The first into the fire was a lovely aut
umn landscape. Elise shoved the scenery through the firebox into the flames and the fire loved it. It roared through the chimney on the splendour of the canvas and the oil. Elise opened the top of the stove. She crushed a charcoal portrait of Bill and threw it in the top, and the stove ate it. Elise saw Marjorie start towards her again. ‘You are a wicked girl,’ she said. ‘You are doing the work of the devil.’
‘Please, Mum,’ Marjorie begged.
But Elise was alive with glittery conviction. She rolled canvases and stuck them upright in the top of the stove – miniature chimneys atop the stove. And the chimney glowed in appreciation. Marjorie lumbered forward – a bull in a china shop. Marjorie reached again to wrench the folio from Elise. As she shouted to Ruby for help. As Ruby heard Marjorie’s cries. As Ruby ran for the kitchen. As Ruby called for Pa while she ran. As Marjorie turned again to her mother.
By the time Ruby got to the kitchen, the fire was stretching out the top of the chimney, carrying Elise’s offerings to the heavens. Marjorie was lumbering and charging. ‘Stop!’ she was shrieking at her mother. ‘Ruby!’ she was screaming at the door. But Elise had no care at all for Marjorie’s screams and less care for Marjorie’s clumsy lurching. Elise was batting her away with graceful, fervent ease.
‘Mum!’ Ruby cried in horror when she burst through the door. She ran towards the fire and the folio. Marjorie and Ruby both grabbed at Elise but she swayed away – serene and stalwart, folio held aloft like a liturgical candle. Marjorie and Ruby charged again, this time to grab the folio and haul it from Elise, as a delicate pen-and-ink sketch floated and burnt.
‘Et tu, Brute?’ Elise said to Ruby with infinite sadness. ‘Are you also the work of the devil?’ Elise knew that Marjorie was too late for salvation. She was proud and haughty and rebellious and refused to contemplate humility and righteous acts of contrition. She was hard and stony. But Ruby was different, virtuous. There was hope of redemption for Ruby. As Elise contemplated her, she was rewarded for her holy contemplation, and granted an epiphany. Ruby, in her virtue, deserved to participate in the revelation of Elise’s glory.
So Elise, in an act of religious generosity, decided to share her chosen path with Ruby. She stepped aside and invited Ruby to participate. She made way so Ruby could run and fall. So Ruby could join her – sacrificial and redemptive, on the cleansing, burning stove.
Marjorie screamed a soundless, useless scream as her sister stumbled forwards on Elise’s path of deliverance. Marjorie’s hands scrabbled and clutched at Ruby as she went past, but her frantic grabbing had no chance against this invited salvation. Marjorie was a sinner so what could she fathom of sublime purpose? Marjorie was not a penitent so how did she think she could thwart divine intercession? Her feet were glued to the lino and her legs had turned to jelly as Ruby staggered towards her sanctification. Marjorie was no match for such piety.
Ruby’s eyes were wild, hands outstretched and waving towards the deliverance of the waiting stove. And Marjorie stared, aghast and incapable, as her beautiful sister fell and fell onto the red-hot surface – a cast-iron altar, burning in its desire. Her screams pierced the air. They were accompanied by a quiet contralto humming from Elise and Marjorie’s whimpers. And the house shuddered.
There was no serenity this time when Bill and Pa rushed into the kitchen. There was sacred chaos. Ruby was screaming a soundless scream now – her mouth open but nothing coming out, as she waved and jerked her hands and arms in front of her. One side of her face was busy trying to shed all its ruined skin. And her hair was on fire. Marjorie was throwing water over Ruby. Elise, however, had made a commitment, and she was determined to honour it even amid the unholy chaos. She had returned to her task, and was savage now in her crushing and rolling and feeding. ‘What have you done, Marjorie? What have you done?’ shouted Bill. ‘Why can’t you ever do as you’re told? You’re bloody useless, you are, Marjorie. Bloody useless!’
‘We’ve got to get Ruby to a doctor,’ said Pa to the kitchen, helping Marjorie wrap damp tea towels over the butter they had slathered on Ruby. ‘She’s going into shock.’
Marjorie felt the kitchen pause and take stock so she did likewise. An ethereal quiet suffused Marjorie. A bubble of disconnected time enfolded her. So Marjorie sat inside that quiet and that time and listened to the muffled sounds of the shouting and the screaming and the singing all around, noticing and assessing.
—Ruby was on fire. She was very badly burnt. The skin on her face, hands and arms was trying to escape her body. It was dangling and flapping like bark from a tree caught in the gust of a hot summer wind. Ruby stank. Because her hair was burning and her skin was flapping. That was what Marjorie concluded about Ruby.
—Dad was wet and watery. Dad had salt water diving out of his eyes. Marjorie had never seen Dad’s eyes with salt water coming out of them. And yet here it was. That was what Marjorie noted about Bill.
—Pa was soothing. Pa was quietly organising everyone and was making soft decisions and was not substantiating his case with any invective at all. That was what Marjorie logged regarding Pa.
—And Elise. Marjorie felt her shoulders shrugging themselves. What was there to assess about her mother? Elise was being Elise.
But what about herself? Marjorie didn’t need to note anything about herself because her mother had done that for her already. Elise smiled at Marjorie. And Marjorie could see as plain as day in that smile that Bill had been right all along. Marjorie was to blame.
And with the acceptance of her responsibility came a welcome and quiet peace. Not about the water coming from Bill’s eyes – that was not normal and was very scary. Not about the absence of swearing coming from Pa’s mouth – that also was not normal. Not about Elise – that was too typical for this family. So this only left Ruby. Marjorie raised her right arm and twirled, arm outstretched, until she faced the wreckage of her beautiful and brave sister. Marjorie studied her before turning her head to Bill. ‘If Ruby was an animal we would get the gun and shoot her,’ Marjorie said. Calmly – as a matter of fact and of human decency. ‘Get the gun, Dad.’
Elise, transcendent, seemed not to hear. But Bill and Pa were staring at her and their mouths were open and nothing was coming out. Marjorie could see they had failed to grasp her meaning. ‘Look at her,’ Marjorie said. ‘We should put her out of her misery.’
The ethereal quiet ricocheted around the kitchen. Spiralling into the eye of the storm. Elise smiled at Bill and dropped the remnants of the folio on the floor. Bill roared a wordless outrage and lunged at Marjorie. Pa roared an expletive-devoid warning at Bill and charged forward to slam the gate shut on Bill’s advance on Marjorie.
‘Leave the girl alone,’ he said sharply to Bill. ‘That’s shock talking.
‘You’ll have to stay here, girl. That’d be best for all,’ said Pa to Marjorie kindly.
Marjorie stood and watched and listened – remote and detached – as Pa ever so gently took Ruby and her spread butter and damp tea towels and herded Bill, Elise and Ruby down the hallway and out to the car.
Marjorie was still. She stood and listened for the slamming of the car doors and for the passage of the car down the home track. She stood. Until the sound of the car engine faded into nothing, and the house went back to its job of popping corrugated iron on the roof. She stood still and listened as a gust of wind came by to find out what was going on, and banged the flywire door at the back a couple of times in its passing.
Marjorie stayed at the house while Bill and Pa did what needed to be done for Ruby and for Elise. Because even with her being so bloody useless and so bloody liable, the rest of them couldn’t do everything. Besides which, Marjorie now accepted she was truly responsible. And she had jobs to do. The first of which was having to get on the telephone and let the doctor know they were coming. ‘If you could manage that without making a mess of it,’ yelled Bill as he rushed out of the house.
Marjorie dialled for the
exchange operator and asked to be connected to the doctor. She told the doctor to:
(a) expect Ruby who had somehow accidentally burnt off all the skin on her hands and face and arms and set her hair on fire on the kitchen stove; and
(b) expect Elise who might need to be reassessed regarding the efficacy of the magic tablets to ward off a further commitment to a mental hospital.
The conversation was later repeated of course, many times, by the exchange operator, who was listening in. As was her duty.
The Mallee was listening too. And it was thinking it was probably the last time it was going to hear Marjorie’s voice.
Marjorie followed up that job with the job of cleaning up the kitchen. This job took a long time. She swept up all the remnant ash and scraps of burnt paper: innocent victims of Marjorie’s blasphemous intervention. Without mercy, Marjorie threw the pile out the back door.
Marjorie restored the stove to its right and proper order and function. She put the fire plates back on the stove, emptied the ashtray and restocked the fire with proper fuel – appropriate, crumpled, pre-read newspapers, and clods of Mallee roots. She watched the fire until she was sure it was alive before closing down the dampers. It was a good fire. Maybe because of all her experience with fires lately.
It was the rest of the room’s turn then. Marjorie collected and tidied the remains of Elise’s folio and put it back under the bed. She collected Ruby’s red hair – curled beautifully on one end and burnt beautifully on the other. She sniffed it. She smoothed it, and placed it on the kitchen table. There is nothing in the world like the smell of burnt hair.
Marjorie bent close and examined Ruby’s skin – sloughed off like a snake discarding last year’s out-of-fashion collection. She touched it gently, delicately – this fragile, lacy, stinking assemblage. Marjorie didn’t know what to do with a person’s burnt skin. Especially not her beautiful sister Ruby’s skin. It didn’t seem right to sweep it out the back door. So she picked it all up and placed it beside the hair on the table. Marjorie swept and washed the floor to remove any signs of burning.
Wearing Paper Dresses Page 21