The Aunts’ House

by Elizabeth Stead

  Angel was reminded of a painting she’d loved at the gallery. It was a Renoir called Promenade but instead of showing a stroll through a park or along a lakeside, it was a painting of a young man helping his lady to climb through a lacework of leaves. She remembered that. The lady wore a long and floating dress of something white with blue ribbons. Beautiful. Angel was very quiet and pretended she was the lady and held her hand out in the way she had seen in Clara’s ballet books. Graceful. Elegant. The man who helped her was very gentle, too. Renoir told stories for dreams with his brushes but Angel had never wanted to know Renoir in case he was not as nice as his paintings.

  Angel put herself into the painting’s frame and danced her arms and legs through the scrub to the music inside her. The music should have been Giselle, the dance of betrayal, but her orchestra played something else entirely. Angel didn’t want to reach the top of the climb because during it she felt like the spirit of grace. She would have liked her duchess to see her. She felt free. She felt as lovely as the lady with her gentleman in his straw hat. She felt pure. Virginal in her white. She could have been a nun.

  There was nothing wrong with what she was doing. There was nothing wrong about her intentions. After all, she was only going to look down from the rock, not make a sound, and watch Uncle George catch a fish.

  Angel wished Mister Daisyfield and old Mister Canning were fishing with Uncle George and the surprise she planned might work but she had doubts. There was little room in Angel’s head for such things.

  At the top of the climb behind the little park with the fig trees she said goodbye to Renoir’s lovers and stepped out of the gold frame and was dropped back, dirty, torn and scratched, into the dry, windblown scrub of the Bay and her brain moved a little – click. She was bleeding and had not realised she’d stubbed her toe on a large, sharp stone. She picked up the stone because it had her blood on it. She almost stepped on a sleeping lizard and when she kicked it out of the way, there was more blood. This was not Renoir country. Even the ground was hidden by sharp grasses, lolly wrappers and some things she could not identify.

  Angel knew she was close to the jut of rock and the fishing barge on the point where the harbour met the sea because the waves were loud and more savage but she still stepped as quietly as she could. There was a stiff breeze coming from Mariana and she wondered if the barge would buck with the swell and toss Uncle George into the water. Maybe Mariana read her thoughts. Maybe Mariana is the solution, Angel said to Angel and she wouldn’t have to do a thing. The thought excited her and made her squat and urinate – something the Renoir lady would never have done!

  ‘That’s something I don’t see every day,’ said the old man with the hips.

  Angel pulled up her pants and put her finger to her lips – ssshhh!

  ‘He won’t hear us up here with that swell slashing around the barge.’

  ‘How did you get up here with just your walking sticks?’

  ‘I went ’round the long way and up the old steps.’ The old man with the hips grinned. ‘I didn’t think I could do it either. You must have forgotten the old steps.’

  ‘Maybe I was too young to know about them.’

  ‘Girlie,’ he said, ‘I reckon you’ve never been too young to know anything. Let’s go and see what the bugger from Melbourne is doing.’ And he gently took her hand and led her to the rock – not quite the man in the straw hat and she was not quite the virgin in white but it was enough.

  Angel crawled along the rock like the lizard she’d seen earlier, but the old man with the hips had to stand.

  ‘What are you dragging that rock around for, girlie? Must weigh a tonne.’

  ‘It’s got my blood on it – I’ll put it down somewhere. I don’t want my blood on the trees.’

  ‘O, well, whatever you want. The rock’s nothing. You’ve got enough blood over you to make a donation.’

  ‘Ssshhh. He’ll hear you.’

  ‘What’s he doing? There’ll be no octopus – that I know – and if he gets that kingfish I’ve been after, I’ll kill him.’

  Angel’s head was as close as it could be to the bow of the rock without being seen.

  ‘I think he might have got something. He’s having trouble balancing on the barge with his bad leg …’

  ‘What’s the matter with his leg? You know him, don’t you, girlie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who is he, girlie?’

  ‘Okay. He’s my uncle and I don’t like him.’

  ‘What’s he done?’ said the old man with the hips and more or less knowing. ‘There’s always uncles.’

  ‘Never mind about it. Now, look! I think he’s caught something.’

  ‘What! What’s he caught? Here, move, let me have a look.’ And the old man with the hips moved to the point of the rock above the barge platform, which was bucking in the swell like a horse at a rodeo, and watched Uncle George Wolf haul in a yellow leatherjacket.

  ‘That’s a three-pounder, that one. I’ll kill him.’

  George Wolf cried, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ with delight, with his legs wide apart for balance and the bandage around his ankle, while the old man with the hips stepped over Angel and looked down. He was very angry. He looked as though he’d been robbed.

  ‘That’s my barge, you bastard!’ But although George Wolf was aware of sound above him he didn’t dare look up in case he lost his balance. The swell was high and Angel was delighted to see that Mariana had soaked Uncle George to the skin. She laughed in her way, very quietly, with her hand over her mouth. The big fish flopped in a bucket almost too small for it. The old man leaned on his sticks and sulked as Uncle George Wolf got on his hands and knees and tried to retrieve a snagged line by feeling under the bucking platform and almost drowning in Mariana’s waves with a prize fish almost out of its bucket. Angel laughed out loud and dropped the rock with her blood on it onto the barge platform and when Uncle George Wolf turned suddenly to see what had fallen, he lost his balance, grabbed a pile of netting as though it would save him, and fell into the sea.

  ‘It was an accident! The stone slipped! I didn’t do anything – it was the waves. It wasn’t my plan …’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t, girlie – of course it wasn’t. What plan? I was here and I seen it.’

  ‘Where is he? Can he get back onto the barge?’

  ‘He’ll be right as rain. Man knows the sea. He’ll be on the rocks.’

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  The old man with his hips took a careful look down to the barge.

  ‘Well, now you come to say it, girlie, I can’t see him either. You’d better run for help. Could you do that, girlie?’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  ‘But go the back way down the steps. It’ll be quicker with you running,’ he shouted to her back. ‘And if you see someone, tell them to send help.’

  ‘Okay.’

  But she didn’t run the back way to the steps. She slipped and scrambled down through the trees and scrub the way she’d come and through the little park with the fig trees where she’d begun her climb. A council worker in the park, fixing a broken seat, asked what was wrong but she didn’t tell him anything at all. She was in too much of a hurry to get to the aunts’ house and the rocks below it where flotsam and strange floating objects sailing on a Mariana current usually passed by – like the man who waved before he died. Angel wanted to be at least within waving distance for Uncle George.

  Angel ran past the laundry side of the house, down through the long grass and onto her favourite rock where she sat, without a sound, clothes torn, legs scratched and bloody, arms tight across her chest against the sudden chill of the wind and she waited – she waited for Uncle George Wolf to sail by. And she wondered if he’d wave as he floated past with the sea under his shirt like a balloon and crabs nibbling at the bandage on his leg. Her turmoil of a brain could only hope that Mari
ana hadn’t taken him to the trench to be drowned on the bottom of the world and she’d never see him again.

  Angel was unaware that the place she sat upon was the real world. She gave no thought to the old man and his hips and anything else that might be happening near the ledge of rock hanging over the barge. She remembered the rock with her blood on it. It slipped. She didn’t throw it. The stone was heavy.

  She had no idea that Clara and Elsa had come out onto the balcony with their moon hats and a pot of tea to catch the breeze.

  It was Clara who saw someone on the rock.

  ‘Who is it down there?’

  Silence, for the wind carried away her words. And then Elsa recognised a green top under a mass of tangled hair.

  ‘Angel! Angel, is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Angel, is that you? I can’t hear.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What on earth are you doing? It’s not Sunday … O, never mind. I’m coming down.’ Elsa spilled her tea and broke the cup and hurried from the balcony with Clara saying, ‘Leave her – leave her – she’s not normal …’ and Elsa, in a panic, taking the stairs as quickly as she could, chanting, ‘What’s happened – what’s happened – something’s happened’ and then through the tall grass and tripping weeds until she reached the rock and pulled Angel to her and held her tightly.

  ‘What’s happened, Angel? What are you doing here? It’s not Sunday. What are you doing here?’

  Angel relaxed a little against Elsa’s warmth but was still as stiff as a board. Elsa was frightened. She shook Angel.

  ‘Tell me what’s happened? Tell me!’

  Angel, sopping wet against the dry love of Elsa, slowly floated back to earth.

  ‘I’m just waiting for Uncle George, that’s all.’

  ‘He’s fishing, darling. He didn’t tell us you were coming. He’ll be back soon, Angel. You’ll see him soon.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Mariana’s just floating other things on the tide – see?’

  A tangled bundle of kelp floated past them, then a broken wooden crate with onions clinging to it. Magnolia leaves from the Orient dipped on the swell, twigs from pruned harbour trees floated smooth as the hands of dancers, a green bottle without a note …

  ‘Mariana’s taking too long,’ said Angel, soaking wet then as was Elsa. Angel’s brain was in a state of tangled lines, full of music madness and its river of colours running into each other like a flood. ‘He should be here by now.’

  ‘Why are you watching the water, darling? Who should be here by now?’

  ‘Like the man who waved. It was an accident, Elsa. I didn’t tell Uncle George to jump off the barge. The stone slipped. I didn’t throw it. It was an accident—’

  ‘O, my God! Angel, what happened?’

  ‘I was just watching him fish off the barge and the stone slipped out of my hand and he fell in.’

  ‘O, dear God, Angel! Clara! Clara!’

  Clara answered from the balcony.

  ‘What’s happened now? What’s she done now? Why is she here? For heaven’s sake come up and dry off, you’ll both catch your death down there.’

  ‘I think we already have.’ Elsa was crying and knew Clara would not have heard her.

  The old man with the hips brought two policemen with him to the aunts’ house. Angel remembered something, a blur of a memory, of another time long ago when two policemen came to the door of another place to report another death.

  ‘It’s bad news, love,’ said Constable One, ‘but I’m afraid your uncle has drowned under a barge trying to dislodge snagged lines. Hit his head on the barge. It got pretty rough out there.’

  ‘We’re very sorry,’ said Constable Two. ‘Is there anything we can do? Anyone to contact?’ He carried a bucket with a yellow leatherjacket in it. Clear eyed, five spines, fresh as a daisy.

  ‘Why didn’t you take the back steps like I said?’ asked the old man. ‘There could have been help earlier.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angel lied. ‘I took the short cut. I was frightened.’ A lie! A click. She bit her lip hard to stop it all.

  ‘You poor little tyke. Your aunts tell me he was from Melbourne. His family will have to be notified.’

  ‘I have his address – nothing more,’ said Elsa.

  ‘His wife’s dead – her name was Alma and she died of cancer in her brain. Uncle George wasn’t with her because they weren’t living together and he felt really guilty about that and … and other things.’ Angel’s bottom lip still bled from her bite; she felt as though she bled all over – inside and out. She did notice how the colour of her blood changed from fresh to stale and where the sea had splashed her legs.

  ‘Angel, you didn’t tell us about his wife,’ said Elsa.

  ‘I wish I could tell her what happened. She’d be pleased.’

  ‘Angel!’

  ‘She’s mad,’ said Clara.

  ‘She’s in shock, Clara.’

  ‘I take it the girl didn’t know him too well,’ said Constable One. ‘Would that be right, love? You didn’t know your uncle that well?’

  ‘No. He was my mother’s brother.’

  ‘But you loved him,’ said Elsa. ‘You loved having an uncle.’

  ‘Well, maybe I did but I don’t love him now.’

  ‘If you like we’ll look after things for a while ’til you get sorted. Terrible to lose an uncle like that, like him or not. We’ll get it sorted. We’re used to dragging them in from ’round the point. There were crabs all over him.’ Constable Two bowed his head.

  ‘I don’t think a grieving child needs to know that, Constable,’ said One. The threat of a grin made Angel bite her lips until they bled again.

  ‘She’s had a pretty rough life, this girlie.’ The old man with the hips leaned on his sticks and patted Angel’s back. ‘I remember her from way back and she had a pretty tough time. Mother sick. Lived in a shopfront in the village because this lot wouldn’t take them in.’ He gently pulled Angel aside and whispered to her.

  ‘Are you sure he was your uncle, girlie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he maybe do something you didn’t like?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good riddance, then.’ And then loud enough for all to hear, ‘The shopfront’s a hat shop now but this poor kid and her mum had to live in it with Bon Ami pasted over the window for a bit of privacy – I seen it.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Clara. ‘And mind your own business, old man.’

  ‘O, Angel – we’re so ashamed.’ Elsa held her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Can we drive you somewhere? Where do you live now? Where’s your family?’

  ‘Dead,’ said Angel.

  ‘Not all dead, and this will be her home,’ said Elsa. ‘We are her aunts and this will be her home.’

  ‘Well, now, Elsa, wait and think. Should we really take a child as off her head as Angel?’

  ‘Clara,’ Elsa said with emphasis, ‘Angel is not, and never has been, any more disturbed than the rest of this family. I love her and I will care for her and she will care for us and if that doesn’t suit you, Clara, so be it.’

  ‘Jessie doesn’t know all this, yet.’

  ‘Well, Clara. It’s rent day tomorrow and tomorrow she will know. I will tell her. George Wolf left a great deal of money to fit out your father’s office and anything else that might be needed. He also left a copy of a letter to his solicitor instructing a regular payment until Angel is old enough to work so we shall tell Jessie she can have her rent and mind her own business from then on!’ Elsa said all this in a voice she had no idea existed. She felt an unfamiliar strength.

  ‘Well,’ said Constable One. ‘It looks as though we can leave this poor little thing in your good hands. Of course, there’ll have to be a PM – that’s post mortem – and t
here’ll be questions and papers for the court, but we’ll all get you through that fast as we can, no trouble. I reckon you’ve had enough today.’ He turned to leave and his associate picked up the bucket with the yellow leatherjacket slowly taking its last breath through its little mouth and its little sharp teeth but Elsa took it from him.

  ‘That’s mine, I’ll keep it,’ she told him. ‘George Wolf said he wanted to catch one for me.’

  ‘Sorry. I thought maybe you didn’t want it what with one thing and another – waste not want not is what I was thinking. Is there anything else you want to tell me, love?’

  ‘O, yes,’ lied Angel. ‘Uncle George is a Jew and he told me when he died he would like to be buried in the deepest part of the ocean.’

  ‘You never once told us that, darling. I didn’t think Jewish people could be buried in water.’

  ‘If it’s special circumstances they can. I read about it.’

  ‘I thought it was against their law but if it’s okay with his family we’ve got to go along with their wishes,’ said the Constable, making notes.

  ‘Well,’ said Angel, ‘Uncle George was a Jew and Jews have to be buried very soon after they die so you’d better ask them quickly.’

  ‘We are familiar with that procedure but I thank you, love, for reminding us,’ said the Constable. He was a kind man and comforted Angel in his own way. Not out of a text book. ‘We’ll sort it out for you.’

  ‘He has two sons, by the way. They live in flats in St Kilda near the sea.’

  ‘I thank you for that information, love, but it seems none of you knew Mister George Wolf very well.’ The Constable scribbled and Angel suddenly missed Barnaby and her duchess, especially her duchess. ‘More to this than meets the eye, eh?’