‘It’s family business and no business of yours,’ said Clara.
‘Sorry. We’ll be off, then. I’ll let you know what’s happening in a couple of days—’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Angel.
‘We’ll do our best.’
‘I’m so sorry you’ve had to attend to something so unpleasant,’ said Elsa. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Very kind, but best keep it formal for the moment. Maybe next time?’
‘Of course.’
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said the old man with the hips. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Yes – tea. And thank you for looking after Angel for us.’
‘I seen days, Missus, but today I seen the strangest of ’em all. Two sugars.’
‘Can I go back down to the rocks, Elsa?’ Angel, not thinking clearly, still hoped to see a man with a bandaged leg float around the point – Uncle George, sent by Mariana. Her mind at that time was tangled and she was certainly not right in her head.
‘Of course, Angel, but I’m sure Uncle George won’t be floating by. You must understand that.’
The old man finished his tea, leaned on his sticks and hobbled down Brooklyn Street muttering to anyone interested, ‘I never seen so many crabs. Have to get someone to clean out the barge bottom.’
‘Come inside now, Angel. I’ll get you dry and something to eat. You’ll have to stay here tonight – it’s too late to go back to the boarding house alone.’ And she locked the gate.
‘I’m really hungry, Elsa. What’s for dinner?’ And she grinned in her way while Clara watched her.
‘Be careful, Elsa.’
‘She’s only a child, Clara.’
‘O, well then, Angel, we’ll keep a lookout from the balcony, just in case,’ said Clara, already in her moon hat and chuckling.
It had all been theatre – wonderful, creative theatre and she could not, for the life of her, think of a ballet to play that would suit it.
The grandfather’s room
‘She’s here,’ Clara called from her upstairs lookout. ‘Black all over as usual, in her black hearse with a taxi sign stuck on the top.’
‘Already?’ Jessie made Elsa very nervous whenever she came, even though on that day she and Clara had this week’s rent and last week’s and the feeling that they might have the upper hand.
At ten o’clock in the morning she was thinking of putting the kettle on but changed her mind. Angel, draped in an old nightgown of Elsa’s while her clothes were cleaned and dried, stood at the sink and washed the breakfast dishes. Jessie flapped into the house, uninvited as usual, and settled herself into the nest of Elsa’s sitting room chair. Her long plait hung stiff as metal and Elsa, not for the first time, wondered if it was real.
‘Well?’ asked Jessie in a voice sweet as blades. ‘How is everything in my Brooklyn Street house? I see the grass has grown higher and—’
‘It will be mown on Friday, Jessie. I have arranged for the grass to be mown on Friday. Apart from the rent is there anything else you want here?’
‘I’m not sure I like the tone of your voice today, Elsa.’
‘I can’t imagine why, Jessie.’
‘Is that Jessie’s voice?’ came Angel’s voice from the kitchen sink. ‘Is she here?’
‘Yes,’ said Clara, suddenly at the door. ‘And you stay right where you are, Angel, and don’t say a word! You hear me?’
‘O, okay, but—’
‘Angel!’
‘Why is she here? Why is that child not at school? I hope she doesn’t thinks it’s Sunday.’
‘Angel spent the day with her uncle. Yesterday her uncle went fishing and Angel watched him. It was too late for her to go to the boarding house alone so she stayed the night, here, with us.’
‘Rubbish! I’ve never heard such rubbish!’
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Jessie, it’s none of your business,’ Elsa said, with her arms folded hard against her.
‘One or two other things to mention, Jessie, while Elsa fetches the rent. The light switch in the laundry is broken and the sash on my window needs replacing. Both, I am told, are the responsibility of the owner.’
‘Fix them! Fix them yourselves! I’m too busy to be troubled with switches and sashes.’
‘If a window crashed down and broke my hand, Jessie, you would have to be troubled by such things.’
Elsa wasn’t sure, but as she walked back into the room she thought she saw Jessie’s plait twitch.
‘You’re both acting very strangely. What on earth’s been going on? Where is Mister Wolf. Where is the Jew?’
‘Dead,’ said Clara.
‘What?’
‘Mister Wolf drowned when he was fishing and his lines tangled under the barge. He fell from the barge platform. His body is in the morgue waiting for instructions from his Melbourne family. The police have been very helpful.’
‘Police?’
‘Angel is in shock, of course …’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Angel is going to live here and help Clara and me. Her uncle thought the boarding house was not a suitable environment for a child.’ Elsa handed an envelope to Jessie. ‘Mister Wolf is paying for her keep and in other ways. He left us some money to go on with so, Jessie, here is this week’s rent and last week’s, and if there’s nothing else I’ll say good morning.’
‘I won’t have that child living in my house. She doesn’t belong! I won’t have it!’
‘Angel is the granddaughter of your old lover. She is part of this family whether you like it or not, Jessie. She is his grandchild. We have already made arrangements for her to move into Clara’s father’s room that used to be his office so if there is anything particularly close to your – your heart – you’d better gather it now.’
‘How dare you! The Jew dead and police and heaven knows what else and all behind my back! I’ll have you all evicted! I can, you know.’
‘Mister Wolf said he’d pay for a solicitor if we needed one, Jessie.’
‘And I’ll speak to my brother, John! He has a claim, too.’ Jessie slumped a little in the chair. She was obviously in unfamiliar territory and not a little shocked by the strangeness of it all. ‘How can you even think of renting that room to that child? That room is very dear to me – it’s where he kept his fish tanks.’
‘The only thing that’s dear to you is how much it might be worth,’ Clara said.
‘O! How dare you – how dare you all. I feel faint. Ill. I feel ill. I will have my tea now!’
‘I’m not making tea this morning, Jessie, and if there is nothing more you want from us we will say goodbye. We have a great deal to do. We must clean the old room that smells of old fish and you and the grandfather loving ’til all hours. And there’s furniture coming this afternoon.’
‘We’ll see about this! You will suffer for this, I promise you.’
And the bad fairy flapped to the door looking like anger in a black box.
Clara chose Sleeping Beauty for the music of the moment. Sleeping Beauty – the bad fairy – perfect. All Jessie needed was a poisoned bodkin. Clara wondered if they’d all sleep for a hundred years as she climbed the stairs.
The taxi Jessie had ordered was not black but bright yellow and she sat heavily in the back like a witch in a pumpkin. She muttered over and over, ‘We’ll see about this! Furious! We’ll see about all of you!’ and she told the frightened driver where to go.
‘Can I come out now?’ Angel asked from the kitchen sink.
‘Yes, darling. Come out now and we’ll start cleaning your room. Are you feeling better?’
‘O, yes, I think so.’
‘It’s been a bad time for you, darling. A bad, bad time but you will feel better soon.’
‘I feel better now.’
Missus Potts was
busy in the boarding house kitchen with a bowl of spuds when Miss Varnham rushed in to tell her that her phone might have been ringing. Winifred’s sister Heather followed her, but slowly, still in her nightdress at half-past four in the afternoon with an arm hanging, suddenly paralysed by her side – caused, Winifred Varnham had no doubt, by Missus Potts’s suggestion that she might like to help peeling.
Heather’s tiny feet had hardly touched the earth since she’d been removed from the sanitarium – a day early if you don’t mind, Miss Varnham, we need the bed. Heather liked to veil herself with damaged mosquito netting and Mister Joseph said she reminded him of Miss Haversham in one of Angel’s Charles Dickens books.
‘I didn’t hear the phone ringing, Miss Varnham.’
‘No one hears your phone ringing, Missus Potts. No one can answer your phone, Missus Potts, because it is locked in a cupboard, probably with a blanket over it. Angel’s Aunt Elsa has tried to call you three times from the phone box, and in the end a policeman came.’
‘A policeman! Here? What did he want? Something to do with Angel – I always knew …’
‘Missus Potts! The policeman came to tell us that Angel’s Uncle George drowned while fishing off some point at the Bay.’
‘O. Well … drowned?’
‘And if you would be kind and keep an eye on Heather tomorrow I would like to go to her – and I think Barnaby Grange will want to come with me.’
‘I’ll do it but all care and no responsibility for your sister and it’ll be extra.’
‘Of course.’
‘I never liked that man – there! There was something about him.’
‘I’m inclined to agree, Missus Potts, but I think we might keep that to ourselves. Angel might be moving into the aunts’ house but we’ll bring her back with us tomorrow and we will know more.’
‘And what am I supposed to do with no help?’
‘How can you think of yourself at this time? The girl’s in shock and needs care.’
‘Well, maybe I said that wrong. To tell the truth, I really didn’t mind the girl from time to time.’
‘We know you did, Missus Potts, but you treated her very badly. Perhaps you can persuade Heather – very gently – to help you with a few easy chores.’
‘I’ll watch for pigs flying over the gully, Miss Varnham, no disrespect.’
The room that used to be the grandfather’s office was thoroughly cleaned on Thursday. Excited, Elsa and Barnaby scrubbed shelves that had held fish tanks with, of all things, Bon Ami, and the duchess swept the floor with her robe but left dust as Angel wished. The life and memories of a house lived in its dust. Winifred Varnham remembered Angel saying that a long time ago and had not forgotten it. She thought it was a beautiful thing for a child to say.
On that Thursday there was no sign of Jessie, and Clara, after her own contributions, excused herself, climbed her stairs and played Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring very loudly. No one noticed the grieving child wondering what she would do with a room three times the size of a broom cupboard and three – not one, but three – windows overlooking an alien garden, a stone wall and not a gully in sight.
‘Will a currawong sing in the morning?’
‘There aren’t many bush birds, darling, but you’ll certainly hear the gulls squawking for scraps down the front – isn’t it all lovely?’
‘O, yes,’ Angel said despondently.
And Winifred Varnham, somehow knowing, ran to her and held her tight.
‘We’ll come on Sundays to visit. Is that all right with you, Elsa? We can come on Sundays and I’ll bring a basket of goodies for a picnic by the harbour and you will always have your friends.’
‘O, yes please.’
Angel, on tip-toe, whispered to her duchess, ‘I’m glad he’s dead.’
‘I know, Angel. I think I understand.’
‘I love you. You’re my best friend.’ And she kissed her cheek. ‘Elsa, would you like me to make tea for everyone?’
‘That would be lovely, Angel.’ But Elsa had witnessed the bond of friendship and felt just a little put-out by it. ‘I hope you’re my friend, too?’
‘O, Elsa, of course you are.’
‘You can move in on Sunday – how exciting is that? But come on Saturday if you can, when your things are delivered.’
It was a light, showery Saturday when the last of the furniture was delivered. The men did their best to keep it all dry.
There was a very nice bed with polished posts, a comfortable mattress and pillows, a wardrobe with side drawers and shelves, and a very nice mirror. There was a small desk of Queensland maple moved under a window that had a view of a bottlebrush shrub. It was all very nice. Too nice. Angel had asked Missus Potts if she could have the tiny, old, rickety cupboard from her room at the boarding house and was surprised when Missus Potts gave it to her without saying ‘That’ll be extra’. And she had not disturbed the collage of families and had taped the door tight with sticking plaster.
‘It’s got worms,’ she’d said. ‘You’re welcome to it.’
Barnaby Grange had brought it in the tram tucked under his arm like a parcel.
Elsa brought a huge package into the room. She asked Angel to close her eyes and, after the rattle of paper and the obvious snip of scissors, Elsa clapped her hands.
‘Da, da! You can open them now.’ From the huge parcel poured soft sheets and pillow cases with butterflies on them and a quilt covered in birds and flowers. ‘There! Isn’t it all lovely?’
‘O, yes – O, thank you, Elsa,’ said Angel, smiling. She hated it all. She hated the furniture. She hated the smell of the new wood and the shine on it, smooth as something dead. And the bed linen with its prissy butterflies and flowers that smelled nothing like the gully. She put the old cupboard as close to her bed as possible.
‘What colour curtains would you like, darling?’
‘I don’t want curtains at all, Elsa – I like to watch the night.’
‘But you don’t want people looking in.’
‘They won’t see over the wall, don’t worry. Can I still have Peggy’s old quilt? It means a lot to me, Elsa.’
‘Of course you can. I’ll clean it for you.’
‘I don’t want it clean. I want it the way it’s always been. I love it the way it is.’
Elsa was silent for a moment.
‘Are you really going to be happy here, darling?’
‘Of course.’
The grass on the harbourfront side had been mown on Friday, as arranged, and after Elsa had made the grandfather’s room that used to be his office neat and tucked and laid the way she would have been taught, she made tea and biscuits for a party on the lawn. Clara played something soothing to lift the spirits.
‘There’s really no need for you to leave today, Angel,’ said Elsa. ‘It’s all ready for you, darling. Why don’t you move in tonight?’
Angel glanced at her duchess briefly and her duchess nodded ‘yes’ discreetly but with a sad smile. Barnaby Grange gazed at the harbour and counted gulls. Clara, knowing, smiled and invited Angel to play her ballet records when she wanted to. There was suddenly a tension in the air thick enough to cut, but Barnaby turned and said, in words, ‘Two thousand still counting’ and they all laughed.
‘Okay,’ said Angel.
‘And don’t forget there’s always Sundays.’ Winifred Varnham dabbed at something invisible in her eyes but Angel’s were dry as deserts. Elsa was too happy to be anything else at all.
‘Would you like baked tomatoes for dinner, darling?’ was all she said.
When late darkness came to the Bay, Angel finally went to the grandfather’s room that used to be his office, closed the door and stood at a window to watch the night. Elsa and Clara had left her in the sitting room without comment and went to their own beds. Angel thought it was kind of them.
/> From the bottlebrush window, the night was made darker by a moon hidden behind a shaggy pile of cloud. She shivered, though the atmosphere of her strange, new home was dense as a cloak. Click!
All the ghosts were there in the grandfather’s room. The music inside her had no chance to be heard above the cacophony of their noise – her mother, howling; her father without his leg; tram drivers ding ding ding; the conductor who lost his brains; men at war screaming into Mariana’s trench; the grandfather – Go away, we don’t want you here! – and dead Uncle George. The skin of her breasts still crawling. Wanting him to be like the drowning man waving to the aunts on the balcony. Even the duchess’s robes became shrouds, and the man with his numbers and numbers and numbers became madness, all madness. The ghosts were all there and there wasn’t room in her mind. She was afraid.
Angel Martin pulled the terrible new sheets from the bed and scattered the flowers and released the butterflies from the pillows and lay, curled like a newborn, on the plain ticking with Peggy’s old cover for warmth and protection. The music inside her was too faint – she couldn’t hear it and all its colours were black, flowing into black. The ghosts and their terrible noise would not leave her.
I don’t know how to make them stop – Mummy, don’t come now, I’ll come to you. One day. Angel held her head tight with her hands and then, into the sound of the sea, she fell into a troubled sleep.
On Sunday morning it was not a gully currawong’s song that woke Angel but the gentle call of a harbour gull, not a raucous squawk as Elsa had warned. Angel ran down to the front and the gull sat on the fence and waited. She showed the gull her empty hands but it stayed and when she was close to it, it looked closely into her eyes and with its head on one side in the way of gulls, it winked, and from the bottom of its throat murmured there, there. The gull did not move when Angel stroked its feathers.
When she turned she saw Clara watching her from the balcony of the aunts’ house. She was smiling – and it was enough.
The Aunts’ House Page 24