‘Like hell you are!’
‘Look, Dad, how do you think Lou feels with you two staring at her like that? Thinking she’s’ – a bright flush spread over his thin cheeks – ‘thinking she’s expecting!’ he finished in a rush, and then turned to the girl and murmured tenderly, ‘Sorry, Lou.’
‘S’all right,’ said Lou.
Josh kissed Lou Harker. She kissed him back.
Fee and Mattie waited.
‘Anyway, like I told you,’ Josh continued, turning back to them at last, ‘that’s not the reason Lou and I are getting married. It’s because I’m going down to Sydney and we want to be together.’
‘Together!’ Mattie muttered hoarsely, and he put his head in his hands as if it had become too heavy for his neck to hold upright.
Fee took over. ‘But where will you live?’ she asked them. ‘You can’t live in student accommodation if you’re married. It wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘Allowed!’ sneered Josh. ‘Think we haven’t thought of that, Mum? Think we’re babies? Think we can’t work things out for ourselves?’
The girl spoke. ‘We’ve got a place,’ she told them.
Mattie raised his head. ‘You’ve got a place?’
‘My Aunty Brenda down in Sydney. In Five Dock.’ She spoke the name of the suburb with a little air of pride. ‘She’s got this bungalow in her backyard, she says we can have it, free. It just needs doing up a bit, and Uncle Jim, he says he’ll give us a hand, you know.’
Fee and Mattie’s faces took on identical expressions. They knew all right. Lou Harker’s family had stolen a march on them.
‘And that’ll do us fine,’ said Josh, and he kissed the skimpy girl again, on the top of her small dark head. The kiss made a neat little sound. It was like a full stop to something; it was like telling Mattie and Fee they weren’t allowed to argue.
Only they couldn’t keep it in. ‘And just how are you going to support a – a wife’ – Mattie stumbled on the word, he couldn’t seem to get the sense of it, not with Josh in mind – ‘on a scholarship?’
‘Nothing’s cheap down there, you know,’ said Fee.
They sneered at her.
‘Free bungalow or not,’ growled Mattie.
Josh threw back his head defiantly. ‘I’ll get a part-time job, work nights.’
‘And what about your studies?’
‘I’ll manage,’ said Josh. ‘Like I always have.’
As if they’d been stopping him, thought Fee furiously. As if they’d made him chop wood and clean the fowl house so he didn’t have time to study. As if she and Mattie had been making such a racket that their son couldn’t hear his own thoughts.
‘You’ll be too tired, son,’ said Mattie. ‘The only kind of job you’d get down there is going to make you dead on your feet. All you’ll want to do is sleep.’
The girl stepped forward. She came right up to the table and put her hand on it, as if to hold her steady. ‘I’ll work,’ she said. ‘I’ll support us, there’s jobs going for girls like me, Aunty Brenda says. Waitressing, shopwork. I’ve got experience.’
Fee stared at the hand there on the table. It was a very small hand, but it looked quite strong and fierce right there beside their floral crockery.
Lou saw her looking and snatched her hand away. ‘We won’t starve, don’t you worry about us. And don’t worry about Josh, he won’t get tired, I’ll look after him. We’ll do fine, just you wait and see!’ She put both hands on her hips and glared at them defiantly.
Mattie struggled to hide a sudden grin. Fee scowled at him; he was supposed to be on her side. She wanted to slap him, and slap the skimpy girl as well. As for her favourite son, the genius, the boy who wanted to see – ‘We’ll see all right,’ she told him grimly. ‘We’ll see you mess up your life, throw away your chances, just for—’
Josh didn’t let her finish. ‘C’mon Lou!’ he said, grabbing at the girl’s thin arm. ‘I’m not staying here tonight! Or – or ever! I’d rather sleep in Perry’s orchard, where the air is clean!’ He swung away from them and rushed from the room, hurrying Lou beside him. Fee jumped up and ran after them, across the living room, down the hall where the doors of the big blanket cupboard were already wide open, and Josh was grabbing up a sleeping-bag.
Their sleeping-bag, Fee saw, the big double one that she and Mattie used for camping trips.
‘Put that back at once!’
‘No!’
‘Give it to me!’ They struggled briefly. The girl looked away. A corner of the bag flicked across Fee’s cheek.
Josh didn’t even stay to see if it had hurt. ‘C’mon, Lou!’ They rushed right past her.
At the front door she howled after them, ‘But where are you going?’ Night had come. It was dark out there. A cold wind was blowing.
‘I told you!’ bawled Josh from the footpath. ‘I’m going to sleep in Perry’s orchard.’
‘And me!’ cried the skimpy girl. ‘I’m going to sleep in Perry’s orchard too! With him!’
‘But – but it’s dark,’ Fee cried helplessly.
Josh swung back towards her. ‘That’s all right, Mum,’ he yelled. ‘I’m a big boy now; I’m not afraid of the dark!’
‘HE’LL ruin his chances!’ wept Fee to Mattie in the darkness of their bedroom. ‘They’ll be crammed up together in that tiny shack—’
‘We don’t know it’s tiny, love.’
‘Bungalows are always tiny. They’ll be crammed up, Mattie, and Josh’ll be exhausted, working in some factory, he won’t be able to study—’
‘It won’t come to that, love. We’ll help them out.’
Neither of them mentioned the possibility that Lou Harker might fade away from Josh’s life; it was so obvious that the skimpy girl wasn’t the type to fade. Colourfast, thought Fee bitterly. ‘They’ll start having children,’ she panicked, voice rising, ‘he’ll give it all up, those things he’s good at – the physics, the maths, it’ll all go; he’ll be just ordinary. He’ll never go anywhere! He’ll be stuck!’
The word had weight and resonance. It was like something unholy, a small bomb dropped inside the room. It was Fee home forever with the children and never going anywhere, never finding the person she might have been, if she hadn’t got married so young. And through the darkness Fee could sense Mattie thinking all this as well – she sensed the quiver of his hurt and sorrow and shame. ‘Oh!’ she whispered. ‘Oh.’
He turned on his side, away. ‘Oh, Mattie!’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean me.’ She pressed herself close to him, hiding her face against his broad, warm back. ‘I didn’t mean I felt stuck.’ Then she had to be honest. ‘Or at least, only a little part of me. A really, really little bit.’
He turned and held her close, wordlessly.
‘I’ve been so happy, Mattie.’ And suddenly she knew it. Of course she’d been happy; she’d had the real true thing. She grasped his face in her hands and covered it with kisses. ‘You’re the real true thing,’ she whispered.
‘YOU know, love,’ Mattie said a little while later, ‘I think—’
‘What do you think?’ she smiled into his shoulder.
‘Well, once Josh and, ah—’
‘Lou.’
‘Yeah. Lou.’ He grinned. Fee stopped smiling.
‘Once Josh and Lou are settled, perhaps we could take that trip to London—’
Fee propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. ‘Settled,’ she murmured. ‘As if anyone ever was.’ She sighed and lay back, watching the leaf shadows from the big gum dancing on the ceiling. Out there in Perry’s orchard the wind would be tossing in the trees. Cold.
‘I’m not sure I want to go to London anymore,’ she said to Mattie.
‘But what about visiting Ruth?’
‘I had a letter today. Ruth’s thinking of coming back here, if she can get a job at Sydney University. She wants to see more of her dad.’
‘Ah.’
‘It’s Josh I want to go places.’
‘And he’s going to,’ pr
omised Mattie. ‘You can bet on that.’
‘Good.’
They lay there silently for a moment, then Mattie spoke again. ‘Fee?’
‘Yes?’
‘The thing is, Fee, about them, about Josh and, um, Lou—’
‘What? What about them?’
‘Josh isn’t going to ruin his chances; he’s not that kind of boy. And that Lou—’
‘Yes?’ Fee’s voice was cool.
‘That Lou looks like she wouldn’t let him ruin his chances either. Not for anything.’
Fee turned her head a little so he wouldn’t see the gleam of jealousy in her eyes.
‘You’ve got to—’
‘Got to what?’ she snapped. ‘What have I got to do?’
He took her hand and kissed it. ‘You’ve got to have some trust.’
LONG after Mattie had fallen asleep Fee lay awake beside him, thinking of Josh and the girl out there in Perry’s orchard, the wind roaring in the trees above them, damp rising through the layers of the sleeping-bag. The trees in the orchard were old and dry – a branch could fall. Had they checked for spiders in the leaf litter? Snakes? Had they—
They. She was saying they, as if Josh and Lou Harker were a real couple; as if the skimpy girl was part of the family, as if she was a fact. But Lou Harker was a fact, you could sense it: she was there for good.
Tears sprang into Fee’s eyes. She slipped from the covers, crept into the bathroom and scrambled into her clothes. Then she too rushed out into the windy night.
There was no moon yet, but the stars were huge, flooding the streets of Barinjii with a gentle silvery light. As she rushed down Hopeton Street, across the windswept park and on through the schoolyard towards the old orchard, Fee couldn’t help – whatever Mattie said – the sense of loss for Josh’s marvellous future creeping over her again, his brilliant chances winking out like streetlights in an ordinary dawn. So that the orchard appeared through a veil of tears, suddenly, before she was quite ready for it, like some surprising image from a dream. The wind was wilder here, the old trees thrashed and struggled; she walked into them with her arms held protectively above her head.
The big moon had risen now and she found the sleeping-bag easily, in the centre of a clearing, well away from the threat of falling branches, spread neatly like a big picnic tablecloth on the grass. There was no sign of Josh and Lou.
She knelt down and pulled the bag sideways; they’d cleared the leaf litter where spiders might hide, and the ground was firm and dry. The wind dropped suddenly, the air went smooth as silk; somewhere further off she heard a whisper, a giggle, a long broken sigh, and she sprang up guiltily, peering into the shadowy trees. She saw them almost at once, in another small clearing, standing close, their arms around each other, oblivious and unaware. She noticed how the top of Lou’s head reached Josh’s collarbone, how his chin grazed the top of that blue-black crow’s wing hair. She saw the girl raise her face to his, and Josh’s lips come gently down on hers.
Fee had stood with Mattie like that, beneath these same old trees. She’d been sixteen. The joy of it! The sheer and perfect happiness! ‘Happiness!’ she whispered, and though it was only one word and her voice was very soft, Josh and Lou heard her and sprang apart.
‘Mum?’
‘Oh! I’m sorry,’ said Fee. ‘Sorry, I – you must think I’m spying, but it isn’t that, honestly.’
They gazed at her silently.
‘I came because, um – because I wanted to say sorry for what happened back home.’
Still they said nothing, and Fee crept towards them over the uneven ground, stumbling slightly, so that Lou unexpectedly leaped forwards and took her arm. Fee straightened, startled, and their eyes were on a level. ‘We,’ Fee began, ‘I mean, Mattie and I – your dad,’ she said, nodding across at Josh, ‘we used to come here too. When we first met, when—’ She turned back to Lou. ‘I was only sixteen,’ she gasped. ‘And I was so happy, just like you two, and – look, I’m sorry for all that stuff I said back there in the house, I didn’t have the right. There are all kinds of happiness, there’s all different kinds—’ She heard her voice ringing out into the night and thought it sounded like a toddler’s voice, a tiny little kid pointing to a window full of Easter eggs, chocolate ones and sugar ones, huge eggs and tiny ones, eggs wrapped in shining foil or nestled in a china cart pulled by a china bunny and crying out, ‘There’s all different kinds!’
She swallowed. ‘All different kinds,’ she repeated in a firmer, adult voice, ‘and – and no one has the right to tell anyone else which is theirs. And yours is precious, and I’m sorry if I sounded like I didn’t think it was.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Josh quickly. ‘It’s okay, Mum.’ His eyes sought the girl’s. ‘It is, isn’t it, Lou?’
Lou looked at him and didn’t speak. She looked at Fee. They waited for her. They waited humbly.
The girl frowned. Her eyes left their faces and travelled upwards, considering the stars.
Still they waited. Her eyes swept down from the heavens and considered them. Finally she nodded. ‘Course it’s all right,’ she said. ‘Anyone can lose their rag.’
Fee’s fists clenched by her sides and then opened slowly again.
‘And you’re right, Mrs Howe,’ Lou went on. ‘There are all different kinds of happiness. But just because you have one kind, it doesn’t mean you can’t have others. We can get married and Josh can still do his work—’
‘Oh, you’re right!’ said Fee eagerly.
The wind was very gentle now, no more than a breeze. She noticed how the moonlight threw leaf shadows over their faces and how their bodies inclined towards each other, over the small space between. ‘You’ve got,’ Fee began, and then swallowed, and swallowed again, ‘the real true thing,’ she finished, and looked Lou Harker straight in the eye.
Lou looked back. She smiled at Fee. It was a nice smile.
Then Fee took Josh’s hand gently and placed it round Lou’s thin back, in which you could feel every knob in the spine. Didn’t her mother ever feed her? She took Lou’s hands and placed them round Josh’s strong neck, where they were obviously meant to be. Then she touched each child lightly on the top of their head, urging their faces together.
‘Mum—’ protested Josh, but Lou’s glance slid sideways and she winked at Fee.
Fee hurried home through the Barinjii summer night. She skipped lightly down the hill and skimmed across the schoolyard where she and Ruth had played beneath the peppercorn trees. ‘But what if you don’t know who you really are?’ Helen Hogan’s ghostly voice was taunting.
‘But I do,’ retorted Fee. ‘I do know who I am. I’m a happy person, that’s me.’ She felt light as a feather, light as thistledown, light as a summer breeze. She felt all of sixteen.
PART THREE
The Real
True Thing
one
Ruth woke and the girl was standing over her, motionless beside the bed. She was a skinny girl with thin limbs and big hands and feet at the end of them, like an awkward puppy that would one day grow into a big, big dog. Her pale face was heart-shaped and her eyes were like sad grey stars beneath the glossy blue-black fringe. She didn’t say anything when she saw that Ruth had woken, she simply kept on standing there, and her grey eyes, so deeply familiar that they brought a sad little ache to Ruth’s heart, were quite expressionless. She could have been looking at any old thing: a jug on a table, a caterpillar crawling along a leaf, a piece of meat on the butcher’s slab, waiting for the knife.
Despite her skinnyness and the almost translucent pallor of her skin, the girl was young and strong.
Ruth was getting on. Last birthday she’d turned sixty. ‘Sixty!’ her best friend Fee had exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it possible, would you? That we could ever be sixty!’
‘Unnatural, that’s what it is,’ Ruth had replied.
A SILENCE filled the big bedroom of the house at the end of Hayfield Lane, which was all by itself
and a long way from anywhere.
Ruth lay perfectly still, but you could see she was breathing. Sometimes you could be afraid to breathe, the girl thought; it had happened to her many times. Dancey, her name was. Dancey Trelawny. Helen was her birth name, the one on the forms Ruth had signed, but the girl had said she didn’t like it. ‘Dancey’s my real name,’ she’d told Ruth.
Since her early retirement Ruth had cared for several children; she was what they called an ‘emergency placement’, until a more permanent arrangement could be found for children who had no one. ‘Though in this case,’ the social worker had said with a long thin sigh, ‘a permanent arrangement might be a long time coming.’
‘You mean?’
‘Oh, she’s not violent, nothing like that,’ Sandy Jimpson had said quickly, ‘just a little – strange. Quiet. She’s very quiet. And she never smiles. Some people find that disconcerting.’
There was very little in Dancey Trelawny’s history to make her smile, Ruth had thought. She was the child of a woman called Tammy Trelawny, a single mother with addiction problems who’d followed an American boyfriend to the States when Dancey was eleven. After a few months the boyfriend had abandoned them, a new one had come along and Dancey had run off, hitched northwards, and joined a street family in Portland. She’d stayed with them almost six months before making her way back to her mother’s squat in San Francisco. They’d returned to Sydney and two weeks later Tammy Trelawny had died of an overdose. Since then Dancey had been moving between temporary placements and residential homes; twice she’d run away.
‘That’s her,’ Sandy Jimpson had said suddenly, pointing through the window of her office, and Ruth had looked out and seen a thin, dark-haired girl sitting by herself on a bench in the garden, so near to them that if the window had been open the girl would have heard every word. And perhaps she had, because she’d looked up at them, and that was when, across that small distance, Ruth had seen that Dancey Trelawny’s eyes were that same rainy grey as Tam Finn’s.
Ruth had signed the papers and taken Dancey home.
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