The Art of Preserving Love

by Robbi Neal

  Ass, she thought. But then she thought again of how long he had waited for Edie. Colin never waited for anything. Beth thought it was awful the way that Edie wouldn’t even walk out with Theo Hooley.

  ‘You could leave Gracie and your father to my care for an hour or so,’ she’d said, and Edie had replied, ‘I can’t possibly leave Gracie and Papa alone.’

  I’d be here, thought Beth, feeling the bitterness she always felt when it was brought home to her that she wasn’t really family.

  Then Edie said quietly, as though they were closer than any real sisters could be, ‘He doesn’t just want me for an hour or so, Beth — he wants me for life, and if I step out even once, I am saying yes to making my life with him. He and I both know that. But my life belongs with Papa and Gracie. It’s just the way it is. It’s just the way life has turned out and you and I both know why.’

  Beth imagined she was Edie basking in Theo’s unfailing slow love. Sometimes she put a rose in its glass case under her bed so its magic could change her life and bring her something — she didn’t know what, but something else. Last night when the others had gone to bed she had carefully carried in a rose. She had chosen one that was smaller than the others, but redder. She unclipped the lid and sweet smells filled her head, then she placed the rose under her bed. She imagined the magic wafting up through the mattress, through the sheets and into her pores. And when she woke this morning she felt warm with sun coming through the window, and now she threw off the blanket and let the sun kiss her body sprawled on the bed. Drowsily she pulled her nightdress up over her legs, past her belly, and let it slide gently over her breasts and then she rose slightly so she could pull it over her head. Her body was smooth and fresh and the sun’s gentle touch on her skin warmed her just the right amount, making her feel golden and immortal. The sun, an old hand, knew what he was doing. First he gently warmed Beth’s hair until it shone, next he lulled her into sleepy laziness by warming her young face till her cheeks were pink, then he moved lower down and allowed his beams to tickle her nipples, warming them to little peaks. Slowly, slowly he rose higher in the sky and cast his warmth lower down on her body. The sun moved his heat now between her legs and she lifted her hips to soak up more of him. She moaned quietly, deliciously — no one suspected her and the sun except the rose under her bed. Its alchemy grew stronger in the warmth and its sweetness filled the room. The sun was clever, he could have taught Young Colin a thing or two. A smirk fell across his face and gently he caused the slightest cool breeze to blow in through the louvre windows and Beth was consumed by licks of fire that burnt her toes and fingertips.

  A few minutes later the walls of her bedroom slowly came into focus; her bed, her wardrobe, her dresser and the sad picture of Jesus on the wall that gazed mournfully at her no matter where she was in the room. Sometimes she shut Jesus up by throwing her shawl over his face. She felt sure she had just been dreaming and it was time the stove was lit. She sat up and suddenly the world was a cold place compared to where she had just been. Beth got up from the bed and the room spun and she held her hands to her dizzy head. Maybe she’d got a sickness and needed to get Edie to give her a double dose of Boomerang Tonic for good measure, or maybe she had just spent too much time lying in the warm morning sun. She felt her abdomen murmur uneasily and she rubbed it gently. Then she felt her forehead for fever and decided she was definitely a bit hot and then her head went blank and she gripped the bed to steady herself. It was as though her head had been pulled up into the cloudy mists on top of Mount Buninyong and was lost in grey-white rain clouds. Her brain was full of nothing and everything at the same time, and she suddenly remembered it was a Sunday, the day of Theo Hooley’s visits.

  There would be another rose.

  Beth breathed deeply until she felt she could stand up without fainting, then grabbed her skirt and bodice from where they hung over the end of her bed. She remembered that Edie had recently given her another hand-me-down and she pulled it from the walnut wardrobe and put it on instead. She slipped her feet into her boots and tied them. Then, down on her hands and knees, she pulled the preserved rose from under the bed, clipped the lid shut and carefully carried the rose back to the laundry, putting it back exactly in its place and making sure to lock the door behind her.

  On her way back to the house she gathered kindling from the box under the back verandah and paper from the paper box. She moved the basket of clothes out of the way and lit the kitchen stove. Beth made a pot of tea and because she still felt like she was trying to walk on a tiny boat that was being tossed by tidal waves she poured a cup for herself and sat at the kitchen table and gripped its sides to stop everything moving.

  Gracie bounded up and down the hallway, squealing and whooping that it was her birthday, and her noise ricocheted around Beth’s head.

  ‘Wake up, everybody,’ Gracie hollered as she ran up and down. Her feet thumped the floorboards and rattled the teapot on the kitchen table. She jumped into the kitchen in bunny hops, her hands up like paws, her hair in its rags bouncing in all directions, her eyes eager for the day ahead. She couldn’t keep her balance as she hopped and nearly toppled over and she and Beth laughed.

  ‘You’re still in your nightgown,’ said Beth, rubbing her head as Gracie hopped around her.

  ‘It’s my birthday.’ Gracie smiled at Beth. Her six-year-old excitement was contagious and Beth reached out to hug her. Gracie tore into her arms.

  ‘It’s Gracie’s birthday, remember,’ said Edie, coming into the kitchen in her summer dressing gown, followed by Paul in his night shirt and gown.

  ‘How could I forget? She’s been reminding us all week,’ Paul said and he motioned to Beth to pour him a cup of tea. But Beth just sat nursing her strange head. Edie looked at her and asked gently, ‘Should I do it?’ Beth nodded and ignored Edie’s concerned gaze. She couldn’t tell them what was wrong with her because she didn’t know herself.

  ‘Do you know what day it is, Beth?’ asked Gracie, pulling on her sleeve.

  ‘I don’t think Beth is feeling one hundred per cent, Gracie, perhaps don’t tug at her,’ said Edie

  ‘Umm — nope, no idea,’ Beth teased.

  ‘It’s my birthday.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said Beth and then she looked at the clock and said, ‘Oh my goodness, is that the time? There’s hours yet before your birthday. You weren’t born until the afternoon so you’re not officially six until then and I have to prepare lunch. There’s potatoes to peel and peas to shell and we all have to go to church first.’

  Edie offered to help with the lunch but Beth wanted to be alone. She had something to figure out, though she couldn’t work out what. She didn’t want Edie’s concerned looks and questions.

  ‘I’m sure if I just have some quiet and another cup of tea I’ll be right,’ she said and hoped her brain would sort itself out. Beth was sure she was ill, otherwise she was going mad. When Edie had taken Gracie away to help her dress and Paul had gone off to his room, Beth pulled the potatoes from the sack beside the cooker and began peeling. She cut her thumb because she was watching the clock and not the knife and stood mesmerised by the red running from the cut. She came to her senses and ran her finger under cold water and tied a rag tight around it to stop the bleeding. When the potatoes were cut she started on the pumpkin and lost great chunks of the flesh as she slashed at the tough hide of the pumpkin because she was watching the clock. She shelled the peas but absently ate most of them, distracted by the aching slowness of the hands of the clock. She walked to church in a daze and didn’t hear one word of Reverend Whitlock’s sermon and walked home absentmindedly, occasionally bumping into fences. At one point Paul had to pull her back as she nearly stepped into the path of Doctor Appleby’s new Napier motor car, the only motor vehicle in town.

  It was no better when they got home. Beth had forgotten to put the leg of lamb in the oven before church so now it would be served too late and Gracie’s birthday lunch wouldn’t be ready until half-past two wh
en Paul always liked lunch to be served at precisely one. She made custard for the cake but she forgot to stir it and it caught, burning on the bottom and turned into a gluggy mess with nasty brown specks through it and she had to throw it out down the back of the garden and then put oil in the saucepan and leave it to soak in the sun. They finally sat down to lunch at one forty-five and Beth served the tiny pieces of pumpkin and split what peas were left evenly between them, counting out six peas each. She felt Edie and Paul look at each other and then look at her and she shrugged her shoulders and gave them no explanation because she didn’t have one herself yet.

  ‘So your birthday lunch at last, eh Gracie,’ said Paul. ‘Would you like to give thanks for the food as it’s your birthday?’

  Gracie did and Paul stood and carved into the lamb. Blood spurted out like sauce and settled in a red pool in the bottom of the dish. Beth saw Paul look over at Edie again.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I should have put it on earlier.’

  ‘Are you okay, Beth?’ asked Edie. ‘Is something wrong? Has Young Colin upset you? Papa can take to him with his umbrella if he has.’

  ‘No, no, I just have a bit of a headache but I’m fine. I’m not going to miss Gracie’s birthday for anything.’ Even Beth could hear the lie in her voice. It was more than just a headache — but what was it?

  Paul took the knife to the lamb again and carved around the edges.

  ‘Perhaps it can go back in the oven for a bit, Beth,’ he suggested.

  ‘Hmm what?’ she replied. Her mind was so full of fog and she shook her head to try and shake it out.

  Edie and Paul glanced at each other again, Gracie looked back and forward between everyone.

  ‘I’m okay, really, everyone. Let’s concentrate on the birthday girl.’

  ‘Beth, you look really pretty today,’ Edie said. ‘I think those clothes look better on you than they ever did on me.’

  Beth looked down at her clothes. She was wearing the pale blue skirt and bodice that Edie had given her.

  ‘We are really going to miss you when you finally agree to set a date with Young Colin Eales,’ Edie said.

  ‘There’s no rush,’ snapped Beth, and she looked at Edie’s clothes, so different to what she was wearing. Edie was wearing smart office-y clothes: a grey woollen skirt, A-line and close fitting that stopped a couple of inches above her ankle, and a crisp white shirt. She had a grey suit jacket to match but she had taken it off after church. The first time she wore the outfit Paul had asked her if she didn’t look a tad too manly. Edie said sharply that she looked modern and capable.

  ‘We must have a birthday cake,’ demanded Gracie.

  ‘Of course,’ said Edie, reaching over and playing with her curls. ‘Birthday milk from a cow that was having her birthday the day she was milked, birthday bread from a baker whose birthday it is and birthday jam made by our own Beth on her birthday. But not till after you’ve eaten your meat and vegetables.’

  ‘Well that’s easy,’ said Gracie, looking at the tiny serves of food on her plate. She popped the last piece of lamb in her mouth and bounced from the table and danced around them, her arms flailing wildly. Beth needed more tea to settle her stomach and she reached out for the milk but she knocked the teapot off the table and the spout broke and the handle snapped off and Gracie stopped dancing and they all cried ‘Ohhh’ in unison.

  Edie said quickly, ‘Don’t worry about putting anything away, Beth, we’ll all do it later, after we’ve had afternoon tea. Why don’t you have a bit of a snooze?’

  ‘Yes, I think you should,’ said Paul. ‘I know you’ll survive whatever has you in a tether, but I’m not sure Lucy’s crockery will.’

  So Beth lay down and the others cleaned up after lunch.

  The birthday cake was to be saved for afternoon tea when it was officially Gracie’s birthday. But Edie knew the real reason they were delaying the cake was to wait until after Theo Hooley’s inevitable visit.

  Beth joined them after the cleaning up and they sat in the cane chairs in the sunroom off from the dining room. It had bay windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling so you could either look towards the back garden or past the study to the front, where you would see Theo and his band of children as he turned up the driveway. Edie sat looking to the back garden and tried to read To Win the Love He Sought, but Beth knew she wasn’t really reading because she hadn’t turned one page in half an hour and kept looking at the clock every couple of minutes, which seemed to be taking a year to get to three.

  Beth was sitting on the floor measuring Gracie for a new coat for next winter. She made sure to take into account the extra inches the child might grow over the summer, but Gracie was still very small and didn’t seem to grow at the same rate as her sister’s children had.

  ‘I’m giving a speech tomorrow,’ said Paul, filling the room with his voice. ‘Now that we have secured an old age pension, I am agitating for a maternity payment for poor mothers so they don’t have to hand their children over to orphanages.’

  Beth smiled at him. The sun shining through the windows was warm and she felt lazy and drowsy from lunch. The fog in her head was thickening.

  A while later Edie said, ‘How long do you think he will keep persisting?’

  Paul raised an eyebrow and looked at Edie over his paper.

  Beth quickly looked at the ground. She didn’t know why her cheeks were suddenly so hot. Perhaps she was ill after all? Her heart began to pound so loudly she was sure they could all hear it and she felt faint again. She put her hands on the floor to steady herself and she looked at the clock. At that very moment she realised that her life was spent waiting for the rose Theo left on the porch each week.

  Gracie wriggled.

  ‘Hold your arm out, Gracie, and keep still,’ Beth said, but it was Gracie’s birthday and she couldn’t keep still, keeping still made her arms and legs hurt and there were presents wrapped in brown paper and string in the corner and one present was in a box and she had had to wait all through church and then all through lunch and now until afternoon tea time, which Paul had pronounced, because of the late lunch and Mister Hooley, would be postponed until four.

  ‘Have you made a cake, Beth?’

  ‘I don’t make cakes for girls who don’t keep still.’ Beth winked at Paul.

  ‘I don’t like cake with fruit in it,’ said Gracie.

  ‘I know that and if I was to make you a birthday cake it wouldn’t have fruit in it.’

  ‘I like chocolate cake.’

  ‘Well you might, but cocoa is four and halfpence for only a quarter of a pound tin.’

  ‘Oh my glory!’

  ‘It’s been that for ages, Papa,’ said Edie.

  ‘No, no, no, I don’t give a hoot for the price of cocoa,’ he said.

  ‘Well, what then?’ asked Edie.

  He rolled the paper and slapped it against his leg. ‘I’m in the paper again. Can’t the papers find any real news? Thank goodness they haven’t mentioned my name. But in this town everyone will know it was me anyway.’

  ‘Go on. You’ve got our curiosity aroused,’ said Edie. ‘What are you famous for now?’

  ‘I did two cases this week that have been reported. One was a woman who wanted maintenance for her thirteen children. I did it pro bono of course. She’d never have paid the bill anyway. This woman is a prime example of why women need a maternity payment.’ He paused for effect as though he was in the courtroom.

  ‘On with the story,’ said Edie.

  ‘Well, I’ll cut it short for you. She arrived at court with seven of the kids in tow looking like she’d just dragged them up from the mines. Their clothes were filthy, ill fitting and they looked terribly hungry. The husband turned up too and I had a dickens of a job stopping her from yelling obscenities across the courtroom at the him, things I can’t repeat, and he was yelling back that half the children weren’t his so why should he have to pay a darn penny for them. Judge Murphy finally came in and said to the husband,
“What’s this all about?” The father said, “She’s not fit to look after me kids and I reckon some of them are probably not mine and I pay her what I can.”

  ‘Judge Murphy said to him, “Well, I’m sure she says you’re not fit either. How much can you afford?” and he said “Nothing” and Judge Murphy turned to my client and said, “You heard him,” and dismissed the case on the spot. I felt so terrible I gave her ten bob but after that what could I do but send her on her way? And here it is in the paper, you can read it for yourselves, along with the next case, which was just as ridiculous. This stupid twit from Sydney sued the Bunch of Grapes because the victualler, my client, declined to provide him with a meal at ten o’clock at night and the twit had travelled 100 miles that day meaning the victualler was legally obliged to provide him with food regardless of the time the twit appeared at his door. Judge Murphy had no choice but to abide by the law and fine the poor publican one pound. That’s city folk for you, they’ve got to have what they want immediately, no matter who gets put out to do it.’

  Paul leant over to Gracie and said, ‘And that’s life as a lawyer for you, Gracie, that’s your father championing the rights of the poor. The rich city folk get a pound for nought but complaining, and a mother of thirteen gets sent on her way with nothing to feed her kids.’

  ‘Mister Cottingham, I’m sure both parties appreciated your efforts even if they didn’t show it at the time,’ said Beth.

  Paul looked at her with soft, thankful eyes; his eyes were changing with age, losing their sharpness and becoming like mists in late autumn, incapable of storms and angry lightning bolts. His shoulders now sloped away, he was shorter and would lean heavily on his umbrella, which had become his walking stick.