by Louise Allan
Mum looked at Polly, then eyeballed me. One by one, she let her fingers uncurl.
‘No!’ I screamed.
Polly landed on the log with a soft crunch.
‘No!’ I lunged for Polly, believing for a moment I could save her, but Mum caught my shoulders and pulled me back.
The flames skipped around Polly and her face glowed. With a fizz, her auburn locks caught fire and sizzled. The stench of burning hair filled the room.
‘Let me get her! Let-me-get-her.’ I tried to wrench Mum’s fingers from my shoulders, but I couldn’t break her grip.
The flames leapt all over Polly and the fire crackled as she fed them. I smelt her burning—her hair, her clothes, her body—and I felt the heat from her on my cheeks. Her face greyed, then blackened.
Mum loosened her grip, but there was nothing I could do. I watched Polly become stringy blackened shreds and her face turn the colour of soot. Slowly, she slid down the front of the log and onto the red coals, which shifted as if to make room for her. Another flame burst up and her eyes melted and disappeared. All that was left was a hollow, blackened, mask-like head.
I faced Mum, but I couldn’t speak. My nostrils flared and my breathing became shallow and fast.
‘That’ll teach you to be disrespectful,’ Mum said, glaring at me.
I wanted to hit her. I wanted to pummel her for what she’d done to Polly, but I just stood there, trembling and shaking.
‘It’s time you grew up,’ said Mum.
‘Alice!’ Grandma was shaking. ‘I have no words!’
I ran from the room and spent the rest of the afternoon in our bedroom, thumping the mattress and pelting the pillows. In the end, I lay on the bed, closed my eyes and sobbed. I felt as if I’d lost my only child.
It’s not fair. Nothing is fair.
I could hear the dishes clattering in the kitchen and smell the stew cooking, but no one came to get me for dinner. I’d missed lunch and I was hungry. Slowly, I walked into the kitchen.
‘Before you sit, apologise to your sister,’ said Mum. ‘And to your grandmother.’
I couldn’t meet Nora’s gaze as I whimpered my way through the apology. Then I turned to Grandma, but before I started she took my hand. Her skin felt dry, but her touch was comforting.
‘Never mind about me,’ she said, but there was a quiver in her voice. ‘Let’s just put it all behind us and forget it ever happened.’
That night, Nora brushed her hair in silence, our eyes meeting in the mirror on the bureau. We climbed into bed and lay stiffly beside each other.
Each night after that it was the same—we prepared for bed without speaking and kept to our own sides in the pitch-black darkness. During the day, we avoided each other, too—we stood on opposite sides if we were in the same room and didn’t make eye contact. If we happened upon each other in the hall, we averted our gazes and kept our elbows by our sides as we passed.
The ghost of that day hovered in the air between us for the next two years we shared a bed together. A shadow had been cast that neither of us knew how to lighten. Every day as Nora’s voice grew stronger and brighter and rounder, my feelings of resentment only deepened.
Chapter 5
When I turned fifteen, I left school and started work. I’d found a job in Launceston, with an English family, the Godfrey-Smiths. Mr Godfrey-Smith was a surgeon and his wife was a doctor, too. They needed a live-in housekeeper and carer for their two young daughters.
‘What is the world coming to?’ said Mum, as her knitting needles clacked. ‘A woman doctor! What sort of an example is she setting for her daughters?’
They picked me up from the railway station in Launceston in a motor car. A motor car! I’d only ever ridden in Uncle Vernon’s old ute, but the Godfrey-Smiths’ car was shiny and smooth and smelt of leather.
We drove past drapers, grocers and chemists. Past trams and cars, and ladies in stylish clothes and men in suits. Then we passed the park with its neat lawns and hedges, and swept around the bend onto the High Street.
The Godfrey-Smiths lived in a brick house—two-storeys with a shingle roof and tall chimneys. I’d never seen a house as grand before, let alone lived in one.
Mum asked me all about the house on my visit home, and her eyes widened as I told her. ‘An upstairs balcony? With iron lace?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, and I can see right out over the valley to the mountains, nearly to Ben Craeg.’
‘Oh, Ida, you’ve done well! Mind you watch your p’s and q’s.’
‘I do.’
She observed me for a moment, and then she shook her head. ‘You never were one for that.’
It wasn’t just the fancy house and car that made the Godfrey-Smiths different—everything about them was refined and genteel. Their coats were soft and fine, not scratchy and harsh like mine. As I hung them in the wardrobe, I wanted to bury my nose in all the gentleness hanging in there. Their hands were smooth and creamy, not red and chafed like Mum’s and Grandma’s. Their English accents were clear as glass, but their voices were muted and kind, never raised, not even to their children.
They knew about everything—not just doctoring, but also about literature and art and music. I listened to their conversations with each other and with their girls. They’d discuss Twain and Rembrandt and Mozart, and I wondered how they remembered all that they knew. Living with them was like being transported to a different land—as if I’d been whisked out of a cold, harsh place to one of warmth and kindness.
My job was to care for their girls—Elizabeth, who was six, and Mary, who was four. They were just like the girls I’d read about in storybooks. Girls who wore pretty dresses and played with dolls and tea sets.
Each morning, I made their breakfast and dressed them—Elizabeth in her school blazer and tunic, and Mary in a white dress. I untied the rags from their hair and looped the blonde ringlets around my fingers before tying them up in pastel ribbons. Then we pulled on our hats and coats and walked Elizabeth past all the majestic houses and down to Methodist Ladies’ College on Elphin Road.
The school was a huge mansion, stately and imposing, and bigger than any building I’d ever seen. It even had a turret and ivy creeping over its walls. Mary and I didn’t go inside the building but waved Elizabeth off from under the huge oak tree on the lawn, waiting until her tiny figure had disappeared through the door.
On the way back, if the weather was accommodating, Mary and I detoured via St George’s Square. We giggled as we ran along the paths, the leaves of the elm and oak trees crunching under our feet. We sat on the grass and made daisy chains for our hair, or blew on dandelion seeds and made wishes, or hung upside-down from branches and let our hair swirl in the dirt. Sometimes, we flopped on our backs and watched the clouds being scuttled by the wind, just like Nora and I used to do.
At home, we dressed dolls in velvet frocks and put them to bed in cradles with satin covers. Then we pretended to drink tea from a china tea set painted with flowers.
In the evenings, I prepared the children’s dinner with the best cuts of meat because Dr Godfrey-Smith said children’s brains needed the protein. We ate beef or lamb, or even chicken, every day and not just on special occasions. Roasts sizzled in the oven every Sunday and we had thick rump steaks for dinner.
One night, Mr Godfrey-Smith brought home two crayfish in a bucket. I’d never seen anything so red and crawly before, but the girls were excited. We watched as he boiled them over the fire until they stopped moving, and then he cracked their shells for the meat. I had to pretend I wasn’t disappointed by their rubbery taste.
I washed the dishes while the family sat in the formal lounge and Mr Godfrey-Smith played discs on their shiny gramophone. Every evening their house sounded like a concert hall.
At night I climbed under the covers of my bed, weary but happy in a way I hadn’t ever been before.
Each morning I sprang out onto the cold floor and dressed quickly. I lit the fire in the kitchen and watched the sun rise over
the peaks of the Eastern Tiers, Ben Craeg nestled in amongst them. By the time I woke the girls, the house was warm.
On Saturdays the girls had their baths, and I’d wash and dry their hair. Afterwards, we’d sit on the upstairs balcony, from where I could see over the river valley to the Tiers, long and blue on the horizon. As I brushed the girls’ hair, I’d look at the mountains and think of home. Of Grandma on the chaise; of Mum making her hats; of Nora singing. Of everyone’s life going on out there without me.
One evening as I was doing the dishes, I heard the gramophone start to play. It was a familiar melody and as soon as the singing started, I stopped with my hands still in the suds.
Bist du bei mir, geh ich mit Freuden
I’d heard that song before and sung just as sweetly, and I felt a sorrow building in my chest and a pressure behind my eyes.
Zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh.
I gazed out the window, towards the east and the dark ridge of the mountains, and my heart twisted with homesickness and tears spilled down my cheeks.
Ach, wie vergnügt wär so mein Ende
I didn’t hear Dr Godfrey-Smith coming, not until she was in the kitchen. I brushed my tears away with the back of my hand, which just made my cheeks wetter. I pulled my apron up and wiped my face again.
‘I’m sorry, I got distracted. I’ll have the tea ready soon,’ I said as I went to the stove to pick up the kettle.
‘Ida, you’re upset.’
I took the kettle to the sink and twisted the tap. ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Has something happened?’ Her voice was behind me and she smelt of lavender.
I shook my head as the water trickled in. ‘No, nothing’s happened.’
The music still drifted down the hall.
Es drückten deine shönen Hände
Mir die getreuen Augen zu.
‘Are you unhappy here?’
‘No, not at all. You’re very kind to me.’ I finished filling the kettle and placed it on the sink, then I turned to face her. ‘It’s…it’s just the music. It’s making me cry.’
She smiled, then reached for me and pulled me close. ‘Ah, Ida. You recognise beauty.’
I let my head rest against her shoulder, and I wanted to stand there all night in the kitchen, feeling the softness of her against my cheek while the music played.
The following night, Dr Godfrey-Smith invited me to join them in the lounge when they listened to the gramophone. I sat on the edge of my chair, my knees together, my back straight and my hands on my lap lest I mark the brocade.
‘We’re going to listen to Dame Nellie Melba,’ said Mr Godfrey-Smith.
‘Oh, my grandmother saw her when she sang in Hobart,’ I said.
Mr Godfrey-Smith raised his eyebrows as if he was impressed. He set the needle on the record and the sound hissed and crackled for a few seconds. Then came the notes of a piano, then a violin, and, finally, Melba’s voice.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus,
Et Benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Even though I’d recited these words over and over every May while kneeling before the statue of Our Lady, at that moment, sitting with the Godfrey-Smiths in their lounge and listening to that prayer in song, I realised for the first time how beautiful it really was.
Sancta Maria, Sancta Maria, Maria
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
Nunc, et in hora, in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen! Amen!
Grandma was right—listening to Melba was like glimpsing heaven itself.
Each night after that, I sat with the Godfrey-Smiths. We listened to symphonies and concerti by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Edward Elgar. Although I liked the swelling sound of the symphonies, my favourites were the operas. Dr Godfrey-Smith always explained the story beforehand and I nodded as she talked, but I didn’t need to know the story—I was impatient for the music to start. Besides, I could tell if the characters were falling in love or had been forsaken, or if they were ill or dying, even without knowing the story or the language. I could hear it. It was all there in the music and in their voices.
As I sat with the Godfrey-Smiths in the lounge each evening, I had to pinch myself that it was me, Ida Parker, sitting on brocade in a posh room with educated and genteel people, and listening to a gramophone. I knew this life wasn’t really mine, though, none of it. Each time I returned to the shabby cottage at Tinsdale and sat with Grandma on the faded chaise or lay in the bed beside Nora, I was reminded of the true Ida Parker.
Except when I listened to Nora singing. Her voice was as good as any I heard on the Godfrey-Smiths’ gramophone. She wasn’t like the rest of us; she deserved to be in a far grander place than Grandma’s old lounge.
One day I realised that I didn’t mind hearing Nora sing anymore; it didn’t worry me how good she was. I had made my own life, outside of the family, and it was a good one.
Towards the end of 1935, when I’d been working for the Godfrey-Smiths for about two years, one evening after dinner we listened to Enrico Caruso and Dame Nellie Melba sing ‘O Soave Fanciulla’ from La Bohème. When it finished, Dr Godfrey-Smith tapped me on the knee.
I startled.
She laughed. ‘Ida, you were entranced.’
I blushed. ‘I love that duet.’
‘It’s one of my favourites, too.’ She paused before speaking again. ‘Ida, Mr Godfrey-Smith and I were wondering if your sister, when she finishes school, would like to teach piano to our girls. Elizabeth will be eight soon and will need a teacher, and we were wondering if Nora would like the job.’
I wanted to shake my head and say, No! She can’t come here. This is my place, not hers. You’ll see how beautiful she is and how good she is at music, and you won’t want me anymore.
‘You seem troubled, Ida,’ said Dr Godfrey-Smith when I just stared at her and didn’t speak.
I rubbed one hand over the other. ‘Would she replace me?’
‘No, no.’ Dr Godfrey-Smith laughed and laid her hand on my arm. ‘Darling Ida, you’re irreplaceable. No, Nora would come and live here, too. You would both live here.’ Her hand still rested on my arm and it felt reassuring. ‘Ask her next time you go home.’ She nodded and sat back, her attention already on the next aria.
But I didn’t hear the rest of the opera. I spent the remainder of the evening twisting the ends of the tie around my waist into knots.
I brought it up when I next went home. ‘Nora…’ I said, setting my spoon in my soup bowl and clearing my throat.
She was about to take a mouthful but stopped, surprised I’d spoken to her.
‘Dr Godfrey-Smith was wondering if you’d like to teach Elizabeth piano.’ I spoke quickly and without emotion.
Nora’s hand wobbled and some soup spilled from her spoon onto the tablecloth.
‘Teach piano?’ said Mum. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Nora was stone-still, the spoon still in the air.
‘I think not,’ said Grandma. She wiped the sides of her mouth with her napkin and shook her head. ‘No. After school Nora should continue her singing with a good teacher, and then in a couple of years she’ll be ready to enter a conservatorium.’
Mum’s eyes locked with Grandma’s across the table, both of their faces icy and stern.
‘And where would the money for that come from?’ asked Mum.
Grandma tilted her chin. ‘From me.’ She spoke firmly.
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘Definitely not.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘No. She’ll go to work for the Godfrey-Smiths. It’s a good job, too good to refuse. I’ve made up my mind.’ She stood to start clearing the table.
Nora set her spoon down in her full bowl. ‘I’m not going.’
Mum spun around. ‘Yes, you are.’
Nora shook her head. ‘No, I’m not.’ She inhaled. ‘I’ve always done exactly what you’ve told me, and I’ve never been a disobedient daught
er. I’ve never asked for anything before, ever.’ She pressed her lips together and swallowed. ‘Until now. And Mum…I want to sing.’
‘Get your head out of the clouds, girl. You can’t go to a conservatorium. Your grandmother shouldn’t be putting such a grandiose idea into your head…’
‘It’s not grandiose…I can do it.’ Nora’s voice was pleading.
‘You can’t. You have to work. I’m not arguing with you anymore.’
‘Mum, please…please…’ And then, softer, ‘It’s the one thing I want to do more than anything. Please, can I sing?’
Mum shook her head again. ‘No, I’m not wasting good money on singing.’
Nora stood. ‘It wouldn’t be a waste…I could be good, Mum. I could be like Dame Nellie.’
‘Don’t be silly. Forget your stupid dreams.’
Nora began to cry. ‘But I want to sing…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Nora, when will you learn that dreams like that aren’t for people like us. You are a Parker.’ She said those words slowly. ‘Not a Godfrey-Smith. And this is a good job. Too good to give up. My mind is made up.’ Mum’s cheeks, ears and neck were red and blotchy. She turned back to the sink.
Nora ran from the room and her footsteps hurried up the hall to the lounge.
It didn’t take Grandma long to speak. ‘I disagree wholeheartedly with this decision, Alice. Wholeheartedly. And I beg you not to do it.’
Mum turned around, shaking now. ‘How dare you? How dare you fill her head with wild fantasies?’ With each word, her jaw clenched tighter so her teeth were gritted. ‘Might I remind you she is fifteen years old and she is my daughter. I make the decisions for her until she is of age.’ She turned back to the sink and braced her arms either side. Her shoulders heaved up and down, and her breaths were audible.
Grandma stood and left the room. Her footsteps followed Nora’s up the hall to the lounge. I got up from the table to help Mum with the dishes. Low voices drifted from the lounge, along with the occasional thud and rustle of paper. When the dishes were dry and stacked away, I crept along to the lounge. The door was open a crack and I peered in. Nora’s music littered the floor—a carpet of crumpled sheets and books of Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky—but the room was empty.