by Louise Allan
‘That’s what I want to do. Buy a kiln and a planing mill and make furniture. Blackwood furniture. Real fancy furniture.’
‘That’s a lovely dream, Alf.’
‘Then I wouldn’t be just a sawmiller. I’d be a furniture maker.’ He looked down. ‘And Nora might…want that.’
‘You’re good enough as you are, Alf.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I’m just a bloke from the bush. I don’t have much to offer anyone. Not someone like Nora.’
‘Yes, you do.’
His eyes stayed on mine. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I married the wrong sister.’
I looked down at my lap, feeling myself blush and grow hot under my clothes.
‘Forget I said that,’ he said quickly.
I swallowed. ‘It’s forgotten.’
He was silent and when I glanced up he was running his fingers over the wood again. When he’d finished his smoke, he flicked it into the fire and stood. ‘I’ll call it a night.’ He came over and I smelt the rough, woody scent of his body as he bent and kissed my forehead. His footsteps up the hall were soft except for a creaking board.
I sat with the silence of the night around me. Along the hall were two boys asleep in their beds and a father lying in his. I let my mind fill with what-ifs, dreams almost real as I sat in that room. Until the clock on the mantel chimed eleven and brought me back to the present. I straightened the chairs, plumped the cushions and made up my bed on the couch.
The next morning I woke to a clear sky and a brisk September air. Alf dressed in his suit and tie, then he drove into Launceston to collect Nora and the baby. While he was gone, I scurried about tidying the place—checking the hospital corners on the beds, mopping under the mats and cleaning three weeks of ashes from the fireplace—while, one by one over the course of the morning, people arrived at the house: Beryl was the first to come with her kids, then Rex, then Bill. They crammed into the kitchen and I boiled the kettle and brewed pots of tea. All the while we listened out for the drone of the car.
Not long before midday, the green Ford rolled up outside, the sun glinting off its bonnet and windscreen. Beryl and her kids bowled out the door and down the steps. Ted and Ben held back, waiting with me by the front door.
‘You can go, too,’ I said.
They peeked up at me and shifted closer to my legs.
Nora stepped out and held her hand over her eyes to block the sun. Her coat gaped over her still protruding tummy. She saw us but didn’t smile or wave. Instead, she swivelled back to Alf, who was carrying the bassinette, and said something to him. Alf removed his hat and held it over the bassinette to shade it.
They came towards the house. Beryl gushed over the baby, but Nora barely seemed to notice. As she came up the steps, I saw the pallor of Nora’s face, the hollows under her cheeks and the fatigue in her eyes. She kissed her sons and turned to Alf. ‘Quick, get her out of the sun.’
Alf hastened his stride up the stairs and as he drew near, I spied the bundle in the basket he carried. Her eyes were shut and her face was plump and peaceful.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I said in a feathery voice.
Nora had already moved off down the hall, but Alf stood tall and grinned. ‘She sure is.’
Rex, Beryl and Bill went home, and the boys and Alf padded down the hall and out the back door. There was just Nora and me left in the lounge room. The baby started to cry.
‘I don’t get five minutes…’ said Nora.
I picked her up from the carry basket and she quietened. She felt weightless in my arms and I pulled her close. She was long, like our side of the family. Her eyes were a dark violet, the colour of a bruise. Milk spots dotted the crease in her nose, her eyebrows were fair and her scalp had a faint glow of red, like the eastern horizon just before sunrise.
I handed her over to Nora’s outstretched arms and, as soon as I let go, she squeezed her face and her mouth opened. Her wail was heartfelt and plaintive, and I felt that familiar ache in my chest.
‘She’s a screamer,’ said Nora.
‘She might be a singer,’ I said.
She was sucking on her fist, impatient for her mother’s breast. Nora unbuttoned her blouse and held her closer. She latched on to the nipple and began to suckle. Her jaw moved up and down and her tiny hand grasped Nora’s taut, pale skin.
I sat beside them on the couch.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Grace. Grace Cecilia.’
‘Grace Cecilia Hill,’ I repeated. ‘Very nice.’
Nora reclined against the couch and closed her eyes again. Her lips parted slightly, as if she was too tired to hold them together. I leant closer and brushed Grace’s head with the back of my fingers. It was the softest thing I’d ever felt. I kept stroking her scalp as she suckled and I felt linked to her, too, as if through a phantom umbilical cord. It wasn’t just Nora feeding Grace, but I was part of it, too.
‘You’re very lucky, Nora.’
She didn’t open her eyes. ‘I feel as if I’m in a living hell.’
That night at dinner, Ben asked me if we could sing afterwards.
‘No,’ said Nora before I had a chance to respond. ‘You’ll wake the baby.’
‘Don’t you want to hear their songs, Nora?’ I said.
Nora turned to me, her face long and drawn. ‘Can’t I come home to some peace and quiet?’
Alf tried to smile. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for songs later.’
‘I wish Mum hadn’t come back,’ said Ted as I sponged them before bed.
‘Your Mum’s tired,’ I said. ‘It’s hard with a new baby. And she’s been sick. She’ll get better soon.’
‘Will she?’
I nodded and smiled back.
Throughout the night, the baby’s cries drifted in and out. I woke to soft footsteps and low voices outside the window. I climbed out of bed and rubbed my arms in the cold, then pulled back the curtain. Alf and Rex were on their way to the mill. They trudged over the muddy driveway towards the truck, their voices a growling hum. The clouds billowed wet and low in a sky tinged with early light.
I let the curtain drop and wrapped my dressing gown around me. As I stepped into the hall, I heard a cry. A faint cry. I stopped, ears pricked. It came again. Definitely a cry, little and weak, but not coming from Nora and Alf’s room. It was from out the back. I tied my dressing gown and hurried down the hall towards the sound. At the back door, the crying grew louder. I opened the door and the cries were louder still. They were coming from the bathroom off the porch. I stepped out into the chill and opened the bathroom door.
She lay in her bassinette next to the copper. I hurried towards her, my breath puffing in the cold, the chilly air stinging my nostrils. She was swaddled as tight as an Eskimo, her face scrunched and red, her mouth open, her breaths serrated.
‘Gracie! Gracie! What’re you doing out here?’
At the sound of my voice, she stopped crying. Her eyes glistened in the dawn light and she hiccoughed. I picked her up and pulled her to my chest. I had nothing except my little finger, which she took to the back of her mouth. As she sucked, I could feel the roughness of her tongue and the ridges of her palate.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you inside. By the fire.’
I carried her into the kitchen, rocking and bouncing her in my arms as she sucked on my finger. I found the honey and dipped my finger into the jar. She liked that, so I dipped my finger in again.
Holding her in one arm, I gathered kindling and lit the fire. I kept my finger coated in honey as I waited for the kettle to boil, then stirred a spoonful in a cup of hot water. I blew on it until it cooled and fed the sweet liquid to her, her fingers wrapped around mine. She drifted off to sleep. Her skin looked as fragile as porcelain, more delicate than the lacy garments I knitted. Her chest rose and fell, and I could smell her honey breath.
We stayed like that, just the two of us by the warmth of the fire in those soundless moments before dawn. Before the sky woke and the birds began their
song. I didn’t want the rest of the house to wake and disturb us; I wanted the silence to stay.
Then I heard Nora’s bedroom door open and her footsteps shuffle down the hall. She stepped in, pale, with crescents under her eyes and her hair unkempt. She startled when she saw us.
I held Grace close. ‘She was in the bathroom.’
‘I put her out there so I could sleep.’
‘She was hungry. And cold.’
‘Ida, she’s got to learn night time’s for sleeping, not feeding. I can’t get up to her every time she whimpers.’
‘But she’s a baby…’
‘She’ll soon learn, and when she can sleep through the night, she can come back in again.’ She lifted the sleeping Grace from my arms.
I frowned at her.
‘I know what I’m doing, Ida. I need my sleep, too. Remember I have two other kids to look after as well as her.’ She left the room.
I sat for a moment by the crackling fire, mulling over what she’d said, trying to understand leaving a baby in a cold bathroom to cry. Then I pushed those thoughts aside and woke Ted for school. With comb lines in his slicked down hair, his shirt-tails hidden and his socks reaching his kneecaps, we set off over the frost-covered ground. I carried his case, and we walked in silence while he read his book. The grass licked his shins and the cold lashed at his face and pinked his cheeks, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The bus arrived, and he barely glanced up from his book as he took his school case and climbed up. The bus pulled out, but I stayed, watching the empty road until the sound of the engine had died away and all I could hear were the birds calling and the wind rustling through the trees.
On the way back to the house, the clouds lowered and the sky darkened and the air around me thickened. I began to hurry when I felt the first drops of rain and the wind blowing hard through my dress.
When I returned, Ben was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-eaten bowl of porridge in front of him. The room smelt of boiled oats and warm milk.
‘Spare us your fussing today, Ben,’ said Nora. ‘I’ve just come home with a new baby and I’m not in the mood.’
Ben glowered at his mother then at the bowl. Outside, the rain began to patter against the tin roof.
‘I can feed him,’ I said, and sat in the chair next to him.
‘No,’ said Nora. ‘He’s got to learn to do it himself.’
I clasped my hands in my lap to stop them from helping. The rain fell harder—tat-tat-tat against the tin—and silver streams stippled the window. The wind had begun to bray. Ben dug the spoon in, then lifted it out and stared at it. He set it on the table and climbed down from his seat. Nora picked him up and plonked him back on the chair, then pushed it hard against the table. ‘Sit and eat.’
As soon as she let go, he slid off again. Nora caught him and sat him back down. ‘Eat!’
He waited until she’d spun around then pushed the bowl away.
‘I can feed him, Nora. Really,’ I said, loudly so my voice carried over the thrum of the rain.
Turning back to the table, Nora caught Ben’s hand and slapped it. Then she bent down so her face was close to his and there was only a sliver of space between them. ‘Eat. Now.’ Her teeth were gritted. ‘I mean it, Benedict. You’re not getting down from there until you’ve eaten that porridge.’
Sheets of rain swept across the roof as loud as a battle. The fire hissed and spat gobs of heat, trying to keep the warmth in the room.
I watched it happen as if in slow motion. Ben lifted the bowl off the table and, pivoting in his seat, hurled it across the room. It spun as it left his hands. I tried to catch it as it flew past, but it kept spinning towards the cupboard doors, gluggy porridge spewing in its wake. It hit the cupboard and fell to the floorboards upside-down, wobbled a few times and then stilled.
I jumped up and grabbed the cloth from the sink. ‘I’ll clean it up, Nora.’ I could barely see through the window over the sink for the rain hammering the glass. I bent to the floor. The porridge dripped down the wooden door in thick, lethargic lumps. I started scooping it back into the bowl.
Ben sat motionless, staring at the porridge-strewn kitchen as if stunned. I tried to keep my eyes on what I was doing, but I was really watching Nora. She glared at Ben, her eyebrows low, then she clenched her teeth and pounced, catching him under the shoulders.
As she hauled him up and out, his leg wedged between the table and the chair. He shrieked and she slapped him.
I jumped up. ‘Nora!’
She yanked him again but his leg was still caught. He cried louder.
‘Nora! Careful!’
Nora kept tugging and Ben kept hollering. I held my breath, expecting to hear the crack of bone. The chair rocked back enough for his leg to escape, and Nora clutched him under his belly, pulling him against her. He was bent over her forearm, screaming as his arms and legs flailed. Nora slapped his thigh again.
‘Stop!’ I was trembling. ‘Stop!’
She didn’t look at me but kept slapping him. Slap! Slap! Slap! Ben kept screaming.
‘Nora…’
She kept hitting him, one slap after the other. Slap! Slap! Slap! Sharp against his skin, like gunshots. Again and again. Outside, the rain pounded the roof, clobbering the tin. I stood by the sink, my fingers over my face, barely able to watch, all the time calling out, ‘Nora! Stop! Calm down!’
Eventually, she set him down and he collapsed in a puddle on the floor, his tears spilling like rainwater.
She straightened. Her forehead was coated in sweat and strands of her hair stuck thickly to her skin. She was breathing heavily.
My lips and hands trembled, my whole body shook. ‘How could you? How could you?’
Ben was slumped on the floor, weeping quietly, and I ran to him.
‘Don’t you dare pick him up,’ said Nora. I glared at her and she shook her finger at me. ‘He’s got to learn.’
I kept glaring at her. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’
‘Don’t tell me what’s wrong with me. It’s him. If he ate his breakfast, I wouldn’t have to punish him.’
I swallowed but held her gaze. ‘This home has been peaceful for the past three weeks…’
She tilted her chin, her finger still raised. ‘I can see what’s been happening here while I’ve been gone. They’ve been allowed to run amok.’
‘—with no hitting or crying or screaming…’
‘I’m warning you, Ida. Don’t you dare lecture me on how to raise kids.’
‘—and no one being hurt.’
‘Enough!’ She lowered her finger, stood taller and glared at me. Her eyes flashed and her teeth were clenched together. ‘You think because you’ve been here for three weeks that you’re their mother now? Well, you’re not. This is my house and my family, and you need to realise that. If you don’t like the way I do things, you can leave.’
‘You don’t have to hit a kid to teach them right from wrong.’
‘I’m warning you, Ida. Leave!’
I swallowed and shook my head. ‘No, I’m not leaving, but I’m not going to shut up either. They’re only little. Grace is just a baby. She doesn’t know night from day. And Ben’s just a child. Hitting him’s not going to make him eat.’
‘Get out!’ Blotchy islands of red crept up her neck and clammy sweat streaked her forehead.
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘Get out!’ She loomed closer. Ben still lay on the floor between us.
‘Don’t act like this, Nor,’ I said. Then I lowered my voice and spoke gently. ‘You don’t really want me to go away.’
She stared at me, her mouth gaping, while she inhaled and exhaled. Then she turned and left the room. Her feet clomped up the hall towards her bedroom and the door clicked shut.
I stood a while, shaking and grimacing. I was angry at her. For what she’d done to Ben and baby Grace. For not caring about her children. For not wanting to be a mother.
I crouched next to Ben and stroked
his head. He turned to me, his face spattered with tears and streaked with porridge. I gathered him in my arms and carried him out to the bathroom. He smelt of milk and oats and the salt of his tears. I ran water in the basin, rubbed Velvet soap on a flannel and wiped his face clean, so his cheeks were fresh and pink.
Then I saw the hot finger marks on his legs, weals of burning redness. I brushed my hand over his skin in the hope my fingers might cool them. I held him close and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Ben.’
He turned and his eyes were grey and sad and lost. I set him down on the floor of his room with his toy soldiers. Pulling on my coat, I went outside in the rain and the wind, over to the wash-house. My feet squelched through the mud, and the rain pummelled my skin. I lifted my face to the air and let the water and the wind course over me in the hope it might wash away what had happened. I found a tin bucket, filled it from the tap over the trough, and grabbed the mop and a rag. Back in the kitchen I wiped the cupboard doors and mopped the floor in wide, wet arcs, back and forth, back and forth.
The rain beat down all day before it began to ease towards dusk. As I prepared dinner, I kept an ear out for Alf. As soon as I heard the hum and jangle of the truck, I wiped my hands on my apron and dashed down the hall. When I opened the front door, Rex was reversing out of the driveway, the headlights of the truck bouncing about as the tyres swished through the muddy potholes.
Alf was on the porch, bent over while he untied his bootlaces. He glanced up as I stepped out, pulling the door to behind me. He smiled but must have guessed from my face that I was upset. ‘What’s up, Ide?’
The truck took off up the road.
‘It’s not been a good day,’ I said.
He nodded and straightened, supporting himself against the wall of the house as he removed his boots. He didn’t seem surprised. ‘What’s happened?’
I told him about Ben. ‘There’s something wrong with Nora,’ I concluded. ‘She went right off the deep end.’
He stood in his socks and rubbed his chin while staring at the boards under his feet. His face was streaked with grime. ‘I don’t know what to do, Ide. I’ve tried to say things, get her to see a doctor, but it just makes her worse. She gets even angrier. It’s always everyone else’s fault, or if the kids would behave she wouldn’t be like it. So now I say nothing—’ he turned to me—‘because it does no one any good. I just wait for it to pass. Which it always does, eventually.’