Cassie sits on the floor by the toilet door. A pile of books and magazines have collected on the floor, testament to the time each family member has spent here lately. She leafs through Dolly magazine, stopping at the reader’s poetry corner.
‘Dried roses lacquered like delicate china.
Your mocking lips,
the honey and the sun,
sweet.
Sliding away into darkness,
Now you are gone.’
—Barbara, Brisbane.
She tosses the magazine back into the pile. How did she ever like that rubbish?
She stands and paces the hall. She pulls her arms around her shoulders and hugs herself. A shiver in her shoulders. A dozen spiders crawling up her spine. She scratches her little finger. Tastes blood in her mouth and realises she has been biting the inside of her lip. She runs her tongue over the wound, the metallic taste familiar. Something worse will happen. Sometime soon.
‘Mum, I’m just going down to the shed for a minute.’ The screen door sways behind her. Her mother yells at her from the window, but she waves her hand behind her and sprints across the drive. In the machinery shed, among the hoarded boxes and useless things, on the very top shelf where she left it—the treasure box. She rummages around until the cards meet her hand. She holds them to her mouth and whispers, ‘I’m sorry,’ inhaling the smell of dust and grain and mice.
‘Don’t worry, I’m back.’ She glares at her mother, arms crossed at the door.
‘She’s ready for you,’ her mother says.
‘Okay.’ Cassie throws the box in her room and tucks the tarot cards into her pocket.
‘It just won’t come,’ Ida says as Cassie helps her from the toilet to the sink.
Cassie nods. ‘Maybe you should tell the doctor.’ She turns on the taps and tests the temperature.
Ida grunts, holding her shaking hands under the water. ‘Take me out to the veranda. Maybe you could read some of the paper to me?’
‘Poppy might,’ Cassie says, turning off the taps and patting a towel over Ida’s damp hands.
Ida nods her wobbling head. ‘Nothing but bad news anyway.’
Back in the hall, Cassie stands outside her bedroom door, her hand on the door knob. She stops, steps away and returns to Alex’s room.
She takes the cards out of her pocket, closes the door and jams a chair against it.
She sits at the desk, closes her eyes. The stallion flashes there, a gallop across her mind. ‘I’ll have you,’ she thinks and takes the cards from the packet.
She shuffles and cuts the deck three times. Past, present, future.
The past, the Hierophant—authority, religion.
The present, Nine Wands, her back is against the wall, yes.
The future, Pentacles—abundance, a new lease on life. Wrong.
She scrapes the cards together again and cracks them on the desk.
What is the horse? What is the horse? He rears in her mind as she shuffles. Three cards again; this time the Mysteries.
The Mystery she understands. Three of Swords, broken relationships, grief, sorrow. My darlings, you never lie, she whispers, spreads her hand over the card, smooth and shiny.
The Mystery that eludes—the Six of Wands, the conquering hero, victory? Vindication? Loss?
Card three, the Mystery she will come to comprehend. The Chariot. Change, another direction …
She throws the card across the desk. It spins across the surface. Pointless, obscure. What she needs is to be stoned.
She taps the desk top with her nails. She could go up the hill, pretend friendship with Athena. Or just wait until they are out and search the place. Athena’s father’s stash will be there somewhere. Serves him right.
She picks up the deck and reaches for the thrown card. She could go when they are out. Watch for their car coming down the road.
The thrown card has slipped under a pile of paintings. She pulls them towards her. The paper crinkles, warped from the wet paint. She smooths her hand over the top picture, feels the powdery texture under her hand. A typical Alex painting, the hills in the distance, the fence across the horizon, the clouds storm purple in this one. And on the top of the hill. A horse. Rearing its legs in the air.
She looks closer, her heart thumping. The picture underneath is the same, the clouds greener, like impending hail, the horse galloping down the hill.
The third picture is like nothing she has ever seen Alex do before. Purple and green swirl around the page like a cyclone. It seems alive in her hand. A storm of fury and depth, and obscured behind, as part of the scrawling, scowling colours, the flaring wet nostrils of a black stallion.
She drops the pictures on the desk. Alex said something about a horse, a dream, something. She hadn’t listened. She never did.
These might be the last pictures he did. When? The night before the accident? She searches for a date, in the corner, on the back, and finally on the last picture, a date.
But it doesn’t make sense. Not the night before they lost him. Not even a week before. It is a date in the future. The painting could be a year old. Everyone would say so, even if they had never seen the picture before. They would want to believe that. She would know better.
~ 31 ~
Raining and leaving
Cassie wakes in the night, the rain like raucous applause on the tin roof. She imagines the wheat seeds in the soil swelling with joy. The first crop they have planted in years. Alex’s parting gift. She turns in the bed and huddles the pillow close to her face.
Poppy’s smug smile greets her the next morning. He leans on the veranda rail, his face damp with raindrops.
‘It’s raining,’ she says, her voice croaky with sleep.
‘Raining! It’s been pouring cats and dogs since one. The radio says it won’t clear till late in the week.’
Cassie walks by him. ‘Just like Alex said it would.’
‘Just like Alex said,’ Poppy echoes. He stares into the white wet distance. ‘Good and steady,’ he says, ‘it’ll soak right in.’
Water slops down the drainpipes.
‘It’s good follow-up rain,’ Cassie says.
‘Yes, yes,’ Poppy says, sitting in his cane chair, tapping his tobacco tin against his thigh. ‘It certainly is.’
‘Poppy?’
He nods and slurps his tea. ‘You want some?’ he says, pointing to the pot.
She shakes her head. ‘I want to tell you something.’
‘Sure, girlie, tell me what you like.’
‘You know how I was in Alex’s room.’
‘Your mother doesn’t like you being in Alex’s room.’
The smell of matches, the world goes red. ‘I don’t care what Mum does or doesn’t like.’
‘Now, don’t be like that. It’s been hard on your mum. She has to look after Ida and …’
‘She’s taking care of herself, don’t you worry.’ Cassie slams into the back of her chair and crosses her arms.
‘You never did understand each other, you two. I think you are too much alike.’
Cassie leans over the table. ‘I am nothing like my mother.’
‘Aha,’ he says and chuckles.
Cassie drops back into the chair. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I want to tell you.’
‘Go ahead.’
Cassie takes a deep breath. ‘I found something in Alex’s room. A painting.’
‘He could paint, that boy,’ Poppy says. ‘Not a lot of variety to them paintings, but he was good at ’em.’
‘There were horses in these ones.’
‘Horses? I never saw him do horses. Are they any good?’
‘I don’t know. They just look like horses.’ She sighs. ‘There’s a date on the back … and with some of the things Alex said … before … I just think we should watch out.�
�
‘Watch out?’
‘Watch out. For the weather. A storm or something. A bad storm. On that date.’
‘Cass, love,’ he reaches over and takes her hand, ‘I know you miss Alex. You probably always will. But you gotta go and sleep in your own room again.’
She pulls her hand away. ‘It’s not about sleeping in his room.’
‘Alex set us up for this season. The next few years are going to be good years. He said so. We’re set up now, with the chickens. The farm will always provide for us. Someday, maybe you’ll marry someone and the both of you can take over from your dad.’
‘No,’ Cassie says.
‘It would be nice if it stayed in the family. But if it doesn’t … it’ll always be an asset for you. Into the future.’
Cassie stands and walks down the stairs.
‘Going for a walk in the rain? Get your raincoat first.’
‘I don’t have one,’ Cassie says, stepping onto the grass. ‘I haven’t owned one for years.’
‘Cassie!’ her mother yells from the kitchen window. ‘Get out of the rain.’
Cassie traipses across the lawn, grass and dirt sticking to her feet. Her shirt clings to her shoulders and the wet creeps up her jeans. She passes through the back gate. The woodpile shines slick and sodden, puddles of clay-coloured water ping with raindrops. If she walks up the hill will they be home? The tree above her shudders in the wind and heavy drops of water bombard her. She heads for the back track. Water runs down her spine.
The ute pulls up beside her.
Her father leans out the window, the engine running. ‘Are you crazy? Get out of the rain. Go back to the house.’ His thin hair sticks to the top of his head, his scalp dusted red with freckles. Like Poppy’s. He winds up the window and guns the engine, spitting up stones behind him. Rolls of chicken wire and barbed wire tumble around in the back.
Cassie goes back to the house. She stands on the stairs. The rain runs into her eyes and she sees the world blurry and water washed.
Poppy ushers her up the stairs, a towel in his arms.
‘What’s Dad doing?’
‘Fixing the fence up the back,’ Poppy replies.
‘In the rain?’
Poppy tosses her the towel and shrugs.
‘With chicken wire? Why would he use chicken wire? What is he trying to keep out?’
‘Don’t worry about things that don’t concern you,’ Poppy says. ‘Get inside and get dry. You’ll catch your death.’
Her own room bristles unfamiliar and gloomy with the weather. She rips off her wet clothes and throws them into the corner. She wraps her dressing gown tightly around her and pauses at the window. The rain hums and thrums on the earth. She opens the window. A gust of wind sprinkles rain like confetti on her face. She leaves the window open. On her desk waits a roll of polyester labels, her name embroidered in blue cursive thread. A packet of needles and white cotton. She sighs, throws the labels and thread on her bed and takes her uniforms from the hanger. Turning down the collar of the tartan dress she inhales the smell of new fabric and feels the stiffness under her fingers. She begins to sew the first label.
Later, she packs the uniforms into the family suitcase, ticks off everything on the ‘what to bring’ list and wanders into the kitchen.
‘Mushrooms on toast?’ her mother asks.
She doesn’t answer. She takes a black felt pen, flicks over the calendar. The day falls on a Sunday. She writes in thick capitals: BEWARE STORM.
~ 32 ~
Away and Wait
She did not expect homesickness. Homesickness is a dull sludge that she wades through every second of every minute of every day. It is the stupid bars of ‘Gee, Mum, I wanna go home’ that play unexpectedly in her head when she picks up her school books. It is the way the smell of fried sausages in the dining room makes her feel ill. It is the churning in her stomach with the noise of other girls turning in their beds, and the coughing from the dorm down the hall, keeping her awake at night. She writes and begs her mother to phone. She receives a weekly letter from home, the occasional parcel with magazines and lollies. In the allocated hours for receiving phone calls, she sits in the prep room, studies for her science and French exams, does her maths homework, always with one ear open for the steps of a grade eight girl, puffing, calling from the door, ‘Cassie Shultz, phone call.’ But it does not come.
In her letters, she does not ask to come home for that weekend. In her homework diary she most definitely does not mark that date in any particular way, other than to note her English assignment is due the next day. The fingers, the Sisters, that have somehow followed her, tap an impatient rhythm on the wall above her head.
The day comes regardless. Sitting in the church pew, her nylon stockings stick to the back of her legs and prickle her. The reverend drones. She prays. For a clear day. Nothing more she wants, dear God, just a clear day.
After church, the girls in front of her giggle as they race up the stairs in front of her, their church uniforms flicking against their calves. Sunday afternoon is free time and the mood on the bus from church to the boarding house is always flighty. Cassie enters the common room. The air is cool, a shock after the hot bus.
Mrs Williams’ chunky hand lands on her shoulder. ‘Cassandra, this way.’
Cassie follows her past the staff room towards the visitor’s room. The house mother nods to her slightly. Cassie walks through the door. It closes behind her with a quiet click. It’s the first time Cassie’s been in the visitor’s room. She perches on the edge of an armchair, stuffed hard with filling. Curtains hang stiff over windows that climb from floor to ceiling, framed by dark wood grain. A dark mantle shades an empty fireplace. Cassie sits on her hands and pulls her elbows close. Her shoulders hunch. She rocks forward and back.
The door creaks on its hinges and her mother steps through. Cassie stops rocking. Blood rushes up her body like a volcano. Her mother drops to her knees in front of Cassie and wraps her arms around her. Her mother’s cool skin sticks to the sweat on Cassie’s arms. Releasing her, her mother pulls herself up onto the armchair to sit beside her.
‘Bad news, my darling.’ She wipes a stray hair from her forehead. ‘Aunty Ida …’ She looks down at the hankie in her hands and twists it, sighing. ‘Your Aunty Ida passed away early this morning.’
The sadness, the sadness tattooed ‘Alex’ that she has compressed into a tiny lump and buried deep in her, expands and rises into her throat. Hot tears brim in her eyes and her mother takes a clean hankie from her pocket and hands it to her. Cassie wipes her eyes.
‘She suffered so much, since her fall. She never got back to herself. We can at least know she is no longer in pain. She lived a good life.’
Cassie nods and wipes away fresh tears.
‘I packed a bag for you while you were at church. It’s in the boot already.’ Her mother stands and holds her hand out to her.
‘What?’
‘I’m taking you home, of course. Ida would want you to be there.’
Home. Yes. No.
‘Come on,’ her mother urges. ‘We’ll pick up some lunch on the road. If you feel like eating. Or we will just get home as fast as we can.’
Cassie places her hand in her mother’s and stands.
‘Is there anything else you need?’ her mother asks.
Need?
‘From your desk or something?’
Cassie shakes her head.
Her mother wraps her arm around her shoulder and squeezes it. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know.’
Home is silent, as though even the air has not stirred since she left all those weeks ago. Shadows seem greyer and the furniture lonelier.
Poppy encloses her in his beefy arms and his sweat sticks the two of them together like glue. Her father bangs the screen door behind them.
‘Cassie,’ he
says, and she finds herself in his unfamiliar arms, his collar bones sharp.
‘I just made a pot,’ Poppy says and leads them into the kitchen. The room simmers with humidity. ‘It’s a scorcher,’ he says, not meaning the tea.
The four of them gather. Cassie leans her arms on the table. Poppy plays mother. Her actual mother sits a distance from the table, fixated on something not in the room.
Her father folds his arms over his chest and says, ‘Thanks Dad,’ but doesn’t touch his tea.
The presence of Alex hovers by the table, built out of a piece of each of their minds.
‘I talked on the phone to that Barlow fellow,’ Poppy says. ‘They fixed the funeral for Thursday. We just got to contact the paper tomorrow, get a notice in.’
‘I’ll ring in the morning,’ her mother mumbles, and moves her chair further from the table.
‘There any biscuits?’ her father says, finally slurping his tea. Her mother’s face snaps to look in his direction, her eyes staring at him, but she says nothing.
‘Pass the sugar please,’ Cassie says.
Nobody moves.
‘Mum, the sugar?’
Poppy leans past her mother and passes her the sugar, giving her a weak smile.
Cassie spoons two heaped spoonfuls into her tea, digs in for a third, waiting for her mother to say ‘That’s enough Cassie’, just to stop her staring at her father with such venom.
Her father’s cup clatters into his saucer and the tea slops onto the table cloth. ‘I’m going to see a man about a dog,’ he says, and pushes his chair away from the table.
‘Today?’ Her mother stands.
‘Leave it, Rose,’ Poppy says, his voice heavy.
She sits back down. Her father leaves the room, slamming the back door.
‘His daughter is home for the first time in weeks, his aunt is dead, and he’s going to the pub!’ Her mother picks up her cup and it shakes in her hand.
Poppy nods in Cassie’s direction and her mother puts the cup down and sits up straighter and smiles. ‘There’s some Iced VoVos in the cupboard. Get them out for me, Cassie. I bought them for Ida last week.’
Cassandra Page 22