The Broken Book

by Susan Johnson

  Cressida, you are the embarrassingly small private world of need and ache and want. Put yourself away, cover yourself. Can’t you see that everyone else in the public world is modestly dressed?

  Here it comes, the shore, the docks, the creak of the pier. Here comes the disembarking, the unloading, the frenetic activity down below. ‘Matron! Matron!’ I will find myself crying. ‘Oh, Matron, please come!’ And she will come with her torch and her no-nonsense-please voice to shine her light upon the sheets which are wet. ‘It’s only your show, nothing to cry about,’ she will say, helping me to my feet. I cannot stand. I cannot heave myself up. I am doubled over, my hands on my knees, God’s fist pushing up and up, that mighty cruel fist shoving and shoving. ‘Come on, Cressida, surely you can make it to the door?’ the matron will say and I will sob, ‘I can’t! I can’t!’ She will press a bell and another sister will come and go away again to fetch a wheelchair. I have lost my legs, my wits, my courage, I am a stupid girl having a baby in a stupid bloody country town called Scone. I am the one who was in labour on and off all day, not bloody on enough to be taken into the delivery room to relieve me of my burdensome cargo. I am the one who was told to keep doing my chores, that it would make the baby come faster.

  I am the one who was pouring tea only this morning for a squadron of good Christian ladies. ‘Sugar?’ I was asking, offering the tray while Matron said, ‘Labour tends to be more distressing and more prolonged in the unmarried.’ The ladies of the Scone Moral Welfare Association gravely nodded their heads and not one of them even glanced at me.

  My labour is distressing, it is, you were right; by which law must it also be prolonged? Does my uterus know I am unmarried, is this God’s way of showing me who’s boss? I am being wheeled, crying, into the delivery room while the fist of God works in mysterious ways. I am all alone in a high white bed, left alone for hours and hours; I am shaved, scrubbed, penance for my sins, sackcloth and ashes. Ampay, where are you now? Hebe, please, can’t you come; Mummy, can’t you come to hold my hand and make the pain flee? Man of visions, how could you do this? Whose pain is this, this pain like a fist, straight up my soft centre, shoving up, not stopping, coming at me again and again? Which former teeming girl is this trying to crawl out of her own burning skin?

  Why, this is your punishment, Cressida, dirty girl who lets men touch you down below. No escape for you, just pain and the white empty room; Matron coming in every now and then, a young sister sitting sometimes reading in a chair. You mean to ask what it is she is reading but somehow you will never get the chance. Pain is in the room, pain is stalking you, pain is who you are and you will ever be.

  And then the doctor will arrive and your baby will unexpectedly slither out from between your legs like a wrongly delivered parcel. That reading sister will have put down her book and with one hand she will attempt to cover your face. Sister, are you trying to stop my tears, or to cover my witnessing eyes? ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I will cry, becoming hysterical. ‘Let me see the baby!’ And the doctor will be visited by a moment’s mercy and lift her up, life afloat, a misshapen fruit, scaly, dark, with the exact face of her father. Her sex, pink and swollen, little plum, the skin on her face and body peeling strangely as if she has been too long in the sun. ‘A bit overcooked,’ the kind doctor will say, wrapping her up.

  Overcooked, my body her oven. Who is she and how did she get here? I don’t know who she is anyway. She looks too cross, too mean, she does not look like I expected her to look. What did I expect? A little Cressida, myself anew, a bright new teeming block? O, Clever Clogs: a baby girl, who looks exactly like her betraying father. Clearly he has cleverly betrayed you again, delivering to you this fresh reminder of his once-loved face.

  Should the unmarried mother who is about to give up her child breastfeed or not? This has long been a problem for all moral married women of good character and in the good town of Scone opinion even now is divided. For the moment it is the bottle, at once. No contact with the baby, cabbage leaves for all those rock-hard grieving bosoms!

  So I will lie in bed, a cabbage leaf over each fallen breast. My breasts are aching, engorged with milk, no mouth in which to gush. Whose turn on the breast pump, to cream some of the milk off, but not too much to encourage breasts to refill? Go on, Cressida, pump away, get that sorry wrist working. Do not look up if groups of good Christian ladies come to walk through the wards, making sure that everything is running smoothly.

  Look, that other dirty girl also called Cressida is smoking in bed. Her baby was born last week and Cressida already wants to go home, but not before telling me she could not be bothered to ask the doctor if her baby was a boy or a girl. Smoking in bed! The good Christian ladies who happen to be passing cannot believe their eyes. Cressida blissfully fulfils all their notions of a wayward girl—her mouth is slutishly lipsticked, her hair curled and impossibly blonded, her nails long and outrageously painted. Look, she is sitting on the bed, cool as a cucumber, staring back at them.

  ‘Cigarette, sweetheart?’ she will ask one of the ladies in the doorway, offering up her silver cigarette case. The ladies will run, skedaddle, all of them, trotting fast to Matron as quickly as their little legs will carry them.

  There is only Cressida and myself left in the room and both of us are silently waiting for the mighty squall of Matron.

  I happen to know that Cressida is only sixteen, although she looks at least twenty. I happen to know that she last worked as an usherette like me, that she comes from a family of factory workers in Newtown. I happen to know that she cries in the night when she thinks every witness is asleep.

  I am the witness who knows that last night she snuck out to the nursery even though she told me she didn’t care if her baby lived or died. I am the witness who knows this fact because I snuck out trying to see mine.

  ‘Cigarette?’ she will ask hopefully and I will shakily stand up, holding my cabbage leaves under my nightie, and stagger over to her bed. I will take a cigarette and sit down on the bed where we will wait together for Matron to come. Matron, do not forget that we are at war! The two Cressidas and all the rest, us empty ships, each one of us representing a private war-damaged country.

  My disappearing daughter has a name but I have made a secret vow never to tell it.

  Sydney, 1943

  Sunday

  Haven’t written anything for a long, long time—haven’t felt like it really. It was my birthday yesterday—I’m now twenty years old. Just think, when I am twenty-one I will hold the keys to the door.

  I’m not going to have a twenty-first party, I’ve already decided.

  Tuesday

  Ros says I’ve been staying with her long enough. ‘It’s time you faced the world again, Kath.’ She was with me this afternoon when a passing soldier gave me a long appreciative whistle—she had to hold me back from punching him in the face. ‘Kathy, ignore him!’ she said, tugging at my wrist when I wheeled around to face him. ‘I suppose you think that’s a compliment,’ I shouted into his startled eyes. ‘I’m not a dog, you know!’

  ‘Come on, Katherine,’ she said, ‘let’s go.’

  When we got home she made me a cup of tea and I burst into tears. ‘Oh, come on, Kathy, please cheer up!’

  I glared at her. ‘You only want me to cheer up so you’ll feel better,’ I said, knowing I was being mean. I have been staying here ever since I left Mum and Dad’s two months ago—I knew that if I had to stay in Kurrajong Bay for one second longer I would kill myself. One morning I actually went to the beach and considered it. I am very good at holding my breath and I saw myself swimming further out and further out, beyond the breakers, swimming on and on until I got so tired I would sink.

  ‘Listen, Kathy, I know you’ve had a terrible time,’ Ros said, putting her hand over mine, ‘but it seems to me the time has come to make some sort of decision. It’s been almost a year now. Are you going to let this ruin your life or are you going to try living again?’

  I looked at her; I was waiting
for something. ‘You will find someone else to love, you know, you will find someone who deserves you. You’ve just had the most incredible bad luck.’

  I thought: that’s one way of putting it.

  ‘Look at you! You’re the most gorgeous girl in town! You’re beautiful and clever and everyone loves you. Oh, Kathy, if you only knew how jealous you make people feel. I’ve been jealous of you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.’

  She looked so earnest and pleading that I smiled. Actually, I began to laugh. ‘But I’ve always been jealous of you! You’re the one who’s beautiful and smart, much smarter than me!’

  She started to laugh too.‘The Elgin sisters mutual admiration society. Look at us.’ We were sitting at the table, laughing and crying, our fingers laced.

  ‘I’m your biggest fan,’ she said,‘and if I ever lay eyes on Ken Howard again I’ll kill him.’

  I couldn’t stop laughing. ‘Oh, that would really top it off for Mum and Dad. I can just see the headlines. AVENGING SISTER GETS LIFE FOR MURDER.’

  We sat at the table for a long time. At some point Ros started talking about having a party, my own personal Facing-The-World-Again party. I sat there, a smile on my face, but really in the privacy of my head I am still swimming out to sea.

  Sunday

  It’s five o’clock in the afternoon and I am in bed. I couldn’t open my eyes until midday, and I have been sick twice, my poor stomach trying to relieve itself of the gallons of alcohol I poured into it last night. I can hear Ros and the clink of bottles, the sweeping up of broken glass. She has just brought me a raw egg beaten up in tomato juice which is her hangover cure. ‘God, it smells like a brewery in here,’ she said, flinging open the window. Anyway, I feel a bit better now, well enough to write this anyway.

  Everyone we know in the whole world was here last night, everyone. (With one obvious exception.) Even Atpay was here, on leave from Far North Queensland, looking very soldierly and professional, straight off the train. Ruth Parker was here, and all these other girls I hadn’t seen for ages from Kurrajong Bay, and Beryl and Ray and Clem and Jack and Bernie, and Ros even managed to track down Val, who brought her new girlfriend. I don’t know if Val has heard anything or not but she was her usual warm, kind self, and her girlfriend is a knockout, a Rita Hayworth lookalike who spent the entire night fending off the unwanted attention of the blokes. ‘I like girls, darling,’ she would say sexily, which only seemed to spur them on. Ray followed her like a puppy all night.

  I couldn’t bear anyone knowing what has happened, I could not bear it. Surely Val doesn’t know?

  It was great to see Beryl again, she said she’d wondered if she’d offended me, disappearing as I did without even saying goodbye. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked, her eyes looking sharp. I looked away as if the traces of pain might be upon my face like a telltale ash. ‘Oh, you know… Ken …’ I managed before my mouth started to wobble.

  ‘I thought as much,’ she said, looking for somewhere to put down her drink, about to give me a hug. I reared back from her, stiff, my palms sweating; my looming tears fled, my mouth turned into a smile. ‘Beryl, I’m fine! I’m perfectly fine! You always said he was dangerous. What are you doing, anyway?’

  I cannot stand the thought of anyone pitying me. I will not be pitied, I will not be the girl for whom everything went wrong. It is embarrassing, being seen as weak and hopeless and fallible, being known as the kind of girl who is useless about life and men. I will not stand and be pitied for my tragedy: I will never ever let anybody know. I am going to sew up my past and put it in a sack. I am already making the finest stitch, so fine no eye will be able to detect there once was a visible rip.

  Thursday

  I’ve just come back from an evening on the tiles with Ray, a bit drunk as I write this. He wants to go to bed with me. ‘Oh, come on, Kathy, you must have known I’ve wanted to from the moment we met.’ I got really cross with him. ‘I thought we were friends, Ray. Why do bloody men ruin everything?’ I stormed off and he ran after me. ‘Why are you acting all insulted? It’s a compliment, Kathy.’ Everyone was looking at us but I didn’t care.‘It’s not a compliment. Don’t you understand?’ He was trying to stop me walking, standing in front of me, tripping me up. Eventually I had to stop because he kept falling over. I started to laugh and we both sat down in the doorway of a shop which was boarded up. ‘It’s not a bloody compliment, you know,’ I said when I stopped laughing. ‘You’re thinking of yourself, not me.’ He took my hand. ‘I think you’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,’ he said, ‘beautiful as a princess, more beautiful than the starriest night sky.’

  I started to cry. What’s the use? What’s the bloody bloody use?

  Wednesday

  I’m going to join up. Two days ago I ran into Pat unexpectedly at Central Station.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ she asked and I started to cry again. She shooed everybody away and we sat down on a stack of bags while I wept.

  ‘Oh, Athykay,’ she said after a while, ‘I know something awful’s happened. If you ever want to talk about it, you know I’m your best friend in the whole world.’

  I attempted a smile; she squeezed my hand.

  ‘But if you don’t want to talk about it that’s all right too. Rulytay.’

  I managed to laugh.

  At that moment I decided to join up. Atpay came to the recruitment office with me.

  I’m moving into barracks tomorrow.

  The Broken Book

  Cressida Morley off to war, a girl at war finally in uniform. That hat! Worn just so, at the perfect jaunty angle: eyes right, Gunner Morley, forward march. Practise throwing yourself upon the ground, practise lining up the enemy in your rifle sights. Learn to tell which way is up, how to operate the ham radio, how to read the map. Learn to like living with a squadron of girls, dormitory style. Breakfast. Everybody out.

  It will be your sister Hebe who will suggest the Australian Women’s Army Service, for aren’t you already a woman at war? Hebe knows you for what you are, she recognises a bombed woman when she sees one. Hebe will pass a recruitment poster in the hall at the university where she works pruning young minds. ‘You’ve got nothing to lose, Cress. Why not?’

  Why not indeed? You have already knitted a small white cardigan for your lost daughter, taken the overnight train to Scone and walked from the station to Matron’s door. ‘It’s a birthday present,’ you will say and Matron will smile kindly. ‘Will you make sure she gets it please?’ When you have gone Matron will add it to the pile of other gifts delivered or sent by former girls who do not know or perhaps have forgotten that all contact between mothers and their relinquished babies ceases on adoption. All the cardigans and dresses and bonnets and bracelets will be collected to be taken to a charity.

  Not much to live for? No comfort in tears? Roll up, join the war effort, join the millions of men and women all over the world having their lives shaken. Join the comfortless tears of old women in Poland; the mother of young Sid Becker of Mareeba, Far North Queensland, who has just heard her son is dead. Join those three brothers far away in Germany, believing themselves to be walking to freedom through the snow. One will die, one will eventually find himself in Israel, one will find himself alive in America. Look! Their tears are joined, a human sea, from the smallest tear of that former girl Cressida Morley to the largest tears of entire peoples and nations. Which of us is wise enough to measure the sorrow in a single tear? Is this particular tear more bitter than that one? Where are the scales on which to weigh the grief of a bad marriage versus the pain of losing an arm in war? The giving up of a child versus the loss of a brother? Our sorrows are private, yet all our sorrows flow towards the one human sea. Let none of us judge another’s sorrow, let none of us attempt to weigh the pain of another human heart. Too dark the light that is shed there, too dark to read the mark upon sorrow’s scales.

  In darkness, then, make your sign upon the paper, sign your name upon the printed page. Cressida Mo
rley, former teeming girl, now officially of the AWAS, one of our dear, brave girls. We promise not to ship you off to the fields of war yet, at least not if we can help it. It is men who must steel themselves not to tremble when faced with a command to run towards other men armed with knives and guns. The weapons aimed at you will be harder to see.

  Up at five! Peel those potatoes, clean those latrines! What shall we do with you, a strong young woman with no visible defects, perfect eyesight and quick reflexes? Can you type? Can you keep a secret?

  You shall join all those other gunners at the gun site guarding the harbour then, you shall learn to man the guns at dawn, to stand guard with your fixed bayonet at night when the moon is full and all the Southern Hemisphere’s stars are fixed too, unfathomable as the deepest space in which the planets are suspended. You shall learn to watch the night water, to write a poem in the thinnest night air. Does a poem exist if it is written in air instead of pencil?

  You will grow to love army life, the jostling of your thoughts, the busy minutes and hours which do not allow you the privacy in which to be sad. It is hard to be sad in public, hard to look inward when your eyes are being trained to look out. Man the view-finder, Gunner Morley! Quick! Fall out!

  Oh dear, here is your uniform:

  1 pair trousers

  1 green pullover

  2 shirts

  1 tie

  3 pairs socks

  1 pair boots

  1 greatcoat

  1 hat

  Khaki breeches do not make for glamour, do they, but on you they look divine. On you, men’s eyes will still turn to look; on you, all male soldiers in the vicinity will still know how to whistle. So many soldiers, so many men.