She leaves the offices unobserved and slips out onto the street. Instantly, she feels as if she is wandering through some strange land again, full of strange people who ought to be familiar as her people, but aren’t. Ugly eyes, warped faces. Warped by the times. And she can’t help but hate everybody she passes. Hate them with a passion that she knows has to be stopped, stopped now, or she’ll turn into them. Were they led, or were they always just waiting there? Give that to your fancy man … Feathers fly into the air. The mother she’s known most of her life disappears from the street, her children trailing, fear in their eyes, dragged from the danger of the Hun’s whore. The feathers settle. A gust of wind blows them away, and her thoughts turn back to Milhaus. If only someone would. Vera’s wish and those wonderful, foreign sounds that poured from her haunt Maryanne. If only someone … How lonely, indeed. No mother, no father. Nobody. How lonely must he be?
With strained steps she approaches her tram and sits heavily, her bag on her lap, Vera’s wish weighing upon her. If only someone would. Someone who could say, I know what this is like. I know what it’s like to feel that, in a world gone mad, you’re one of those who haven’t: who can see what’s happening. You live it. I live it. Every day. And as the tram rolls and lurches down the slope towards her stop at the Town Hall, an idea is forming. How lonely, indeed. The child moves inside her, then settles. Not long now, not long. She rubs her belly. And suddenly Milhaus is not a … What was the word? Wunderkind. But a lonely child. Like the one she carries. Just a boy. Alone in some vast playground, wondering where everybody went.
She steps off at the Town Hall for her connecting tram. The women, dressed for lunch, have gone. So too the sound of wailing. And the newspaper, long since borne gently on a considerate spring breeze to its final resting place. Fresh casualty lists await fresh wails of sorrow and rapture, rapture and sorrow. And the great march to death goes on. Feet tramping down to the station, eyes fixed on the footpath. Nobody looking up. Everybody marching.
7.
A stately black car is parked by the steps of the parliament, shining the way only black can. When Maryanne steps off the tram it is not Parliament House that catches her attention, as it usually does, but the car, the chauffeur casually smoking nearby, chatting to a policeman. He presumes the right to park there and the policeman guarding the car vindicates his presumption. They surely reserve privilege such as this for royalty and prime ministers.
She nears the car, for her path from the tram stop to the footpath leading into the park takes her past it. But she is anxious, for this car in all its black majesty says do not approach. And as she nears, the policeman stops chatting to the driver and eyes her suspiciously, for anybody approaching this car, commandingly perched by the parliament steps in the late afternoon as if to catch the last of the sun, is to be considered suspicious. He stares at her intently: full belly or not, she may be trouble. One of those troublesome women with troublesome ideas who seem to be everywhere now.
The car is no more than ten feet away. Behind Maryanne, another tram arrives, people step off and the policeman’s attention swings to the small group of workers crossing the street for home at the close of day. She peers, eyes straining, at the back window of the car. Then stops, suddenly frozen. For there, staring back at her, is the face of Mannix himself. His eyes, clear and unclouded by doubt, fixing on her. Taking in her face, her swollen belly. And once again, it is as though the all-seeing eyes of Mannix know everything. And she is not staring at the face of the archbishop but the face of God himself. And God knows, knows everything. Fallen woman, don’t think I don’t know. Nothing escapes me. Escapes us. We bring cathedrals of wisdom to your small life. And all must kneel down before us.
And just as she is about to avert her eyes, for his gaze, casual in its omniscience, is too much, she sees the profile of a second figure in the car. And straightaway she recognises it: the bald dome, the nose like a growth on the dome, the spectacles perched on the nose. The Wart. Both of them, sworn enemies and on either side of the great Yes and No of the day, sitting in this stately black motor car by the steps of parliament. Chatting. Can it be? Mannix’s eyes shift from Maryanne back to the Wart, and she leaves the car behind as she steps into the park for the walk home. How long they chat for, what they talk about, she can only guess. Not that she dwells too long on it. For it is the eyes of Mannix that stay with her as she makes her way home.
And when she enters the house, when she steps into the kitchen, where Katherine has prepared their dinner, her impulse is to turn the photograph of Mannix on the mantelpiece around so that it stares at the wall, not at her. She reaches out, then withdraws her hand. No, she decides, she will leave him there with his all-seeing eyes and his cathedrals of wisdom, and she will stare him down as she would stare down all the others. I don’t believe … I don’t … I don’t believe in you and your magic show any more … You can’t touch me, you can’t touch … you can’t … she chants, silently addressing the framed portrait. I am beyond you now. And I will not kneel.
When Katherine turns to her with a simple potted pie steaming in its dish, she smiles and sits. Katherine joins her at the table, folds her hands and closes her eyes as she whispers grace. Maryanne looks on silently, then turns to the photograph of Mannix and meets those all-seeing eyes.
Katherine finishes and they begin the meal in silence. Then Maryanne announces: ‘I saw him today.’
Katherine looks up, puzzled. And annoyed. It is one of Maryanne’s annoying little habits – assuming you know what she’s thinking. Maryanne had, in fact, nodded in the direction of the portrait on the mantelpiece as she spoke, but Katherine hadn’t noticed. ‘Saw whom?’
‘Mannix,’ she says, as if it were obvious. ‘And not just the archbishop. The prime minister as well.’
‘Together?’
Maryanne nods.
Katherine puts down her knife and fork. ‘Impossible.’
‘In the back of a motor car by the steps of parliament.’
‘No, I can’t believe it.’
‘Chatting away like old friends.’
Katherine stares intently at her sister. ‘You’re telling me God sits down with the devil?’
Maryanne nods. ‘They live in different worlds, these people.’
‘They stand for different things.’
The portrait on the mantelpiece is Katherine’s. Along with portraits of their mother and father. Mannix, to Katherine, is almost part of the family: archbishop, of course; a touch of God on earth; and a sort of distant relation. And so when anything is said about him she takes it personally, as if he were in the room. Which, more or less, he is.
‘Perhaps,’ says Maryanne. ‘But you have to wonder if they’re really so different from each other, after all.’
‘Not different?’ Katherine speaks, astonishment in her voice, not so much in her role as big sister, but more like a mother pointing out a fact of life her child seems not to have noticed. ‘Not different? They’re as different as day and night!’
‘I don’t mean what they think and say. Or even in their hearts; what they believe. I mean … if you have power, isn’t it just possible that the only other people who understand what it’s like are those who also have it? Does it get lonely, and do they seek each other out?’
‘Who put this nonsense into your head? Those women?’
‘Nobody did. Isn’t it just possible? And every now and then does the prime minister seek out the archbishop, and does the archbishop seek out the prime minister? Does the “Yes” need to speak to the “No”, and the “No” the “Yes”?’
Katherine looks at her sister, concern in her eyes. ‘Are you well?’
‘Perfectly.’ Maryanne pauses.
Katherine understands, and she doesn’t. She is as smart as anyone, as well read. But she’s lived for years in a world of quick decisions: of the right thing to do and the wrong, the smart thing to do and the silly. And the judgement in her eyes is clear: don’t get too smart for your own
good. Or too fancy.
Maryanne looks down at her plate. ‘I saw it, clear as day. The “Yes” and the “No”, sitting in the back of a motor car, chatting away like old friends.’
Katherine corrects her. ‘You saw them together, talking. But whether they were chatting, or even chatting like old friends, is something else.’
‘I saw what I saw.’
‘But what did you see?’
They finish their meal and sip tea, saying nothing. Maryanne, swirling the tea leaves and watching them settle, puts her cup down. ‘I’ve decided to visit Milhaus. Or try.’
Katherine shakes her head. ‘Are you mad? You shouldn’t be doing any such thing.’
‘It will distract me.’ Maryanne almost shivers with a sudden wave of energy she doesn’t know what to do with. ‘I just get so restless. I have to do things. Just so I know this is still my life. Not everybody else’s.’ She looks up at Katherine, a look that says: you must understand this. ‘I will not be confined. Oh God,’ she says, wringing her hands, ‘confinement. The very word gives me the shivers. Like being put in jail. Oh, a very nice jail. But jail, all the same. No. I must do things. And I will visit Milhaus, if I can. Believe me, it will distract me. And not just from this,’ she says, looking down at her belly as if the wise, understanding eyes of the child itself were staring back. ‘But from everything. Everything out there, the whole mad city … it’s enough to make you mad yourself if you let it.’ She lets out a deep sigh. ‘Besides, nobody visits him. He has no wife, no children. No friends. Everyone’s given up on him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do.’
Katherine stares at her with dawning comprehension. I knew it: you’ve been with those women again, those meddling women. Haven’t you? I don’t like them. She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t need to.
Maryanne smiles. ‘I know what you think. It’s those interfering women. But it’s not, it’s me.’ She pauses. ‘And you think I’m in no state to be deciding all this.’ She laughs, a thoughtful one. ‘Go on, say it.’
Katherine smiles back, a slight, slow shake of the head. ‘Would you listen?’
Maryanne raises her eyebrows, asking herself the same question: would she indeed? ‘Besides,’ she adds, ‘we’ve got a lot in common. A woman in the street called me the Hun’s whore today.’
Katherine puts her fist on the table. ‘Which one?’
‘Never mind,’ Maryanne says, eyes blank, the whole nasty business coming back at her in a sudden rush. ‘She had her two children with her and crossed the street when she saw me. Then she threw feathers into the air and called me the Hun’s whore.’ Maryanne shakes her head slowly, looking down at the floor. ‘I suppose it was the worst thing she could find to say.’
‘And what did you say?’
Maryanne smiles. ‘I told her I was going to tell my big sister.’
Katherine sighs, rises from her chair and places her arms around Maryanne. ‘She’d better not open her mouth if I’m there.’
‘The thing is, I didn’t say anything.’ Maryanne closes her eyes and lets out a childish whimper. ‘I tried to, but nothing came out.’ She looks up at Katherine. ‘I tried, I really did.’ She quietly shakes her head from side to side again. ‘I can’t do this … I really can’t …’ She rests her head on Katherine’s breast: Katherine, big sister and mother, mother and sister. ‘I can’t …’ Maryanne leaves her head there until the whimpers run out, then lifts her chin. ‘I just want to tell him he’s not alone. And that I know what it’s like.’
Her head falls back on Katherine’s breast, Katherine stroking her hair and whispering words of comfort. ‘I’m here, I’m here …’
She looks up again at Katherine, who seems suddenly older, careworn, then at the table and the dishes. ‘Let me help with the dishes.’
‘No, you need to rest.’
Maryanne rises and places her hand on Katherine’s. ‘Please, it will distract me.’
With this they laugh shakily and begin gathering the plates and knives and cups, and before they know it, Katherine is saying she’ll wash and Maryanne will dry. And Maryanne is saying she will wash and Katherine will dry. Their voices are suddenly young and each knows they are re-enacting some childhood scene: the squabble over who washes and who dries. And soon Maryanne is standing at the sink, washing the plates, and passing them to Katherine, noting how calming, and strangely satisfying it is.
Her mind wanders back to the events of the day – Milhaus, the feathers – and then she’s not thinking anything. She’s reached that point of blissful forgetfulness, of just mechanically doing something. The day, the city, the feathers – all dissolving like the grease from the plates. All gone. She finds herself smiling broadly at Katherine, and sees Katherine smiling back. And later that night, lying in bed, she will remember this as she drifts off, and realise they were happy and were having fun.
8.
Maryanne has been standing in the hallway, staring at the front door, for too long. The walk from the kitchen to the door takes a few seconds only. But not this morning. This morning she reached the halfway mark and stopped. Froze. Her legs won’t move. She tells them to, but they are stubborn. And she’s really not sure how long she’s been standing there. But she knows it’s far too long. And she’s starting to feel ridiculous. The more she tells her legs to move, go on, step forward, the less they listen. And just stand there. Stuck to the spot. Her exasperation mounts as she tells herself to stop this. Just stop. But she can’t. There’s a voice inside her saying: Don’t go. Don’t go out there. There are monsters out there with scaly skin and claws, and feathers of hate to fling in your face while they call you the Hun’s whore. Don’t go.
Her stomach heaves and tightens. A sick weight sits there. And it is so tempting to stay inside all day, not go out again and confine herself to the house. For suddenly confinement feels good. The world frightens her, and she doesn’t want to go out into it. Not this morning, not today, not … And so she stays, glued to the spot, midway between the kitchen and the front door. And as much as she tells herself not to give in to this voice, this voice which is her and not her, familiar and strange, kind and sniggering, as much as she tells herself not to listen, she does. And the voice holds sway. And time mounts, and if she does not snap out of this she will stand in the hallway, glued to the spot, all morning. All afternoon. For Katherine is out. It is Sunday. Katherine is visiting an old friend, the house is empty and there is no one to snap her out of this madness. And she knows it is madness, but she is powerless to laugh it off. And the more she stands there the more ridiculous she feels, and the more her anger rises: with herself, her legs, her useless legs, and the door – the damned door.
It almost sniggers at her. Come on, open me. I’m just a door, open me and let the world in. What are you afraid of? You’ve been opening and closing doors all your life, and I’m just another door. Or am I? And as she stares at it she’s aware of the distance between herself and the door, and covering that distance, let alone opening the door, seems beyond her. Somehow, overnight, she’s lost … the what? The thoughtlessness, if that is what it is. Lost the ability to open a door without thinking about it.
And the thought of turning round and going back to the kitchen or her room is so tempting. All she wants to do is sit down in the kitchen and not go out again. Never go out again. And her legs would turn, and would take her back; she knows they would. And the sick weight in her stomach would leave her. This voice, familiar and strange, is telling her to turn back. There are monsters out there, who will fling feathers of hate into your face and call you the Hun’s whore. All the way down the street, and the next, and the next. All the way. This day and the following, on and on. Don’t go out there. And all the while the door is staring at her, saying: Go on, open me. I’m just a door. Or am I?
And just as she’s about to scream, she feels the child inside her kick. And she stares down at her belly and could swear the child is staring back: puzzled and concerned
and fearful, all at once. And straightaway she knows she must overcome her own fear, so that she may ease the fear of the child. The child must not feel her fear. She must hide it. She must never let this child down. It kicks again, this time impatiently, almost saying: Come on, what are you waiting for? Just get on with it. And she swears she can actually hear the child’s voice: a wise child, a wise voice, a grown-up voice coming from the curled-up baby. Saying, just get on with it.
She looks longingly back down the hall to the kitchen. A good room. Safe. But a room, all the same. A square. And you can’t live in a square, can you? A child can’t live in a square. Unless you’re a square peg.
And that is when her legs move, and the voice inside her is silenced, and she covers the short distance to the door, by now just a door, and, hands trembling, opens it onto the world. Daylight spears into the hallway, blinding her, and she stands there for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust, then looks about. And there it is: the street. The street she’s known all her life, there all the time while she stood in the hall. Just a street. And closing the door behind her, she steps out onto the footpath, nobody about, into a bright spring morning. All monsters banished for the moment, the feathers of hate blown away by yesterday’s breeze. And as she makes her way to her regular tram stop, she is telling herself she must never let that happen again, telling herself that the voice she heard, familiar and strange, her and not her, was the voice of madness. The very voice, that if you listened to it too often, would delight in making you mad.
She turns towards the park and the parliament, smoothing her belly, easing the child’s fear, telling the child it has done well. That it was just the kick she needed. That, already, they have gone through much together. And will do this, together.
The parks, the streets, have that deserted Sunday look. She waits for her tram in the sun, a pleasant spring sun, for far longer than she would during the week. But she doesn’t mind; it allows her to look back calmly on the morning and the Maryanne who stood so long in the hallway, afraid to leave the house, as if she were someone else. And she was, for that Maryanne was not her. And she resolves there and then that that Maryanne will not come back again, and she will not be cowed by the beast ever again.
Year of the Beast Page 9