Sawdust

by Deborah Kay

  Unable to take our eyes off him, we held our breath and watched. He was standing in front of the cupboard with the slow determination of a cowboy. And like that cowboy he took his time in choosing his weapon. When he turned around we saw he had chosen his carbine.

  It seemed strange, because of all his guns he always kept the carbine in pieces – each piece wrapped in cloth like some sacred metal scroll.

  Even more slowly now, a cowboy reconnoitring and planning his high-noon strategy, meticulously, he put the gun together, one piece at a time. He did it with the purpose of a world champion chess player, breathing deeply, thinking every step of the way, and out of the corners of our eyes we watched as Mum’s body shook and sweated.

  She was free from the telephone cord now, but she was standing dead still, like she could be a spear of metal stuck into the floor. Her eyes, dark and dry, stared back at Dad with the certainty of death.

  Finally, screwing the stock into the barrel, he began yowling: ‘I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna fucking kill you, Julie! You’ll never do anything like that again!’

  Sam, my little brother, couldn’t take it any longer. He broke from us and ran up to Dad. He was clutching at Dad’s knees. ‘Dad, Dad. Please, please! Don’t! Please don’t kill Mum!’

  Foam firing from his lips, his eyes spinning like a wild boar, Dad looked down at Sam hovering around him, and we thought that was the end of Sam. Moments later, something in Dad’s entire being froze over. It was like a beer out of the freezer meeting fresh air and suddenly going to ice; it seemed to crack something in him.

  He breathed in as though about to squeeze the trigger, only instead of pulling the trigger or even bludgeoning Sam with the gun, as we expected he was going to do, Dad took the gun and placed it, his prized possession, carefully on the lounge floor.

  He pushed Sam aside like he was an annoying fly and stepped up to Mum. He grabbed her by the top of her dress and shook her. They were both screaming and shouting at one another, and all of us kids, as though one, ran for our lives.

  We ran to the outside patio, which had a waist-high railing but no security rails. The boys instantly half jumped and half slithered down the long, two-storey-high posts and scurried into the backyard. But Marge and I, unable to make the jump so easily, were still slowly climbing down the posts when we heard Dad breathing just above us.

  We were so frightened that we were ready to jump, but as we did so, we felt Dad’s big hands around our hair. He literally had us both by the locks of our hair and was heaving us up like an elevator back onto the patio.

  Once back up, still holding us tightly by the hair, he dragged us across the floorboards back into the house.

  We believed we were going to be gathered together and die with Mum. It was the only thought shooting across our foreheads. Our eyes crying with a kind of sharp, serrated pain, he launched at Mum with a vocal tirade, and Mum, as though beyond afraid, somehow launched back with her own tirade. The shouting and howling and Mum’s tears were so loud that anyone outside would have thought the wood from the house was splintering to pieces.

  I don’t know how the phone arrived back on the hook, but at that moment when Marge and I thought we had seen our last, the phone started to ring. Almost astounded, Dad looked at it like he was going to kick it, like it was some kind of beast he could murder, and then, on second thoughts, eyeing Mum like a prison guard, he picked it up and answered it. He stared forward like he was seeing an unexpected mirror.

  It turned out to be our elderly neighbour, Grace. Someone not so far away who had heard the damage going on in our home, who knew there could only be something wrong. She was checking to see if the house wasn’t falling down or that we weren’t being attacked by some murderous, drug-infused bikie gang.

  Holding the phone, seeing it shake like a frightened rat in Dad’s hand, we thought Dad was going rip it from the wall or at the least growl as loud as he could at whoever it was on the other side to go and get whatever’d. And then, of course, he was going to continue his attack, first on Mum and then us two girls. Or maybe even the other way round.

  But somehow, almost like the sun had poked out in the middle off a storm, Dad’s upper lip began to quiver, and then silent and pliant, almost like a reborn gentleman, we heard him say thanks to our elderly neighbour for her concern. He then quietly replaced the receiver. A different man, he looked away from Mum and released me and Marge. He began to heave in oxygen.

  Standing there, stock still, breathing in deep breaths, it was like he was unsure what to do. We knew, inside of us we knew, out neighbour Grace had saved us. Knowing someone was hearing him had somehow diminished him. Had taken the fight out of him. It was a kind of lesson, something I learnt as life progressed, never to be silent. Always tell someone.

  At the time, never mind speak, I could hardly catch my own breath. I was too scared to take in oxygen.

  But what I also remember thinking is that I did not want to die. As bad and rough as it looked on that day, I did not want to die. Life was too precious. For all that was going wrong, for all that was upside down, life still held too much. It is difficult to know why.

  16.

  When I was nearly twelve, Mum started going away a lot. Really, I suppose, it was running away a lot. And always she would take my little sister Marge with her. Never me. I got used to it. I longed for her to take me but I got used to her leaving me behind. I also got used to, as I guess did everybody, including Dad, that it could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months and then Mum would be back.

  And then it would all start over again. The fights, the arguments, the accusations, the slowly winding one another up until Mum had to leave again.

  Each time she ran, I was left to fend for myself, in the “men’s den”, the lair. I was left all alone for Dad. It was open slather. In the background, as he knelt beside me with his fingers stimulating my clitoris, while he rubbed his hammer-like penis against my smooth little girl legs, I would hear the trains rattling and tooting by and the cars on the highway rustling the wind, knowing they were wondering what was going on inside that messy, disorganised, metal-heap place.

  I was really starting to resent being left with him and didn’t like what he was doing to me. My body was changing and the sound of screeching wheels on tar would remind me the cars were looking more than they should. Or not enough.

  And then, as I said, Mum would be back. But it didn’t make any difference anymore, because Dad had become bolder. It was like he didn’t care anymore. He would just send me up to my room, tell me to wait up there, and then follow calmly behind.

  Even with Mum there, he would simply bolt the door and do what he always did. It was always short and quick and yet intensely intimate, and all I knew was that Mum would never understand. Or would she? I was getting older, kids were talking at school, but I never heard even in the ignorant language of children one mention of anything like the love I was getting from Dad.

  Around this time Dad called out his usual, and while Mum was downstairs busy with the washing, he told me to go up to their bedroom. For some reason on this day I wanted to do other things, girl things. My own things. I didn’t want to do what he wanted to do.

  I said, ‘No, I don’t want to. Not now.’

  And he said: ‘Just get in there!’

  He smiled thinly and I knew there was no choice. I had to drop what I was doing and go into their bedroom.

  As usual, I lay on their double bed and he lifted my dress and then pulled down my knickers. He knelt like a tall bird in front of me, and with my legs open and my feet dangling off the side of the bed, he began rubbing himself on me.

  Only it happened again, what had not happened for a long time. I saw a shadow above me. Felt it looking right over Dad’s shoulder. I knew Dad had locked the door, but the shadow was there and this time it followed what was a kind of jangling, at any rate a loud tinging noise at the door. And then the shadow was there. Above me. Above us. This small, overbearing s
hadow, and Dad immediately, ruthlessly, was up.

  He was standing there looking down at me like I was sick and he was in there checking if I was okay. He stood like that still bird when he was ruminating, flicking his front teeth with his tongue.

  I sat up on the bed, feeling exposed, ready for I wasn’t sure what. I felt guilty. Deeply culpable. Mum walked up to me. Right up close to me. She had the wild but steady gaze of a flustered old schoolmarm who a child had tried to trick. She glared into my eyes like she was drawing something from them, something that she wanted to see pour, confess, vomit, and when it did not come, she slapped me. And slapped me again, and I peed myself and then Dad left the room.

  I could not define it then, but that look she gave me, I felt denigrated, soiled. I didn’t or rather couldn’t comprehend the depth of her loathing for me.

  ‘You slut,’ she shouted. ‘You bloody little slut. No wonder stuff happens to you! You bring it on yourself. You’re pathetic!’

  She was howling the taunts into the backs of my eyes. I sat there, feeling the pee trickling. I knew, beyond doubt, that whatever I did was my fault. I was to blame. I was the cause of Mum’s anger; I was the one “taking” Dad away from her. It was true. I was a slut. It was the absolute and complete and honest truth; I had created everything, this whole ugly bloody mess.

  Still staring into my grotesque throat, Mum turned in a huff and left the room. After a while, hearing little yelping sounds, I came out of the room and went into the lounge. In the lounge, I saw them standing together, Mum and Dad. He was holding her and she was clenched onto his arm. He looked large like an ever-growing silhouette, like the wooden structure that loomed over the house, and she, small like a humming bird, was leaning into him, crying into his chest.

  ‘Get downstairs and hang up the washing,’ her voice managed to break through the tears. And like the sky was blue and the sun was still as it always was up above, I went downstairs and began to do my chores.

  I never told anyone what was happening to me. I am sure my brother Jim knew what was going on, I could see it in his eyes, but I could also see in his little darkening hazel eyes that he was simply too afraid to say anything. Other than that, no one knew, not even my sister or younger brother. Not even my lovely Aunty Bev. In any event, as far as I knew, no one ever even hinted at it.

  Inside me there was something biting, an anxiety, and when for my twelfth birthday I received a diary from Aunty Bev, yes, I’m sure it was from Aunty Bev, I took to it like one does to running once you realise you can walk.

  Every day I would write on a page my day’s activities. Furiously, I would log it all – well, to be honest, not absolutely all. There was one thing I knew not to write in it. But I did occasionally write, ‘He hurt me again today.’ Yes, I used that word “hurt”.

  The truth was I was getting older; I was beginning to see things differently. With my diary, somehow, by having to think about things, to frame them, to look for words and at the words I used, I felt something in me beginning to wake up. It was a secret I hid from Mum and Dad; the secret I locked up in my diary and hid in a drawer.

  And then Mum found it one day; well actually it was Marge who showed it to Mum. All my secrets. I remember feeling completely betrayed and dishonoured as I sat on my bed and Mum slowly took the little key and unlocked the book in front of me.

  After reading a few pages, she began to sniff and then snort and then rub her nose in that fidgety way that was common with her. Suddenly her voice pitched, and then dipped, and she just said: ‘Get out of my sight. I can’t stand looking at you.’

  Her voice was colder than metal that has stood out of a night in the winter; it was so cold it was rusted. It made me feel not only unwanted but grimy. Unwashable. Wherever that dirt had come from – I saw it in the pinned look in her eyes – it had nothing to do with her. It came from other sources, other elements. Other genes.

  And then, as if having second thoughts, she turned and set upon me. As I sat there, she began shaking and then punching me, yelling into my eyes: ‘Wake up to yourself, Debbie! Don’t be so bloody stupid!’

  The strange thing was, despite everything, despite what I well knew, when I thought of the searing ice in Mum’s voice, my mind turned to my father and I felt that by him at least I was protected.

  She hurt and knew how to hurt. How to isolate. He hurt, but I felt like he was there for me. There was safety in his shadow. In the shade of his bearing I felt connected. It is a strange thought how those who hurt us the most are often those we feel closest to. It is like, through familiarity, we know them better. We have seen inside them. We know what to expect. We know if there are true feelings there.

  But in the end the reality was I was nearly in high school by this time, and not only was I beginning to develop little breasts and menstruate, I was beginning to feel like my body was my body. Like it contained mysteries that all belonged to me.

  Of its own accord, my body was telling me something was wrong. But it would be Mum who finally did something about it.

  And, of course, in the strangest of ways.

  17.

  Not long after Dad nearly strangled Mum to death and shot all of us, well in our eyes nearly shot all of us, the imbalances in our home must have shifted right out of control, because for a while we found ourselves in a motel room in Rockhampton. That is all of us, except Dad. Even my older brother Jim and I were included this time.

  Then the phone call came. Dad could not live without Mum. He needed her. He needed us. We were his life, the people he loved and cherished. And Mum, teary-eyed, gave in and we were trekking back home again.

  Things seemed to calm for a long while after that, well what seemed in a young girl’s eyes for a long while, because the reality was after only a few months Mum started with her questions again – well, that’s what I link it to – and things went all curved in the house again.

  ‘Is Dad touching you?’ she asked one day, and then asked again and again. And again and again, I said no. Emphatically NO. There was not a single way in the world I was going to risk being slapped and slandered by her again.

  She took it further. One night, with all of us kids sitting at the dining room table, it must have been before Dad got in from work, because he was definitely not there, Mum asked me if Dad was doing things to me. That was a pretty nerve-wracking thing in itself, given that none of us kids even hinted at such behaviour among ourselves.

  Now Mum was laying it out bare, for all to see. I remember looking at that solid wooden beam that the dining room table leaned against and going red and flushing. I was so shy and passive at that time in my life, all I could do was sit and feel guilty. That beam... it was lording over me. Once again, rather than being wrapped in Mum’s arms and consoled and reassured, I felt like I was being accused.

  But as clear as day, as though trying to protect me, as though knowing and understanding what I never thought he knew or would ever understand, my older brother Jim, his short brown hair neatly side-parted, began to prod me: ‘Well, c’mon Deb. C’mon. Tell her. Tell her the truth.’

  Of course I looked the other way, or rather down to the floor, and pinching in my cheeks with all my breath, once again I denied it all. But what is important and sticks out about this event for me, is the realisation that others must have known about me and Dad. It confirmed that my older brother Jim knew. But who else? Who else? We kids never discussed it, never said anything among ourselves.

  The word sex was banned in our house. We never even joked about it among ourselves. We were too afraid. Anything to do with sex was dirty, filthy, unmentionable. Afraid that the switchy-stick might come down on us, we never breathed anything to do with that word. And yet there were these people – like Jim and Mum – who knew. For me, it was enough that Mum knew.

  She was rubbing her nose, agitated. ‘Well, I’m telling you now,’ her eyes were sharp and hard as pins, ‘tomorrow I’m going to the police.’

  It didn’t change my mind about saying
anything to her. The police were always a threat – like boarding school – that made us scared and think our world was about to collapse, or that we were going to get severely punished, but personally I would rather take my chances with the unknown than tell Mum anything.

  Amazingly, the next day, true to her word, after Dad had gone out bush to do his work, Mum gathered us together and drove us to the police station in Gladstone. And then everything in our house did change.

  Whether Mum had had prior conversations with them or not, I don’t know. I just remember some detectives – all of them male – saying to me, ‘Can you tell us what’s going on? Does your dad touch you? Does he interfere with you in any way? In any way at all?’

  Feeling pinned and cornered, I was blood-frozen scared , not just of them but also of Mum and Dad, the centre-bolt of our universe, and I said, no, no and no again.

  ‘It’s all right, you’re not in any trouble,’ they kept repeating to me, but still my answer remained the same.

  Then they had a new idea. They took me away from Mum and walked me to a room downstairs.

  Cut off from Mum, one of the detectives peered down into the bending eyes that were mine, and I saw something in those police eyes, a moist strength, something I didn’t experience every day, a sense I could trust. It was a kind of fatherliness that said I was safe. My stories mattered.

  I blinked, breathed in, looked up, and all of a sudden I was telling them everything.

  Strangest thing of all was I was enjoying it. I actually grew excited by my own words. I felt important like I was at the centre of the earth and was actually being appreciated for it. It was like I had just won a running race at school and everyone wanted to hang their arms around me.

  At bottom, the honest truth was that telling them all these stories wasn’t like it was a great release off my chest. The facts were still confusing for me. Beyond me. But what was good about it was that there was not the slightest feeling that these people were going to suddenly lash out or slap me or call me a little ratbag bloody liar.