Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories

by Joy Dettman

  Later, bathwater nudging her chin, revenge within her grasp, she took a last deep breath and one wet hand reached for the hair-dryer. Its control switched to high, she held it screaming overhead for one last brief moment.

  ‘Take your girlfriend to Disneyland now, Stan Murphy,’ she wailed, and flung the dryer at her feet.

  Stan’s future flashed before her eyes – she heard a jury find him guilty of her murder, and a judge sentence him to two months’ community service – while with her eyes closed tight she waited for the zap that would wipe away ten years of humiliation.

  Not a whimper disturbed the water, not even a mute bubble.

  One eye opened gingerly. In slow motion, she turned to face the source of power. She was Molly, the electrician’s daughter. She recognised the problem immediately. The plug had eased away from the aging socket. Current wasn’t getting through.

  ‘Failure,’ the dryer taunted, balancing on her big toe, its long nozzle high. ‘Trust you to make a mess of it, Moll.’

  All planned suicides should be offered the opportunity of hindsight. Life suddenly looked sweet to Molly Murphy. Cringing from the proximity of death, she watched the dryer tilt and settle more comfortably between her feet, burping as it submerged, dragging the worn cord along the edge of the bath like a hypnotising viper conjuring up a power surge to bridge the gap.

  Revulsion clawing her hand, she snatched the viper, flung it onto the floor, tore the power plug fully from its socket and, with heart hammering, fled naked to the sanctuary of her bedroom and to the comfort of her plasticine mole. Its mottled puce skin embedded with carpet hair and grit defied her attempt to stick it back on her eyebrow. She let it fall to the floor then turned her back on plasticine.

  That evening Molly prepared a candlelight anniversary dinner for two. Stan came home late. He went straight to the shower.

  Later, when the questions began, Molly said she couldn’t be sure if she’d heard the bang before or after the television went off.

  ‘I’d already lit the candles so I wasn’t left in the dark, you see,’ she explained. She was positive she’d called three times, ‘Stan, the telly’s broken down.’

  When he didn’t reply, she had gone to the bathroom, almost tripped over him.

  ‘The hair-dryer was still gripped in his hand,’ she said. Even by candlelight, the slim trickle of water drizzling from the dryer was clearly visible to anyone with her twenty–twenty vision. She told them of Stan’s poor eyesight, told them he was a salesman, not an electrician. He must have dropped the dryer in the basin.

  ‘And I had just washed the bathroom floor too,’ she said.

  She omitted to tell her interrogators how she’d leaned against the wall staring at Stan for minutes, noting that his hair was actually standing on end like the electric shock victims’ did in cartoons. She hadn’t expected that; nor had she expected her thundering laughter that echoed free again through the passages of the old mansion. Some things it’s better to keep to yourself.

  On Harper Land

  Summer is gone but the sun still rules in the hazy sky. Heat, a heavy, desperate heat, clings to the morning, sucking it dry. Through the window I watch a small eddy of dust lifted from a fallowed paddock. It whirls, gathering height and momentum as it races diagonally towards the boundary fence, eager to leave this land.

  He is there, on the veranda, studying the sky and willing the dry spell to break. It thwarts him as only the weather dares to thwart his will. I see him turn to the south, to the distant taunting rumble of thunder. I watch his hand. Large, calloused, grey-brown as the land, it rises to cover the narrow slash of his mouth, to conceal his raw hope. Perhaps today thunder will herd the storm-clouds home to Harper’s Hill.

  Many Harpers sleep beneath proud tombstones in the family graveyard, but the last of the Harper pride died with Granny. In the summertime the trees beside the house turn grey with the dust of dead Harpers. If you brush past them, they rain grey dust; I have seen a lonely raindrop paint its spotted pattern on a leaf, leaving behind it a magic circle of green.

  I love the scent of summer rain on dust. It smells of innocence, of long ago, but today I don’t breathe deeply for the scent of him is strong in my nostrils. I have not told him of the seed taken root in my womb, yet I believe he knows of it. He watches me now with a different eye, guards me as his dogs guard the pregnant ewes.

  I conjure up visions of another place, somewhere far away from here, but the weeks keep passing. How can I leave her here to cry alone?

  All day the storm draws nearer. I watch the sky and I watch him watch the sky. His heavy boots on the veranda signal his approach. I suck in my stomach, move quickly about my chores.

  ‘Get the food on the table, girl.’

  His evening meal is ready. Today I have cooked well. I serve him thick pork chops and mashed potatoes, grey cabbage and pumpkin. I have already eaten, but I wait in the kitchen long enough to reload his plate and answer his questions.

  ‘How has she been?’

  ‘Crying.’

  ‘It’s near time for her pills again?’

  ‘I tried to get her up.’

  ‘Don’t you go trying to lift her by yourself.’

  Last week he didn’t care if I lifted her alone. I look at him, see that his eyes know what is growing in me. The muscles in my stomach contract. I turn my back. Now I know I have to get away or she will know.

  ‘Did you hear me? I said don’t go trying to get her up. You call me. You do as you’re told.’

  I make a pot of tea, keep busy at the stove.

  ‘I’ll take her pills up,’ he says, pushing his empty plate away.

  I fill two cups with tea and place them on the tray. I hand him her pills then I walk to the back door where I stand in the wind.

  It grows by the minute. Trees moan. They lunge at the wind. Lightning darts and licks at the land, while thunder circles the hills mustering its dark flock. Who would venture far from shelter on such a night?

  For minutes I stand behind the laundry, watching the moving storm while gathering about me the will to run. Then, swift as a cat, I cut across the graveyard. Between the tightly stretched wires of the boundary fence I crawl, my will growing stronger as I check over my shoulder. No dogs follow. No one has seen me. I run then, the wind behind me.

  There is a signpost beside the five mile bridge, right where the road forks into two. Tourists come this way now. Tourists demand maps and names on maps. I stand before the sign that lies: OLD HARPER ROAD. It is barely a track now. But Granny has told me of its past glories, when coaches travelled its rutted pathway, and bullock wagons carried supplies along it to towns now as dead as the Harpers’. The ruts, cut deep in the clay, remain, and small hillocks of dust. They follow the curve of the river, winding with it through the swamp grass and grey river gums.

  Many birds of prey thrive in this land. Eagles build their nests on vantage points overlooking this road, for game is plentiful, and served up each day by tourists speeding home to camps beside the river. Each dawn the bloodied carcasses of rabbits and feral cats, of kangaroos and roaming stock, stud this road like crimson gems. They make a lazy meal for the eagle and the crow.

  My eyes half closed against the grit and the stinging whip-whip-whipping of my hair, I hurry on, thinking no further than the next step, the next curve in the road. My steps are fast, my mind in tune with their rhythmic slap-slap, slap-slap, slap-slap through the powdered dust.

  Twilight comes early tonight, the false twilight of a storm. Vehicles rattle by raising grey dust. It is a secret thing, Harper dust; the twin lights play on it, creating moving ghosts between the river gums. Seeking taller trees and safer shadows, I cross the road. He will come this way with his white searchlights and his dogs. I know he will come for me. He always comes for me.

  Old Harper Road ends against a narrow strip of bitumen. Straight. Flat. Black. I can see no beginning, I can see no end. I turn to the right, to the left. My footsteps falter as they test the su
rface of the road to somewhere. It is hard, non-giving. I walk ten metres north then stop before a signpost standing lonely, pointing off into the twilight distance.

  Which way should I run? My sandals are on the road to somewhere. I know that should I stand on either side of this road, a car will stop for me, yet I step back as I see lights in the distance. I hide, as a child might hide, behind the stump of a gum tree.

  A busy place this junction. A bus drives by, heavy with weary travellers, then two riders cycle towards me. From my hide I watch them turn off the bitumen and down a river track. So young, so happy with each other, they toss their laughter to the wind. I gather it, wanting to share their happiness, go with them into happiness. I step from my hide and they wave, stop and lean on their cycles. They speak to me of the headwind and the weather and the fish in the river. They ask where I am camped.

  A friendly pair, but a pair. They have no room for me. I know this, and I point to a place behind me, to my only place.

  ‘The storm is close,’ he says and they mount their bicycles and ride on their way.

  There is such need in me tonight to know, to understand the love of girl for boy. I follow them, and come upon a camp, a dear blue igloo tent and a gas light. It winks like a fallen star against the backdrop of the dancing trees, drawing me nearer. I see their bikes, then see them standing in the wind. They are touching, fondling.

  I have no right to be in this place, yet I cannot force my feet away. I stand behind a tree spying on their love game. A playful thing, a pretty thing, mouth seeks mouth while clothes are shed and tossed willy-nilly to the wind. Hands that cannot touch enough dart and play, grasp and smooth. I creep forward until I am almost upon them. They kneel and rock to an orchestra of thunder and to the drum of distant rain driving across the land. And I watch them, and weep for the love they know.

  When the windborne rain arrives, its drops grown large with their day long wait, I see the male take the mating position. He covers her, he takes the storm upon his back, and she embraces him, drawing him to her. Then lightning cuts the final threads of night from day, thunder shakes the forest floor, and I see her face. She loves. She is loved.

  I cringe, back away, shamed by that love. I have been made unfit for love. How can I live in a world where people love?

  Rain has soaked the thin fabric of my skirt. It sticks to me, hobbling my knees, moulding itself around my small melon belly. My sandals, never made for rainy days, sink in new mud as they retrace their way back to Old Harper Road. There is no somewhere out there for me. I am the last of the Harpers and only fit for Harper land.

  I sleep that night in the main barn. I hide from him all morning and I find six new kittens also hiding there. We are well placed, high and dry in the hayloft. Six mewling mites with their unfinished eyes and sweet open mouths curl with me, safe in the hay. My face is buried in the mass of new life when the scrawny old black cat crawls up the ladder to us. She licks her babies, then she settles beside them. So close am I that I can hear the silly suck-sucking of small pink mouths. What accidental perfection, I think.

  He climbs the ladder, sees me. ‘You came home then.’

  ‘I came back,’ I reply.

  ‘I’ve been searching the road, searching the river for you. I thought you were out there in that storm.’

  I shrug.

  He stands over me for minutes, eyeing me and the kittens, then he points to my stomach. ‘It’ll get born on Harper land, girl, and it will be a son.’

  I ignore him.

  ‘Do you hear me?’

  Slowly my eyes turn to him. He is rain soaked, his hair clinging to his brow where the furrows of yesterday have been smoothed away by this rain. He is scratching at his forehead with a grey fingernail.

  ‘Get up and about your chores,’ he says, and he prods me.

  I don’t move.

  He kneels over me, grasps my wrists. ‘If I have to chain you to your bed, that baby will get born. He’s of this land, girl, like it or not, and he’ll get born on this land.’

  I am on my feet, and he is silent for a long time. I stand, my face turned from him towards the edge of the loft and I stare down to the hard-packed earth below. He follows my gaze, the furrows returning to his brow.

  Slowly he releases my wrists, his thin lips moving wordlessly. Then he turns, snatches up the blind kittens, two by two, and he tosses them live to the dogs waiting below. And the dogs yelp their delight as they fight over their meal, ripping the mewling things apart, crunching on tiny bones.

  ‘Dying is as easy as that, girl. It’s the living that’s hard. Life around here mightn’t seem too pretty to you right now, but things can get worse. Now, you go see to your mother. She’s been caterwauling for you all night.’

  I force my stomach into a larger round. ‘Will I go to her like this, Daddy?’

  He hits me. Once. Twice. I fall. His hand is hard. He holds me down and he hits me until the taste of blood is strong in my throat. Then he backs off, and he is crying.

  Hate. Love. These are bitter, four letter words. I add the other, and it feels cleaner on my tongue. Then I weep too as he climbs down the ladder, walks to the door, turns, looks up at me as I stand there, balancing on the edge of the loft, high, high above him. But not high enough. I spit blood onto the floor, then I feel –

  Inside my belly, it moves. A soft fluttering, like the unfeathered wings of a fledgling, flap-flap-flapping. For minutes I wait, afraid to move lest it may never still, afraid to move lest it may still forever.

  I turn away, step back from the edge, and look out at the paddocks. Already I can smell the green beneath the mud of Harper land. This land, when given sun and rain in the right proportion, is fine land to own.

  I hear the black cat crying as she walks the hayshed. Poor cat; still, when she cannot find what she seeks, she will stop her searching, and her crying will end. That is the way of things on Harper land.

  Between a Rock and a Hard Place

  I choose my time well. They are in the main room, meeting, greeting, some eating. Four of the more energetic, eager to test the tennis court, have gone in search of racquets. And I am at the door listening as the tennis players wander down to the court, loud, full of bravado.

  On my arrival today I cased the joint and found that the sliding door ran soundlessly but opened onto the barbecue area, which offered little protection from watchful eyes. But if the timing was right, I could open that sliding door quite innocently, wander across the decking then, when the coast was clear, make my escape around the corner. The path would be hazardous, but the reward great.

  ‘Women against the men,’ she says.

  ‘No. We’ll play mixed.’

  ‘You’re scared we’ll thrash the pants off you.’

  ‘We just want to save you embarrassment.’

  I can’t see them but I recognise each voice – and the voices of the sluggish who have wandered out, glasses in hand, to take their exercise by proxy.

  I step onto the decking, close the door, check over my shoulder then sidle around the corner, out of sight on the east side.

  The house is new, and in recent weeks the rains have not let up. Mud, mud, glorious mud. Soon a garden will grow in this mud and offer many nooks, but today I find refuge on a rock, the wind in my face. It’s a flat rock, conveniently placed between two larger, craggy rocks, a hard enough perch, but safe.

  ‘Literally stuck between a rock and a hard place these days, old girl,’ I say to myself.

  With the corner of the clinker brick wall directly before me and the boundary fence behind me, I have an excellent view should searchers come at me from the east, or a young tracker venture through the mud on the south side. I think not. I have already checked out that route. The mud is deep there.

  It is a problem these days, finding places to hide. Some properties are wonderful, offering numerous niches behind large trees and in gardening sheds, as well as deeply mulched gardens – too easy to hide evidence there. It has become my pr
actice never to leave evidence behind, but this is new terrain, as yet unfamiliar to me, so I am pleased enough with my rocky perch.

  From the north I hear the twang of ball on racquet strings and the jubilant cry of ‘Fault’.

  ‘That was in.’

  ‘It was out by a metre.’

  Another voice buys in. I listen and smile as slowly I lift an arm that grips the weight of a phantom racquet. Whoosh. I hit a winner. ‘Ace,’ I murmur. ‘That was an ace, and no argument.’

  It has been a while since I played that game. I had a deceptive serve. It looked easy, but it kicked. Could I still make it kick? I inhale, toss a phantom ball high, slice it with my racquet – and feel a wince of pain in my shoulder. ‘Better place that racquet back in your memories, old girl,’ I murmur, flexing my arm.

  Age is a killer – a killer of much. It kills the game – along with the joints and the waistline. Age sags the jowls, wears away the teeth. Still, there is much to be said for age. With age comes a peace, and the grand experience of those years we’ve left behind. Age may steal the running, but we become less visible, and sometimes even invisible. Having been so busily visible for most of my life, it is a fine thing to lose one’s visibility. And . . . and I could still make my serve kick if I wanted to. It’s the want I’m lacking. Age kills many wants.

  There is little I want now. Except – I sigh out a breath and draw another.

  Footsteps on the decking? They’re too close. I shrink low, disappear into the rock. The footsteps still. I check the south side, see no trackers plodding through the mud. I lean back against my rock and inhale deeply.

  They’re all here today, that large house is alive with movement and children’s noise. I have added to that noise. I bought a packet of those paper whistles that hurl abuse at the ears then curl up so innocently.

  I recall blowing those whistles, curling them around my finger, and oh, the sadness when they became tattered and refused to curl any more. I remember my own small fingers removing the wire, and wondering at the inventor of these fine toys. I was surprised to find them in the two dollar shop, and admit purchasing them purely for myself. I needed to know if they still have that backbone of rusty wire, or has our overprotective society abandoned the wire and somehow created a plastic curl?