The house smelled empty and forgotten, but at least the tang of mouse wasn’t present. Isabelle and Jack moved around the rooms silently. For Jack it was like the set of a play he had seen long ago. Without the players and the props of everyday life there was a strange unfamiliarity. The carving on the sideboard, the pattern on the couch, black patches of worn linoleum – details he had never noticed before seemed to leap out at him.
He left the house and waded through the thick grass of the lawn to the back gate. With one hand on the latch he stopped, mesmerised at the sight of the grove. Lush from the summer rains, the trees shimmered and danced in the sun. He pushed through the gate and stood before a single tree. For the first time he could really see the signs of maturity in the tree, in the thickening of the branches and in the tiny green olives that decorated every branch. He knelt on the ground and began to wrench out handfuls of grass from around the base of the trunk. When it was clear he smoothed the earth with his hands and sat back on his haunches. He was about to move on and clear another when he stopped himself. He touched the trunk, tentatively at first, slowly becoming aware of the delicate textures and scaly patterns of its hard skin. He’d felt this sense of awe before but only with rock. Now he saw the same depth of beauty in this living tree. He wondered why he had never observed it before and was humbled by its presence.
Despite the long drive he felt a renewed energy and, abandoning his plan to clear more grass, strode through the grove, stopping from time to time to pull off the last scraps of black fabric still clinging to the trunks. The mourning was over.
Jack carried the vine-leaf table and chairs out from the shed and placed them exactly as they had been when he first sat under the grapevine with Franco, waiting to catch a glimpse of Isabelle. Now she came to the door, glanced at the sky and went back inside. For a fleeting moment he was possessed by the strangest sensation of having become someone else, or perhaps it was of being an imposter in his own life. It was a moment of disorientation but one of clarity as well. He realised that at some point over the previous year of his marriage he had mistaken feeling comfortable for feeling happy. He had confused being looked after with being cared for. He had relinquished his freedom for a state of comfortable limbo.
Isabelle moved from room to room, busy with her preparations, seemingly unaware of his presence. By nightfall the house was clean, the debris of dust and dead insects vanquished. Isabelle prepared a simple meal. New potatoes and asparagus were abundant in the garden and even the rabbits couldn’t keep up with the fennel and coriander that had gone to seed.
Jack noticed that although his wife had made up her parents’ bed for them, she had also made up both Rosanna’s bed and her old bed with the sheets they had embroidered as children. Although tired after the long drive, he could hardly take his eyes off Isabelle as she finished her meal and languidly stretched her arms above her head, smothering a yawn. Her honeyed hair was a little dishevelled, and she wore an old white shirt. Slightly torn, it drooped at one shoulder and exposed the outline of her breasts, unwittingly wanton. He felt that old weakness coming over him, so overwhelming that he had to try to calm himself in order not to alarm her. He stood and took her gently by the hand, slipped his arm around her waist and guided her firmly inside to the cool sheets of the marital bed.
Two days later Jack was once more in their bed when he woke disoriented in the early hours of the morning. The room was lit by a patch of moonlight. He could feel something was different and remembered that Rosanna was sleeping in the next room. A moment later he became aware he was alone. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded out into the hallway. The other bedroom was darker, but he could see by the huddled silhouettes that both beds were occupied.
Jack returned to his room, trying to work out what the implications were, if any, of Isabelle going back to sleep in her childhood bed. He wasn’t unhappy about it, but he wasn’t happy about it either. He felt as though he was back standing outside the circle looking in, just like before.
Standing on the platform with Isabelle waiting for Rosanna’s train the day before, he had found himself becoming more restless by the minute. He told Isabelle he was going to the men’s room and went to the kiosk for a pack of cigarettes. He felt the distant rumble of the train and found himself, for no reason he could think of, walking in the other direction, out of the building. He stood on the pavement and smoked his cigarette without really noticing. He had to make himself go back into the cavern of the station. Walking briskly onto the platform, his expression implied that something out of his control had delayed his return.
As people spilled from the train his eye was caught by a woman wearing a cream blouse and dark slacks, her hair partially obscured by a scarlet silk scarf flung carelessly over her head and shoulders, eyes hidden by large dark glasses of the sort recently made fashionable by Audrey Hepburn. She moved unhurriedly through the crowd towards them and he took in the spilling curves and the swing of her hips. Beside him Isabelle gave a yelp and dashed towards her. There was a split second between Jack’s awareness that his expression betrayed his thoughts and the realisation that the woman was Rosanna.
On Christmas Eve, Rosanna and Isabelle spent their first afternoon together cooking, as Jack knew they would. He wandered through the grove, stopping now and then to remove a broken branch or two, and walked up the hill to sit under the wattles for a while with Franco.
In some ways he was looking forward to the job up north, just living with a couple of blokes and the basics, although eating out of tins was not as appetising as it once had been; his palate had been spoiled by too much good Italian food. But having a beer or two and a yarn without having to take his boots off had its own sort of appeal. Isabelle would have company here with Rosanna; they would look after each other. They spent all their time nattering to each other anyway. He had overhead Rosanna telling Isabelle some story (she had taken the precaution of speaking in Italian so it clearly wasn’t for his ears), and he suspected from Isabelle’s gasps of shocked delight that it was about a lover – a shipboard romance, perhaps? He found himself curious. There was something odd going on. He wouldn’t ask. Rosanna had been uncharacteristically evasive when he asked her why she had made the decision to return to Australia.
Jack roused himself and spent some time clearing the area around Franco’s grave, pulling out some lantana plotting to take over the fertile patch that had served the wattles for so long. That job complete, he set off along the ridge skirting the upper boundary of the farm to the barbwire fence that separated the Martinos’ property from the Roland sisters’. Looking at the fence, he cursed Marigold and Petunia and friends. The blasted goats had forced their heads through to eat the grass on the other side and used the fence as a ladder to pluck the lower leaves off a stand of kurrajongs that marked the boundary. Yet he felt a little guilty – Franco had had an innate sense of responsibility to the sisters, simply because they were female and his neighbours. Jack had not given their welfare a moment’s thought since the funeral. He followed the fence until he found the makeshift gate and let himself through. It was too early for the milking and he wondered if the sisters were dolling themselves up in readiness.
He knocked at the front door and waited. The curtains were drawn and it seemed possible that no one was home but the old Ford truck was parked in the garage, so they couldn’t be far away. Finally, the front door opened. It was so dark inside he could hardly make out who stood behind the screen door.
‘Yes?’ The voice sounded slurred.
Jack peered in at her. ‘Ah … Miss Roland?’
‘Yes, what is it?’ She made no move to open the screen.
‘It’s Jack, Jack Bennett.’
She opened the door slightly and looked carefully at him. ‘Jack?’ she repeated, and her voice softened. ‘Of course, how are the girls? We miss them. Would they like to come up and feed the kids?’
Jack recognised now that this was Dot, but not Dot as he remembered her.
‘The girls are well. Rosanna is home. We wondered if you and Marge would like to come down for a drink after the milking? A Christmas drink.’
‘Milking? Marge isn’t well. I’m not sure that she’ll be up to a drink – she can’t get up …’ Dot began to weep softly.
Jack stepped backwards, anxious to be away from the sour odour leaching from the house, from the sight of her – helpless, shapeless, all the pretences fallen away. He suddenly thought of his mother, weeping silently as she swept up broken crockery, his father walking the night somewhere beyond the shouting and the slamming of the front door. How he had longed for his mother to tuck her hair back behind her ears, take out her compact and pat her mottled cheeks with the little skin-coloured pad, slide her cherry-red lipstick expertly around her lips – to paint her face happy.
‘I’ve tried to get her up …’ said Dot.
‘Another time then,’ Jack replied as he walked backwards down the steps.
Dot raised her voice to reach him as he turned to walk away. ‘He was so proud of you, you know. Like his own boy, he said.’
His own boy. He walked down the hill with the words gnawing at his mind. He had the feeling that Franco was dogging his footsteps, disappointed at his cowardice. He threw open the back door and shouted, ‘Isabelle! Rosanna!’
Rosanna came hurrying out. ‘What is it? Bella is resting.’ He told her of his conversation with Dot and before he had finished she was tearing off her apron and scribbling a note to Isabelle. It was only later that he recalled how drawn and pale Rosanna looked.
The driveway up to the Roland house was clay and rock and Jack found it quite unbelievable that the two old girls managed to negotiate it in their truck. It would be a mudslide in the wet.
Before he had even switched off the ignition Rosanna jumped from the truck and ran to the back door. Pushing it open, she called into the house, ‘Zia Dorothy, where are you?’
It was growing dark and Rosanna switched on the lights as she moved through the house. Following her, Jack was shocked at the state of the place. There were scraps of food on sticky, encrusted dishes on every surface and also stacked carelessly, brown and greasy, in the kitchen sink. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the flicker of a marauding mouse.
He stood awkwardly in the hall and waited to be summoned. Rosanna was talking quietly in the bedroom. He could hear a woman’s muffled sobbing. Feeling like an intruder, Jack turned to leave just as Rosanna came out of the room. Without looking at him, she went to the telephone, wound the handle once and asked the operator to put her through to Doctor Kilby. Her words ‘Death certificate’ had a chilling finality, punctuated by the slam of the screen door as Jack left the house.
He opened the gate and walked across to the barn. The goats had already gathered, playing about like schoolchildren given an unexpected early mark. They butted each other affectionately and nibbled experimentally on sacks and pieces of cardboard stacked in the barn.
Suddenly, he heard the gate creak open and he turned to see Rosanna striding towards him. The light was too low to make out her expression but he could read the purpose in her movements. In a moment she was standing squarely in front of him, and without a word she gave him a whack across the side of his head with the heel of her hand.
‘How could you leave her alone? What is the matter with you?’ she shouted. ‘Don’t you care for anyone but yourself? Egoista! Bastardo!’
They faced each other in fury, but Jack’s anger quickly seeped away – there was a relief in being punished. He saw she was crying and only just caught her wrist in time as her hand flew up to clout him on the other side of the head. He felt the pain he saw in her eyes.
‘Go home. Take care of your wife. I’ll stay here tonight. Tomorrow you can come back and take Marge down to the undertakers – they’ll never get up that driveway.’ She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. He walked back to the truck without a word.
As he pulled up in front of the house he could see Isabelle’s face, ghostly, at the window. She came to the door.
‘Where’s Rosa?’ she asked anxiously.
‘She’s staying the night with Dot.’ She looked so pale he hesitated. ‘Marge isn’t very well.’
‘What’s happened to her? Should I go up there?’
‘No, Rosanna wants you to stay here. I have to go back in the morning. Isabelle, I’m sorry, but Marge has died.’
Isabelle’s hands seemed to spring to her belly of their own accord. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no …’ she wailed. ‘Everyone is dying … everyone is dying.’
Jack took her gently by the shoulders. ‘Isabelle, people die. We’re all going to die.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to add, so he put his arm around her and gave her a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Sit down, love. I’ll get you a little brandy.’
She covered her face with her hands, shoulders heaving with each sob. He steered her towards an armchair and went into the kitchen to search through the top cupboards where the liquor was always kept.
When he returned a few minutes later with the brandy in a coffee cup, the chair was empty. He wandered down the hall and put his head around the bedroom door, expecting to find her lying on the bed. But no. He was alone in the house. He stood on the front verandah, the little blue and gold cup still in his hand, staring into the blackness. He put the cup down, went to his car, opened his workbag and pulled out a torch. He stumbled into the night, calling her name, the beam of the light jumping and bouncing ahead of him. He leapt the gate and stopped dead. She had gone up to Dot and Marge’s, of that he was sure, but because the two properties met along the length of the farm’s western boundary, it was possible to access the neighbouring property almost anywhere along the fence line.
‘Isabelle!’ His voice searched the hills and came back to him empty. Frantic now, he ran through the grove, flicking his torch beam in every direction. Several times he tripped and fell but was on his feet again in seconds, running, shouting her name to the night, the olive trees silent witnesses to the crack in his voice.
Finally he reached the fence line. Panting, he strode the line, flashing his torch across the field. The goats glanced up, startled, eyes reflecting pin spots of light.
He crossed the fence and could now see the lights of the Roland house ahead. He fell heavily on the front step and limped to the door. As soon as Rosanna opened the door he knew Isabelle hadn’t arrived.
‘What now?’ she said, and then he saw his fear reflected in her eyes. ‘Let me just get Zia Dorothy settled.’ Her voice was calm.
She returned minutes later and handed him another torch while she pulled on a borrowed cream cardigan. Side by side they walked silently back towards the farm. Once they crossed the fence they separated. Soon Rosanna’s torchlight disappeared and there was only the echo of her voice across the valley like a song in the night. ‘Bella, Bellaaa.’
Jack swung his torch back and forth through the trees until he heard Rosanna’s howl, ‘Jack! Jaaack!’ He followed her voice to the beam of the torch urgently strafing the grove.
He lifted his unconscious wife carefully off the ground and carried her home. It was only when he placed her on the bed that he realised his shirt-sleeves were soaked with blood.
Eleven
I WAKE ON Christmas morning alone in a strange bed. Stretching out, I touch the other side, and the sheet is cool. I hear Joe rummaging around in the kitchen. I smell toast, coffee and bacon. Throwing on my sarong and shirt, I wander out. He turns and smiles.
‘Hey, Merry Christmas.’ He wraps an arm around my shoulder and kisses me on the forehead. He smells soapy and fresh. ‘I’ve got a surprise planned for you.’
‘How could you plan a surprise when you didn’t know I’d be here?’
‘Oh, well … you know, just in the hope that you were.’ He grins. ‘Or else I would have had to come and get you.’ He pulls out a chair from the little kitchen table and shovels books, newspapers and piles of drawings together. Looking around the cabin
for a spot to sling them, he finally drops them in an armchair.
‘Eat up, I’m just going to take the esky down to the truck.’
He darts out the door and moments later I hear the bike buzz off down the hill. I’ve barely finished my toast when he’s back for me.
‘What about my clothes?’
‘Very nice, I just lurve that shade of purple, darrrling,’ he purrs.
‘I mean, are they suitable?’
‘Sure, whatever – it’s very relaxed. Just you and me, babe.’
Going down the hill on the back of the bike with my skirt flapping, I feel I should be riding side-saddle. He stops beside the truck and lets me off, scoots around the back and rides the bike straight up a ramp he’s attached to the tray.
‘Isn’t that a canoe?’ I say, peering warily into the back of the truck.
‘It is indeedy.’ He ties down the bike, pulls in the ramp, flips up the tailgate and jumps off. He opens the passenger’s door and ushers me into the cab.
‘Where are we going in a canoe?’ I shout above the roar of the engine.
‘Remember The Wind in the Willows?’
‘Hmm.’
‘We’re going to mess about in boats.’ He looks as happy as a ten-year-old. ‘We’ll drop the bike off downriver and then we’ll go upriver, past your place, put the canoe in and then we’ll just drift on down, snacking on cold chicken and champagne and soaking up the sun.’
‘What if we fall in?’ I bleat, sounding like a uncooperative child.
‘It’s not the Zambezi; it’s just a lazy ol’ creek. Trust me.’
It takes us over an hour to drop off the bike and find the place upriver to launch the canoe but once we’re in, it’s really okay. The canoe is quite wide and flat, like an Indian one. The creek is slow, sleek and green and the bank not so far away. Joe sits in the back, paddling with a single paddle like a brave and I sit facing him at the other end like Pocahontas, with the esky and a canvas holdall in the middle between us.
The Olive Sisters Page 14