Moth to the Flame

by Joy Dettman

  ‘W-what d-did I d-do?’

  ‘Who knows what you get up to,’ she said.

  ‘W-w-w-what?’

  ‘That’s what you said to me. And if you think I don’t know what you meant by it, then you’re wrong.’

  ‘I w-was j-joking.’

  ‘Saying something like that to someone like me is no joke. I’ve got three illegitimate kids, and you know how I got them. You either trust me or you don’t, and if you don’t, say it and stop hinting around it.’

  She went out to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and lit one of his cigarettes, sat at the table and smoked it, and too bad if he liked women smoking or not.

  Her condition was unchanged come morning, and October and the strike became worse. Other unions were now supporting the train and tram drivers. It was on the midday news when she and Flora shared their lunchtime teapot.

  It was in the newspapers Ray brought home from the factory; well-thumbed newspapers and not always current. Every household needed newspaper. It polished windows and shoes, wrapped rubbish. In Woody Creek, they’d used it in the lav. Not down here. Jenny and Flora shared the cost of toilet rolls; almost shared — five backsides on the east side, three on the west.

  She read the papers to Ray while the evening meal cooked, a habit she’d started during her first months in Armadale when she’d clung to hopes of teaching him to read. It had stopped his reading. She was expected now to keep him abreast of the daily news.

  ‘Factory workers are meeting today to discuss support for the strikers — I hope your factory doesn’t get caught up in the mess. A lot of unions are supporting them, Ray. Rail and tramway men look set for a long strike. The Railway Commission refused to negotiate with them while they hold the state to ransom . . .’

  The strikers wanted more money, shorter hours, wanted the pegging of wages to be lifted. The papers were full of stories — bus drivers being bullied by tram and railway men, people who couldn’t get to work.

  ‘Waterside workers said today that they won’t work unless transport is provided for all. The newsreader on the wireless said there was about three thousand waterside workers and they want transport for all of them. There’s supposed to be thirty-odd ships waiting at the docks to be unloaded.’

  That was the way she read the paper to him, bits and pieces interspersed with her own comments, half-pages condensed into a few lines between the turning of his steak, the mashing of his potatoes. Never read aloud about city murders, city accidents, not in the kitchen.

  Days passed, too many days, and no hope left of a false alarm, a period gone wrong. He came with his paper on a Friday and she still hadn’t told him she was pregnant, and he hadn’t bought any bread. Her kids went through a ton of bread and without it she’d need to fill them with something. He never forgot to buy his cigarettes. She watched him light a smoke as she lifted the flour tin down and made a point of moving his newspaper from the table, replacing it with a tin of golden syrup and Amber’s large saucepan. He sat down still expecting his newspaper read to him.

  ‘I’m making syrup dumplings,’ she said. The kids loved syrup dumplings with custard. Not enough milk to make custard; no eggs anyway. She was up to her elbows in flour, when he found headlines about gas rationing.

  ‘It’s the waterside workers’ fault,’ Jenny said. ‘It was on Flora’s wireless at lunchtime. It’s to do with coal stocks and boats that haven’t been unloaded.’

  ‘Wh-wh-arfies striking?’

  ‘Not yet, but if they can’t get to work, they can’t unload the ships, we run out of coal, then no more gas,’ Jenny said, cutting the dough into many pieces, her kids crowding her, watching the process. It didn’t take long to make dumplings, but, once begun, there was no stopping until they were in the pot and the lid on.

  ‘What’s coal g-got to d-do with anything?’

  ‘They must use it to make the gas — like Geoff’s coal-burning contraption. Read that bit below the picture for me, Georgie. It might say something about it.’

  Georgie started reading and Ray stood and left the kitchen. Margot left off watching the making of dumplings and followed Ray out to the veranda.

  Shouldn’t have asked Georgie to read it. He ignored that little girl’s existence and tonight Jenny knew why. She could read. He couldn’t. She threatened him. Margot didn’t. She lisped. He stuttered. They were forming an alliance.

  I shouldn’t have put Georgie in that situation, Jenny thought, watching the expression on that little kid’s face. She stood at the far side of the table, staring after Ray and Margot, knowing she’d done something wrong, but keeping her place on the page with a finger.

  ‘Finish reading it, Georgie. I’m covered in flour.’

  ‘Use of gas will be pro-hib-ited except for two meal pe-ri-ods.’

  She read words she shouldn’t know the meaning of, and maybe didn’t, though she did a good job at pronouncing them. Perfection, that kid — perfection with a beautiful heart and a gentle soul. She’d thought her father to be famous, like a movie star. Hadn’t said a word when she’d found out what he’d been famous for. Hadn’t thrown his photograph in the rubbish bin, just hidden him away in a safe place, and Jenny loved her for that, loved her soft little heart.

  The dumplings boiling, the lid on, Georgie reading about Ben Chifley flying down from Canberra, Jenny staring through the glass door, her hand at her waist, wondering if she’d produce another Margot. There was no working out that kid. Georgie, she could read like an open book, and Jimmy. He was Jim. He was her.

  Only a blind man might pick her kids as siblings. Georgie’s hair was molten copper, thick and grown long since Granny hadn’t been able to get at it with her scissors. Not straight, the barest suggestion of a curl. Margot’s hair was snow-white and fine. Jenny kept it short with her dressmaking scissors. Nothing else to be done with it. Jimmy’s hair was darkening each year. Jim’s had been dark. His eyes were blue-grey, more blue than grey when she dressed him in blue. Georgie had Laurie’s eyes, a pure green in some lights. Margot had the Macdonalds’ pale purple eyes.

  If I have a boy and he looks like Ray, it will be all right. A boy will balance the family.

  What if it’s a girl and she looks like his sister’s girls?

  Sooner or later I’ll have one who does.

  It won’t happen again. I’ll have a hysterectomy before I come home from hospital.

  The syrup dumplings stopped her thinking. They boiled over and brought her mind back to the moment. She lifted the saucepan, adjusted the flame, smelled burning sugar and hoped the dumplings hadn’t caught. Couldn’t lift the lid to find out or they’d turn into hard dough balls.

  She served him four sausages and a pile of potatoes. Sausages were breakfast food, but too bad. Couldn’t face bloody meat tonight. She served the kids a sausage each and a pile of cabbage, cooked as Amber had cooked it, in the frying pan, fried in a little grease. Jenny hadn’t learnt much from her except how to cook cabbage, make pastry, make custard — when she had milk and eggs to make it.

  He’d eaten dumplings a few times, with custard. She served him a bowl full. He sat waiting for custard.

  ‘No milk,’ she said, delighted to say it.

  He pushed his bowl back and left the table, went outside to sweep his path, rake up leaves, play with his bike.

  How long had he been married to his first wife? How come there’d been nothing of her in his half of the house? He’d been determined to have a wedding photograph when Jenny married him. Where was his first wedding photograph? Had she left him, like Veronica had left her bank manager husband, and, unlike Veronica, taken everything with her? It was possible. He’d had nothing when Jenny arrived. He hadn’t owned a change of sheets.

  People can’t divorce someone that fast.

  What if they weren’t divorced? What if he’s a bigamist?

  Then I wouldn’t be married to him. I’d be Jenny Morrison and I’d take those kids home.

  Pregnant?

  She looked at
her wedding ring and shook her head. Never, never would she go back there pregnant.

  ‘Wait until you know him better,’ Granny had said. ‘People are what they’ve been raised too,’ she’d said on that last day.

  I’m having his baby, and I don’t have a clue who he is. I mightn’t have known what Laurie was, but I knew who he was.

  She washed the dishes. The kids dried them. Rain sent Ray inside. Margot crawled around him, wanting to play cards. He didn’t want to play cards. Jenny sent the kids to the bedroom to get their pyjamas on. At seven thirty she told them to go to bed.

  ‘I want to play cardth with you, Daddy Ray.’

  Like her aunties, flirting around boys in Woody Creek. It worked too. He lifted her up to his lap. Which was probably a good thing. Why didn’t it feel good? Maybe she saw his own sitting on his lap, thirteen of his own.

  She turned away and led the other two into their room, tucked them in, kissed them — while there were only two to kiss — then escaped outside via the sleep-out door, loathing herself for wanting to kiss those two faces and not wanting to kiss the third of them — and knowing she’d feel the same about his baby.

  Snails on the path, dozens of them, encouraged out by the rain. She picked off three giants partying on a lettuce, found more crawling up her silverbeet. She’d dug that earth, she’d planted those seeds, and had no intention of sharing the fruits of her labour with snails. Crushed them beneath her shoe, and enjoyed crushing them, and remembered the dream she’d had in Sydney of crushing miniature twins with parachutes. While there was light to see by, she searched for more snails to crush. Scooped mashed snails up with her trowel and added them to her mulch bin — let them do something useful for once in their useless lives.

  Maybe the snails caused the argument. Maybe it was the rain and the thought of trying to get napkins dry in Melbourne. Maybe it was the milk, or Margot, still sitting on Ray’s lap.

  ‘Bed, Margot.’

  ‘I want a drink of milk firtht.’

  ‘I’ve got half a bottle and it’s for breakfast,’ Jenny said.

  ‘I want a drink of milk, Daddy Ray.’

  ‘Put her down, Ray.’

  He put her down and went to the fridge, took out the half-full bottle and poured most of it into a glass.

  That’s what started the argument. Milk and milking cows, and Margot’s smirking face, and her father’s stubby little hand reaching for the glass.

  Jenny’s reach was longer. She snatched it.

  ‘G-give it to her.’

  ‘It’s for porridge in the morning and there’s not even enough for that.’

  ‘G-give it to her.’

  ‘Buy enough and I will. Get to bed, Margot. Now!’

  ‘I want milk.’

  ‘Get into your bloody bed when I tell you to!’

  She snatched the milk bottle and poured milk carelessly into it. Bottle in the refrigerator, its door slammed and her back was against it.

  ‘It’th Daddy Ray’th houth, not your houth, and it’th hith milk too.’

  ‘Talk back to me again and I’ll slap you, Margot.’

  ‘She n-n-needs it more than them.’

  ‘What one of my kids gets, the others get. Now get out of my sight, you brat of a girl, or by God you’ll wish you had.’

  ‘You’re t-turning a bit of m-milk into a w-war.’

  ‘Stop taking her part against me, Ray. She’s going to bed, and if she’s not in it by the time I count to three, I promise she’ll feel the wooden spoon on her bum.’

  ‘You thwored two timeth now.’

  ‘Swore, not swored. There is no such word as swored. I swore. Now get to bloody bed or your bum will suffer.’

  She sounded like Wilma, felt like Norman protecting his little milk from Sissy, but she’d started the war, and if she backed down tonight she may as well throw herself under a tram.

  She reached for that kid’s arm to drag her to bed. Margot dodged behind Ray; he put his arm around her and that brat stuck her tongue out.

  ‘You j-just w-want your own w-w-way.’

  ‘Jenny wantth her own way. Jenny wantth her own way.’ Margot chanting — as her fathers had chanted. ‘Jenny wantth her own way. Jenny wantth her own way.’

  And that fool started chanting with her.

  ‘You pair of two-year-old idiots!’

  Margot, top-heavy, short-legged, not well coordinated, pushed roughly from him, fell to her backside as the sugar bowl spun from the table, scattering precious sugar. His full ashtray followed it, spilling ash and butts to the sugar. Couldn’t even sweep it up for jam-making. A chair flew at the passage door, but Margot went to bed, and without her milk.

  Two kids sitting up in bed. The third between them, blankets over her head. That little bugger had started this. Now she was hiding from it.

  Chairs flying in the kitchen, the table rocking. Its leg was bruised before he was done. Hoped his foot was bruised. They bruised the kids’ bedroom door. He kicked it open. She kicked it shut.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jenny?’ Georgie knew she’d started it with her reading.

  ‘Margot wanted to drink all of the milk so there’d be none for breakfast,’ Jenny said.

  Let her take responsibility for her actions. A decent dose of childhood guilt might save that brat a whole heap of adult pain.

  Ray went to his room. Jenny picked up chairs, swept up sugarcoated ash and butts, wiped sugar from his spilled cigarettes. She was sliding cigarettes into his packet when she heard a gentle knocking on the glass door. Wilma Fogarty was out there. Jenny hoped she hadn’t been standing out there five minutes ago.

  ‘Doreen’s daughter just came over to tell us her father’s been rushed to the hospital with his heart. Doreen has gone in with him. Could you . . .?’

  The world might end but that Friday-night card game would go on. That’s what women did. That’s how they survived their swollen bellies and bad-tempered men who bought cigarettes instead of milk and bread.

  ‘By God, I could,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll be down in five minutes.’

  She didn’t tell Ray she was going. She told the kids and Flora, left the passage door open. By the smile on Geoff’s face, they’d heard the flying furniture. Too bad. She heard enough from their side.

  VERONICA

  Veronica was there; tall, dark, lean as a greyhound but more attractive, a wide mouth eager to laugh at the world, and dark deep-set eyes that never laughed. Jenny had noticed her eyes when she’d knocked on the glass door with a bundle of alterations. She’d been heavier twelve months ago. Too thin now, and tall, as tall as Granny, hair like Sissy’s, nice hair. Jenny knew her as Mrs Andrews, the bank manager’s wife. That night she met Vroni, the card player, who was divorcing her husband.

  No one spoke openly about divorce in Woody Creek. No one did it. Granny could have. Norman should have.

  Veronica spoke of other subjects considered taboo in most company.

  ‘My new chap has got a wife and grown-up sons,’ she said.

  She would have been tarred and feathered for coming out with something like that in Woody Creek.

  ‘We could have been playing cards in jail tonight — separate cells. Ian had one of his specials booked in on Wednesday, a society dame — who, I might add, didn’t look a lot like she looks in the society pages. Of course I was looking at her from the wrong angle.’

  The women laughed. Jenny hadn’t got the point of the joke, but laughed with them.

  ‘Vroni’s chap specialises on what’s below a woman’s belt,’ Wilma explained. ‘He does abortions on the side.’

  Wilma was a joke a minute. Jenny laughed again, but alone.

  ‘It was no laughing matter on Wednesday,’ Veronica said. ‘We were just getting down to the business and someone started banging on the front door. I looked out the window and there’s a cop at the door. You’ve never seen such a flurry in your life. We tossed the dame off the table, and while I pushed her into the lav and pitched her fancy fur at her, Ian
went down to face him. It turned out to be nothing. The dame had parked her car around the corner, halfway across the driveway of some nob who wanted to get his limo out to take his wife to the ballet. He called the cops to move the car, and they were going door to door looking for the owner. The dame went down, moved it and fifteen minutes later she was back, demanding we do the deed — which we did.’

  Jenny’s heart started racing, her mind outpacing it. She played her cards, or followed suit. The hand was lost or won, the tricks totalled before she found breath enough, found nerve enough, to ask.

  ‘How much does he charge, Vroni?’

  ‘It depends on the case, the patient’s level of desperation, how much they can afford, how busy he is. With Cup week coming up, there’s been a rush.’

  ‘Women can bleed to death from it, can’t they?’

  ‘You’ve been listening to the populate or perish brigade. More perish while populating than do while having abortions. There’s nothing to it if you catch it early.’

  ‘How early?’ Jenny asked, the cards forgotten as five sets of eyes turned to her. She couldn’t hold that many eyes. She looked at the table.

  ‘It’s your deal, love,’ Carol said.

  Cards scooped to her side with shaking hands, shuffled, a few spilled, collected then shuffled again. She dealt them, her heart beating like a tractor motor, shaking her bones with its beat while the conversation turned to ‘bloody awful hands’ to ‘hands like hoofs’. They liked to moan about terrible hands.

  Head down, Jenny sorted her cards into a fan, her hands shaking, shaking the fan, blinding her momentarily to the incredible hand she’d dealt herself. She had the joker, the right bower, and five hearts, three of them big hearts. Then she found the ace of clubs hiding behind the queen of diamonds. She was holding eight unbeatable tricks in her hand. Was it a sign that for once in her life she was meant to win?

  She didn’t want Ray’s baby, and it wasn’t a baby anyway. It was an overdue period. She had money in the bank. She’d spend the whole lot of it . . .