by Joy Dettman
She watched him open the fridge and stand before it. Still some mince in there, a bowl of mashed potatoes. They could be heated. She’d gone past her first feeling of abhorrence about old Phoebe and was edging back towards pity. He’d left Woody Creek as an eleven- or twelve-year-old kid and somehow found his way to a safe harbour, and whether he’d shared old Phoebe’s bed or not, was that any worse than what she’d done with Laurie?
He removed a plate of greaseproof-paper-covered steak, dripped blood to the floor as he took the paper off. She rose to save further disaster.
‘Do you want me to fry a piece for you?’
He wanted; she read desire for steak — or her — in his eyes. He didn’t reply, but turned to the bread tin. Plenty of yesterday’s bread for a sandwich.
Veronica’s cigarettes were on the dresser beside the bread tin. She’d placed them there before she’d started plastering the girls with zinc cream. Forgotten to give them to Vroni. Capstan cigarettes, not Ray’s brand, but in his hand now, and he was looking at her, his eyes accusing her of infamy.
‘Veronica was here. She forgot to take them.’
She reached for the dishcloth, stooped to wipe up the blood spill as he opened the packet.
‘S-s-spent your f-f-free day on your b-b-back, you slut.’
‘Veronica popped in to tell me her husband —’
The open packet flew at her head, missed, hit the wall, cigarettes and ten-pound notes spilling.
‘— is in jail.’
She retrieved the scattered notes, aware she couldn’t explain why Veronica had left them. Retrieved the packet, was sliding them back in when she was hit by a truck.
Flew. Hit the dresser. Plates rattled as the floor rose up to meet her.
‘B-been at it for months, you sh-she-dog slut.’
Dragged up by an arm, smashed down again, landed hard on her elbow. Shock of pain overriding the shock of his attack. Paralysing pain.
‘That’s how you’ve b-b-been feeding your bastards.’
Flung at the wall, she offered no more resistance than a kitchen chair. Chairs didn’t have hair. Dragged her up by her hair. Fist in her face. Stars, then lights out.
A haze of pain. A chorus of screaming. Lying face down. Trying to roll over, see the screaming.
Georgie, screaming little warrior wearing white warpaint, throwing herself on Jenny. Jimmy, wrapping his arms around the monster’s leg. Margot, a foot-stamping fire imp. ‘Daddy Ray. Daddy Ray.’
Perhaps that name reached his mind. He went away. Only the bike howling its pain then.
Georgie kneeling at her side, pushing a tea towel into Jenny’s face. One elbow trying to get her up, the other arm too useless to push the tea towel away.
‘It’s getting everywhere, Jenny. It’s running all on your dress.’
‘He’s gone now Jenny. His bike’s gone now Jenny.’
Scared little kids, and she’d done this to them. She’d given them a name, and done this to them. Raised herself up onto her backside with her one good arm, got her back against the wall, took the tea towel and held it to her nose.
‘I like Granny’s house best,’ Jimmy howled. ‘Jenny, I want us to go to Granny’s house.’
Head hurting. Hip, elbow hurting. Mouth, face, back hurting. Trying to get onto her feet. Too many little hands trying to help, hindered. She stayed down.
‘Get Lois’th mother?’ the pudgy fire imp said.
‘No.’ She’d get up. ‘No.’
Two hands on the dresser, she got one foot beneath her, then the other. Stood leaning there, her head circling, little faces circling.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll go home.’
Literal little beings, kids, they ran to the bedroom to dress for home. She limped, via the dresser, via the table, to the sink. Stood there, her nose dripping great splotches of blood to metal, her elbow doing its own dripping. Hard to see an elbow. She felt for damage, felt an inch of skin flapping in the breeze. Washed it, and pink water ran down into Melbourne’s anonymous drains, disappeared into anonymity.
Blood everywhere. Nose running like a tap. Mrs Carter’s daughter’s ballgown in a pillow slip on the table. Wilma’s sisterin-law’s skirt in with it. Had to stay away from that table. The tea towel held to pinched nostrils, she limped to the door and locked it. Only glass. Glass wouldn’t keep a monster out.
The kids came to her side, shoes and socks on, all ready to go to Granny’s house, Jimmy holding the photograph of his daddy. She held them to her, her bunch of babies, held them hard and knew that being nameless wasn’t the worst thing in the world. They gripped hold of parts of her and every part they gripped hurt; still held them though. Dripped blood to Margot’s white hair. Let it soak in, please God, let it fuse me to that kid.
Later, when her nose stopped dripping, when the tea towel and her blood-stained frock were soaking in the sink, when she knew her lower lip was split, that her nose may have been broken, that she wasn’t going anywhere, not tonight, she walked out to the sleep-out to check the rear door. Just a tiny snib on it, barely enough to keep a cat out.
Norman’s toolbox lived beneath her camp bed, heavy enough to assist that snib. Too heavy for her tonight. She opened it and removed Norman’s hammer, his tommyhawk. The kids following at her heels, wanted to go to Granny’s, not for Jenny to start fixing something. Nothing to say to them, not yet. Too sore for words. Too sore to take her green linen from its hanger, but she got it down, found a clean petticoat in the drawer, took them, with hammer and tommyhawk, to the kids’ bedroom and locked that door.
‘Hop back into bed, darlin’s.’
They weren’t getting into that bed. They were going to Granny’s.
This night would be etched into their memories forever. She hadn’t wanted them to have bad memories.
Too late now.
‘The doors are locked. Pop into bed for me. Leave your clothes on.’
‘He might break the glass. I don’t like glass, Jenny,’ Georgie said.
‘Glass makes a big noise when it breaks. We’ll hear it.’
‘Not if we’re atheep,’ the fire imp said.
‘I won’t go to sleep.’
Not until their shoes, their socks, Jim’s photograph, had been placed into a string bag and hooked over the doorknob with the snakeskin handbag did those kids get into bed.
He didn’t return.
Jenny didn’t go to bed. She slept at the table, head on her arms, Norman’s tommyhawk at her elbow.
The kids didn’t go to school on Monday, or on Tuesday. Margot’s sunburn needed more than zinc cream and olive oil. Jenny had nothing more, and couldn’t leave the house to get more, so she plastered her with what she had.
He didn’t come home on Tuesday night. Spending Veronica’s money on accommodation, on prostitutes? He’d taken it, and the cigarettes.
‘When will we go, Jenny?’
‘When Margot’s sunburn is better.’
She didn’t mention her own face. They could see her face.
He came at six thirty on the Wednesday. She was boiling macaroni, a sheeting bandage restricting her elbow’s movement. How else do you keep an elbow still enough for it to heal? He tried the door, stood a moment looking in, expecting someone to open it. No one moved in the kitchen, other than Jenny, who picked up Norman’s tommyhawk.
He left the door. They heard the howl of his bike fade in the distance.
Georgie and Jimmy went to school on Thursday. They walked there alone. Margot looked less like a boiled yabby but the skin on her face had wrinkled as it dried. She was more gnome now than fire imp.
‘You’ll remember your hat next time, won’t you?’
‘He thaid we’d jutht get ithe-cream.’
‘You have to learn to think for yourself, not expect other people to think for you, Margot.’
‘You thaid he was our thtepfather and to do what he thaid.’
She had, back in the early days of hope. She smoothed on more zinc
cream, learning that jaw-clamping little face as her hands followed its contours, learning her arms, the backs of her knees. For the first time in eight years, they had a common bond, Jenny and Margot. Jenny’s left eye was swollen, near closed, and underlined by dark purple and black bruising. Both of Margot’s eyes were slits in a piebald face.
On Thursday, he came at six to that locked door. The kids watched him place a load of shopping down: four bottles of milk, a large loaf of bread, butter, sugar, newspaper-wrapped meat. And Veronica’s cigarettes.
He didn’t wait at the door that night. They waited for the bike’s howl. No howl. He was out there somewhere. They waited for fifteen minutes, listening. Couldn’t hear him. Maybe he’d walked off somewhere.
‘Can we get it, Jenny?’
Great respecters of food, Jenny’s kids, and right outside that door there was a glut of it.
She unlocked it, picked up the cigarette packet to check its contents. Three cigarettes and the red roll of ten-pound notes. Removed them. And he must have been on the front veranda. He came around the corner while she was counting them.
‘I d-d-did something s-stupid,’ he said.
The kids separated. Jimmy ran for the backyard. Georgie stepped back to Jenny’s side. Margot scuttled inside, a bottle of milk in each hand.
‘H-h-h-he h-hung himself.’
Jenny didn’t know who had hung himself and didn’t care. She backed inside, walked to the table and picked up the tommyhawk. Vegetable pancakes burning on the stove. Georgie lifted the pan.
‘He g-g-got away w-w-with f-fifteen thousand.’
Knew then who had hung himself. Knew that Vroni was free. Knew too that Ray thought it was over. He’d done something stupid. Admitting it was his apology.
She took the pan and turned the pancakes. Still edible. Placed them back over the heat.
He’d bought a pound of sausages, his second apology. She fried them and served four meals.
He served himself from the pan, cut bread and sat with them at the table. Maybe he thought it was over.
It wasn’t.
When her face looked normal, when Margot’s face had finished peeling, then it would be over.
She finished rolling the hem of Mrs Carter’s daughter’s ballgown that night while he prowled. Three times he went to his bedroom and closed the door. The third time it opened, Jenny stopped her hand’s reflex move towards the tommyhawk. His lost lamb’s eyes were back. He looked lost.
‘I l-l —’ He came to the table, shielding his eyes from the glare, or from the sight of what he’d done to her face. ‘I l-l-love you.’
Couldn’t raise one word in reply. Made a careful stitch, then another.
‘I g-g-got n-n-no one, Jenny.’
She sighed and made three more stitches.
‘I l-love you.’
Raised her eyes to his then. ‘You don’t love me, Ray. You married me because you thought I was the town slut and you didn’t deserve anything better. I married you because I thought I didn’t deserve any better. I deserve a whole heap better, and so do my kids.’
PACKING UP
On Thursday, 21 November 1947, the day Princess Elizabeth was to marry her Prince Charming, Jenny was leaving her marriage — and doing it right, using her head for once in her life.
She’d filled in forms to have her child endowment transferred to Woody Creek; had filled in more to have Jenny Morrison Hooper King’s bank account transferred to the Willama branch of the National Bank. She’d found the name of a local carrier in the telephone book and made the phone call. Yesterday, she’d spoken to the secondhand dealer in High Street who’d sold her the kitchen dresser. He would buy it back, along with the kids’ bed, their chest of drawers and maybe the sleep-out cabinet.
Sissy’s mattress was going home. It was a good one. Granny’s tin trunk was packed again with Norman’s linen, blankets, Amber’s tablecloths; a new label pasted over the old.
She’d mass-produced labels, eight of them, cut from heavy cardboard, her name in block print: J.C. KING, C/O MRS FOOTE, WOODY CREEK STATION. Holes made with the point of her scissors, she threaded lengths of twine through them and set about tying one to each item. They were numbered: Norman’s toolbox was number one; three large rope-sealed cardboard cartons were two, three and four. Then the red case, the trunk, the mattress, the parcel of pillows.
On the run since Tuesday, she’d spent last night packing quietly. This morning, once the kids had gone off to school, she’d rolled their mattress and roped it. Roped the blanket-wrapped pillows.
Nothing she’d brought to this house, or paid for in this house, would remain, only her labour. No use taking down curtains. She’d considered it. No windows for them to shield at Granny’s house. She’d left him bread, butter, dripping, a bowl of sugar, a little tea. He’d bought the potatoes; she’d left them. Amber’s canisters, her spices, were going home, packed with Jenny’s empty jam jars. Granny was always searching for jars.
Her account book lay open on the table. She checked the list made during the past three days. All items ticked. On the opposite page she’d made a list for the secondhand man. Hoped he wasn’t late.
Twice she’d thought about writing a note to Ray. Twice she’d picked up her pencil and attempted to find a word or two for him. He’d been coming home every night sober, with milk and bread, butter too, and meat he knew she’d cook. Whether his offerings were further apology, or insurance against her showing her face to the street, she didn’t know. She hadn’t shown her face. She hadn’t opened the curtains, or the glass door to Wilma last Wednesday, or to a possible customer last Friday.
Georgie had delivered the ballgown to Mrs Carter. She’d delivered the skirt for Wilma to give to her sister-in-law.
A swollen nose will shrink back to its original size in days, split lips heal quickly, bruising takes longer to fade. Still shades of his bruising beneath her right eye, a large ugly scab on her elbow, the remains of a football-sized bruise on her hip, but she was fit to be seen.
Margot was fit to be seen too. She’d been back at school since Monday.
Dear Ray, her pencil wrote.
He could work out words if they were spelt phonetically. Her pencil laboured for a time, attempting to find words spelt phonetically. Still pitied him, always would. He had no one, no friend to talk motors with, a landlord who wanted him out — if a landlord he was when he received no rent from his tenant. She’d pitied the old swaggies who had stopped for a day or two in Woody Creek, pitied the derelicts lying beside their bottles on Melbourne park benches. Didn’t pity them enough to want to live with them — and feared Ray enough to not want to live with him. Feared him as she’d feared Amber. You can’t live with a walking time-bomb. You can’t wander around in a blindfold listening for its tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. Kids got stuck in whatever situation their parents stuck them in. She wasn’t a kid, and she was getting her kids unstuck.
I’m taking the kids home, taking what I . . . would he work out brought?
He’d know as soon as he opened the door that they’d gone, and know why. No need for a note. She crumpled the page and stuffed it into her handbag.
Apart from Laurie’s stolen money that day in Geelong, she’d never seen so much of the stuff before in one place. She had twenty left from what she’d withdrawn from her bank account, plus Veronica’s five ten-pound notes, and change. And she’d have more after the secondhand man had been.
Wished he’d come. He’d promised to be here by one. Loathed relying on others. Loathed watching the hands of her watch eating away the minutes. Plenty of time though.
She lit a cigarette and watched the hand holding it shake. It would stop shaking once she was on her way — or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe she’d damaged a nerve in her elbow. Granny would want to know how she’d done it. Tripped over in the dark on the way down to the lav and banged it on the washhouse wall, Granny . . .
Jimmy would tell Granny how she’d done it. Little blabbermouth Jimmy.
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nbsp; She sat smoking, flicking ash into the sink and watching the hands of her watch move to one fifteen. Stubbed out the butt, washed the ash down the sink, then set about moving her belongings outside. She’d done her packing silently, aware of Flora’s footsteps a wall away. Gave up on silence now, pushed and dragged the tin trunk out to the veranda. Tin on wood is noisy. Cardboard cartons slide silently. She carried her old red case; rolled and dragged the mattress, not heavy but bulky, as was the parcel of pillows. The toolbox was as heavy as lead.
Little case waiting open on the table. It would travel with her. Her alarm clock, nightclothes for herself and the kids, clean socks, a few items of emergency clothing. They’d stay tonight at a cheap hotel in Spencer Street, already booked and paid for, as were the train tickets. Everything was done.
Looked at her watch again. After one thirty. She lit another cigarette. She’d opened a fresh packet this morning and gone through half of them already. Granny didn’t approve of smoking. It ruined the lungs, Granny said. It cured the head — and what use a pair of healthy lungs if you were off your head?
Outside, then, to sit on Granny’s tin trunk, to flick ash to the bricked path where he parked his bike. She could watch the street here and not be watched by Flora. Sat feet tapping, willing the secondhand man to stop out front.
Possessions, like kids, grew. When she’d left Myrtle’s boarding house, all she’d owned had fitted into two cases and a string bag. Had left a lot behind in Sydney.
Today wasn’t the time to start thinking about that.
She tossed the butt to the path and reached for her handbag. Its clip would no longer keep it closed. One more journey and she’d put it out to pasture. She removed Granny’s letter, delivered on Tuesday morning, and already well read. That letter had chosen the day of her escape.