by Sue Orr
‘I’ll stay with you, Audrey. I’ll send Eugene away … he can come back and get me later …’
‘No. It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll be fine,’ Audrey said, her face still pinched in a frown, her arms still full of not-clean-enough laundry. ‘You go, Joy. Go now.’
As Joy turned towards the men, she heard the click of pegs snapping as sheet after sheet was torn from the line.
Crickets vortexed into her vision as she sat silently next to Eugene on the way home. As they picked up speed, the insects flowed thicker, faster. Every now and then, one hit the windscreen, ending its flight with a faint thud against the glass. Did they die? She wondered about those shiny hard black bodies, how thick were they?
How many did it take to make a plague? There had been a plague in the Bible, she remembered. Her impression was of millions of insects swarming around the heads of people, getting in their hair and eyes and eating all the plants. The nature stories had been the best, the easiest to accept and remember, because the events in them could all be proven. With a plague, for example, insects gathered and flew off together somewhere. There’d been plagues in real life, everyone knew that.
Plagues were supposed to be punishment for something — God (was it God, or one of those cruel kings who ruled back then?) had kept sending new plagues until someone stopped picking on someone else. Joy turned her head away from Eugene and looked out the side window. In the darkness, she allowed herself the smallest smile.
The police talked to Audrey, then returned to Fenward the next day and talked to Nickie and Gabrielle. Joy sat with the girls as the young male officer, who’d driven all the way from Hamilton, asked them to explain exactly what had happened on the afternoon they’d found the body. She held her breath as the policeman folded away his notebook and made ready to leave.
‘If you think of anything else, you can telephone me,’ he said, pulling the notebook out of his pocket again and scribbling a number on a page torn from his little book.
‘We won’t,’ said Gabrielle, blowing her fringe back. ‘That’s it. Start to finish.’
Over the next days, Fenward telephone lines hummed as officers in Thames and Hamilton called farmers and farmers’ wives and asked about Jack Gilbert. They heard the same story from everyone: Jack Gilbert wasn’t the best farmer but he was a good bloke. Had he been known to ever take a dip in the river before? Well, some said, yes, they believed he had, once or twice, when the heat had got too much to bear.
In the absence of any other explanation — no injuries other than those associated with drowning, nor a suicide note back home — they decided that’s exactly what had happened.
Four days later, Fenward buried Jack Gilbert.
Joy woke just before dawn, drawn out of her sleep by rain lashing at the window and pounding the roof. She lay still, listening. After a time, she became aware that Eugene was awake, too.
‘A shame,’ she murmured. ‘For Audrey. Today of all days.’
Would Audrey notice the rain? Notions regarding wet and dry evaded her. Joy imagined a slow parade of cars, led by a hearse, rumbling along the country roads towards Paeroa. The cars driving right past the gateway of the Gilbert property. Audrey Gilbert barely glancing up at the cortège as she frantically pegged, unpegged, pegged again.
Beside her, Eugene took a deep breath. Joy wondered whether he’d dozed off again, but when he spoke, his voice faltered.
‘A shame for Audrey, a bloody tragedy for Jack,’ he said.
‘He’ll stay dry, where he is. The rest of us will get soaked.’
‘It’s what did it, and now it’s over.’
Joy turned her head, puzzled. Eugene was staring at the ceiling, blinking hard.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘The drought, Joy. That’s what tipped Jack over the edge. It might be over, but it’s too late for him.’
Joy propped herself up on her elbow and looked hard at Eugene. Eugene’s eyes were closed, he was shaking his head.
‘Is that really what you think?’
‘Makes sense. No irrigation, the farm run down. And Jack being … the way he was, tight with money. He’d let things go for too long. Couldn’t claw his way out of the stress.’
Joy let her head fall back on the pillow. She was careful in choosing her next words, in how she said them.
‘You don’t think … it could have been anything else?’
They lay there together for a few moments more, both staring at the ceiling. The rain seemed to be getting heavier, gaining the rhythm of a beating drum, but that might have been Joy’s imagination.
‘What else could it have been, Joy?’
She couldn’t call it menace, the tone in her husband’s voice, but she sensed the warning, clear and final. Officially, Jack had died by accident in the river. Unofficially, decades of poor farming had beaten his spirit. It could have been nothing else.
Joy rolled away from Eugene. A man was dead and a woman beaten beyond dignity and the weather was to blame. That was how it was and how it would be told in the coming days and months and years, and after that, too, should anyone want to know the story of Jack Gilbert.
Joy closed her eyes, hoping for calm. A tic flickered under her right eyelid. Behind her, Eugene sighed at the tragedy of his newly constructed truth and got out of bed. She listened to his footsteps as he padded towards the bathroom.
Something else niggled at Joy. She lay still and searched for the source of the unease.
Nickie and Gabrielle, in the hallway on the night Jack’s body had been found. They’d listened in as Eugene and Ian Baxter talked about life and death and right and wrong. She’d chased the girls away without a thought as to what they might have heard or not heard, understood or misunderstood about the protocols regarding a violent man taking his own life.
Audrey did make it to Jack’s burial. She took her place behind the coffin as Eugene, Tony Jackson and Robbie Lind and a man Joy didn’t know carried it up the aisle of the church. Audrey wore a plain black cotton dress with long sleeves, black pantyhose and flat shoes scuffed at the toes. No skin, bruised, broken or otherwise, on display.
Joy hadn’t realised Jack had been a Catholic. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him at church. Yet here they were, farewelling him as though he’d stood and knelt and sung his heart out every Sunday of his life. She glanced to her left — Hans and Josephine Janssen had slipped into the pew next to her. Josephine reached across and squeezed her hand. Hans nodded to her then opened his Mass book, head bowed.
Father Brindle welcomed the congregation. Joy wondered what he would say about a man who had never graced the doorway of the church.
A tragedy. The sadness of the loss. The words tumbled out of the mouth of the priest with such integrity. Joy closed her eyes, unable to bear the charade. When the word accident was uttered, she felt Eugene shift in his seat beside her, and glanced at him. His eyes were cast down and he nodded, ever so slightly, as though endorsing Father Brindle’s words.
‘Jack came to see me not long before he passed away,’ the priest said.
The words startled Joy back to attention.
‘He spoke of his regret at neglecting his faith. We talked for a long time about forgiveness and God’s unconditional, eternal love for all.’
Father Brindle paused, looking down at the pulpit. Joy held her breath, waiting to hear what would come next. There was much for God to forgive in this big room alone. Mostly, for things people hadn’t done, hadn’t said. Mostly, but not entirely.
The priest’s eyes roamed the congregation. Was it Joy’s imagination, or did they rest on her for just a second or two longer than anywhere else? She held his gaze, daring him to look away first.
There was no wake. No one had expected Audrey to organise one. Others might have stepped forward and made arrangements but, somehow, the collective desire to celebrate the life of Jack Gilbert had fallen short.
Outside the church, the women gathered in the drizzling rain arou
nd Audrey and patted her on the shoulder. No one stepped forward to hug her. This was the closest many of them had ever been to Jack’s wife. It was as if they were frightened of what they might see. The men walked by and nodded respectfully in her direction. Joy looked up, searching for a blue patch of sky, and found none. She sensed the presence of Jack somewhere above her, a puppeteer idly twitching strings attached to his wife and neighbours.
Eugene came over to say there was talk among the men of going to the pub, toasting Jack with a beer after the burial.
‘Will you ask Ian to go, too?’ Joy nodded in the direction of Ian, who was standing awkwardly on his own near the steps of the church.
‘May do,’ said Eugene.
Which, Joy knew, meant no.
‘What are you holding against that man?’ They were no better than catty girls. ‘He’s worked bloody hard for Jack. It’s not his fault what’s happened, remember? That’s what you told me this morning—’
Eugene was holding her by the elbow. She felt his hand tighten — not hurting her, but firm. ‘I said, we’ll see. It’s not up to just me.’
Ian lifted his sleeve and looked at his watch, then looked around, as though searching for someone. Joy thought it might be Audrey, but Ian’s gaze fixed on Father Brindle, who was making his way towards the hearse. Ian followed the priest. Joy and Eugene watched as Ian whispered something in Father Brindle’s ear. The priest frowned and searched the crowd for Audrey before turning his attention back to Ian’s quiet words. The next time Father Brindle looked around, his gaze settled on Eugene. Joy’s heart soared as the hand on her elbow loosened and dropped away.
2014
‘I never really understood,’ says Nicola, ‘why I wasn’t allowed to go to Jack Gilbert’s funeral. You never explained.’
The indicator ticks as she waits to turn right, towards the church. The traffic’s busy for a Wednesday, a constant stream of cars travelling west to east, inland to coast. The students have all crossed the road. With her window down, she can smell cigarette smoke drifting from behind the bottle. Weed, too. She breathes in deeply, grateful for the second-hand smoke seeing as her mother’s not sharing.
‘I remember. I had my best brown pinafore out, all ready to go. It was the closest thing I had to black. Gabrielle said we had to wear black. Then you came in and said no.’
Joy’s leaning back against the headrest. Her eyes are closed. Nicola wonders whether she’s fallen asleep.
‘Mum?’
‘It was your father who said no. He wanted to keep you away from it all. The both of you girls. You can understand why.’
‘Not really …’
‘I think he was frightened.’
Nicola laughs. ‘Dad frightened? I don’t think so Mum—’
‘He was frightened for you and he was frightened of Gabrielle Baxter. They were all frightened of that wee girl. Not that he’d ever admit it. Not even to me. Especially not to me.’
Nicola slows down as she approaches the church. It’s on a slope on the left-hand side. Pale, modern brick with its stark concrete cross facing the road, a series of sweeping driveways encircling the building. She swallows a lump in her throat. The last time she was at this church, it was Joy’s funeral.
She remembers how it used to be hard finding a park there, when she was a kid, how everyone arrived at Mass early to avoid having to clamber up the hillside. Now she wonders whether she’s got the day right. There are only half a dozen cars there and it’s close to eleven. Panic flutters inside her. What if there’s just her — her and a couple of other people? Who will carry the coffin?
She glances at Joy, who’s awake and smiling.
‘Never mind about that Jack Gilbert. He was a no-good bugger. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but it’s okay if you’re dead, too.’ Joy’s voice is fading. ‘You’ve done the right thing, coming today, Nicola.’
1973
Ian Baxter
Ian felt the curiosity burn into his back as he turned away from Father Brindle outside the church and walked towards the ute. Each step, though, felt lighter than the last. He didn’t care what happened, as a consequence of telling the priest about the rocks in Jack’s pockets. He had cleared his conscience.
Later, after milking, he watched cars coming and going from Audrey’s house. He imagined the stews and cakes piling high in the kitchen; that was, he recalled, the way grief played itself out.
Two days after the funeral, Ian went to see Audrey. Jack’s dogs barked and lunged at him as he got out of the ute. He called to them and they settled.
It was the first time he’d been inside the house. The starkness didn’t surprise him. It wasn’t so different to the way he and Gabrielle lived; there was a comfort in the familiarity. No clutter.
Audrey led him silently through to the kitchen and they sat at the table.
Ian allowed himself to look at her. It was the first time since he’d tried, and failed, to reach out to her during haymaking. She’d brushed him away then, but Jack had been there. Now Jack was gone.
He searched her face for grief, found it in the dark shadows under her red eyes. Her hair was lank, oily, pulled back from her face in a rubber band. Her hand crept constantly, nervously to the back of her neck. She touched, withdrew, touched again, like a doctor gently feeling for a broken bone beneath a child’s skin.
Ian wondered whether she was trying to hide the injury — the last of Jack’s brandings. She’d surely let her hair down to cover it? The third time, he saw the look that passed across her face as she touched the yellow bruising. Her eyelids closed, fluttered, like someone caught between sleep and wakefulness. She was inside a memory.
For a time before coming to the house, he’d thought about sharing his story with Audrey. His deceit in applying for the job, the trauma of blinking, one clear, cool dawn, and finding himself in his car, ready to drive off and abandon his child. He was going to tell her about the viciousness of Bridie before she died, the violence of the slashing and cutting and his silent suffering — not only of the pain from the glass shards, but of understanding that Bridie was fighting death until the very end. Until her body gave out.
Ian had been ready to share all of this, if it meant reaching Audrey Gilbert, pulling her back from the dark pit Jack had kicked her into. But now, watching her finger her injuries, Ian understood. The place was a strange, distant nirvana.
Ian turned his mind to practical things. He could continue working the farm on his own. He’d learned much of what he needed to know about the rhythms of the seasons, the giving and taking of Nature, the needs of the stock. But he did need to know who, if anyone, would pay him.
‘I’m sorry for your loss, Audrey.’
Audrey didn’t speak. Nothing about her changed. Ian waited a little longer, thought about asking her to put the kettle on, then decided against prolonging the visit unnecessarily.
‘I know what you’re going through.’
Audrey smiled and blinked slowly again.
‘I’m wondering … I know it’s early days … but do you want me to keep going? I mean … just carry on with the farm, for the time being?’
Ian watched her chest rise, then fall, the barest sign she was living and breathing.
‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘For now.’
How was he going to bring it up? The money?
‘My brother’s looking after the accounts. Your money’ll go in as usual.’ As if she could read his mind.
Ian nodded. He could leave now, but it didn’t feel right. So he sat in the silence and tried to remember what people had said to him after Bridie’s death.
‘If there’s anything you need, Audrey. Anything that needs doing around the house … you only have to ask.’ Yes. That was how it went.
The dogs kicked off again, the barking becoming more frantic, then vicious. Ian could hear the creak of the fence as it strained under the pulling of their chains.
Audrey sighed.
‘I�
��ll get going now … looks as though you’ve more company.’ Ian pushed his chair back, grateful for the release. ‘They mean well, Audrey.’
He wasn’t sure whether that was true or not. He still hadn’t fathomed the meaning of the rituals around Bridie’s death. If he was honest, he struggled to remember the details of it all anyway.
He was nearly at the door when she spoke.
‘I’ll be selling the farm, Ian. If you’re interested.’
Ian didn’t turn around. ‘I wouldn’t have the money, Audrey. I’ve got a bit saved, but not enough. Nowhere near it.’
‘We could work something out.’
Ian brought the cows into the yard for afternoon milking. As he worked the shed pit, flicking the cups on and off, he tried to rationalise the last few days. There was an order in which events needed to be processed. Where was Bridie? She’d been so good at this.
The business of the stones and the suicide no longer ate away at his soul. He’d watched silently as Eugene had wrenched the rocks out of Jack’s pockets, muttering under his breath Bloody stupid bugger as he’d pitched the stones hard into the centre of the river.
Suicide, unforgiveable in the Church … Ian had not known then that Jack was a Catholic, but even so …
You know why, Ian Baxter. You know why you can live with it. Stop the bullshit.
‘There you are.’ Ian smiled, released a row of cows from the bales, clambered up the steps of the pit and herded eight more in.
He killed himself because of Gabrielle. Because she’d spoken out loud about the thing everyone ignored. He knew she wouldn’t give in.
‘He killed himself because of the drought, because the farm’s a mess.’
That’s crap and you know it.
‘Actually, I don’t know it. No one knows. He never left a note.’
Shame on you.