Paper Daisies

by Kim Kelly

  Breathe. Listen to the table talk, people merely making noise at each other, until I find Mrs Weston’s voice amongst it. She is politely, reasonably attempting to subvert the natural order of Mrs Dunning’s tiny mind, over the eternally stalled Women’s Franchise Bill. ‘Who else but a woman can take the issues that most affect us up to our administrators – deplorable rates of maternal and infant mortality, deplorable dearth of properly trained nurses in the bush. Men do not care for these things at the ballot box, Virginia, not even where they care deeply for their wives and daughters. It is not their care to consider. It must be for women to take it up to the parliament somehow.’

  ‘Oh, Augusta, I suppose you are right,’ Mrs Dunning concedes regretfully. ‘But only to a point. Perhaps women – married women, mind you – might participate one day. But not the full franchise, surely. What lady would want to participate in the parliaments themselves? Not any lady, I would say. It’s simply not right, not the right way of things. It simply wouldn’t work.’

  Like slapping the Virginia Dunnings of this world across the face with reality: futile. Like most overprivileged women of her generation, she can’t imagine why or how others of her sex might want or need to do anything beyond producing children and afternoon tea parties. Like most determinedly feeble-minded women, she can’t imagine how any of the limitations inflicted upon womankind might be overcome at all. And why would you want to anyway when your husband buys you mink and pearls? No amount of reasoning, polite or otherwise, that South and West Australia haven’t morally or economically disintegrated under their equal suffrage provisions will shift the unshiftable, make the thoughtless think. No amount of irony that our monarch remains a woman, a mother of nine, grandmother of everyone else and Queen over twenty British prime ministers thus far will make the blind see. No wonder New Zealand declined the invitation to join in our Federation.

  But Augusta Weston understands the practicalities of justice, unfurling her rich velvet reason up the table now to the host: ‘What do you say, Alec? Should a lady have the full vote here? Full rights of franchise? How would I go in the parliament?’

  I look up as he chuckles, having been put on the spot, squirming in it, and like a true politician he refuses to answer the question: ‘I am sure you would be formidable, Mrs Weston.’

  ‘Will you push for it? My vote?’ She presses him, bright lavender entreaty with a dare. ‘Are you indeed our man for the New Age?’

  And again he squirms away: ‘For your vote, Mrs Weston, yes of course. I would be unwise not to push for your approval.’

  ‘Yes, you would.’ Mrs Weston sighs deep inside her therapeutic foundations, and as her husband makes some condescending jest about the necessity of his wife’s approval in all things, she says, ‘Thank you, Donald,’ before rejoining Anna Gebhardt’s discussion of Bavarian mental hygiene as the more engaging conversational option.

  Alec Howell will not vote for our enfranchisement when the bill comes around again. Why in heaven’s name would he? He is our guardian. What more could we want? Sir Henry Parkes reincarnate he is not, and he is proud of the fact. Liberal only in his ambition, his lust to command. To belittle. To deride. To control. If he is the new man for modern conservatism, what will the face of the party be? Monstrous.

  ‘I believe in the full enfranchisement of women,’ Mr Wilberry says softly beside me. Almost too softly. Clearing his throat, running a fingertip along the length of his soup spoon; such a tiny soup spoon under his hand. ‘My mother was something of a suffragist, a supporter at least. She could never express the view openly. I believe she would want to now, for the younger ones coming up.’

  ‘Would she? That’s good,’ I reply, brusquely, disconcerted immediately again, and I cannot look at him. This man, this pleasant, gentle stranger, who provokes this odd sensation, a prickling of my skin at the depth of his voice, a queer rush of feeling that is at once welcome and not welcome at all.

  ‘Women?’ Mr Thompson splatters himself across the table for a timely distraction. ‘I say shoot them – Mrs Weston. Mrs Weston, you’ll be in this, won’t you? Bloody women – chain ’em up with the blacks and shoot ’em. Get rid of ’em once and for all. That’ll teach ’em.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Uncle Alec tries condescension with our clown now, ‘we’ve heard that one.’ Above Mrs Weston’s hoot of, ‘Hooray to that, young man,’ and Dulcie’s, ‘I don’t understand what any of you are talking about now,’ he resumes his discussion with Justice Wardell: ‘I mean to say, what happens if a female parliamentarian is alone in the House – middle of the night, late sitting. What has she? One hundred and twenty-five chaperones or one hundred and twenty-five wolves about her?’

  It is as if a black sheet is thrown across my vision at the words.

  I know what Alec Howell might do. Are they all like him?

  Wolves.

  Mr Thompson turns on Mr Dunning: ‘You’d have a hard time containing yourself, wouldn’t you? I don’t mean you personally, Mr Dunning, of course. Wouldn’t have to be too quick on her feet to get away from you, eh, now would she?’

  ‘What did you say?’ J.C. Bullfrog can’t quite grasp the attack.

  But I can. And for the first time this evening clarity has me, at last, and with it comes an intuition. Whoever these strangers are, manic Mr Thompson and mild Mr Wilberry, they are our allies somehow. My plan coalesces with my courage. Now. My moment is now to make my demand. This chance for a little escape; and with it this chance for a little revenge. Quickly: turn the thought to words, and words to knives.

  ‘Uncle Alec,’ I call over Mr Dunning’s slow boiling outrage. ‘Speaking of chaperones, Buckley has agreed to hold off his holiday to take Greta and me out to Hill End tomorrow, out along the Bridle Track.’

  ‘What?’ There’s a fascinating outrage. I’d like it photographed and mounted above the mantel. I might give him a stroke tonight yet. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Oh Ryl!’ Greta exclaims, appearing half-thrilled at the surprise and half-horrified by my new provocation. Don’t you worry, sister, I will not let him come for you tonight, I will not have you pay for my sins with a beating, or worse; but I cannot tear my eyes from Alec Howell’s to let her find my promise there.

  ‘Yes, remember?’ I prod him further and twist the tip. ‘I mentioned it just this afternoon – before … Before you went to see Greta about … whatever it was you went to see Greta about, when she was in her room. Remember?’

  I am bolder than I have ever been. So close to the truth. So close. Shall I announce to the table what you went to Greta for this afternoon, Alec Howell? Do I bluff or shall I dare? I am pinning him to the board like a rat for vivisection: Do not deny me.

  And yet he attempts to, of course. ‘Hill End?’ he scoffs. ‘What would you want to go out there for, Berylda? To see a Chinaman about some snake oil perhaps?’ He sneers under his smile.

  ‘Perhaps.’ I shrug, smug: if only you knew. ‘He sounds like an interesting character, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I do not. That quackery of the Celestials is not medicine, girl, that is newspaper sensationalism combined with village idiocy, and you will not be going to Hill End. I must forbid it. Never mind that the track is in too dangerous a state of disrepair. Never mind that the town is a den of vice.’ He ho-ho-ho’s over me, stupid girl, whatever is she talking about, but none join him. I have his audience for my own.

  ‘Vice?’ I laugh, savagely gay. My sister would be safer living in a brothel than here. ‘There is vice around every bend, isn’t there, Uncle? Wherever we may go there are dangers – why, a young lady is molested at Redfern Station once a month, isn’t she, and I brave its Western Mail platform several times a year. But Buckley will keep us safe on this journey – you know he would do anything for Greta and me, if he could, if he ever knew we were in the slightest trouble. And anyway, I hope to travel with even greater guardianship – I thought that it might be just
the thing to invite Mr Wilberry and Mr Thompson to accompany us. No one would dare accost us with these strapping fellows in our midst, now would they?’

  I don’t give Alec Howell or our guests more than half a blink to digest it. I press on wildly: ‘Oh do say yes, Uncle. It’s been so terribly long since Greta’s been allowed anywhere, never mind that I deserve a little reward for all my hard work this year. And Mr Wilberry. Mr Wilberry, if you come with us, you’ll catch the display of black poppies along the Bridle Track – the old scenic road there. I’m sure they are in bloom this time of year, and they are a sight, those poppies, a botanical treat. Might you delay your plans for us? What do you say? It’ll only be a few days – perhaps three?’

  ‘Black poppies?’ Mr Wilberry looks completely boggled, as if I’ve slipped a drop of their opium into his glass, as Mr Thompson does exactly as one would expect of such a keen troublemaker, demanding of his friend: ‘I think you are required to say yes in this circumstance, Wilber.’

  As Mrs Weston weighs in: ‘Those poppies truly are a glorious sight. It’s all glorious out there. Down along the riverbanks – oh, you should plan a picnic for the journey, Berylda.’

  ‘I was thinking precisely that, Mrs Weston,’ I say, and I turn my blade into the centre of Alec Howell’s forehead. ‘I was thinking we should picnic at the Turon, where it crosses the Track, although Greta and I haven’t been there for many years, of course. I have such happy memories of that place, our last excursion with Mother and Papa, that summer before …’

  Hell descended.

  And I have bested the devil at his own game. I win. He can’t possibly object now, not without betraying himself as the vile bully that he is. He certainly can’t deny our esteemed guests their black poppies, and he can’t threaten to join us, either – as he must attend the official Federation celebrations here in Bathurst tomorrow, gritting his teeth through it all too, at being snubbed for any invitation to Sydney, to the Governor-General’s swearing in and the choir of ten thousand singing ‘Australian sons, let us rejoice’.

  He chuckles with Justice Wardell, feigning indulgence: ‘Young and wilful – what can one do?’

  We’ll find out after the guests leave, won’t we; and whatever evil retribution you devise, I will stop you. But you can’t stop Gret and me from going to the Hill. Not now.

  ‘Oh dear, but who will chaperone you?’ No one is more confounded than Mrs Wardell. ‘All of you on excursion – together? A few days? In mixed company? But what if the road is very bad and it’s more than a few days – nights – out there – oh dear.’

  ‘Oh Ettie,’ Mrs Dunning chides her to confound me. ‘This is the twentieth century. Have a bit of faith in the youngsters to make the appropriate arrangements. They’re hardly going to Peru. What a marvellous little adventure it will be, though – makes me wish I were young again.’ What makes her turn so rapidly modern? She bats eyelashes across the table at Mr Thompson now. Oh, I see, and how very revolting. Never mind your reputation so long as you’ve got a good franchise-free foundation garment on.

  And Mrs Wardell is clucking ever on: ‘Well, I can’t allow Dulcie to be part of such an escapade.’

  Good, I smile sweetly, because she’s not invited.

  I look to Mr Wilberry again: Say yes, you must say yes.

  He says, as if answering some other presence at the table: ‘Hm. Well. I suppose Manildra can wait a few days, can’t it?’

  Ben

  ‘What is it you must do at Manildra, Mr Wilberry?’ she asks me.

  Mama’s elusive bloom unfolds its red raylets in my mind. I look over my shoulder: it’s as though she remains with me somehow. As though she is just in the next room, pressing petals, the child with his chin on the edge of the table, at her side, watching; she’s saying something to him that I can’t quite hear.

  ‘The specimen?’ The girl’s frown is impatient for my response. ‘You said you were going to look for a . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘An Helichrysum – a daisy, everlasting. Like the flower – ah, that grows by your dam here, and not quite like it. Or possibly not of that species at all – another perhaps. I’m not really sure what I’m going to Manildra for, actually. A promise I made, to find . . .’

  She squints at me below the frown, impatient and now possibly disturbed by all my stumbling about with these words. She must be wondering how it is I manage to conduct lectures at the university, much less negotiate my way through the conversations necessary to getting about in the world; I sometimes wonder that myself.

  ‘Find what?’ she says abruptly: Come on, come on. She rubs the back of her neck, as though I might be giving her a pain there, or a shiver of disdain.

  Come on, come on, Mama demands too, right at my ear now.

  ‘A flower,’ I say, looking down at the gilt lace border of the bowl set before me. ‘One my mother remembered from when she was a girl, from her home, at Mandagery Creek, before she married. A native. Hm. She is no longer with us.’

  ‘Oh?’ I look up again at the sound, the softness of the chime. The frown has vanished to porcelain once more; her face so close, her eyes hold worlds of blue kaleidoscope jewels laced through with rays of hazel stars. ‘A recent loss?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’ God but it is, so freshly cut. ‘Only a few weeks . . .’ What? Her perfume mists over what’s left of my mind, sweet and yet . . . what is it? Rosemary and new boot leather? And something lovely . . .

  ‘So. You’re going to look for a paper daisy for your late mother?’ she asks, and I am held by those eyes, the shape of the lids, petal-like and porcelain also.

  ‘Yes.’ I attempt a smile, for this beauty, this beauty I am sure I must pursue even as it is eluding me. What is this enchantment? ‘I am searching for a bloom my mother once loved and I’m not even sure precisely what bloom it is, or exactly where it is. I’m likely only to find some good examples of lignum swamp or some other predictable thing. That is a bit mad, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she says, her expression unreadable. She turns away from me to say something to her sister over the table, something about picnics and a carnival calliope.

  I don’t absorb much else for a while. I couldn’t say what was in the soup.

  I will travel with Berylda Jones to Hill End tomorrow. Extraordinary. The most extraordinary thing that has ever occurred, to me. Even Cos behaves himself for the balance of the meal; even when the talk turns dangerously towards religion, something about getting around the Papists that have hold of this town, he says nothing, makes no interjection that God is dead and we shot him too. He only eats his dinner. Extraordinary. He must see that this is important to me, whatever this might be. This wanting to know Berylda Jones. He’ll let me have a go without further ructions. I hope. He’d bloody well better. I’ve never wanted to have a go quite like this before. A go at conversation. With a girl.

  I turn to her, trying to think of something not too idiotic to say, but she is turned away from me again, deep in conversation with Dr Weston beside her. They share a joke over of some text she read before Christmas, having pinched it from the medical library, keeping ahead of her studies in the New Year. ‘I’ll be struck off for breaking rules before I even begin!’ She laughs and I’m sure that I can hear a trace of Mama’s laughter through it too; a girl running down a hall, a hat disappearing around a door. She and Dr Weston talk on, discussing the subjects she will take next year: a course of further, cellular biology, medical physics, anatomy, organic and inorganic chemistry . . . I am lost in the licorice darkness of her hair; near black, not quite. What is this chemistry?

  What have I done, agreeing to travel with this girl? I am mad. I help myself to another drink and think of poppies.

  I have seen plenty of poppies in my time, of course. Papaver orientale across thousands of gardens; and fields of somniferum, grown for their latex, for their morphia soporific. Mama left me on a clou
d of that stuff. North and south down the eastern seaboard, I’ve seen them: trails of pink along the hillsides northwest of Brisbane, and like tracts of summer snow from Bendigo to Ballarat. Only the day before yesterday I came across an interesting specimen at Leura, near Katoomba, pale orange petals and pollen of a deep indigo, randomly sewn amidst the dandelions between the railway tracks and the village. But in all my travels I’ve not seen a black one. I know they exist, as I know they are not black except in the rarest instances. They are generally a brownish purple; translucent plum cups. They are the colour of my wine.

  Berylda

  The bells of All Saints will be into their grim ringing by now, calling the faithful and the lonely to the watch-night Mass, the Catholic Cathedral of St Michael and St John answering in endless competition over the merry fiddles and drums thumping out of every other establishment in the town. I watch the clock on the sideboard here, willing time away as we scrape empty our dessert bowls. It is 10.32 p.m. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  ‘So, what about these nasty cases of bubonic plague we’ve been hearing about up north then?’ Dr Weston is asking Mr Wilberry across me, referring to the outbreak that has struck in tropical Townsville these past months.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about it,’ Mr Wilberry replies, unceasingly apologetic. ‘I’m in Melbourne for most of the year, and in Brisbane, lately I … hm. I was a bit preoccupied with other things …’ A dying mother, I suppose, and he sounds as weary of this evening as I feel. He drains his glass. I yawn.

  Time yawns and yawns but I am increasingly restless. For tomorrow. It cannot come soon enough, as if freedom might truly lie there at dawn, somewhere beyond Duramana at the head of the Track. I can hardly hold anything else in my thoughts.

  Reverend Liversidge stands and gently taps the side of his glass for quiet. ‘May we all be joined here now in prayer. Let us give thanks for this our bounteous …’