The Burial

by Courtney Collins

  As she spoke the old woman kept adding things to the bowl—more salt, more sugar, lard and spices—until she was turning over a soft dough in her hands. And then she rolled it out with a glass jar and stretched it over a pie dish and layered it with apples and bustled around the kitchen, piling up the wood in the stove.

  Jessie found it all mesmerising, the music especially. She had heard big bands, trumpets and drums play carnival music, but this was different. It was gentler, unfolding in layers of sound. She did not know why but she felt like weeping and she bit into the enamel cup to stop herself. She wondered why she had found the old woman so distasteful at first and why things of beauty made her so sad.

  Jessie did not at first notice that the old woman had gone but just as she did the old woman reappeared with a pair of boots.

  Here, she said. Put these on. There is something I want to show you.

  The old woman charged outside and Jessie followed her up towards the first ridge that overhung the property.

  The old woman clambered over the incline and the ledges until they came to a place where three rocks were lined up in a row, each with a small cross carved into it.

  Beneath those rocks are my babies, said the old woman. I couldn’t carry any of them for long. I could carry those rocks up a cliff face better than I could carry the babies. My body got to a certain stage each time and then expelled them. Except for this last one—I held him in my arms for three days. I called him Jude, after Saint Jude, the hope of the hopeless. I thought, if Jude cannot save him, nothing can. And Jude could not save him.

  I’m sorry, said Jessie.

  When I was younger, about your age, I spent days and weeks and months up here, praying for their little souls, praying they were not lost in limbo. Because limbo is a terrible place, it’s like a void for the soul.

  Do you dream of them? asked Jessie.

  Sometimes. Sometimes they are babies and sometimes they are fully grown as if they survived to be good strong adults and it is me who is in their arms, it is me they are holding. The old woman laughed. But that’s just dreams, isn’t it?

  WHEN THE OLD man returned in the early evening his mood seemed improved. The old woman fussed about him, handfeeding him and massaging his feet. Jessie was surprised at the change in the old woman but she guessed this was her way of restoring some peace between them. He did not say where he had been and the old woman did not ask him. Jessie watched the old man’s mouth uncrease as he relaxed and his eyes roll back in his head. She did not trust him.

  The old woman had put the gramophone away when she heard the sound of the old man and the dog moving up the hill and now the only sound was the wind hurtling down the mountains and the spitting of the fire, which Jessie tended.

  There’ll be another storm tonight, the old man said. Jessie did not care for an evening filled with the old man’s pronouncements but soon he was asleep in the chair and snoring.

  The old woman said, There’s no point in moving him and she wrapped herself in a shawl, put her hand on Jessie’s shoulder and said, ’Night, love. Best sleep with a pillow over your head ’cause this one’s snore can travel through walls. Then she left my mother sitting by the fire.

  Jessie stoked the coals against the unburnt wood and wondered where exactly the old man had travelled to that day, if he had caught word of Fitz’s death, if it was thought to be an accident, if she was deemed to be missing or dead. The wondering made her anxious.

  She knew she had recovered well enough now to head up into the mountains but she must choose her moment so as not to attract more suspicion or bad feeling. She pulled the grate over the fire. She thought a way out might come with sleep and she tiptoed towards her room. As she was moving past the old man he began making choking noises that woke him. He sat up. For the first time he looked like a frail thing to her, clutching at the sides of his old chair.

  He was panting. Be good and make an old man a cup of tea, he said.

  She made a pot of weak tea for him, thinking she did not want to keep him awake, and she sat the pot in front of him with a mug.

  He said, Where’s yours? And: Keep an old man company. Pour one for yourself.

  Jessie poured herself a small amount and sat cross-legged again in front of the fire grate.

  The old man narrowed his eyes at her and the effect was menacing although she suspected that his sight was fading and this was the only way he could focus.

  Where did you ride today? asked Jessie.

  It’s me who should be asking the questions, said the old man.

  Go ahead then, she said and she hoped he was short-sighted after all, because she could feel her anger already playing out on her face.

  Where have you come from? said the old man, sitting forward in his chair.

  Sydney originally, she said. Just passing through. Just another woman down on her luck is all. She sipped the tea and kept her eyes downcast.

  Down on your luck, eh? Yes, it seems you are, said the old man.

  No use in dwelling, she said, and she stood up. I’m heading out the back to get more wood.

  She grabbed the old woman’s coat from the back of the door and she heard the old man call out something after her, but she did not care to hear it. It was a relief to step away from the house, to make her way across the yard and through the dark to the woodshed.

  The woodshed was neatly stacked with kindling and short stumps of wood that the old man spent his days chopping and piling. She stamped heavily on the ground in the old woman’s boots to give warning to snakes or spiders that she was entering their premises.

  Standing at the entrance, she heard Jack Brown’s voice, as clearly as if he was standing behind her: If not now then when?

  Was this the time to escape?

  As she moved into the shed and collected wood she answered herself: Girl, you won’t survive long in the mountains without a knife and a gun.

  With wood stacked up to her chin, she went back to the house. She could see the old man through the window, watching her.

  That night, as the old man had warned, a storm did break and it brought down trees. Jessie lay awake listening to the trees falling and splitting and the strange bracketing sound of one tree catching another.

  And then she slept, fitful with dreams. When she woke in the morning, there was only one that she remembered.

  Septimus, her father, was sinking down and down.

  Jessie could see his whole life floating up. There were women swimming around him, their eyes beaming light, a three-legged dog, a clock he kept time with, The Woods, all floating up around him like tea leaves in a cup. Her brothers and sister appeared one by one, phosphorescent creatures.

  Septimus tried to reach out to them, tried to take their hands, but they looked horrified by him and they beat their arms and legs to get away from him. And the women, with their bright eyes and billowing silks, tied their skirts into knots so he could not get hold of them.

  But my mother had been there all along, swimming beside him, offering her small hand.

  Jessie?

  Dad.

  My darling, he said. Now is not your time to die. You are free. Now go!

  JACK BROWN RODE on to the Seven Sisters. He rode beneath the tin sign that hung from a beam nailed to two wooden posts. The breeze was behind it and the sign made a sound like a single bird cawing across the paddock.

  It read: *7 sisters. baths & shows daily*

  Jack Brown kept his horse at a quick stride, moving along the sweep of ochre-coloured road until the Seven Sisters was in view. It was a two-storey house with a huge centre window that was lit up with coloured lights. The lights dangled from a sign that said open all day all night. This day there were twenty or so saddled horses lined up in front of the house, their necks straining into a drinking trough.

  Jack Brown needed a shave and a bath. He imagined that after riding so far he had collected every kind of north-western pollen and every kind of north-western dirt. There was a line beneath his knees
, a watermark, where the river had washed his trousers part clean.

  He galloped up the last stretch of road and tied his horse alongside the others, then he leapt up the steps to the house.

  A girl with bright orange hair opened the door. He had not seen her before. She had red-painted lips and wore a brilliant green dress, which, all combined after the long ride, was like a shot of colour waking up his senses.

  I’m here for the usual, he said.

  Usual? There’s nothin’usual around here.

  A bath and a shave, said Jack Brown.

  Are you black? said the girl, examining him. We don’t serve blacks.

  Jack Brown tried to keep his cool. Where’s the madam?

  She’s off crook. You look black but you’ve got blue eyes, said the girl.

  And what colour do you think I am inside? said Jack Brown.

  The girl looked confused. She did not answer.

  Tell Lay Ping I’m here. I’m a regular.

  Do you have money? said the girl.

  Jack Brown pulled a wad from his pocket.

  S’pose you’re not too black. It’s just with them black ones you never know if they’ve got money to pay.

  I’m an Irish bastard, just like you, he said.

  The girl stepped back from the door and Jack Brown walked inside.

  On the wall behind the front desk was an arrangement of strings that wound up to the second level of the house. Jack Brown had never been upstairs but he guessed that somewhere along the hall the strings split off into the rooms where they were each connected to a bell. The girl pulled on one of the strings and soon Lay Ping appeared at the top of the stairs. Jack Brown could feel heat radiating from his face at the sight of her. She was holding the balustrade as she walked and her dress was so tight, all the way to her ankles, she could only walk down the steps by twisting her hips from side to side.

  This man says he’s your regular, said the girl to Lay Ping.

  Lay Ping put out her hand and said, Jack Brown. So dusty!

  Jack Brown took her hand. I’m hoping you can clean me up, make me respectable.

  I tried that before but it did not work!

  They both laughed.

  Can we try again? said Jack Brown.

  No time, said Lay Ping. I am star of the show. But you wouldn’t know because you’ve never seen it. She punched Jack Brown on his shoulder. I can give you a shave, she said. And maybe if you stay after the show, I can make you respectable.

  Lay Ping led Jack Brown through two swinging doors into a room signposted the wet room. The room was steamy and thick with the smell of tobacco and menthol shaving cream. Lay Ping sat Jack Brown in a reclining leather chair. Standing behind him she tipped him and cupped his chin with her hands and scraped her fingers through the thickness of his beard.

  You want it all off? she said. Or you want those lamb chops? She traced a line beneath his cheekbone with her finger.

  What do you think?

  I don’t like them.

  Whatever you think is best, Lay Ping.

  Lay Ping covered Jack Brown’s face with a hot towel and pressed her fingertips into his temples. She wrapped her hands around his head and massaged the place where his jaw met his jaw. Soon he was aware only of his skull on his neck and his mouth gaping open.

  She ran her hands through the hair on his head and pulled at the roots, which sent a tingling from his scalp to the soles of his feet. He felt a suction on his forehead as she drew breath through the towel and then she thwacked him on the head and it sounded like a hammer, though it did not hurt at all. She unwrapped the towel and replaced it with another that was hotter and smelt of eucalyptus and made his eyes water.

  She removed the towel and worked up a lather against his jaw, moving the brush in small circles into his beard, and then she began to shave him, flat blade from the neck. She scraped the blade up and over his chin, his cheeks and the curve between his nose and his lips.

  And then she did it all again.

  His skin felt like it was finally breathing air, not dust.

  She patted him with a warm, soft towel and then she whispered into his ear, Jack Brown, time for show. Will you watch me?

  Jack Brown had not planned it; beyond cleaning himself up, his sole purpose for the day was to visit the police sergeant. But now he was in no mood to ride off suddenly.

  Let me make your mind up for you, said Lay Ping. You will stay.

  Whatever you think is best, Lay Ping, said Jack Brown.

  Lay Ping led him out of the wet room and through the entrance hall and down a corridor to a single door.

  Go through, she said. Maybe I see you later.

  He opened the door. It was a side entrance to a large hall. Within the hall were the owners of the horses, twenty men or more, and Jack Brown could smell them better than he could see them. The lights were dimmed right down and as he walked along an aisle to find a seat he could smell the stench rising up from their torpid bodies. He wondered if, below the neck, he smelt the same. No man acknowledged him. Their eyes were fixed ahead on the red curtains which rippled with the promise of women behind them.

  Jack Brown sat down in a seat three from the front and cast his eyes along the row of men. He thought it curious how none of them were speaking to each other, how they were all looking ahead, only the jangling sounds of a piano saving them from their own silence.

  When the lights went down and the curtains drew back, the men shifted upright and to the edge of their seats. Jack Brown felt the row tip forward with the weight of them. The men broke from their silence, clapping their hands and stamping their feet on the boards. One by one, women appeared on stage dressed in silver smocks that showed off their legs and shoulders. The pianist played a more melodious tune and the women danced, arms linked, around the stage. Each woman took the hem of another woman’s smock and drew it up more and danced in circles, six women in each, revealing the tops of their thighs as they turned. There were three circles and they merged like petals forming a flower. Then the curtains were drawn again and the men stamped their feet and yelled for more, more, more.

  When the curtains reopened, the stage was filled with something like smoke, although it did not smell of burning, and the women pitter-pattered out and formed circles again and merged into a flower. Then they slowly sank down as a single woman in a feathered mask rose up from between them and stretched out two silk wings. The only thing covering her breasts was a sash. A half slip draped from her hips.

  It was Lay Ping.

  The men drew breath as the other women rose up again, concealing her. The women made a line at the front of the stage, their shoulders touching, and then they split to each side and disappeared from the stage as Lay Ping danced, her sash edging slowly from her breasts and slipping down her waist until it was caught by her hips. Her wings were still outstretched.

  Lay Ping fluttered her wings and danced until the other women returned bearing pitchers. Then they stood in two lines either side of Lay Ping and each woman took a turn at pouring water on her shoulders. The water trickled over her breasts in curving streams and a man in the audience yelled out, I’m thirsty, and then all the men laughed as one.

  But they fell silent again as the water soaked into Lay Ping’s slip and revealed the darkness between her legs. She brought up her wings and twisted her shoulders until the wings fell to the ground. Then she turned her body slowly until she had her back to them.

  Jack Brown had never seen Lay Ping’s bare back. But here it was, a perfect back covered in tattoos. From a distance, it looked to him like the window of coloured lights with its sign that said open all day all night, only here, in the clear space remaining between her shoulder blades, was a single word sorrow.

  As he read it the other women ran in and folded around Lay Ping. Then the curtain was drawn and the music reached a crescendo.

  Sorrow.

  The word was on the men’s lips as they sat in the darkness of the hall and it was still being whisper
ed around as the front doors were opened and the daylight swept in.

  On either side of Jack Brown, some men sank into their seats while others stepped over him to get out. He did not move from his seat.

  As the men departed, dust poured in through the open doors of the hall and covered the men who had saved enough money to stay. Jack Brown decided then, like any free man, that at last he should be one of them.

  MORE DAYS AND nights passed with the sounds of the storm and the sounds of the dog and the forest and the old man and old woman arguing. Jessie was biding her time. She tended to Houdini when she could but most of her energy was spent keeping out of the old man’s way.

  She could not collect supplies for her escape as there was nowhere to hide them, so she spent nights mapping their location in her head and charting the surest, fastest way to move through the house, to the stable and then away.

  Early one morning she woke to silence. She did not understand why the silence sounded so vast until she realised the storm had finally died down. The cottage was utterly quiet.

  She lay there for some time recalling the map to her mind, knowing the time had come, and she was about to launch herself out of bed when she heard the door of her room open. Her skin bristled as she saw the silhouette of the old man moving towards her.

  She lay perfectly still as he stood squarely over her. And then her hand rose quietly in the dark and even her fist hitting his jaw was quiet and her legs swinging out. It was the sound of his head hitting the chair that finally made an awful crunching.

  She did not care what damage she had done. She shut the door behind her and moved into the kitchen, collecting from the cupboards and the drawers a knife, a gun, a packet of matches, apples, the old woman’s coat, the old woman’s boots. The feeling of escape was familiar and she did not care to feel it again and so soon.