The Best Australian Stories 2011

by Cate Kennedy

  The Brethrens’ yard, by contrast, is clipped and shorn and barren. An expanse of couch lawn, bordered by a couple of pot-bound buxus shrubs. In their windows the lace curtains are never parted.

  Mr Braithwaite owns a muffler-repair shop in an outer suburb. Owns is perhaps the wrong word. The Plymouth Brethren (Inc.) are probably the owners and Mr Braithwaite just manages it. Dean took his car there once when it sounded as though it had a chest infection. The most unusual thing about the Braithwaites’ muffler shop is that they have no credit-card facilities. There is no EFTPOS machine. There is no computer. There is a sign on the wall behind the receptionist’s head that reads: No cheques. Cash only. Dean recognises the receptionist and realises that she is Braithwaite’s daughter. One of the eight. He also realises that she is pregnant. Dean has to catch a taxi to the bank to withdraw the cash in order to deal with this primitive system of doing things. Do they have some religious dispensation from accepting cheques? What a crock, he thinks. They have hydraulic lifts, don’t they? They have pneumatic spanners.

  Later that night Dean vents his innocuous spleen to Shona over the inconvenience.

  ‘I had to get a taxi all the way to the bank and back. You’d think they’d give me mates’ rates, being neighbours and all, but no.’

  How dare, he wonders, they refuse to take his money.

  How, Shona wonders in return, did he not know the girl was pregnant?

  ‘It was pretty obvious once she stood up.’

  ‘No,’ Shona corrects herself, ‘I meant how is it that we live next door and never even noticed? What sort of neighbours are we?’

  ‘Ones who respect their privacy.’

  Shona doubts this. She worries about the breakdown of community values, how neighbours are becoming clusters of strangers, wary of each other.

  Later she says, ‘I wonder what hospital she’s booked into?’

  ‘Probably yours. That’s the closest.’

  ‘I wonder who the father is?’

  ‘One of these other hanky-heads,’ Dean says, ‘There’s cars pulling up there all the time.’

  ‘I would have thought,’ says Shona, ‘that a group like the Brethren would be pretty vigorous about knowing who the father is.’

  ‘Hanky-panky,’ says Dean for no other reason than it is there to be said.

  *

  Shona and Dean actually like living next door to the Brethren family. There is no noise. There is barely any sign of people living there at all. Occasionally cars do gather and people stream into the plain, besser-bricked house and not a sound comes out. Dean imagines that the interior walls must be made of egg cartons, like the makeshift sound studios of his youth. But of course he has no idea. He has never peeped inside, though he has looked over the back fence. It is just as barren. Not even a sandpit for the kids. Isn’t there something about them rejecting activities associated with fun? Fishing, for instance? Well what are pneumatic spanners if not fun?

  ‘I wonder which one is the grand pooh-bah?’ Dean asks one day, peering through the kitchen blinds as the cars begin to arrive.

  ‘I don’t think they have any ministerial order,’ says Shona.

  ‘Then why don’t the men have to wear hankies on their heads?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  *

  Shona is a nurse at the Prince of Wales hospital. She has just finished a stint in oncology and a few months ago moved to maternity. She likes the maternity ward as it always gives her a feeling of hope. One day she notices a young girl in the Tresilian unit. Actually it is the scarf wrapped tightly across the girl’s head that makes her look twice, and she recognises one of her neighbours. The girl’s shoulders are hunched forward, as if she is trying to take the weight of the smock off her breasts. Shona recalls that awful sensation. She makes some congratulatory noises, but is embarrassed, not only by the girl’s rejection of her interest, but because she does not know the girl’s name.

  ‘Did everything go well?’ Shona asks.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Did you have to have stitches?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just that you’re here in Tresilian.’

  ‘We’re just trying to find some alternative feeding method.’

  ‘Oh, well, good luck,’ says Shona, not wanting to intrude, ‘And congratulations.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  Shona walks off on her sensible rubber soles thinking: I could rot in my house before this girl came in to check on me.

  *

  Otherwise they would not have known there was a baby. There is no fanfare. No cots or prams or newborn paraphernalia wheeled into the bland brick house. No relentless midnight screaming. The Ikins want to take a bottle of champagne in there. By force. Shona says she does not think it would be a welcome gesture. So they drink the champagne themselves. Wetting the baby’s head by proxy.

  ‘I wonder what they’ve got hidden in their garage?’ says Dean, ‘I bet they’ve got fishing rods in there.’

  After a few bottles they hear themselves getting a little raucous, but from next door there comes nothing but a stony silence.

  *

  As a trial run the council comes with a cherry picker and half a dozen men in hard hats with chainsaws and cut down one of the fig trees. Admittedly it is dead, but that does not stop the Ikins working the phones. The tree-preservation officer is called to Abigail Street and work is put on hold. He detects a small contradiction in that the residents want the grey-headed flying foxes gone, but not the habitat to which they are attracted. He’ll have to think about it.

  *

  As part of her duties Shona is always pleased to be rostered on to home visits. It gets her off the ward. Unsurprisingly, according to the logical sequence of events, one of her visits is to the house of the Braithwaites. Maddeningly, Shona has to travel all the way in to the hospital only to be given the address right next door to her own home. She drives back, happy to think that afterwards she might be able to steal a cup of tea in her own kitchen, put a load of washing on. The street looks different in the middle of the day. She cannot believe how much sky there is above her yard. Sawdust from the amputated stump of the fig tree blows across the road.

  She knocks on the Braithwaites’ door and it is some minutes before the lace curtains flicker and an eye peers out. More minutes before the girl, a crimson scarf tight over her head as if holding down a haystack, opens the door. Beneath the scarf her long hair hangs free, brushed and electric down the length of her back.

  She stands back and ushers Shona inside. Shona, entering slowly, lets her eyes adjust to the dimness. She blinks. She has never seen a room like it. In the main room (it can hardly be a room for lounging in), there are about thirty hard-backed chairs lined up side by side around the walls of the room. There is no other furniture. No pictures. No table. Just the rectangle of chairs. In the middle of the room on a mauve bunny-rug, like some sacrificial offering, lies the baby. There is some whispering from the far end of the room. Shona glances up to see the door quietly close. She coughs, trying to break the ice.

  ‘You worked at the muffler shop, didn’t you?’

  There is a whispered snort from the far room. Shona can sense there is not a man in the building.

  ‘How do you know?’ asks the girl.

  ‘My husband … Oh, never mind. What seems to be the problem? I saw you were in Tresilian.’

  Shona feels as though her voice is too loud.

  ‘My baby won’t feed properly.’

  Shona can see she is young. Perhaps nineteen or twenty.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  She goes to the tiny, swaddled bundle on the floor and kneels beside it. Carefully unwraps the soft blanket. She peers closely. She starts. The baby is yellow, but not jaundiced. It looks tiny and withered,
pixie-ish, with pointed ears and, Shona sees, a pointed muzzle. Like a bat.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘They say it’s something called Edwards disease.’

  Shona has never heard of it.

  ‘The doctors wanted to keep her, but my mother said it was time to bring her home.’

  ‘Edwards disease?’

  ‘It’s chromosomal.’

  Shona stares at the shrivelled baby, then asks:

  ‘I’m embarrassed to have to ask this, but what’s your name?’

  The girl balks. ‘Susan.’

  At that moment the door at the far end of the room opens and the mother, Mrs Braithwaite, and two other women who look just like the mother bustle in. They all wear identical crimson scarves and ankle-length skirts. One of them holds a tray rattling with teacups. They fuss around Shona and the girl and the baby, which no one picks up.

  One of the aunts – they can only be the mother’s sisters – asks Shona to take a seat, any seat, over by the wall.

  ‘Will you take tea?’ asks the aunt.

  ‘Yes I will, please.’

  The aunt pours from a plain pot and for a moment that is the only sound.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  A cup of tea is thrust into her hands. They sit in silence for a moment with hot cups in their laps.

  ‘The issue,’ says Mrs Braithwaite from across the room, ‘is that the baby won’t take the breast. It is too large for the mouth. The teat of a bottle is also too large. So what are the alternatives? We were thinking of an eyedropper. Or there is formula, and perhaps a siphon.’

  ‘Well, premature babies need all the colostrum they can get—’

  ‘The baby is not premature. She went to full term. She is five weeks old.’

  The baby, Shona looks again, is small enough to hold in one hand. She has seen zucchini that are larger. The eyedropper is not such a silly idea.

  ‘It’s the chromosomes,’ says Susan.

  ‘It is not the chromosomes,’ snaps Mrs Braithwaite. ‘It is God’s will.’

  ‘They say she will not live past two months,’ says the girl to Shona, her eyes pooling with tears.

  ‘And so now we have brought her home,’ says Mrs Braithwaite. ‘Christina. To her home.’

  ‘Is she taking any milk at all?’ Shona asks.

  ‘As soon as she takes a sip she perks it back up,’ says Mrs Braithwaite.

  ‘Your flow might be too fast for the size of her stomach. We can look at that. But really, Susan, this baby would be better looked after in the hospital.’

  ‘Thank you for your suggestion,’ says Mrs Braithwaite quickly. ‘We shall consider your advice. But for the present we shall pursue the idea of the eyedropper.’

  Suddenly there is a scarfed aunt on either side of Shona, helping her to her feet. One of them removes the unfinished teacup from her lap.

  ‘But—’ protests Shona.

  ‘Thank you again,’ says Mrs Braithwaite.

  Shona looks at Susan, who says, ‘If she goes back to hospital she’ll die.’

  ‘God will prevail,’ says the aunt who has not yet spoken.

  The aunts steer Shona towards the door.

  ‘But—’ Shona thinks rapidly, ‘You’ll need a breast pump.’

  ‘Thank you for the suggestion,’ crows Mrs Braithwaite.

  ‘Do your breasts hurt?’

  Susan glares. She gives a sour little nod.

  ‘For the mastitis put cabbage leaves in your bra,’ Shona says.

  ‘Thank you,’ trills the mother, turning to her daughter.

  ‘This is too much,’ laughs one of the aunts. ‘Cabbage leaves!’

  The other one squawks, ‘Breast pump!’

  Shona finds herself outside the plain, wooden door at the top of the steps. The security screen snicks behind her. The couch lawn stretches to the fence. Not a weed. Next door, her own unkempt garden seems somehow foreign from this odd angle, as if appearing in a dream. She can see inside her own dining-room window. Realises that if she forgot to draw the curtains she would be plainly visible. Or that her children would be plainly visible. She walks numbly out to her car. Behind her the lace curtains are so still they might be made of concrete. She does not even think about detouring into her own house. The washing can wait. She notices the postman riding past on his motor scooter. He skilfully pops some letters into her box without even stopping. Shona sits in her car for a moment. There are some forms she should fill in. She is aware of the dark, sleeping shapes of the bats high in the fig trees, hanging on for grim life.

  Going Down Swinging

  The Anniversary

  Deborah FitzGerald

  I jump the low brick fence at number seven and bang on the screen door. The flat, blue sky is unnerving; it’s painted on, brash and claustrophobic. My phone beeps. It’s the third text from Craig in as many minutes. ‘Jesus, give me a chance,’ I mutter. I turn the handle and enter gloom.

  The house is closed against the heat, blinds and curtains drawn. I squint as I make my way down the hallway and past the tiny kitchen, following my mother’s voice.

  ‘I’m back here,’ she calls.

  Mum is down on her hands and knees cleaning the bath. She squirts Jif on a cloth, leans into the tub and rubs. I lean on the doorframe.

  ‘Hey, you,’ I say. ‘Got a sec?’

  The bathroom is oppressive. A drizzle of sweat is visible on her neck and back.

  ‘It won’t clean itself,’ she says.

  Mum has lived on the Gold Coast for seven years. Having emerged from the sand five decades earlier, the city carries none of the burdens of history. People come to catch their breath, worn down by failed marriages, boredom, the cold weather, death. And when it is their turn to die, far from their home towns and small familiarities, they are enshrined in sparkling, smooth-lined crematoriums.

  She stifles a groan as she puts a foot out in front of her and uses the bath to haul herself up. I grew to her height – five foot two – but she has been shrinking this past year. She hustles me out of the doorway into the hall. My hair is pulled back in a rough ponytail and I redo it now, pulling the strands quickly through the band and back again, twice. I try to catch her eye. She walks past me with purpose, past the kitchen and living room to the largest of the three bedrooms at the front of the house.

  I follow her, hovering.

  Her pale green eyes narrow with concentration as she kneels before her dressing table and begins the ritual of unpacking and repacking it. Craig says she is performing this task with alarming frequency. It has grown worse over the years.

  ‘Got everything you need for the barbie?’ I ask.

  ‘Yep. I’m all ready to go.’

  She is wearing a light cotton dress and her grey-blonde hair is tucked behind her ears. Watching her, I am a child again. She leans into one of the drawers and then twists her head towards me. The lines on her face draw me back.

  ‘Hairspray,’ she suddenly announces.

  ‘Hairspray?’

  ‘If you’ve got biro marks on your clothes, hairspray will do the trick. Just spray it on the stain and it will lift right off.’

  ‘Cool!’ I say, bemused.

  She has tidied her drawer but lingers over the white box tucked under one of her slips. She lifts it gently, sits it on top of the Queen Anne dresser and wipes it with a soft, dry cloth. She draws it to her lap. Inside are my sister’s ashes.

  ‘We could sprinkle them over the ocean,’ I say.

  ‘She was scared of sharks.’

  ‘Maybe in a park overlooking the sea?’

  ‘She didn’t like to be alone, especially at night.’

  ‘A rose bush, right outside in the garden.’ I say
it forcefully as if it has all been settled.

  ‘She didn’t want to be buried. She needs to be with her mother.’

  Screw my brother and his superior skills in rock, paper, scissors.

  Reen bustles up the hallway shouting her arrival. She fills the room as she gives Mum a kiss and flops on the bed. She is flush with life, in a large, fifty-something, ripened kind of way. It’s the mouth you notice first, wide and pouty, always bleeding with bright lipstick. It’s a little too generous for her face but her dark brown eyes rescue her.

  Reen lives next door in a one-bedroom unit with Roy. He has emphysema. Their son Cliffy sleeps on the couch in their living room. He has schizophrenia. She says he’s OK when he takes his medication. Sometimes she gets a phone call from the cops saying they’ve locked him up. She says he’s bloody strong when he’s having one of his turns.

  ‘Can you tell her, Reen?’ I say, emboldened by the prospect of an accomplice. ‘Tell her the whole “ashes in the sock drawer” thing is getting a bit creepy.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing,’ she says. ‘Your Mum’ll scatter ’em when she’s good and ready.’

  Mum takes the white box and nods at Reen, who follows her. They walk down the hallway to the kitchen door and Mum places the box on the side table opposite. I follow behind, feeling like an afterthought.

  ‘I want Rachael out here with me today,’ Mum explains to no one in particular.

  In the kitchen she takes vegetables from the fridge and places them on the table of the small breakfast nook. Reen miraculously slides into one of the seats, tucking her ample proportions into a seemingly impossible space. I go to the sink and start rinsing the lettuce. Mum is chopping onions for the salad and tears appear. I have never seen her cry, not even when Rachael died. Even at the trial of the drunk who killed her daughter, her face remained smooth and expressionless, as if she was waiting for a bus.