‘Once again you’re changing the subject,’ Betty said with a smile. ‘If you don’t overcome that before you get married you’re going to find yourself in serious trouble before long.’
Dulcie left Betty after that, smarting a little at what she’d said. She swept and dusted the living-room, filled up the washing-machine with water and switched on the heater, then once she saw that Betty had dropped off to sleep she went outside to sweep the veranda.
It was one of those swelteringly hot, still days where the sun made mirages of water across the paddocks, and the ground cracked open with the heat. The birds were silent, the sheep and cattle lying listlessly under what shade they could find, the only sound the buzzing of insects. Dulcie had planted pansies in the garden during the spring, but they were scorched with the heat now, only the geraniums still putting on a brave show.
She had found so much to love about Australia, she felt she belonged here, yet every now and then she could feel dwarfed by its vastness, bruised by its harshness and saddened by its lack of history. At those times she would think longingly of the gentleness of England, the soft rain and breezes, ancient buildings, small fields surrounded by neat hedges, villages which had remained unchanged for centuries. She ached to see crowded, noisy markets again, to see throngs of children tumbling out of schools, to be in an old church, smelling the polish and incense, and listening to an organ playing.
As she swept up the dust, she remembered how scornful Ross had been when she told him that one day. She could understand it was impossible for him to share her memories, but she couldn’t understand why he appeared to resent her having them. Did he want her to do what he’d done, erect a kind of screen on everything that had happened to her before she got here?
Dulcie stopped her sweeping for a minute, suddenly seeing that this was perhaps what Betty meant when she said Dulcie must think about Pat Masters.
She never dwelt on the miserable time she’d had at Salmon Gums, she’d put that behind her. If she ever thought momentarily about Pat it was only to hope she had a happier life now, wherever she was. Yet she remembered now that Pat hadn’t ever spoken about her past, not until that letter from Reverend Mother came. That was the turning-point in their relationship, when she came to understand the woman a little better. Whatever Betty said, Dulcie couldn’t see even a vague similarity between herself and Pat, other than they’d both been in orphanages, yet now she came to think about it, there were similarities between Pat and Ross. The bitterness, difficulty in talking about their feelings, and the moodiness.
Goose pimples popped up all over Dulcie, despite the heat she felt chilled. Betty was right, she was just a child while she was with the Masters’, she’d been nervous of men, and her only knowledge of love and marriage came from romantic books and distant memories of her parents. Now as she thought back to her view of Pat and Bill together as a couple, she realized that she’d just assumed Bill was the one entirely responsible for all Pat’s unhappiness.
Dulcie shook herself. Whatever Betty said, it didn’t do to dwell on all that again, people did do strange things to one another. Some people like Betty, Bruce and John could communicate easily, show affection and give praise, others like Ross and Bob couldn’t. It didn’t necessarily mean they were lesser people, they were just different. Look at her and May – the same parents, the same upbringing, but so very different.
Thinking of May reminded Dulcie that her sister’s letters were getting further and further apart again. She had sent a card and a very pretty petticoat to Dulcie for her birthday in December, there had been a brooch too at Christmas, but not a letter, and the last one was way back in September.
‘I’ll write tonight,’ Dulcie thought. ‘Maybe she’s got a boyfriend now, and anyway my letters have been very dull since Betty got ill.’
‘How is your sister?’ Mrs Wilberforce asked May as she came into the kitchen and found the girl sitting at the table reading the letter that came this morning. ‘And is Mrs French any better?’
May looked up. Mrs Wilberforce was dressed to go out in a pink and white candy-striped shirtwaister dress and a white broad-brimmed hat. ‘Dulcie’s fine, but Mrs French is dying,’ she said with a dramatic sigh. ‘Dulcie doesn’t think she’s got more than a couple of months left.’
‘Oh, how awfully sad,’ Mrs Wilberforce exclaimed, her face clouding over. ‘Dulcie must be very fond of her to stay and look after her.’
‘That’s the way Dulcie is,’ May said, and unexpectedly her eyes began to prickle with tears. ‘She’s one of those people who cares more about others than she does about herself.’
Mrs Wilberforce picked up on the shake in May’s voice, saw the swimming eyes and felt a surge of tenderness for the girl, for clearly she cared far more for her sister than she’d ever let on. When the wedding was postponed, May hadn’t showed much emotion, only some pique that she wouldn’t get her holiday. Yet now Mrs Wilberforce recalled that later, a year ago, around the time the wedding should have taken place, May had become very withdrawn. She hadn’t linked the two things before, but maybe May had been worrying about Dulcie.
‘She sounds such a nice, kind girl,’ Mrs Wilberforce said. ‘I’m sure you are longing to see her again. Of course we can’t really talk about weddings and holidays at the moment, but maybe they will come about later this year.’
Mrs Wilberforce was never quite sure exactly how she felt about May. Mostly she considered herself very fortunate to have such a polite, obedient, competent and willing maid. She was so bright and sunny, charming almost everyone who came to the house, and her interests – fashion, popular music, cosmetics and films – were all very normal for a teenage girl.
Yet for all that, now and again May made her feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, yet she sensed something vaguely predatory about her. Often when Mrs Wilberforce returned home from an outing, she had a feeling the girl had been going through her things. Nothing was ever out of place or disturbed in any way, and she always told herself she was being silly. Yet the irrational fear persisted, and she found herself observing how silently May moved, the occasional resentful look, and wondered why it was that after twenty months with her she still felt she really didn’t know her at all.
May told her about her friends at night school, the girl Angelina with whom she so often spent her day off, but she never revealed anything personal about herself.
She would watch May leaving the house on her day off and smile because she looked like a fashion model. Not a hair out of place, not a crease in her dress or a speck on her shoes, and she would have expected that anyone taking so much trouble with her appearance was intent on catching the eye of some young man. Yet May never spoke of boys, not even obliquely. She was seldom late home from night school, or on her day off, and even when Mrs Wilberforce had agreed that at sixteen and a half she was now old enough to go dancing on a Saturday night, and therefore could stay out till eleven, May had only asked to go twice since the New Year began.
It shamed Mrs Wilberforce to think that she’d searched the girl’s bedroom a few weeks ago, looking for something that might throw some light on May’s real character. But there was nothing unusual, except that it was remarkably tidy. Letters from her sister kept in a biscuit tin, the photograph of Dulcie and her intended by the bed, a few books and magazines and the usual range of cosmetics. She did seem to have rather a lot of clothes, but then of course her sister often sent her things. There was certainly nothing to be alarmed about there.
Now May had revealed her affection and admiration for her sister, Mrs Wilberforce felt a little guilty about her suspicions. Poor May had never known a real home, or parental love and affection, and it was sad that the two girls who clearly did love each other were so far apart.
‘It’s not long now till your seventeenth birthday,’ Mrs Wilberforce said, feeling she had to change the subject or May might get really upset. ‘You should be taking your secretarial diploma then too! How is
that coming along? Do you think you’ll get a distinction?’
May smiled weakly. ‘I doubt it, I’m not so hot at spelling or shorthand,’ she said. ‘But I’m the fastest at copy-typing.’
Mrs Wilberforce knew this was so, she had telephoned the night school once around six months ago, afraid May wasn’t attending. She was told her attendance was excellent and that her only failing was spelling.
‘As I understand it, offices need far more copy typists than shorthand typists anyway,’ Mrs Wilberforce said. ‘With your smart appearance you’ll get a good job anywhere. Not that I want to lose you,’ she added quickly.
‘I don’t want to leave here either,’ May said, giving Mrs Wilberforce one of her wide, melting smiles. ‘You and Mr Wilberforce have been so good to me, and this house is so lovely. But I suppose I must think about a real career soon.’
Mrs Wilberforce’s doubts about the girl vanished in the face of her gratitude. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said, and impulsively patted her hand. ‘You have a home here for as long as you need it. I’ve got to go out today, but there’s nothing pressing that needs doing, so why don’t you take some time off and write back to Dulcie? I’m sure you’ve got a great deal you want to say to her.’
After Mrs Wilberforce had left the house, May took her writing paper and pen out on to the upstairs veranda, settled herself at the table and began a letter to Dulcie. Yet once she’d said how sorry she was about Betty, she couldn’t think of another thing to say. Dulcie’s letters to her were so vibrant, bits about the men at the farm, the animals, what she thought about, things she’d heard on the wireless and seen on the television. Always so interesting, making vivid pictures of her life down in Esperance.
May just couldn’t write in that descriptive way. However hard she thought it all out first, it just came out like a lists of facts. She sat back in the chair, chewing distractedly on the end of the pen and looking around her for inspiration. The upstairs veranda was her favourite place. The trees at the side of the house made an umbrella of thick green shade, and there was a beautiful purple climbing plant tangled all along the balustrade. It was too hot now at midday for many birds, but in the morning the trees were full of noisy red wattlebirds, colourful ringnecks, and Willy wagtails. If she was to walk around the veranda to the part at the front of the house, she could see the River Swan though a gap in the houses. It was so wide and blue it looked more like the sea than a river, so serene with the huge Moreton Bay figs lining the foreshore and glimpses of yachts and cruisers gliding past. She knew Dulcie would like to see that picture, if only she could write it.
When she was alone in the house, like now, May liked to pretend it was hers. She would imagine herself in a white evening gown, sitting out here in the evenings with her husband. They would have dozens of candles lit, music playing in the background, and drink champagne. It was funny really that she should think such things, for she had no intention of staying in Perth after she was eighteen. But then perhaps it was just habit, for in the months following her rape, this house had been a safe and soothing haven, and she had come to love it for its cool old elegance and the order and peace of it.
In the early morning she would often go out into the garden and just breathe in the cool fresh air, gaze at the old trees and bushes, and think what heaven it must have been for the Wilberforce boys to grow up here. Mrs Wilberforce laughingly said it was like a jungle, and really she should get someone in to be ruthless with it, but she didn’t because she liked it just the way it was. May felt just the same, nature had accomplished something beautiful all on its own, and it should be left that way.
It was out there in the garden, too, that she’d finally come to terms with the rape. She still burned with shame about it sometimes, yet she could see she had been stupidly trusting, and she didn’t intend to repeat that mistake. No man would ever humiliate her again, or get her for nothing. She wouldn’t even kiss a man unless he was rich, well-mannered and well-dressed, and though such a man might be difficult to find – Perth was full of crude, loud-mouthed larrikins – in the last year she had come up with one or two more original hunting ploys.
It was just that which made it so hard to write to Dulcie. She was so saintly, noble and patient, believing that hard work and kindness brought their own rewards, that love came to those who deserved it. She would be horrified if May was to tell her she scoured the poshest hotels in Perth looking for a likely man.
May giggled to herself. She thought it was very resourceful, she just went into the hotels and made out she was waiting for someone. Out of eight occasions she’d tried this, on five she’d struck up a conversation with a businessman who had offered her a drink. All but one of them had been old, at least forty, but from each of them she gained more confidence and a little knowledge of their businesses. The fifth, a South African lawyer, could have led to something more if he hadn’t been just passing through Perth. He was thirty-two, tall and slender and although not handsome, extremely presentable in a beautiful cream linen suit. A drink with him had led to dinner, and she knew he was very taken with her.
May giggled again as she remembered his goodnight kiss before he put her in a taxi to go home. She liked his kiss, she liked him too, but he was leaving for Sydney the next day and he wasn’t coming back. She took the five pounds he offered for her fare home, got out of the taxi on the next corner, caught the bus home and pocketed the money. That was a very good day!
Yet she couldn’t continue to go into the same hotels, she was far too noticeable, so she also had to rely on Angelina. Angelina worked in her father’s milk bar by the station, and they had become friendly because May always went in there for a drink before going to her night class. Sometimes if Angelina could persuade her father to let her have the same day off as May, they spent it together.
Angelina knew just about everyone in Perth, and through her May had met a teacher who took her to the pictures, a post office worker who did the same, and three times she’d been to the Saturday night dances at the Embassy on a double date with Angelina. None of these men were worth going out with a second time, the teacher was too earnest and dull, the post office worker too randy, sticking his hand up her skirt the first time he kissed her, and the two men at the dance almost as bad. What she wanted was another South African lawyer, a man of substance, who knew how to treat a lady.
She knew Dulcie thought that Perth was the most exciting, beautiful place. May thought it was beautiful too, just a walk out of the house down to Keane’s Point on the river was enough to lift her spirits when she felt dejected, and there were many more lovely places too. But she couldn’t find it exciting, St Vincent’s was too close at hand with all its nasty memories. Mother kept telephoning, and now and then called round too. May wanted to be rid of all that, go to a new town where she could start again without anyone knowing anything about her. Mrs Wilberforce’s friends were everywhere here too, she saw them on the bus, at the local shops and in town. She sometimes felt that if she sneezed while she was out, Mrs Wilberforce would know about it by the time she got home.
She had money saved now, over forty pounds in all, for she stole most of her clothes and only used her wages for bus fares, drinks and going to the cinema. Once she got her diploma she would be off.
‘Have you made any more plans about your wedding?’ she wrote. ‘I’m longing to come and see you and meet Ross.’
She chewed on her pen again, unable to think of anything further to say. There were things she longed to ask Dulcie, like how it felt to be in love. Did she ever get that feeling of being haunted by St Vincent’s, as though it was somehow their fault that they were put in an orphanage? She wanted to know if Dulcie still went to Mass. She never mentioned it in her letters. May had no intention of ever going again once she left this house, but while she was here Mr Wilberforce insisted she went. She hadn’t really minded going up until she was raped, she’d even gone to confession then, determined to tell the priest. But she found she couldn’t. She didn�
��t trust the priest enough not to tell the Wilberforces.
Just thinking about that day when she’d stood inside the church trying to summon up the courage to go into the confessional brought back a sudden recollection of something Dulcie had once said. ‘Trust me!’ she’d spat out one day soon after they arrived at St Vincent’s. ‘As soon as someone says that you can be sure they are going to let you down or hurt you.’
At the time May hadn’t understood what her sister meant. It had gone into the back of her mind and been forgotten till now. But it meant something now, she could see perfectly what Dulcie was getting at. There wasn’t anyone out there you could put your trust in, least of all God, because he just appeared to look down and let the most terrible things happen to people. Look at the way the Sisters were, sheltering in their comfortable convents, praying all their pious prayers, while they beat and half starved the children they were supposed to be caring for!
May leaned back in her chair looking up at the tree which sheltered the veranda. Through small gaps in the foliage she could see patches of blue sky, and in a strange sort of way it seemed symbolic. The dense, dark green was like all that religious dogma they’d pushed down her throat for as long as she could remember, the blue sky beyond was a glimpse of the real truth.
It wasn’t the meek who inherited the earth, as she’d always been told, it was the strong and the brave. In fact just about every little sanctimonious phrase the Sisters preached was just propaganda to keep girls like her humble and in their place.
May had an urge to share this inspiration with Dulcie, but as she put the pen to paper the thoughts which had been so clear just a moment earlier vanished like the sea rolling over writing in the sand. Angrily she pushed the half-written letter away, put her arms down on the table and rested her head on them, suddenly stricken by the knowledge she was unable to communicate anything more than trivia to her sister.
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