by Sofie Laguna
Even when Mrs Mulvaney said, A treat for you today, Miss Lee, I couldn’t answer. I bought the bread and Mrs Mulvaney looked at me with a smile that pulled her face to the side, and she put an eclair in the bag anyway. But I didn’t care if I ate it. I didn’t go to school a single day. I walked through the trees to The Choke. I sat on the bank and closed my eyes; I saw the bright light of the single shining star and nothing more. I listened for the bells, and then it wasn’t only me in the world—I was the river and the light and the bells and the red gums, and there were no words to be spoken that I couldn’t find. The crying stopped. After the night with Jamie I was more and more in my keepout home.
One night there was a knock at the door. I opened it and saw Relle. She looked straight past me. Her eyes were red and her make-up was smudged.
Pop said, ‘Relle, what is it?’
‘Kirk’s gone,’ she said, passing Pop a note. I hadn’t seen Kirk or Steve since the night with Jamie. I was glad; I didn’t want to see them.
Pop held the note far from his face and read. ‘The mines? Christ. The boy’s not eighteen. They’ll kick his arse if they find out.’
Relle sniffed. ‘He reckons he’ll send money.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’
She groaned. ‘Steve’ll be lost without him.’ She didn’t see me standing there. ‘So sudden,’ she said to Pop. ‘Like father like fucken son.’
I was looking for clothes to wear in my cupboard when a pile of my rags fell out onto the floor. How long had it been? I put my hand on my gut; it felt hard and pressed against the elastic of my skirt. Was it full of the blood that hadn’t come? I found pants in the cupboard that used to be Kirk’s and wore them. What happened if one day all the blood of the rags came out at once? I rubbed my hard and growing gut as I walked the fence line. ‘You better come soon, rags, you better come soon.’
Summer finished and my gut grew bigger. The ground squelched as I carried bread and cold bacon and milk down to the Murray. Everywhere was wet with the rain of autumn; my knees were dark with mud, my socks damp in my shoes. The grass shone with puddles that didn’t end. All night the rain fell on Pop’s tin roof. The land was green with rain and Murray water. Flooded roads were blocked with signs I couldn’t read. The bridges were closed. ‘Need bloody stilts,’ said Pop, lighting a White Ox. Still my rags didn’t come.
I was at the supermarket in Nullabri and Pop was parked outside. I was there for bread and matches. I stood in front of the fridge with the cheeses and the butter. I looked over my shoulder—the aisle was empty. I took the cheese and put it in my schoolbag then I took a thin, cold sausage from the meats, and jam and honey from the shelf. My stomach growled and was full at the same time. I ate the food later in my keepout, dipping the sausage in the jam and the honey. I ate mouthfuls of cheese, washing it down with river water from the cup of my hand.
I stole more—from the Yolamundi shop and from the supermarket in Nullabri again while Pop waited outside. I took oranges and butterscotch and more sausage and a can of beetroot. I stole Jax salt biscuits and tomato sauce. I built up supplies in the keepout, covering them with bark and leaves. I squirted tomato sauce onto the Jax and when the biscuits were finished I smashed the can of beetroot against the rocks but it wouldn’t open. I needed Dad’s Smith. Only point it at the thing you want to kill. I put the unopened can on my shelf; I could use it as a weapon. I sat in my keepout, jam sticky on my cheeks, the taste of cold sausage in my mouth, watching through the branches. I was as still as the tawny frogmouth in the tree—couldn’t tell if I was tree or tawny. I saw a wallaby. I was a hunter like the Comanche Indian. The forest and the Murray were my camouflage. I threw my spear. The wallaby bounded away. The world outside my keepout was gone. Summer was a long time ago.
I was always back at Pop’s for tea. He boiled eggs and fried eggs and scrambled eggs and poached them, and I ate every egg. He didn’t ask about school. No letters came. He didn’t make me go.
One night I took the matches from the jar. I pulled in branches from the other side of the fence. I crumpled the paper, lay the sticks and struck the match. Then I sat back in Pop’s camp chair and watched the flames burn bright. It had been a long time since there had been a fire. I warmed my hands, holding them open at the flames as if I was surrendering like Regret in The Comancheros. I lay my hands across my gut of hardening blood as the flames warmed my wet knees.
Pop stepped out the back door. His hair was knotted, his eyes puffed. ‘Smelled smoke,’ he said. He came slowly down to the fire carrying a beer, and I got off his camp chair and sat on the stool. Pop sat down and the flames turned his face orange. He held out the palms of his hands to the heat as if he, too, surrendered.
It was just Pop and me now. The back-house at the bottom of the yard was locked and nothing could escape, and Dad, far away, couldn’t escape either. Pop and me weren’t waiting for him anymore.
Later I helped him peel and chop and stir the onions. Our eyes watered and stung. Pop said, ‘Hold your bloody nose.’ He put butter over the egg and the onion, and it mixed with the yolk to make a sauce for our chicken. Butter and chicken oil dripped from our chins as the flames crackled, keeping us warm.
‘Doesn’t get better, hey, Jussy?’ said Pop, taking a sip from his beer.
‘No, Pop.’
46.
I was in the kitchen the next morning, doing the dishes when Pop asked me to fill the kettle. As I turned to take the kettle from his hands Pop looked down at my stomach. Between my skirt and skivvy there was a small gap like a smiling mouth. Pop frowned. Bubbles dripped from my wet hands. Pop was staring at my stomach. His mouth dropped open. I put the kettle on the bench and tried to pull the skivvy down over my gut. Pop couldn’t close his mouth. He went from my stomach to my face. He said, ‘Justine…’ I wiped my hands on my skirt, pulling my top down again.
Pop stepped towards me and hit me across the back of my head. ‘Jesus, Justine! Jesus! What have you been doing?’ I didn’t know what I’d been doing; I wasn’t sure. ‘For God’s sake!’ He hit me across the back of my head again and I fell forward over the sink. I felt dizzy. I had to grip the sink. My gut wriggled and jumped. He said, ‘Not you too, Justine—the whole bloody world, but not you! Get out of my sight!’
I sat on the bed and put my hands on my stomach. It moved as if Pop’s bug had crawled inside and grown huge. I lay down, pulling the covers up to my chin. I couldn’t get warm. The whole bloody world, but not you. What did Pop mean? What had I done? I lay on one side and then the other. It was raining outside. I knew something but it was in the shadows and wouldn’t come into the light. Something I had done to my pop that he hadn’t wanted me to do. Something that the whole bloody world had done before to hurt him. The Japs, Aunty Rita, my dad had all done it, and now I had done it too. I stayed in bed a long time. The rain didn’t stop. Soon the house would be underwater, like the trees caught in The Choke.
When it was night Pop came into my room and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You’d think I’d learn,’ he said. He rubbed his forehead and sighed. ‘Who did this to you?’
I shook my head. I didn’t know what I was saying no to.
‘Justine,’ he said, ‘who did this to you?’
I didn’t know. But at the same time I did. It was something that happened the night at the river.
He said, ‘Justine—who?’
I remembered the night in pieces—the water, the stars, the car, a weight above me—but what was done to me? Was it what Julie and Annette meant? I started to cry. I didn’t know things, but I did know them.
Pop put his hand on my face, gently. ‘Oh, Lizzy…’ he said. ‘Jesus.’
Later I heard him talking on the telephone. ‘G’day, Narelle,’ he said. ‘Relle, can you put Steve on?…G’day, Steve—do you know what Justine’s been up to?…Put your mother back on…Why didn’t you tell me, Relle?’ Then there was no talking. Pop put down the telephone. He came back into my room. He said, ‘Justine.’ He shook his h
ead and looked at his feet in slippers then back up at me on the bed. ‘Have you been with Jamie Worlley?’
I wanted to vomit.
‘Justine?’ he said. ‘Tell me.’
I shook my head.
He said, ‘Relle told me, Justine.’
‘What does Relle know?’ I asked. Tears rose up around my voice, trying to drown my words. Relle had never seen me, never looked at me even once in her life.
‘She talked to Steve. Steve knew. They saw you. Steve said they couldn’t stop you. You were with him, weren’t you? Jamie Worlley?’
I shook my head. Pieces were missing. It was the breech. I didn’t understand. The cloud of that night. Stacey, Sherry, my dad, Jamie’s car…I didn’t know.
Pop was crying. ‘Jesus, I’m too old for this, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘Help me…’ He got up and left.
I heard him go to the laundry and take beers out of the esky. I heard the creak of the screen door as he went outside to drink. My gut kicked and moved and growled with hunger.
47.
I sat beside Pop in his truck that grumbled and stopped and started as he drove down Dray Road. ‘Why do I have to go?’ I asked him.
‘You do what I say from now on, Justine. Shut your mouth.’
My stomach pressed against my dress. I felt sick. We were on the way to the Worlleys. The Mauser sat between us, leaning against the seat like a third passenger. I didn’t know if it was my friend or my enemy. Was Pop going to shoot Jamie? Ian Worlley? Mother Margy?
Pop turned into the Worlleys’ road, past the cows and the dam with the car and the island for the geese, then down to the caravans. There were two more than there had been when we were last here. There were tyres in a tower. Pop stopped the truck in front of the circle. Mother Margy came out of one of the caravans. She wore a long purple dress that hung around her feet like a tent.
‘Jesus,’ Pop whispered to himself, ‘Jesus, it’s Margy.’ When Pop was friends with the Worlleys it was Mother Margy who fed him the most. She said the war took the meat from men’s bones and didn’t give it back. ‘Jesus,’ Pop said again, then slowly he picked up the Mauser, opened his door and climbed out. He stood beside the truck holding the Mauser with its barrel pointed at the ground.
Mother Margy nodded at Pop. ‘Robert,’ she called across to him. Then she looked past him to me sitting in the truck.
‘Where is he?’ said Pop.
‘Who?’
‘You know who.’
‘If it’s Jamie you’re after, he’s not here.’
‘Where is he?’ said Pop, changing his grip on the Mauser, lifting it higher.
‘Nowhere. You better go.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or there’ll be trouble.’
‘There’s trouble already. My Justine’s in trouble.’
‘Rob, I’m telling you to go.’
‘I’m not going until I see your boy.’
‘Leave it alone, Rob.’
‘Do you know what he did to her?’
‘Got a fair idea.’
‘She’s fourteen. Thirteen at the time.’
‘I know, Robert. Jamie’s a bastard. So is your Ray.’
‘Stacey’s not a bloody kid.’
‘Stacey can’t look after that daughter of hers now. A lot of days she can’t get out of bed.’
‘That’s up to her.’
‘Ray nearly killed her. That wasn’t up to her. You get out of here, take Justine with you.’
Pop said, ‘Jesus. Margy…’
‘Take your stupid bloody gun and your granddaughter and go home,’ she said. ‘And I never saw you.’
Pop looked around the circle of caravans. There was nobody else here. I heard the sound of crying. It was the same crying I had been hearing since the night Dad took me to visit Stacey. A little girl stepped out of the door of the last caravan. Pop and Margy turned to look at her. She stood on the top step in pink underpants. Her hair stuck up from the top of her head in a ponytail. Her face was red with crying. It was Sherry. Tears came down her face. ‘Nanna, Nanna, Nanna! Where’s Mummy? Nanny, where’s my mummy?’ Sherry’s cry rang out over the circle of caravans, loud enough for Stacey to hear where she lay in her half-built house.
Pop looked at Mother Margy, who looked back at Pop.
‘Mummy! Mummy!’
They were both old. Their hair grey, their faces lined, eyes hidden in the falling skin, their bodies leaning, tired.
Pop turned and walked back to the truck.
48.
The next day Pop said, ‘We’re going into town.’ ‘What town?’ I asked him.
‘Echuca. Get your shoes on.’
‘What for?’ Pop hated Echuca.
Pop said, ‘Just get in the truck.’
‘What for, Pop?’
He said, ‘Haven’t you bloody worked that out yet? Get your shoes on.’
I didn’t know what he meant. As I bent to pull on my shoes my gut pushed up against my chest. What was I meant to work out?
I held on to the window ledge of the truck as Pop drove, and looked out for the trucks as they came in the opposite direction. The trucks had twenty wheels and carried logs from the Yolamundi forest. The drivers knew the direction they were travelling; they could keep going, they had everything they needed in the truck. I turned and watched until they were gone.
When we came into Echuca Pop drove to a house with a sign out the front that I couldn’t read. Pop parked the truck and we got out. I followed him into the house.
We sat in a room with chairs around the wall and a small table in the corner, with magazines and a box of books for children. There was a long counter on one side with a lady wearing a white dress working behind it. Pop sat beside me; he smelled sour. Even though it was a cold day Pop’s face was damp with sweat. As he rolled a cigarette, his hands shook. Strands of White Ox fell from his fingers. Pop put the rolled cigarette in his shirt pocket. It was as if Pop only belonged to the Three, not to the world outside, and trying to join it made him sweat and shake. The lady behind the counter said, ‘Robert Lee?’
Pop stood, dropping his keys. I picked them up and passed them to him. ‘Come on,’ he said to me.
The lady in the white dress pointed to a door, and we went through. A man as old as my pop was sitting at a desk. He wore a suit with a tie around his neck and glasses with thin metal frames on his face. I couldn’t tell the difference between glass and skin. He held out his hand and said to my pop, ‘Mr Lee, I’m Dr Manning.’
Pop nodded. ‘This is my granddaughter, Justine.’
The man glanced at my gut, his face serious. ‘Perhaps I had better examine Justine first, then you and I can speak after the examination, Mr Lee.’
‘Alright, then,’ said Pop, and left the room.
I was alone now with Dr Manning. The doctor looked over his glasses at me. He said, ‘Do you know why you are here?’
I looked at the legs of the desk and the doctor’s shoes.
Dr Manning said, ‘You are here because of your own actions, your behaviour. It’s important you understand that. Can you take off your underwear and get onto the examination bed for me, please, Justine?’ He pulled back a curtain and showed me a thin bed on steel rails, covered with a white sheet.
I pulled off my underpants and held them bunched in my hand as I climbed onto the bed. I didn’t understand what he meant by my behaviour and my actions.
Dr Manning put a sheet over my legs. He said, ‘Lie down, please.’
I lay on my back, my gut pushing up to my throat.
Dr Manning lifted my top and felt my stomach with his long, cool fingers. He measured my gut with a tape measure and wrote some things down on a piece of paper. He took a rubber glove from a box. ‘Knees up, please,’ he said, pulling on the glove.
I lifted my knees and Dr Manning reached in between my legs and pushed his fingers into me.
I gasped. Dr Manning twisted his fingers. My stomach rose higher, as if it was trying to move away. I closed
my eyes tight; from behind my lids I saw the walls of Jamie’s car and tasted vomit and hot mint.
Dr Manning pulled out his fingers and peeled off the glove. He said, ‘You can sit up now.’
I pulled down my skirt and sat up on the bed.
Dr Manning said, ‘You’re five and a half months pregnant, Justine.’
I felt dizzy. Five and a half months pregnant. What did he mean?
Dr Manning helped me down from the table. He said to me, ‘Please wait outside while I speak with your grandfather.’ He spoke into a machine on his desk, ‘Send in Mr Lee.’
A voice came through the machine: ‘Yes, doctor.’
Pop walked slowly, carefully back into the room, his face pale. There were damp circles under the arms of his shirt. The nurse stood at the door. I went out and Dr Manning closed the door behind me.
I sat in the waiting room and a mother came in with a little girl. The mother took the little girl to a box of books in the corner. The mother pulled out some books. ‘You play with those, Tilly, while we wait to see the doctor,’ she said. She sat back on her chair and the girl looked up at me with wide eyes.
Soon Pop came out with Dr Manning and they went to the counter together. Dr Manning said to the lady in the white dress, ‘Please give Mr Lee the information brochure we have for St Jude’s.’
‘Of course, doctor.’ The lady passed some papers to Pop. Pop took money from his wallet and paid her. I followed him out of the doctor’s house.
The papers the nurse had given Pop flapped against his chest as we crossed the road. ‘It’s going to be taken care of,’ he said.
I didn’t know if he was telling me or the road. ‘You’ll go to the hospital when it’s time. Then it will be over and done.’