by Susan Tarr
Malcolm laughed aloud to himself. “The Loony Bin? The Booby Hatch?”
But it was already called by those names.
Here at the Maclaggan Street house he had his own room, quite unlike the hospital where he grew up. At night it was quiet: no snoring, farting or coughing. He was alone by himself and he could make whatever noises he wanted. Set in the end wall was a tall casement window with the neighbour’s high fence blanking out his view.
Often he’d sit on the end of his narrow bed, staring at that fence, counting the knotholes or timber palings. If he stood on the bed he could feel the warmth of the morning sun on his face, and he could also see over the fence.
The neighbours behind the fence were dark-spirited people. They didn’t smile when Malcolm smiled at them as they waited outside at the gate to collect their pint of milk. They ignored Bob when he said a gruff good morning by the fish vendor’s van. And if they saw Malcolm observing them as they went about their business behind the fence, they’d shake their fists at him and make their faces ugly with dark gaping holes where their mouths should be. They were like ghosts who never spoke, staring from blank eyes and communicating through blank open mouths. There’d been a few people like them back at The Building.
The tall window had its own oiled blind that he could pull down each night if he wanted to. If he let it go too fast it would snap right to the top and stay there. Then he’d stand precariously balanced on a stool, coaxing the blind down, only to have it snap back to the top again. Bob had come away from his kitchen and shown Malcolm the trick of making it stay down. He liked Bob. Bob knew things. Bob was almost a regular guy even though he’d come out from The Building the same as the rest of them. He cooked some colourful strange vegetables. He also made an odd fishy paste that he spread generously in their sandwiches. Malcolm had become overly fond of this.
“Listen to this news, Mal. There’s a huge fire in Ballantyne’s Store up in Christchurch. They say it’s much bigger and much worse than that fire in Ward 5. Lots o’ people killed. Some of them youngsters too.”
Malcolm smelled again the smoke, heard the roar and swoop of the devouring flames, the screams and howls – some from within the fire and some from the watchers. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his eyes pricked with unshed tears. Bob shoved a chair out for him and for some time both men sat in silence. They knew about fires and the insatiable appetites of fires. They knew that not everyone would be spared.
When the moon was high, Malcolm often left the blind up and lay beneath his blankets staring up at the sky. Round and white, the moon smiled down on him and listened to his thoughts. He had gained trust in the moon after a time and he began to wordlessly confide in it. The moon would keep his secrets; the moon would never lie…
CHAPTER 3
Contentment at Maclaggan Street
In 1946, Malcolm first rode into Dunedin in the Seacliff Mental Hospital van to live in the white house, to be a regular normal man. He was scared and remained scared for a long time. Mostly he stayed in his room, getting up sometimes to limp around the path to his side of the house and touch the knotholes in the high fence outside his window. He’d scratch M on it with a nail, then put the nail back into his pocket. It was a handy nail.
When the grip of winter took hold of the landscape, making the days short and dim and the pitch-black nights as long as a year, he began to sit with the others in the sitting room. He listened to the radio, taking from the voices and music a kind of anonymous friendship from afar. This bounty of happiness and the new ideas and revelations that came from the radio dispelled some of the lonely darkness.
Julie came in the van from The Building too. In the endless tide of moving – some in, some out – they never remembered how they had first met. They knew it was somewhere in their accumulated pasts, hidden among memories they could not share. Yet here they were. Julie, serene with cornflower-blue eyes and a scar on her chin from an old gash, and Malcolm with his noisy cumbersome walk and braced boot. Yet he found himself wishing they had met properly, earlier.
Julie had the end room beyond the bathroom, past the linen cupboard and along the dark passage. Her room had two casement windows, one on each outside wall. She also faced the wooden fence. Her other window overlooked the back garden though she couldn’t see that either. Malcolm wondered if she closed her blinds at night, if the white face of the moon disturbed her. And since she had no sight, did she know it would listen to her thoughts?
During the day she wore a shapeless floral print dress made by the women inmates in the hospital sewing room. The buttons on her cardigan were mismatched. Only the top two were the same.
He sensed Julie was sometimes frightened. She reminded him of the field mouse he kept in his pocket, turning her head as if to ask him a question, yet not speaking. Sometimes the mouse would quiver as he stroked it or fed it crumbs from Bob’s kitchen. Like the mouse, Julie sometimes needed a strong friend, someone to tell her about the step at the bathroom door or about the sharp piece jutting out at one corner of the worn stone bench.
Initially he had looked away when she stumbled or fell down, closing his ears though she made no sound at all. With all his being he wanted to help her, but he felt powerless to act. Fragmented memories of beatings and The Treatment dealt out when he dared intrude in the problems of others back at The Building kept him still and silent. He was working to overcome this.
She didn’t talk much, but then neither did he. They lived in a world full of silent people. It was by chance they sat next to each other in the cosy kitchen at the back of the house that overlooked the washhouse and vegetable garden.
By chance they ate together at the kitchen table covered over with an oilcloth. In the sitting room their armchairs were cramped close together in whatever space was left. His hands lay limp in his lap as he watched hers move and touch, respond, curve and prod. She had a bag of cut lengths of multi-coloured rags and a rectangle of sacking.
One day he spoke to her in his rasping disused voice. “What are you actually making, Julie?”
“A rag rug.” She flicked her blank eyes in his direction, and smiled warmly.
He watched, mesmerised, as her nimble fingers plucked and hooked the coloured strips through the open weave of the sacking, creating an endless mass of fiery colours.
“It looks like the Queens Gardens.”
“Does it really?” She smiled toward him again.
“Yes. It’s real pretty.”
But he was looking at Julie, not the rug.
In the kitchen, Bob lit the coal range, endlessly feeding its insatiable appetite. The range burned hotly, sometimes, it seemed to Malcolm, for months on end. Especially through the winter when it never stopped heating and feeding, feeding and heating. There was a tap on the tank at the side where they could get hot water for washing dishes in the enamel sink, and a wetback for the bathroom. A kettle constantly simmered on top for teas and cocoas. The water heated, and roasts and rice puddings were cooked in it. It was Bob’s coal range. No one else touched any part of it or what was on or in it.
Except Malcolm.
At 5am he pulled his clothes on and headed straight for the kitchen. His job was to take the cooled ashes from the range out to the garden, leaving a few remaining embers in the grate. Then he’d polish the warm range with black Zebra Nugget and a brush from a wooden box he kept beneath the sink.
At 5.30am, Bob re-stoked his range with newspaper, kindling wood and coal. He blew gustily onto the embers until the newspaper flared. Every morning he told Malcolm the same thing. “There’s an art to getting it just right, m’ boy. Gotta make sure there’re always embers under them ashes, under the burnt coal. Right?”
“Right, Bob.”
Malcolm helped the coalman with his deliveries. Oddly enough, he liked coal and the bucket of Southland coal he carried in sat ready on the polished hearth for Bob to feed his fire.
Every morning Bob told Malcolm, “This coal is full o’ dust and chemicals. It
’ll ruin the roof. I’ve told Sister Evans a dozen times to get the shiny black Kaitangata coal.”
“Right, Bob.”
Malcolm admired Bob. He liked his rough and rugged manner. And ever since he’d arrived at the house, Bob had kept his eye out for him.
One of the others polished the front porch step with red Nugget until it shone as rosy as an apple.
Julie couldn’t see Malcolm’s limp. She never saw how his jacket hung over his broad shoulders with sleeves too short for him, or his much fumbled tweed cap. To her, he was just Malcolm, always nearby in case she needed someone to talk to or help her.
As their friendship grew into a second year, Malcolm gained confidence in it. Julie lived in the same house, shared with him and laughed with him. Sometimes he could believe they danced together and loved together, just like his mother and father had in their front sitting room.
She had never been out walking so he asked Sister Evans’ permission to walk her into the city sometimes. He promised to take care of her and make sure she was safe in the traffic. And keep her dry if it should rain.
One fine spring day, the pair set out for a little walk into town. Even though Julie walked deliberately and carefully with her white cane tap-tapping ahead, he saw how excited she was. Whenever they came to a corner he would touch her arm and tell her what the intersecting street was called. She’d repeat the name and tap her cane around the curbing until she found the road below. With another light touch he would guide her across to the other side. The first time they went walking they made their way slowly to the Queens Gardens.
One day he said, “If it’s the Queens Gardens how come I never seen no queen here?”
They’d been walking out regularly now. On fine days, they walked all the way north to Wilson’s Distillery where he liked to count bricks. On colder days they stayed snug inside the house up Maclaggan Street.
Julie thought about his question before she replied.
“Maybe the queen comes at another time.”
The gardens were at the bottom of the steep street beyond Moray Place, opposite the NZR Bus Terminal. Sometimes they walked across the busy road while drivers tooted horns, brandished fists. He held her hand tighter. They stood in front of the wrought iron fence enclosing the steam train.
Still holding her hand, he said, “It’s Josephine.”
“Josephine,” she repeated, like she always did. “It’s a good name for a steam train. Is it a girl?”
He laughed from deep down in his belly. He knew she was kidding. They liked to laugh.
“Girl steam trains,” he chuckled again as they crossed back to the park, her white cane tapping in front of her. “Whatever will you say next?”
Mostly they sat on a wrought-iron bench with lion feet on each corner. He watched the pigeons dance and squabble on the Robbie Burns statue.
“They’re doing it again, Julie. Shitting.”
She responded with a sweet sound, turning her face toward his. “Well, that’s pigeons, eh.”
The sun was setting beyond the stone buildings and factory chimneys. Pink streaking an orange sky. The air was burdened with the sickly stench of MacLeod soap and Cadbury Fry Hudson chocolate.
Malcolm explained to Julie how the three names, Cadbury, Fry and Hudson, were first joined together in 1930. Fry was Swiss chocolate, Hudson made biscuits and Cadbury came from England. He gained great pleasure from sharing his learning from the radio.
Before long, darkness shadowed below the sunset, smouldering and intense, reminding him of the smithy’s furnace back at The Building, at the hospital. He turned from the brightness and watched as she faced it with her sightless eyes.
“Tell me about today’s sunset,” she said quietly.
Watching the evening progress, he saw how it changed Julie into the prettiest person he had ever seen, touching her eyes and her nose with its rich colours. For a time he simply gazed at her face, her smile.
“It’s red and orange in places with darker blue patches. Oh, and there’s purple too.”
A bird angrily demanded crumbs. Julie tilted her head, listening.
“That’s a sparrow. It should be in bed by now.”
“Yes, light brown feathers, black eyes like raindrops on the road. It’s a girl.”
He didn’t take his eyes from her face, and his chuckle made her smile.
They sat close together in silence as cars roared and buses ambled by with the occasional toot. In the distance a siren wailed. With Julie, he wasn’t shy any more. He’d learned to laugh at jokes, and he’d learned to make his sentences longer because she listened to him, and she didn’t make fun of his stilted speech. Like last night when they’d listened to Life With Dexter on the oak valve radio. He’d explained how HMV meant His Master’s Voice.
“It’s on the front of the radio. You can feel the little dog with your finger. The radio is my learning. It can be yours too, Julie.”
As the seasons blended one into the other, the two were rarely apart. He picked flowers from their front garden. She would hold and smell them while he collected a vase.
That autumn it was cold with a white frost, clean and crunchy underfoot.
“We’ve got new neighbours,” he said. “No one has met them. We’ve seen them, watched them. Bob tried to speak to them. They keep to themselves.” Then he grinned a bit. “I heard them saying it could be dangerous, the lot of us living next door. They talk about what we get up to in here, a house full of the likes of us right next door to decent-living Christian folk. They said we should be locked up. Permanent, like. Hah!”
“Why do you think they say that?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “What do you think about them saying that?”
“I think if they feel that way then they best build a wall, a fortress to keep their family safe from us.” Silent for a moment, he then added, “But I think they’re the crazy ones.”
C HAPTER 4
Grey Lizzie
“Milkman’s coming!”
Grey Lizzie shoved her head through the heavy brocade and velvet curtains.
Malcolm ambled down the narrow passage, his bulk almost brushing against each opposing wall. He stepped outside as the early morning autumn sun streamed through the panes of red glass. On the radio, Aunt Daisy talked about the sun shining right up her back passage. Same as here, he thought. Sun shining…
The milkman passed the white picket fences, the clapboard houses and the roughcast terraced cottages, rattling crates, bottles of milk and cream.
“Open the door, Malcolm,” snapped Grey Lizzie. “He’s gone. Get the milk. Go on. Don’t forget my newspaper.”
She spent her life hunched over newspapers, more often than not refusing to tidy the bathroom or mop the floor dry. Germs, she insisted. Germs everywhere. Especially on the floor. And when she said ‘germs’ a shudder of disgust ran through her, making her look stiff and terrified as if she’d come into contact with some filthy dangerous animal.
“I won’t forget.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.” He set his jaw firmly, and made his way to the gate. Two pints each day and don’t forget Grey Lizzie’s newspaper.
“You did yesterday,” she added once he returned.
“She’s a fool, that one. The woman takes no mind ’o me,” Bob said. “I’ll skim the cream off for tomorrow’s porridge so put them in the safe on the back porch for now. And God help anyone who opens the fresh milk first.” Bob said this last sentence loudly right into the sitting room. “And ya lot save the tops. Especially the red cream ones.”
He bellowed on a bit about keeping house rules, scowling around the group. Someone was getting into the milk, drinking the thick cream right off the top.
Each of them had to promise to pitch in and do their best when they moved into the house. No staff, no nurses, no attendants. Just Sister Evans once a week to check up on them, bring stores and collect soiled linen. Today was Monday so at 10am sharp Sister Evans arrived.
She wore a white uniform, stiff white veil and a blue woollen cape lined with red. She came in the hospital van that delivered bags of fresh linen, before collecting their dirty laundry, which Malcolm had stuffed into empty bags. He carried the bags to and fro because he was the strongest person there. Sometimes he’d carry two bags tossed one over each shoulder.
So everyone sat around the kitchen table. After pouring herself a cup of strong Bell tea, Sister Evans took grocery orders and heard out problems and grievances, all the while blatantly counting heads: no one escaped, no one sick, no one dead.
“If anyone has a problem they should bring it up now,” she said abruptly. She always said this to make sure the meeting wouldn’t drag on with needless piffle. “Or hang on to it until next week.”
No one made any comment though there were a few shuffles. Then Sister Evans honed in on Grey Lizzie, her face sullen, mouth curled down as thin as a chicken’s beak, waving her hand in the air.
“Lizzie?” Sister Evans invited.
“Crikey Dick,” Bob groaned. “Another beef?”
Sister Evans frowned. “Wait your turn, Robert.”
Bob crimsoned, tightened his mouth, his ill-fitting false teeth clamped firmly against each other.
Grey Lizzie stood up, as if addressing a real and important meeting, and away she went. She complained, moaned and grizzled, endlessly skirting around her issue.
Malcolm watched and listened, wearing a face of exaggerated understanding.