by Susan Tarr
Malcolm was sad. He knew she wasn’t well, but he was her boy. He made more milky tea. He spilled the tea.
His father cuffed the boy heavily. “Get out of here! Go to your room. Get off with you!”
He later peeked through the door and saw his father standing by the window, crying and cursing at the wind.
Mr Brown The Rawleigh’s Man called to their front door with its four panes of coloured glass. The sun shone all afternoon making patterns from the fretwork on the veranda. Only important people came to the front. Regular people came to the back.
His mother bustled along the passage, wiping her hands on her pinny. She welcomed the man as if he were the minister or the doctor.
Mr Brown The Rawleigh’s Man’s visits were exciting. Like a fat brown duck, he waddled into the kitchen with two leather suitcases. One he placed neatly on the tabletop, the other on the floor. Malcolm knew what was in each: tall brown bottles: cough medicines and disinfectants held in place by frilly elastic ribbons, smaller jars of ointment and bottles of Mercurochrome. He was allowed to look inside the suitcases as long as he didn’t open any lids. He peered at the contents as Mr Brown The Rawleigh’s Man and his mother went into the sitting room.
Down the passage the swish of the heavy curtains being opened caught his attention. He raced along just as the door closed, shutting him out. Scuffing his boots on the carpet runner he returned sulkily to the kitchen. He studied the contents of the open suitcase and picked up a brown bottle. There was no special smell about this bottle, only the combined smells of all the bottles and jars, mysterious and inviting. He twisted the cork.
Up the passage…
Murmuring…
He resented being shut out.
This was his house and she was his mother and he was her little man. Back up the passage he stomped. The door stayed closed. Down to the kitchen he thumped. One suitcase open on the table, the other on the floor. He kicked it until it fell over. He picked the crusty scab on his knee. Big Billy had pushed him off the tree hut ladder five sleeps ago. He slid a grubby nail under the scab, grasped it firmly and yanked, gasping at the sharp sting. The blood oozed.
But he knew what to do. His teacher told his mother he was an intelligent boy and he would go far in this world. He was a big boy and would take care of himself. Mr Brown The Rawleigh’s Man and his mother behind the closed door. The little brown bottle. Peeling blue paper from the cottonwool. He ripped off a wad, tugged the tight cork from the bottle. Red everywhere. Red like blood. He was covered with blood. The table and the rug were covered with blood…
“Jack?”
Malcolm’s voice reed-thin, recalling a previous existence. Terrifyingly, he glimpsed the scale of his loss.
“Mummy was bleeding. Dying. That’s why…”
“Take it easy, son.”
Jack patted Malcolm’s shoulder.
Tears filled Malcolm’s eyes and rolled slowly down his cheeks, spreading sideways along each crease. His mouth hung open. A great intake of air sucked to the depth of his grief. His broad shoulders caved. His head hung low. He bawled.
Jack continued patting him on the shoulder.
Dorothea poked her head around, squinting through her glasses, screwing up her mouth in dislike. She turned back to her sink, scrubbed freshly pulled turnips, muttered loudly, “Don’t be s-s-slow. Don’t.”
Scrub, scrub. Scrub, scrub. Scrub…
His bawling gaining momentum. Dorothea stuck her wet fingers into her ears, waggled them, chanted, “C-c-can’t h-hear. C-can’t h-hear. Can’t hear!”
Malcolm drew breath, enough for his next bawling, before two attendants escorted him back to his ward, him stumbling and banging against them.
Grief-stricken, yet knowing, he submitted to the preparations for The Treatment in the long wooden ward. He howled his terror as they discussed his medication: two pinks, two whites and a yellow.
One said, “Can’t have a disruptive patient. Once one gets started they all get started. That new feller, Doctor Burt, he said Malcolm was coming along nicely. He’s likeable enough but he’s young and inexperienced. Well, I guess they can’t hope to get them all right. Did you hear about that kiddie in…?”
Whispers. Fuzzy. Mixed up. Quiet inside. White.
sometimes snow sometimes hail sometimes sunshine sometimes mist sometimes fog sometimes fog
sometimes summer sometimes winter sometimes summer sometimes winter sometimes sometimes
He hadn’t always been in this ward, whichever ward it was. After The Treatment, he woke to find himself with new people. Most of them sleepy. He was sleepy.
One day he remembered his jacket pocket lining. He had two secrets, his pills and Julie’s candlewick balls. He felt smooth and content. But when he thought about it now, he knew in his heart he didn’t have the secrets – they had him.
He tried to understand the progression – or not – of his personal behaviour, emotional or physical, that had earned him another shock treatment, but nothing was explained to him. He had The Treatment in clusters with no recollection of what had built up before each of them. Then he’d wander among the others, sleepy and confused, with their pillows clutched to their chest, crooning or yelling, banging the walls, eyes full of fear or pleading.
When he realised he was outside the enclosed grassy area he somehow knew he’d wandered back to the wrong ward. His home kept shifting. But he recognised that this last treatment took place near the laundry and the main kitchen.
He dreamed he would find the perfect sleep, but when he found it what would he do with it?
CHAPTER 16
His Boots
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly I don’t know why she swallowed a fly perhaps she’ll die
“Get a move on, Malcolm, or they’ll leave without you.”
The hospital bus was packed with patients dressed in picnic clothes. Dorothea wore a straw sunhat that mice had eaten a hole through. His thoughts flicked over to his mouse…
The good ones were going to Warrington Beach for a picnic on this glorious day. He was a good one – he’d kept his nose clean for some time. Mr Antonio organised sandwiches and orange cordial. A nurse sat in the front seat opposite the driver. Two attendants sat down the back.
Eventually they arrived at the camping area beneath the tall skinny pine trees. Dorothea howled when someone shook out a grey blanket to sit on. She got sand in her eyes. The nurse waited while Dorothea took her glasses off, then she peered into her eyes. She pulled her own upper eyelid down over her bottom lid to show Dorothea what to do. He thought this nurse was kindly when she spoke, though mostly he couldn’t understand what she said. She was newly out from England.
Dorothea’s hands were cracked from years of scrubbing piles of pots, podding mountains of peas, peeling acres of potatoes. Those raw hands peeled her upper eyelid down.
“That’s better now, isn’t it?” The nurse moved on to unpack the picnic box.
Meanwhile, with her back to everyone, Cynthia sat wringing her hands and fretting. She stood up, flicked and twitched her skirt about herself before straightening the picnic blanket. She smiled, but her mouth quivered. She forced it back into another tremulous smile. Her eyes watered and she wiped them with her frayed fingers. No one sat next to Cynthia.
With the patients finally organised, the nurse left some of them sitting on the blanket. She pulled on a skullcap. She wore her swimsuit under her uniform. Some of the others followed her down the beach to where the waves splashed flatly onto the sand. They trailed into those waves to stay with lips blue and teeth chattering, huddled like a bunch of softly-hued tulips in a vase. Then some splashed unenthusiastically while others stood rigid, or paddled at the water’s edge like tired old children, watching the waves and gulls without pleasure. One older woman, round as a turnip, swam as languid as seaweed the length of her mentally designated short beach.
“Malcolm, you join in. Off with your boots now.”
Malcolm sat on the sharp
beach grass and undid his laces. He took his boots off.
“Socks off too. Come on, come on! The tide’s going out. Get your wits about you.”
“I’m not overly fond of water,” he said quietly to no one. “I really am not fond of water.”
His eyes were drawn to the seams of his boots where traces of long-dried bog dirt remained imbedded. In trepidation, he peeled his socks off, rolled them up, and dropped them in tight little balls next to his boots. There he sat, unnoticed.
A group of barefoot footballers stood waiting for direction. Phaedrus got to kick off first. Cackling raucously, he kicked the ball, which landed among the sharp beach grasses in the hot sand dunes. Phaedrus straightened up, crowing like a maniac, making it clear he wasn’t about to get his feet cut up.
One attendant muttered, “He’s away with the bloody fairies again.”
The other said loudly, “Stupid bastard!” and went to retrieve the football, cursing the razor-sharp grass. “It’s a bloody waste of time, this gadabout!”
He kicked the football expertly to land at Phaedrus’ feet. Phaedrus watched, unmoved, as it rolled a few times before it came to a halt a couple of yards away.
“Come on, then. Try it again!”
The attendant shook his head in frustration.
Phaedrus caterwauled as he picked at his trouser front, sliding his hand down to his swollen crotch.
“Get your hands out of your pants or you’ll get The Treatment. I’m warning you.”
Malcolm turned away. He’d heard that several patients had been committed to the hospital due to ‘excessive and indiscriminate masturbation’. Some reportedly made indecent proposals to women. And men. Phaedrus was a fine example of excessive and indiscriminate masturbation. On this happy hospital outing to Warrington Beach he had tuned out the cursing and threats.
An attendant delivered a firm kick to his backside. His head jolting forward, Phaedrus lurched face first into the sand. Some of the others watched idly as he pulled himself upright, spitting out sand, still cackling.
“Just kick the friggin’ ball!”
Phaedrus kicked as half-heartedly as before. This time the ball went in the opposite direction, surprisingly high. There it stayed, wedged between the topmost branches of a nearby pine tree.
“Bugger me days!”
Malcolm limped over to where lunch was being served. He reached for a sandwich before sitting on the edge of the blanket, away from Dorothea and her constant blinking, closer to Cynthia, who smiled her teary gratitude. Phaedrus sat down heavily next to him and started in on the sandwiches, giggling inanely, one hand groping again in his crotch.
Dorothea glanced beneath her sunhat at everyone ignoring her. When her eyes lit on Phaedrus, she gagged repeatedly. After one almighty shudder, she moved to the furthest edge of the blanket to show her disdain. There she sulked with her back to everyone, refusing to eat or drink anything more.
Someone said, “Give it a rest, Phaedrus. You’re making Poor Dorothea puke.”
“You’re making her eyes water. You’re making her cry, so give over.”
“It’ll fall off. You’ll go blind like Poor Dorothea.”
“Like Poor Dorothea,” Cynthia murmured.
The focus had shifted from Phaedrus and his tugging hand to Dorothea. Then no one spoke again until one bloke announced, concerning his sandwich, “It’s that bloody tinned corned beef. It’s not fresh. I bet it’s not all beef either.”
Phaedrus cackled loudly. “Ya reckon there’s cocks ground up in it, do ya?”
The nurse, towelling her damp hair, said sternly, “You shouldn’t say that word, Phaedrus. It’s not polite. There are ladies present.”
But the bloke with the sandwich opened it and poked his finger around inside it.
“Well, my oh my. I do believe that’s one of them things right there!”
The nurse slapped his hand. He dropped his sandwich into the sand. Phaedrus cackled some more.
Malcolm hid his grin in his sandwich. He thought the blokes were pretty funny.
Lunch was over.
The youngest attendant retrieved the football from up in the pine tree in time to board the bus. The other attendant collected an assortment of bathing costumes, boots, socks and sandshoes, tossing them into a box strapped to the rack at the back of the bus. There were a few sandwiches left on the sand, curling in the sun.
“Come along. Hurry up there.”
“It’s been fun, hasn’t it?”
“It’s time to go.”
“Put your cardie on.”
The staff adroitly dispensed these small kindnesses.
“Keep warm.”
“Pick up that towel. Don’t drag it in the sand.”
“Be quick now.”
“Have you had a good outing?”
“Everyone had a good picnic? That’s nice,” said the nurse. “Oh, I know what. Before we go, why don’t you sing us a little song, dear?”
This she directed at Dorothea whose face and neck blotched violently. She wrapped her arms tightly about her chest, swinging left and right. Then she began humming, making a faint noise Malcolm had not heard before.
“Yes, sing us a wee song, lovie,” said the bus driver. “Me mam used to go to the town hall in the Octagon. She’d go all that way in the bus just to hear you sing opera. She said you were a right little corker. When you were young, like. So go on, sing us a wee song. Do it for me mam.”
Dorothea clenched her jaw lest her mouth betray her and burst into some glorious aria she’d never forgotten. She was a shy woman, decidedly plain, unattractive. She got flustered whenever she had to speak. On each occasion Malcolm had heard her, she stuttered. Her hands would sweat and her legs tremble. In short she was pretty much like the rest of them.
For now her face relaxed a little and a smile began at the corner of her lips and her reddened eyes were wet. She tilted her head upwards and she saw something no one else did.
The older attendant said, “Nope. It happens every time. She sings but only to herself where no one can hear. Inside her head, like. No one knows what happened except mid-performance she just stopped singing. Beyond recall, that one.”
The conversation moved on to the hospital hall. Malcolm listened avidly as they talked about how it was finally finished after extensive redecoration and restoration, and then discussed the equipment on its stage, and the lighting for the upcoming drama and musical performances. Clearly the staff were proud to provide accommodation and facilities of the highest standard for the earliest performances of the New Zealand Ballet Company, and to advance the musical entertainment provided by its own orchestra consisting of both staff and patients.
Even though Dorothea turned up religiously to watch she couldn’t be persuaded to sing on stage, or off it. One time when she was absent from the kitchen, Malcolm found her standing alone on the stage in the dim light, head held high, tears streaming down her face. Soundless. He never learned what her secret was, why her singing was trapped inside her. Even Mr Green didn’t know.
The young attendant tossed the football into the bus box on top of the boots and sandshoes.
“Hey, Brian, you hear any more about that young feller who hung himself?”
Malcolm’s body prickled instantly, while Brian, the other attendant, choked over someone’s smoke.
“Young Ned, the accountant chappie? Nothin’ more. He sure was polite, eh. You know where they found him? In the willows above the primary school. Below the boiler man’s house in that mucky bog.”
The conversation went back and forth between the two men. Malcolm listened to everything they said. He clearly remembered the man hanging in the tree. For one part he was glad Ned had been found; it wasn’t right that he should hang there, alone, forever. But he was shocked now they were actually discussing it.
One scratched his head, organised some more patients onto the bus. “Yeah, the bloke that found him said he was just hanging there like an ugly kite.”
The rest milled around. Malcolm stared blankly at the fine white sand, he couldn’t move. Sandflies settled on his neck. Dorothea screwed her fingers in her ears, turned in aimless circles.
He forced himself to walk to the back of the bus to get his boots. He set to digging the bog dirt from the seams with a stick. When it broke he reached into his pocket for his nail. It was long gone.
“Come on, Phaedrus! Climb aboard, Dorothea. Malcolm, where are you going now? You can clean your boots later. Who’ve we got so far? Allen, Bert, Eliza, Alfred, Leonard and Margaret, and you, Cynthia. The rest of you’ll miss tea.”
Once the attendant clamped the door shut, he stood braced in the aisle totting up patients. Seated in the fifth row next to the window, Malcolm was number seven. It wouldn’t do to leave a loony loose on Warrington Beach. The driver started the engine, letting it idle unsteadily before beefing up the revs, selecting first gear and then swinging the heavy steering around. Malcolm saw how he released the clutch with a jump. He watched as the bus lumbered slowly away from the glistening sands and creamy foam skirts of the beach. But he couldn’t take his mind off his boots.
The driver yelled down the bus to the attendants at the rear, “It’s odd. When you come to think of it, that is. Hung himself. So how’d he manage that?”
“They think someone might have helped him. One of his cobbers.”
“Why’s that, then?”
“Too many boot prints in the bog.”
“You’re pulling my chain!” the driver yelled. “Fair dinkum? Suppose there’ll be a bloody enquiry now.”
Malcolm swallowed the bile that surged up from his gut. He tucked his head lower and tried to clean the remaining bog dirt off his boots with his fingernails and spit. He wanted to shake the sand out of his socks, but they were back in the bus box. He wanted to do something, anything at all, except listen to what the men were discussing. How Ned The Accountant had help to hang himself, because of the extra boot prints in the bog.
CHAPTER 17
Father Teague