by Olga Masters
25
She went too, into the garden to weed a rose bed.
She had dodged the job for weeks, seeing the space as too restricted to crawl into, but she was there now, tearing at soft cress-like growth, casting it backwards from her, unconscious it seemed of thorns plucking at her sleeves and digging into her back.
Some pierced her hands and blood was mixed with black earth, and she used the weeds to wipe her skin, and saw the red smearing the green as if bearing blooms.
Una, her cutting out done, wandered into the kitchen and saw the tea preparations halted, the fire low, and through the window her sister’s crouched shape under the roses.
‘Well, drat her socks!’ Una cried. She threw the window up noisily, and Enid backed out from under the bushes. She stood holding the trowel against her skirt and seemed to grow taller.
Her head was back, her eyes on the sky and she rubbed a sleeve across her forehead, resting her face for a moment on it. A wind came and swooped the shrubs about, and made tracks through the flower beds, but nothing of Enid, her clothes or her hair, appeared to move. Weird, weird, thought Una. But beautiful, yes quite beautiful. I’m glad he’s not here to see.
She went and poked among the coals in the stove, then went for the rice canister in the pantry, more than anything to pass the window again. Enid was now in a back corner of the garden where there was a trellis with a climbing rose. She had taken hold of the wood and was shaking it, stopping now and again to lay her face in the crook of her elbow and turn it from side to side.
Una, picking up a potato to peel, felt her mouth as dry as the skin offending her hands. She dropped the knife to look again at Enid, now with her face inside both arms upstretched, holding the trellis.
Una made the rice pudding, nutmeg on top, and had it in the oven when she remembered that Enid had been putting raisins in it lately. Oh, hang the lot of them! she told herself, giving the oven door a little kick with her shoe, as there was the sound of Enid’s shoes in the hall. In a little while she came into the kitchen, buttoning the cuffs of a puce-coloured dress that had been Nellie’s. She seldom wore it and it didn’t suit her, only the collar of rows of light-coloured lace saved her face from taking on the same puce shade. She wants to look her ugliest, Una thought, fighting a small gladness.
‘I made a rice pudding without raisins,’ Una said. ‘You weren’t here to ask.’
Enid went for the raisins, chopping them so swiftly and finely it looked as if she had no regard for her fingers, then taking the pudding out, swirled the nutmeg out of the way, scattered the raisins in and returned it to the oven.
There, said the snap of the oven door, another of your mistakes rectified.
Una put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, I shall go and do some machining on Small Henry’s christening gown, shall I?’
She was nearly to the living room door when Enid cried out, ‘Una!’ Una backed like a horse pulled with reins, until she reached the kitchen, where she stopped with rump extended and hands tucked under her armpits flapping them up and down.
A bird now, about to fly. Enid sank into a chair by the stove smoothing at her hands, rubbing at the small bloody marks. Thomas came in and slid against her leg, and getting no response turned to Una who slung him like a scarf across her shoulder and set a tray with things for the dining table, pinning Thomas to her shoulder with a cheek. Thomas twisted about and twitched his whiskers hoping to get to the milk jug. She released him and he landed on his feet, hooping his back and trying to decide between a leap on Enid’s lap and a watch on the woodbox out of which a mouse was known to have tumbled in the past. ‘Out!’ cried Enid, suddenly throwing out a foot, and Jack coming through the back door cried ‘Out!’ too and swung the door wide to help Thomas on his way. Una with the tea tray rattling felt she was dismissed too and decided not to return from the living room but leave the two of them to the intimacy of the kitchen.
‘Let them roll and toss before the fire and a shower of coals fall on his naked bum!’ Una muttered, making for the little room where the sewing machine was.
Enid was confused. Jack was in. For tea? No, there were the dirty cups and the clock hands, unless it had gone crazy, showing an hour past afternoon tea time.
She stroked the pot though in a distracted way, he thought. That other one was not giving her enough help!
‘I’ll wait for the hash,’ he said, nodding at the end of beef under one of her gauze coverings.
‘Of course,’ she said, and taking the cover off it, stared for a long moment then put it back again.
She bowled some green apples towards her and began to peel them. She knew he liked a plateful of them stewed, sometimes before going to bed. He felt steadier. He didn’t like seeing her unsettled, without her usual calm. The crack of the fruit as she split it startled him and he looked at the peel curling from her hand and dancing in a crazy way upon the table.
In a minute she had a saucepan full of slices, with sugar shaken through and some water thrown in and they were at the back of the stove.
‘I see some of the apples on that tree are turning yellow,’ Jack said. ‘George can take a ladder and gather some for eating.’
A basketful for him. The two of them admiring, she inviting him to run his thumb over the greeny-yellow skin of the fruit to feel and wonder at the greasy surface. She knew his thumbs. They were long with a bluish tinge to the skin at the joint. Sometimes he sat with his hands on his thighs and the thumbs made deep dents in the black cloth of his trousers. She thought of her thumbs there, surprised that she felt no shame. She would press them deeper than he did and there would be a jerk of the flesh as he snapped his legs open and she on her knees would move her body till it was against his crotch and he could raise his knees and press them into her back and she would bring him even closer with her arms wound and crushed to his back.
Her elbows were amongst her apple peelings, and Jack, although he did not want to, was looking at her face with her fingers pressing the flesh upwards on her cheeks. Then she reached for a colander and put the peelings in.
‘I think, Father, I will go to Percy’s for a week. I feel the need for a little holiday.’
He stood quickly and caught up his hat, holding it in a grip as if it was the hand of a friend who had unexpectedly solved a problem for him.
I’ll give her five pounds too to spend at the shops there, slip it into her hand as she is going, he thought, turning his face from her with the odd and foolish thought that she might guess and spoil the surprise.
Una could be heard back in the living room.
‘Tell her,’ Jack said, and Una hearing the raised voice came with a small, creased, curious face into the kitchen.
‘Your sister is going to the sea for a week,’ Jack said, as if it needed to be said very loud to be confirmed.
Una’s face went vivid. Her whole body leapt and quivered inside her clothes. Jack looked from her to Enid who seemed shrunk inside her puce dress. She had got thin. She needed a holiday!
‘Violet will come and stay with Small Henry!’ Una cried, bringing both hands together in a clap. ‘I shall have him here to fit while I make his christening dress!’
Jack had not wanted that. He had thought the flibbertigibbet might settle to some serious housekeeper if she had the place to herself for a while. It would help prepare her when she and the fellow …
But he wasn’t going to object. His Enid must get away for her holiday without disruption. She might finish up not going at all if there were arguments.
Enid was making the hash with mechanical hands. Small Henry! She had not thought of him for hours. His little shape rushed accusingly at her, and although his eyes were squeezed shut his face wore a hurt look. Small Henry, forgive me! Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me! I’ll make it up to you.
26
She did by thinking of him and talking of him all through
the week she was at Percy’s. Sybil, who was twenty and ripe like a black cherry, her body a piece of fertile ground ready for seed, raised the theory that it was Enid who bore Small Henry.
‘Think of it!’ she said to the ring of sisters in their attic room on their unmade beds, the air around them musty with the smell of scent and face powder, stained underwear and grubby linen and unwashed flesh. ‘We didn’t see her for six months or more!’ She narrowed her black eyes at a vision of Enid shut in a back room at Honeysuckle all day, walking about the yard awkwardly at night for exercise.
Sadie said this was nonsense. ‘Henry had a wife! Addie Brown was at the funeral and Enid was there large as life passing around the cakes and bossing Una about!’ Thoughts of Enid, immaculate in her room watching through the window the grey sea swirling, causing Sadie to get up and hand the jug from the washstand to a younger sister and order her to bring hot water from the kitchen, unbuttoning her blouse while she spoke. Sybil flung herself back among the tangled bedclothes raising both arms to exude more sweaty air.
‘He’s perfect, absolutely perfect. Wait till you see him!’ she said, mocking Enid.
‘I can wait – forever!’ she said, giving her stomach a passing slap to discard any hint of fertility there.
Alex brought Enid home at the end of the week and there on the verandah was Una with Small Henry in her arms. Enid moved forward in her seat holding her handbag very tight. Alex took the gesture as an insult to his driving. Silly, nervous female he thought glimpsing her tense face.
Enid saw Small Henry’s head with hair thinned out at the back where the pillow had rubbed it away. It was getting lighter in colour. Una should turn him for her to see his face! She saw Una tipping her head to bring Small Henry closer to her neck, jamming him there and giving her no chance of seeing him.
It was deliberate! She left her suitcase for Alex to bring in, and with a hurt and angry face gathered up a bag of jams and pickles from the hotel pantry and cuttings from the garden. Una went ahead and was in a chair in the living room, unwrapping Small Henry and expertly wrapping him again and lifting him to her shoulder. Still no face for Enid to see! She sat on the end of the couch, her luggage by her, waiting for the dimness to leave the room, wondering at the white blur in one corner until it emerged as the christening dress in a near finished state.
Well, look at her there, Violet thought, putting a few of her things together, for she thought while the car was on the road Alex might offer to drive her and Small Henry home. She does not look as if the holiday did her much good. She could look hangdog like George at times. Irritating. Give me a little brightness, I always say.
‘How was it at Percy’s?’ Violet said. ‘Any of that lot caught a man yet?’
Enid might have given her head a little shake before standing abruptly and going with her cuttings and jars to the kitchen. Una buried her face deeper into Small Henry’s neck.
Well, I can’t hang around here for the Reverend’s next visit to sort things out, Violet thought as she stuffed napkins in a bag. I’ve got to get home to Ned’s mess. There was George stepping from one foot to the other, waiting for a bidding to put Dolly in the sulky. A little run in the Austin would suit her better! She might throw a hint Alex’s way, which was by the fire with a Sunday Mail that he had flapped open and was rolling the opposite way for easy reading.
But there was the money she needed from George for her hospital. Oh damn and blast it, Violet said to herself, plucking Small Henry from Una’s arms to give vent to her annoyance. Laying him on the table she pulled the hem of his nightgown down around his feet, oblivious to the series of grunts he was starting and Una’s woeful expression.
‘I’ve got to start for home,’ she said loudly, the thought of Ned raising her voice several decibels.
Enid slipped into the room from her bedroom where she had gone to change into the puce dress. Small Henry’s small and piteous face was turned towards her. It was a little fuller than when she last saw it, a little more flesh-coloured than that mauvish colour. Even the eyebrows, more defined now, were screwed into anger with the mouth a tear in his face showing wet and angry gums.
Violet, who had changed his napkin, rolled him up as if he were a parcel of meat and handed him to Enid.
‘There!’ she said. ‘You might as well finish off the spoiling for that’s what he’s had all week!’
Enid backed to the couch to sit on one corner. The comfort of the dry napkin smoothed the anger from Small Henry’s face and the jagged hole that was his mouth closed into a small tight rosebud and he made a sucking motion as if food might be at hand and a little practice would do no harm. Enid smiled at this and bent low over his face so that his skin breathed onto her skin like warm silk, her breath moving the fine down like the wind bending low over her flower beds and causing a smell to rise, sweet as the smell of Small Henry’s face.
Una caught up the christening gown and pinned it to her front with her chin. ‘See!’ she said. ‘No lace or flowers. Imagine when he’s grown up showing him something lacy and frilly and telling him he wore it. He would hate me!’ She turned and tossed it from her and at that moment the back screen door banged and Enid lifting her face acknowledged the arrival of Jack. She stood returning Small Henry to Violet and slipped away to the kitchen.
Una leapt into a clear space in the room to pantomime the meeting between them. She thrust her body forward from the waist and pushed out her lips in the shape of a giant kiss. She held the pose, then as in a passion of ecstasy she flung a leg up and wound it around an imaginary figure. Alex turned to the fire to stifle his laughter by turning some logs. Violet’s mouth twitched while she rocked Small Henry to silence. George saw only her softened face and wished he was close enough to touch her. Una’s head was back and her arms stretched out and upwards, the fingertips just touching to illustrate the bulk of Jack.
Violet laughed outright and George moved up and touched her elbow. He tipped his head towards the back of the house, which in George’s language was stating he would harness Dolly and bring the sulky around to the front.
Oh, well, I have to, I suppose! Violet thought, dumping a bag of Small Henry’s things near the door with Una hovering near, arms poised to take Small Henry the moment Violet was prepared to surrender him. Alex there by the fire with his head in his paper was going to make no offer!
Violet trudged off to Henry’s old room for her case. Always the way, she grumbled to herself, those who have got it stick to it – meaning Alex’s car. She would have to stay with George, dull as he was. There was the sulky in front now, and Una looking as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over here.
‘Well, come for the ride,’ Violet said. ‘Take him and wrap him up well, in case he goes down with pneumonia!’ Una plucked a bonnet from Violet’s bulging bag and bore Small Henry to her bedroom, flinging him on the bed.
‘Stay quiet there, you little turd!’ she cried, crushing on her small hat and flinging her blue cape around her shoulders. ‘Keep still while I change my shoes, you little piece of rabbit dung. I need more time to get ready, but I haven’t got it. He’s seen me in this too many times already. Yell away, yell away!’
For Small Henry, fooled into thinking a change of position indicated a meal was on its way, was arching his back and squealing, threatening to smother himself inside his blanket. She took him up at last, crushing his bonnet on, laughing because the white wool made his face seem even redder, and flew out and climbed in the sulky beside Violet, who was crushed against George, to his great joy.
Enid saw the sulky from the kitchen window. Speeding towards Wyndham. Towards him.
Jack had just finished telling her about the Hoopers. The son-in-law, finding himself with a free morning, decided to go and collect them, giving them no time to warn Ned or Jack, and they drove off with pigs squealing for a meal, and cows trailing towards the bails, uttering an occasional pleading, mournful
cry.
Both Jack and Horse reared their heads at the sound of the long blast of the horn. The son-in-law laughed for the first time that day and Mrs Hooper, sitting where she chose to in the back of the truck to guard her china from breakages, for the son-in-law had flung it on carelessly, broke down and cried.
Jack had seen her with her head down and a man’s handkerchief to her face which was turned from the direction of the little grey house with the chimney still smoking.
Jack thought Enid was paying more attention to her garden through the window than to his story, but when he reached the part about Mrs Hooper’s tears, Enid cried, ‘Oh, Father!’ and burst into tears herself.
27
Mrs Watts had not disturbed the writing pad Edwards left on the table, the cover turned back like a bed turned down, waiting for occupancy. Mrs Watts, unable to read or write, dusted around it, aware there was nothing written there, but so deeply ashamed of her illiteracy she felt that even looking on it was equivalent to looking at a married couple in bed.
Edwards was aware of it too, lightning his lamp when it was too dark to see, and there was nothing to hear, after the sulky had carried Una back to Honeysuckle.
Dear Mother, the younger Miss Herbert was visiting this afternoon. It was totally unexpected. Passing my kitchen window I looked up and there she was.
He could not believe it. One minute there was the drab, empty front of Violet’s house, the verandah posts drooping dejectedly as he looked on them, the patch of road so cold and still it might have been scraped from the surface of the moon. He took some bread and cheese from his safe and passing the window again there was the sulky pulled up and Una springing from it, her blue cape flying and her arms upstretched to take Small Henry from Violet. It was as if he had turned his back on a blank wall and someone had hung a picture while he wasn’t looking.
‘She’s here!’ he cried, taking a bite from the cheese before flinging it down and walking rapidly into his living room.