Wind in the Wires

by Joy Dettman

  ‘Me and my hubby got hitched by a Reverend Duckworth,’ she offered. Amber nodded, but made no reply. ‘We lived at Richmond at the time. Was your father ever there?’

  ‘No,’ Amber said, and Lorna scoffed and tapped the newspaper.

  It was that scoff that went a long way towards Amber’s late identification of her ward mate, and her street garb, brought to the convalescent home by Lorna’s minister and his wife. Her conversation with them removed any doubt.

  ‘I had business with my brother in Woody Creek and intended staying overnight, but having learnt he’d wed the local trollop, I decided to drive home,’ Lorna said.

  Amber took up her crutch and hobbled from the ward. And nowhere to hobble to but the bathroom. She locked herself in and stood staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  A bald head alters a male’s appearance. It alters a woman’s more. Amber Morrison had never worn spectacles. Miss Elizabeth Duckworth wore blue-framed bifocals which she lifted now to study her scarred scalp. Like a road map, red scars crisscrossed there, but hair was sprouting, growing through white.

  In Woody Creek, her hair had been a beige blonde, worn shoulder-length. In Woody Creek, she’d been younger. She barely recognised herself; a woman with poor eyesight had little hope.

  The parson and his wife had gone when she returned to the ward with a copy of the Age. Lorna preferred the Age.

  ‘Prime Minister Menzies announced the resumption of national service training, with conscripts liable for overseas service. Service will be for two years, and the intakes determined by a birthday lottery . . .’

  *

  Beds in convalescent hospitals are provided for deserving cases. Lorna, no longer deserving, clung longer than necessary to her three meals a day, cups of tea and cake, domestics to make her bed each morning. She clung overly long to her damaged eyesight, or perhaps to her reader-companion. Admit it she would not, not even to herself, but she and Margaret had spent most of their years side by side, and who amongst us does not crave companionship?

  ‘You have an income, Miss Duckworth?’ she asked one evening.

  ‘Father’s income died with him. The house belonged to the Church.’

  Norman’s income would have died with him. His house had belonged to the railways. The easiest and safest way to play a role was to retain fact where she could and alter what she couldn’t, but not outrageously. She and Sissy had spent months with Norman’s Uncle Charles, a parson, and his wife and their son Reginald, after the death of Leonora April. Amber had known the life they’d led, had lived it for a time.

  ‘The Church would not have seen you put out on the street,’ Lorna argued.

  ‘I have been more accustomed to giving than to receiving charity,’ Amber said, then continued her reading.

  But Lorna was not done. ‘You receive a pension, I assume?’

  Amber Morrison received the old-age pension. Her cheques would be piling up at the Melbourne GPO. She’d been on her way there, had planned to wait for the doors to open, get her money and catch a train as far as her pension would take her.

  Miss Duckworth shook her head. ‘Father believed that pensions were for the unfortunates, not for those of strong mind and limb.’ Or Amber’s mother had.

  ‘Pride may nourish the soul, Miss Duckworth, but it supplies a very limited meal,’ Lorna said, studying her reader-companion as she returned to her paper. She enjoyed the reports on horrendous accidents.

  ‘The thirty-seven-year-old mother of five was pronounced dead at the scene, a five-year-old boy died on his way to –’

  Lorna interrupted again. ‘For your assistance in the house, once you are on two feet of course, I would be prepared to make my guest room available. If you so desire.’

  Amber desired. She looked at her benefactor, breathless with desire, wordless, as her benefactor laid down the regulations of communal occupation.

  ‘My funds are limited. I am therefore unable to offer a wage. It would be necessary for you to swallow your pride and apply for a pension.’

  ‘I am . . . overwhelmed by your generosity, Miss Hooper.’

  *

  Lorna Hooper was all but evicted from the convalescent bed. Miss Elizabeth Duckworth would retain hers until the plaster was removed from her leg. On two occasions, Lorna returned, as a visitor. On the first, she brought papers required to be completed in order to obtain a pension. She supervised their completion. On the second occasion, she brought two oranges, her address and cash enough to pay the taxi fare to Kew.

  Amber was released on a Tuesday morning. She didn’t go immediately to Kew but took a taxi to the Melbourne GPO where she collected her batch of pension cheques from an elderly chap who eyed her suspiciously. Perhaps he recalled the draggle-haired hag in her black overcoat, or her name – or her bulk of cheques.

  Her leg was not strong yet. She had much to do, but where to begin the doing of it?

  She walked to a bank where she opened an account with two pension cheques. She cashed two more. She’d feared collecting her money, but there it was, in her hand, with a small blue book. She could collect no more – or had no intention of collecting more when she took a tram to Richmond, where at an opportunity shop she accrued a past. A handbag, black, a little worn. A walking stick. She required it today – and surely it had belonged to her dear departed father. Someone’s discarded wedding photograph in a fake silver frame became her dead parents. She purchased a large case, two pairs of shoes, and a pretty china teapot, obviously long-departed mother’s favourite teapot – and expensive enough at two shillings.

  She was selective with her clothing. ‘I lost everything in a house fire,’ she lied. The charitable woman manning the store was both sympathetic and helpful.

  A black suit looked made to measure for Elizabeth Duckworth. Two blouses, one blue, one blue striped. Three frocks, undergarments too, and nightwear, and such a pretty embroidered maroon dressing-gown.

  Private mailbox! Amber thought while her purchases were totalled and packed into the case, other than the walking stick and the handbag. Too much weight in the case, she left it with the sympathetic woman and caught a tram back to the post office, where she bought an envelope and spoke to a middle-aged male.

  ‘How do I go about obtaining a private mailbox?’

  It had been a long time since Amber Morrison had gone shopping with money in her handbag. She liked the feeling. And unless she contacted the pension office, they’d keep sending Amber’s cheques. Why not fix up a safe harbour for them, and for her bankbook, which Miss Duckworth couldn’t take with her to Kew.

  It took time, but she got it done, then her bankbook sealed into the envelope she posted it to Amber Morrison’s private mailbox at the GPO, the key to which was safe, pinned into a zipper compartment in her black handbag.

  Hailed a taxi out front of the GPO, collected her case from the sympathetic woman, then Miss Elizabeth Duckworth continued on to Kew, to a solid house, situated in a quiet street, externally much as she’d expected.

  Chaos within. But chaos had once bowed to Amber Morrison’s hands.

  *

  Lorna’s elderly Ford was written off by her insurance company, for too little. She purchased a new vehicle, a Morris. Amber spent a portion of Miss Duckworth’s first pension cheque on beeswax and turpentine. She’d always mixed her own furniture polish.

  She spent hours at the sink, washing fine china she’d found hidden deep in a cabinet she recognised as the one from Vern Hooper’s dining-room. She washed an expensive vase that had once held pride of place on his sitting-room mantelpiece, always a delight to Amber’s eyes – as were six dainty figures.

  Within a few days, chaos began to back away. Within a week, the rooms had undergone a dramatic improvement; within two weeks, they were transformed.

  As was Amber. When her hair grew sufficiently, she clad herself in her black suit and blue blouse and drove with her benefactor to church, where Lorna introduced her as ‘Miss Duckworth, my live-in companion’
.

  A few eyebrows were raised, a few elbows jabbed a neighbour’s ribs. ‘Companion, my foot.’

  There were more who stared at Lorna’s blob of nose. The surgeon hadn’t had a lot left to work with.

  A symbiosis of misfits, an interdependent, mutually beneficial relationship, theirs. Lorna had saved Amber’s life the night she’d all but taken it. For Lorna, she’d had the good fortune to bowl over a skivvy-companion who cleaned, baked, polished, did the laundry, knew which drawer, which shelf or cupboard would reveal what Lorna sought.

  Relieved of the stresses of living, Lorna returned to her bookwork and, in time, to her reading. She had one good eye and blurred sight in the other. Given time, the brain makes its own adjustments.

  ‘Duckworth, could you fetch my driving spectacles.’

  In time the request would become a demand, but not yet.

  AMBERLEY

  Robert’s retirement in 1964 had been an eternity away for Cara, the fifteen year old. She was twenty now and going home to spend Christmas at Amberley, and Myrtle couldn’t remember what she’d done with her jewellery box. The string of pearls Myrtle’s mother had worn on her wedding day was in it.

  They were at Spencer Street Station with still an hour to wait before boarding the train.

  ‘Did you see me pack it, Robert?’

  She’d been packing for months. Robert shook his head.

  The train had been Myrtle’s choice. They could have flown north. Robert’s old car might have made one last trip up the Hume Highway, or he could have bought a new car and driven it home.

  Be a brain, go by train. There was no luggage limit on trains – and Myrtle had a ton.

  ‘I remember putting your box of war medals in the grey case. I meant to put the jewellery box in with them, but I can’t remember doing it.’

  Six large cases had been booked through to Sydney and Myrtle wanted to have a quick look in the grey. If the jewellery box was in one of them it would be the grey, or perhaps the smaller of the brown cases.

  ‘What are you going to do if it’s not in either of them, Mummy?’

  ‘I’ll feel better if I know it is.’

  ‘And you’ll feel worse if you know it isn’t,’ Cara said.

  ‘Those pearls will be yours when I’m gone.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere and I’m not a pearl person.’

  Myrtle had inherited few of her mother’s possessions. Anything with value had been sold in their fight to save Amberley. Cara glanced at her only jewellery, a gold watch. Its hands had barely moved since the last time she’d looked. She wanted to board the train and get the trip started, to go to sleep on a narrow bunk and wake tomorrow in Sydney, then, until she began teaching, God alone knew where, to sleep in her own room, in her own bed.

  ‘My grandparents gave those pearls to Mother on her wedding day,’ Myrtle said.

  ‘You’ve told me, Mummy.’ Cathy had bought a similar string of pearls for two and six at Coles. They may have been made by a machine instead of an oyster, but when the string snapped at a dance, she hadn’t spent a week crawling around the floor looking for pearls. Cara turned away to watch the people, almost able to pick those going home and those heading off on a holiday. Myrtle looked as if she was going to a funeral and Cara wondered if she’d make it through to New Year when Cathy was coming up to spend a week in Sydney. She’d never been out of Victoria.

  Two women caught her eye, so obviously mother and daughter in shape, feature and colouring, and the tiny girl in the stroller looked like both of them. If I stood beside Jenny, would a stranger pick me as her daughter? Cara wondered. Is Jenny’s mother still alive? Do I look like her? Cathy was the image of her mother and grandmother. Marion was like her father – tall, thin, dark; fast-talking comedians, both.

  The mother, daughter and grandchild left the counter and Cara took their place to study a map of train lines until an elderly man in a grey suit asked if she required his help.

  ‘Would you know if there is a daily service to Woody Creek?’

  A knowledgeable man, the man in grey, with no need for book or chart; he told her of train times, platform numbers, but couldn’t offer her a daily return service. She wasn’t planning to go there anyway.

  Myrtle watched her approach. Cara had dressed comfortably for the trip. At fourteen she’d wanted a pair of boys’ black jeans and one of Robert’s white shirts with tails. Myrtle hadn’t approved. She didn’t approve of bottom-hugging jeans and breast-hugging tops either, but since the trial, or since Dino Collins had been locked up, Cara had come to terms with her early stupidity and become more comfortable with who she was, or who she wanted to believe she was – which wasn’t pleated skirts and twin sets and pearls.

  ‘A train passes through Woody Creek every weekday,’ Cara said.

  ‘She’s no doubt moved a long time ago, and gotten on with her life, poppet.’

  ‘Probably,’ Cara said.

  *

  Strange to return home in two taxis, to unload cases from the boot, the back seat of Cara’s taxi, then to haul them one at a time to that familiar front door. Then wait impatiently while Robert found the right key that would swing the door wide. It was stranger to see Miss Robertson hurrying towards them down their private section of passage.

  ‘I’ve been keeping my eye out for you,’ she said. Had she changed her clothing since they’d left? Same skirt, or similar, same long cardigan, same spectacles and hairstyle, a little more grey.

  ‘Mr O’Conner not about?’ Robert asked.

  ‘Things aren’t as they should be, I’m afraid, Mr Norris.’

  Difficult to see much before the eyes adjusted from full sun to indoor light. ‘We haven’t sighted either of the O’Conners since Saturday, and they took the washing machine.’

  Cara heaved heavy cases into the entrance hall, which wasn’t as it should be. Boxes, rags, an old shoe, sheets of newspaper on the floor.

  ‘Someone packed in a hurry,’ she said.

  ‘On Saturday night, we believe, Cara. And haven’t you grown into a modern girl.’

  Myrtle was looking up, her expression one of disbelief. Cara followed her gaze to a naked globe swinging dolefully from where a crystal chandelier had hung when they’d left – also Myrtle’s mother’s.

  ‘What happened to our chandelier?’

  Miss Robertson looked up. ‘The light fitting too?’ she tut-tutted before continuing. ‘The smaller of the two refrigerators from the lodgers’ kitchen is also missing. They left our goods on the table to spoil – my steak left to bleed into Mrs Collins’s cheese.’

  ‘This is not happening, Robert. He said –’

  Cara stepped away from the group to the parlour which, at first glance, appeared to be intact. The old table was where they’d left it. It weighed a ton, and to Cara’s knowledge had never been moved. She counted six dining-room chairs, hoped the other six were about. Along with the chandelier and the pearls, those chairs had belonged to the halcyon days of Myrtle’s childhood when servants, not lodgers, had occupied the excess rooms.

  ‘We became concerned on Sunday morning when Mrs Collins took her washing down to the laundry, though we believed it may have been undergoing repairs. We knocked on the rent hatch, but by midafternoon, and not a sign of either of them, we began knocking on both doors. Mr Waters forced the rent hatch on Sunday evening and climbed through. He was convinced they’d been murdered in their bed.’

  The tour group had moved to the doorway of the main bedroom. Bed still there, unmade, wardrobe doors hanging open.

  Cara went through to the kitchen. It was bare.

  ‘In here, Daddy.’

  The small kitchen setting, cutlery, crockery, pots and pans left for the O’Conners’ use had gone. They hadn’t bothered to close the cupboard doors, and it was too much for Myrtle. She returned to the parlour to sit weeping into her handkerchief.

  Two beds in Cara’s room where there should have been one, both unmade and reeking of stale smoke and sweat
ing stranger. Closed the door and turned back to Miss Robertson, waiting in the passage to continue the tour.

  Robert was in the kitchen attempting to close a cupboard door which refused to close. Bang. Bang. Bang. It was as close as he came to expressing anger. Or maybe not. The strength of those bangs increased.

  ‘Leave it, Robert!’ Myrtle wailed.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  ‘How dare he do this to us!’

  Bang!

  ‘Will you please leave it be, Robert!’

  ‘I spoke to him on Friday,’ Robert said. ‘He told me everything was in order.’

  ‘He was in the grip of the drink, I’m afraid, and the female shared his vice,’ Miss Robertson said, and her entourage again in tow, she led the way to the side door and down to the rear of the house where empty bottles stacked against the laundry wall offered evidence of the manager’s vice.

  A small truck was parked in the backyard, a stranger, his head beneath its lifted bonnet tinkering, two half-grown boys passing him tools.

  ‘The Bertrams,’ Miss Robertson said behind a hand.

  ‘Children?’ Myrtle said. ‘They’re not living here?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘The two boys. In Number Five – and they are up and down the passage, up and down the stairs all day long.’

  ‘How many . . . lodgers?’

  ‘Nineteen, Mrs Norris –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nineteen, including the Bertram children –’

  ‘Where?’ Robert asked.

  ‘We are, to use young Mr Waters’s expression, packed in like rats in a cage, Mr Norris. Until Friday, O’Conner had a couple in Cara’s room. They were moved to the storeroom before he left.’

  ‘The storeroom!’ A chorus of three.

  ‘The storeroom,’ their tour guide said. ‘And the female half of that duo is particularly objectionable – and more so since their move.’

  This wasn’t the way coming home was meant to be. Robert had given the manager and his wife three months’ notice in which to find alternative accommodation. On Friday O’Conner had agreed to meet with them at Amberley to hand over the keys.