‘What on earth is the Women’s Studies Department?’ asked Donald. He had a sudden vague memory of some women disrupting the Anzac celebrations two or three years ago, tipping blood on the stone, upsetting the old diggers. He wondered if Nikki remembered. Perhaps he should ask her — perhaps she could fill him in on the details. She was gazing with a kind of drugged intensity into the steam of her tea.
‘I’ll down this,’ said Kieran, raising his cup, ‘then I’ll make a start on the border. The roses around the back, you said?’
Donald nodded, sipping. Taking her cup with her, Nikki had crossed to the chiffonier, an oblong of pale beige oak, and was examining its single adornment, a photograph. It was of Daphne, taken in the summer of 1976. She wore a broad, flower-brimmed hat, a warm sea sparkling behind her.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Nikki. ‘She looks lovely.’
‘An old friend of Donald’s,’ said Kieran.
‘Ooo — an old girlfriend, Donald?’ asked Nikki, playfully. ‘Was she your lover?’
Though he could scarcely believe it himself, Donald was blushing. That dreadful girl, boots and all, never pausing to think. What if Daphne had died? The girl would never have thought of that, would she? That Daphne may have died and any mention of her was torture to him?
‘I should prune that rhodo back for you. It’s out over the driveway.’ Kieran gave the girl an irritated look, but she didn’t notice. She still had her back to them, examining the photograph.
‘That’d be good.’ Donald wished the girl would come away. ‘Do that first.’
‘That’s at Birdlings Flat!’ she exclaimed. ‘You can tell by the stones.’
‘Daphne loved Birdlings Flat. She used to collect stones there and paint them. You remember that fad, Kieran, for pet rocks? When you were a little boy. Daphne made her own.’ Shut up, Donald, he told himself. It was relief from the cramp finally releasing — it made him loquacious.
‘Vaguely,’ said Kieran. ‘I vaguely remember it. You finished?’ He held out his hand for Nikki’s cup. Obligingly she handed it to him, though it was still half full.
‘Was it a long relationship, yours and Daphne’s?’ the girl was asking. ‘Did she live here with you?’
Donald glared at Kieran — shut the girl up.
‘Shut up,’ Kieran hissed at her, gratifyingly, on his way through to the kitchen with the cups. The girl made a strange noise like a hiccup and glanced wildly around. It was her turn to blush. Once again her eyes settled on the photograph.
‘She looks like a Daphne,’ she said coyly. ‘If you hadn’t told me her name, I could have guessed it.’
How fatuous, thought Donald. He angled his body in the chair to look out the window. There was a flash of blue as Kieran passed between the garage and the garden shed, emerging a few seconds later with the pruning shears.
‘Just the lower branches!’ called Donald, fumbling with the window. ‘Kieran! Just the lower branches!’
Kieran nodded. ‘Yup.’
Donald watched him for a moment, then relaxed into his chair with his tea. The dregs, still lukewarm. He took a mouthful, then put down the cup … the girl! How peculiar — he’d thought she was still beside the photograph, he’d sensed her to still be there, not that he’d cast his attention in that direction. He hadn’t wanted to encourage her. But she wasn’t there, just Daphne in her hat, with the sea. Donald’s heart pounded. The girl must be in Daphne’s room! She wasn’t with Kieran, he could see that, so she must be in Daphne’s room.
From the down the hall he heard the lavatory flush. He listened for her footsteps, down the hall, into the living room.
‘Top-up, Donald?’ She was right beside his chair, reaching for his cup.
‘No, thanks,’ said Donald. He needed to go to the loo himself, in private. Perhaps he could put the girl to work.
‘Why don’t you get the box of stones out of the boot?’ he asked. ‘You’re a big strong girl.’
‘Sure. Is it unlocked?’
‘Yes, off you go,’ he dismissed her. She went.
After one failed attempt, Donald lurched to his feet, retrieved his stick from where it leaned against the back of his chair and made his slow progress to the bathroom. It was on his way back, his legs aching, feet burning, the tendons in his groin threatening to snap like perished rubber bands, sheer force of will being the only thing sliding each foot after the other, that he heard raised voices.
‘I didn’t!’ the girl was shrieking. ‘I didn’t!’
‘You did! You’re so fucking nosy!’ from the boy.
In the living room Donald leaned against the back of his chair, concealed behind the curtain, watching them. The girl held the heavy box in her arms.
‘I just asked if she was his girlfriend.’ She’d lowered her voice slightly.
‘It was none of your business. You never know when to stop. Why don’t you piss off?’ Kieran was waving the pruning shears.
‘No!’ There was a clatter as the shears hit the ground and their bodies connected. The box was knocked to one side, the stones rolling like heavy apples onto the concrete. It was the girl who initiated it, pushing Kieran. Donald felt a surge of indignation for the boy, which was quickly followed by disgust: Kieran pulled back, rolled a hand into a fist, and struck the girl hard on the side of the head. She fell to the ground, curled up like a hedgehog.
If they’d been children Donald would have rapped on the window and waved an admonishing finger at them. But they weren’t children. He was rooted to the spot, frozen, as if the chill winds of the Flat had followed him home to Cashmere. He thought of all the times he’d wanted to hit Daphne, when she was irritating, when she’d needled him, during their last years together. He never had. Perhaps he should have.
The girl was moving. She crawled on her hands and knees to the front step.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ said Kieran. ‘Have some fucking pride.’
Nikki buried her face in her hands and sobbed. It was a quiet sobbing — Donald couldn’t hear her, but her shoulders heaved and sighed. Kieran came to her and grabbed her roughly by one arm. Turning her head away, as if she feared another blow, the girl screamed in high soprano, ‘Leave me alone!’
Donald saw that she hadn’t been crying at all, not really. Her face was dry. The boy saw it, too. Her threw her arm away like a stick and bent towards her, his face ugly, strained.
‘That’s exactly what I want to do. I didn’t want you to come to the Flat in the first place. Fuck off!’
If he didn’t sit down right now, Donald thought, he would fall over. He took a step around the side of his chair, warning himself not to look out the window. He didn’t want them to know he’d been watching — what would they think? An old man watching them fight. It was almost as voyeuristic as if he’d watched them make love.
From two or three yards away, through the glass, Kieran was looking at him. The older man met his eyes; he couldn’t stop himself. The girl stayed huddled between them while the men stared at each other. Kieran smiled. It was a sort of half smile — complicitous, a smile that meant ‘Women!’ and ‘What we men have to put up with!’
Donald turned his back on him and sank into his chair. What was all that? It hadn’t seemed real — the dry tears, the beautiful face of the boy screwed up, tense as a fist.
With the sound of running feet he dared to look out again. The girl was wheeling her bicycle out of his garage, really crying now, with her nose running. There was a graze on her temple, a bead of blood on a spike of orange hair. Outside his window she threw herself astride the saddle. Full of tears, her eyes searched the window before she found him.
‘Goodbye,’ she mouthed, then she rode away, disappeared.
Kieran was standing beside him, his guilty hands shoved into his pockets. Donald wouldn’t look at him. He sat with his stick between his legs, turning it round and round, screwing its rubber end into the carpet.
‘You won’t fight in a war, but you’ll hit a woman,’ he said even
tually. Kieran’s eyes bored into the top of his bald head. The boy probably thought he was a specious old fool. He said nothing to defend himself, at any rate.
‘You’re a coward,’ said Donald, ‘aren’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’ Kieran spoke evenly. ‘I’m sorry, Donald.’
‘It’s not me you should be apologising to!’ Donald exploded. ‘Go home. I’ve had enough for one day.’
Kieran’s footsteps led towards the hall and stopped. ‘I wasn’t apologising for myself. I meant, I’m sorry she asked all those stupid questions.’
‘She’s young, curious. It’s natural. I didn’t mind,’ Donald lied. He swivelled in his seat, but the boy had gone. He’d left while Donald was still speaking. A moment later, silver flashed at the corner of his eye as the boy’s bicycle rolled away, after the girl, down the drive.
It wasn’t until much later, at three, when he got up to let in the Home Help, that he noticed the door to Daphne’s room was open.
‘Coming!’ he called to the Home Help, making his way to close it. So the girl had gone in. She’d had a look around. Nothing had been moved, he didn’t think. The Home Help knocked again and Donald noticed that there was something different about one of the dolls. Its head had been turned towards the door. It was a doll with yellow hair and rosebud mouth, staring him full in the face as he stood in the threshold. He turned away, leaving the door open.
‘There’s a carton lying out on the drive,’ he told the Help. ‘Pack up those dolls, and the little men made of shells, would you?’
‘Dolls?’ She looked puzzled. She took off her coat.
‘In the other bedroom. There are a whole lot of dolls. Give them to the City Mission, or whoever.’
In the garden Donald waited on the bench under the willow so that he wouldn’t be able to hear the clunk of china heads going into the box, the rustle of their dresses. When Daphne had left, run away with her young man, it was to lead a proper woman’s life. In her life with Donald, her battles with him, the dolls had been her foot soldiers, proof of her girlhood, her virginity. It was, he supposed, a kind of deprivation she’d practised on him: where his war wounds would have allowed him some kind of adult affection, the dolls prevented it. Could he have told Nikki all this? If he’d done so, kept her talking in the room with him, then he never would have lost Kieran. Perhaps Nikki, from her youthful, idealistic standpoint, would have shed some light on Daphne, helped him to understand … but that was a fantasy, and Donald had never been one for that.
At five o’clock the Help called from the front steps, ‘Goodbye, Mr Outhwaite! Dinner’s in the oven — see you tomorrow!’ Donald made his weary way inside. In Daphne’s room she had done exactly as she was asked. The dolls were gone, and the little men made of shells. Only the stones remained, ranged along the windowsill, their painted features fading. Like him they were returning, slowly, quietly, to their lost, ambiguous selves.
The Night I Got My Tuckie
Whenever Dad wants a drink, which is most nights, we have to drive across the town line — just him and me in the pickup like we hardly never used to when Mom was alive. Sometimes he tells me to change my sweater or wipe my face, but most nights he hardly even looks at me before we climb on up and drive on out of Zion. Some nights it’s south we go, to Al’s Bar, which has its northern wall along the boundary. One time I worked that out for myself, following along directly from the sign on the road — ZION TOWN LINE — the heel of one pink Barbie shoe hard against the toe of the other in a dead-straight line from the sign on the sidewalk until I come up against the Al’s brown concrete corner. That was years ago I did that. Don’t even fit those Barbie shoes no more.
Other nights we go north, which is further to drive, across the Illinois-Wisconsin border. There’s a place there by the harbor Dad’s partial to, and I don’t mind it either. I mind it better than Al’s, which is low-slung in its ceiling and thick with nasty air, a stink of smoke and spilled beer. Shame, but we go to Al’s more often, it being easier on Dad’s wallet and less miles to cover home.
The bar in Wisconsin’s called Harbor Lights, which is funny, because there’s no lights you can see from there — you wouldn’t even know how close the harbor is ’less you took a big lungful in the carpark, and then you might get a whiff of lake weed. In the summer you can see boats towed by on the road and that’d tell you, but only if you were watching through the window.
Harbor Lights is white and made of wood on the outside like a nice house. It’s got shutters that don’t shut and a pot of plastic flowers on a hook by the main door. Dad allus parks his pickup by the hook, so’s if I gets tired, I can curl up on the seat and look at the flowers. Once or twice I’ve seen night-bugs snooping in the petals, like they were being tricked by them and thought they were real. First time I saw them I showed Candy who works in the bar — I got right out of the truck and went right back in and asked her to come and look and Candy said a funny thing. She said, ‘Ruthie, those bugs are as foolish as men are — least my husband’s got a lot in common with those bugs. He don’t know what’s real either.’ Her husband had just left her then — this was years and years ago, at least two, when I was nine — and all Candy would say about that was two things:
1) Jed had the brains of a bug and
2) his new girl was fake, like the flowers: fake tits, fake hair, fake teeth.
Candy only has fake fingernails and phony eyelashes, which are silvery blue and so heavy her eyes are always half closed.
The point of all this is to show you the setting, kind of, so you can see where it happened, the night I got my tuckie. It was a Tuesday and Dad and me, the minute we parked, saw the car. It was a new shiny green Ford, one we’d never seen there before. Winter was coming on, so it wasn’t the time for tourists, people coming up from Chicago to swim in the lake or go fishing for trout. There’s good fishing in Zion, particularly round the power station where the water used for cooling the turbines comes out warm. They’d all cluster round there and pull out giant fish — Dad says he wouldn’t eat ’em if you paid him a million. Anyways, it was too darn cold for that now, and I knew it was cold — that’s why I had Pink Panther with me. He’s taller’n I am and he’s good for a blanket or a pillow in the pickup if Dad stays thirsty for longer. Dad thinks I’m getting too old for Pinkie, but he lets me cart him still. This particular night I took him in the bar. He’s useful in there — I’m stunted for my age, ’cording to Candy, and if I put him on the bar-stool, then sit on top of him, it’s comfy and high. It was Candy’s idea for me to do that, years and years ago.
We went in, Dad, the Panther and me, and there was Candy behind the bar, peering through the silvery-blue strings of her eyelashes, red fingernails clinking on the beer-taps. The lights were on, glowing on the wood paneling around the windows. The wall behind where Candy stands is glass shelves of different kinds of drinks, all colors — red, blue, green, brown, black and clear — with a mirror behind them. One time Candy’d tucked her skirt into her panties and it was all hooked up at the back and ’cause I could see her fanny reflected in the mirror, flickering through clear spirits, the gin and vodka and Bacardi, I could tell her. She was so grateful ’cause I just leaned across and whispered — I didn’t say it right out loud so’s all the men could hear. She gave me a Coke, which I’d earned. Most often she and me’re the only females ’cause the women round here drink alone at home, while the men drink together. Know which I’d prefer — makes me wish I’d been born a man, though there’s plenty of reasons to be wishin’ for that, that’s for sure.
This night Candy and me had company. There was another woman. She was sitting in one of the booths at the side, the ones Candy had done out in red leatherette after Jed left her. I could tell the woman wasn’t from around here. For a start off, she had a braid, brown and gray and mousy, down her back. And she had a man with her — her husband, it turned out — and he matched her exactly. Not that he had a braid, but his hair was the exact same color, though bushy and
curly. They had the exact same blue eyes, sticky-out like the strangest of the trout they pull up round the plant. They were just sitting there, him and her, face to face, staring at their beers, and she was pointed our way, so I got a good look at her. If she’d had necklaces and earrings I might’ve thought she was a hippy from California or Canada or such — we get them sometimes — but she had nothing like that, just a rollneck sweater in a bad shade of brown, like an old hamburger pattie, and no make-up — not a scratch. Nails weren’t done either; they were as plain as little shells on her stumpy fingers, turning her beer glass round and round. Women round here wouldn’t never go out with plain nails — it’d be like strollin’ down the main street ’out your pants on.
I sat up there at the bar with Candy on the other side and stared at the lady, while Dad went and sat with his friends Chuck and Bob. At Al’s sometimes he plays the one-armed bandits but Harbor Lights is more high class and they have nothing like that, they just got Chuck and Bob like permanent fixtures. Bob’s all right; Chuck I don’t like. When he comes to the bar he squeezes my thigh hard down to the bone and puts his dirty hand on my hair. Candy tells him off — she says, she’s just a child, you leave it out. If Candy’s busy serving drinks I try to narrow my eyes and stare him down just the way she does, though on account of having no false lashes I’m not as good at it as she is and mostly Chuck laughs and says how I’m getting prettier every day and how he’ll be my first. First what, I allus think, and stare at myself through the bottles and think he’s a liar. I ain’t pretty — I’m too skinny and my hair sticks up no matter how I comb it.
This night, the night I’m telling you about, Candy wasn’t too busy to tell Chuck off and she told him off good. I slipped off Pinkie, tied his arms round my neck and went over to the booth next to the lady with the braid. It didn’t take her long to notice me watchin’ her over the top of the red leatherette.
‘Hello,’ she said, ‘what’s your name?’ She had a sweet, soft voice — nearly a stupid voice, which came from right at the back of her throat, but I could tell from her eyes she wasn’t dumb. They were those bright, glinty kind of eyes clever people have, and now that I was up close they were more gray than blue. Her husband swivelled round. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘we have company.’ And no surprise he had the same voice, only deeper. They were so alike they could’ve been toys hatched out of the same plastic egg. They were McDonald’s toys from the same day, same week.
Drowned Sprat and Other Stories Page 3