by Joy Dettman
Martin blushed with the memory, and a hand went to the broad seat of his trousers, to brush at the ghostly sting of the razor strap.
He had no recollection of the woman who bore him, then made her escape before being trapped by a second child. No photographs of the absconding wife were allowed in the cold house where Martin had lived, but trace-memories told him she had been a tall woman. And certainly, he had not inherited his great height from his father’s side, only his profession.
‘Those we didn’t know, we cannot miss,’ he lied as he inserted his hand into the letterbox and withdrew his telephone account, a pair of white briefs, and the receipt for the cheque he had sent to the tour organiser.
Initially he thought the briefs a soiled handkerchief. Held between finger and thumb, and at the greatest possible distance from him, he then noted the elastic waist, and the lace-bordered legs.
Quickly he walked to the rubbish bin, dropping the offensive item in, relieved that it had been he and not his daughter who emptied the letterbox that day. He prodded the white cloth low with the rake handle. The letters held at a distance he hurried inside, where he ripped them open, shook the undefiled contents to the kitchen bench, tossed the envelopes into the kitchen tidy, then stood at the sink soaping and re-soaping his hands, scrubbing at them with a nail brush.
Stella had been watching his actions, now he caught her frown. ‘Wretched youngsters. I don’t know what this world is coming to,’ he muttered.
‘What youngsters?’
‘God knows,’ he said wiping his hands on a tea towel, which he tossed into the kitchen tidy. ‘They are placing their confounded rubbish in the letterbox now. If I catch the young scoundrels at it I’ll have their hides.’
‘Their empty drink cans again, Father?’ Stella asked, retrieving the towel, and taking it to the laundry.
‘No. No. A soiled . . . a soiled handkerchief, or the like.’ He was seated when she returned, and she watched a smile of satisfaction spread across his features. ‘My itinerary at last. I thought there may have been a hitch.’
She stood behind him. ‘As they say, it’s all happening now, Father.’
‘Yes. Yes. Look here, Daughter. Two nights in Switzerland. Lucerne. Oh my word, I do believe I’m beginning to look forward to it. I dare say we should begin the packing – if just to ascertain how much we can fit in the case.’
‘You still have over a week. Everything will become crushed enough without packing it too early.’
‘Perhaps we should have a trial run.’ He was on his feet again, and heading for the stairs. ‘Could you bring the bathroom scales. I dare say that should give us an idea of weight. They only allow . . . I believe they said twenty kilograms. Check it for me, Daughter, then tell me how much that is in pounds. Kilograms. Who on earth understands their confounded kilograms – ?’ His voice faded as he disappeared upstairs.
Stella followed him, doing the conversion.
The case had been packed and repacked umpteen times by the twenty-third. When Stella saw it loaded into the luggage compartment of the bus that would transport Martin to Sydney, she was pleased to see the last of it, but she hoped that the plane seats might be a little wider than those of the bus. The minister looked like a stressed whale compressed into a sardine can.
‘Take care, Father. Stay well.’ She stood at the door, her hand to her mouth, knowing she should say more, wanting to say more. ‘Try to keep moving your feet. It helps with circulation,’ she called as the door unfolded, closed, locking her out and him in. She ran to the window, and he turned to her.
Not prone to displays of emotion, Martin raised a hand, and a tight apprehensive smile. Then the bus pulled away from the kerb, and he and his case were gone. A wave of something akin to fear for him, or perhaps love of him, washed over her, and some precognition of doom brushed at the hairs on the back of her neck. Was this to be the last time she would see him?
It is as if I am being pared down to my core, readied for . . . for . . . She knew not what. Her hand raised, waved to the exhaust fumes, waved until the vehicle turned the corner and was lost to her vision.
Things ought to have been said that were not said and she knew it. Perhaps she should have kissed him goodbye, held his hand and begged him to stay.
She never touched him. Not since she had been a tiny infant had she held his hand. She sat with him in the evenings, she sat beside him in the car, she washed his underwear, ironed his pyjamas, starched his vestments, the collars and the cuffs of his shirts, but she never touched him. Never.
Until this morning. He was standing before the bathroom mirror combing his hair, and she’d stepped forward, taken the comb, and flattened the thick hair standing up at his crown.
His old face had softened, and his smile was a strange thing. A boy’s, coy. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said.
My dear? Strange words in reply to her own odd behaviour. As she had placed the comb down she’d remembered a time before, of combing his hair, remembered the feel of it back then. Thick hair . . . not white. What colour had it been?
He would have been in his mid forties. Angel had been forty-seven when Stella was born, and Martin six years her junior. He would not have been grey by that age. What colour had his hair been? She couldn’t remember. Why didn’t memories come in colour? But she could remember the colour of the comb. Blood red. And she could remember entangling it in the thick curling hair, and she could remember Angel had cut the comb free with scissors. Then she’d turned on the child, and –
Anger. Such anger.
Standing at the kerb, she stared unseeing into the distance, her hand rubbing at a scar on her calf. Her mind was away, traversing the years, taking her back to –
Doctor Parsons, the little boy man with Grumpy’s face and his small hands. He wasn’t grumpy though, just looked like him. She liked Doctor Parsons. That day he had put two funny white sticky-tape stitches over the cut, then bandaged it.
‘Mousy One and Mousy Two, in search of cream once strolled into the farmer’s dairy, where Tom the cat patrolled. Good heavens! I remember it,’ she said. ‘Mousy One and Mousy Two, in search of cream once strolled into the farmer’s dairy, where Tom the cat patrolled.’
She stood, repeating the words, attempting to force more to come. And they did.
‘We’re going to drown. We’re going to drown,’ cried timid Mousy One. ‘Oh goodness gracious dearie me, our little lives are done.’
‘He’ll be jake, love.’
The voice startled her. She turned, for a moment bewildered, unsure of her surroundings. It was one of the middle-aged Murphy males, seated in his equally middle-aged car. Her hand moved to her mouth, unsure if he had heard her words, but aware she had spoken the childish rhyme aloud. She blushed.
‘Don’t worry about him. Take more than bloody England to kill old Martin Templeton. He’s as tough as old boots, love.’
She flashed her fine white teeth in what served as a smile for strangers. ‘He’s eighty-five, and far too fond of his creature comforts, Mr Murphy.’
‘Do the old bugger good. Bring him down to earth with a bloody thud.’
Waving a hand to the middle-aged Murphy, she walked around the corner to the minister’s car.
He had parked it there, and unwillingly handed her the keys. ‘Drive it carefully, Daughter. The keys of the Packard are on top of the dresser. Take care backing it out of the shed. Its steering is like a truck’s.’
Stella turned the key in the lock and as she swung the door wide, a blast of warmth rushed out. Heat still had a hold on the land, and though the sun was still low, it carried an early sting. She sat, placing her hand on the steering wheel.
Hot. Her hand sprang away. It was burning hot. She looked at the hand, expecting to see blisters there, but she only saw the scars.
‘You are not behaving rationally, Angel. I kissed the child goodnight. I tucked her in.’
‘I know all about daddies tucking their little girls in . . . ’
‘Stop this,’ she said, ‘Look forward, not behind. That is the way it has always been, and a far, far better way. I will look forward to my three weeks of freedom, and to sole use of this car.’
It fitted her well, and it was her own to drive for three long weeks. Perhaps she might take a trip to Dorby, ask Miss Moreland along for the ride. With her old friend at her side she might be brave enough to go to the RSL club for lunch, even look at a poker machine, maybe feed it with a few cents. The three weeks would fly by all too soon, and it would be wonderful not having Father underfoot as he had been for the past few days.
He had fussed, and she had fussed over him, trying to prepare him – as she might prepare a child heading off on his first school camp. She’d typed him a list.
Left pocket, handkerchiefs.
Ties in right side pocket.
Underwear front zip compartment.
Dark shirts, left side case. Casual for travelling.
White shirts, left side case. For dinner at night. Fold neatly.
Will do for several wears.
Keep case neat. It will make finding things so much easier.
A European early spring ahead of him, she had purchased two fine woollen sweaters and told him to wear them beneath his shirts. Unable to buy a lightweight jacket in his size, she’d settled for a shower-proof thing with a hood. It looked like a tent but was small enough to roll into a neat package he could keep with him in his flight bag.
So many instructions she’d given him, but how many would he remember? How would he survive without her to anticipate his needs, to organise his days?
‘He’ll be fine. He will be fine and so will I. I’ll paint the kitchen, and the cupboards. Perhaps I’ll think about a new floor-covering too. Surprise him when he gets home. It wouldn’t take long. They’d put Bonny’s new tiled floor down in a day. Three weeks. They will no doubt fly.’
She started the motor and followed the bus’s path down Main Street.
Four weeks had passed since the rape. She had stayed far away from the shed – when she could, and when she couldn’t, she’d found ways of entering it when her father was pottering there with his car. On the days of the church guild meetings, when the other members came to her house, she always managed to take someone with her to store the clown body parts, or to select more wool.
As Doctor Parsons frequently said, life happens. With certain reservations, in the past three weeks, life for Stella had settled back into its familiar, its near comforting routine of meetings, and church, of hospital visiting, and her Wednesdays of Meals on Wheels. She had cooked biscuits for the street stall, and worked her small clown faces; she had served. Since the day of the painting on the church hall door, there had been no such repeats. In fact she had only sighted Thomas Spencer twice, and then from a distance. She ignored him. He had been erased from her heart, and from her head. To her he had become one of the many non-people who happened to share with her the town of Maidenville.
Being born in a small town, raised there, most faces were familiar; as was the Murphy male at the bus stop; yet she could not put a name to his face other than his family name. He could have been one of eight, most of them older than she. They all looked like old Mick, their father – all shoulders and no neck.
She knew Young Mick Murphy, the eldest of the eight, and she knew Spud. She now recognised Dave, who after his first wife died, married Mrs Morris’s neighbour and crony. She also knew the second youngest, Pat Murphy, but only because they had once shared a classroom. Of the others, she had never bothered to fit names to their faces. They didn’t move within her circle of acquaintances.
As in any community, there were the various levels and societies in Maidenville. That she might be known by the middle-aged Murphy meant nothing. She was the minister’s spinster daughter, his only daughter. Everyone in town knew Stella. As they knew Polly Daws, a mother of seven, who had not allowed her single state to prevent her raising a family.
Stella had also known Polly since school. She always smiled at her, gave Polly a nod, even called her by name, but she never stopped to pass the time of day with her, as with many of the Catholic families. They passed on the street as strangers might. There were some people, who for various reasons Stella had been known to cross over the road in order to avoid, others she crossed the road eagerly to greet. That was the way of her small town. Hers was a church community, a hospital community. She knew the nurses and their families, and the hospital auxiliary members. She named both Bonny Davis and Marilyn Spencer, friends. They had gone through school together, and though their lives may have forked at the intersection of puberty, both Bonny and Marilyn going into early marriages, they remained close friends. The church saw to that. The church brought them together each Sunday. They worked on the same auxiliaries. They manned adjoining stalls at church fetes–and they knitted clowns.
Bonny had five boys, all redheads like their mother. Her third son, Peter, was the same age as . . . Stella saw Peter riding by as she closed the gate. For a second, her feet almost tripped over each other in their desire to run.
‘Aunty Stell,’ he called, and did a wide wheel around.
Could she turn the entire youthful population of Maidenville into non-people because of one bad apple in the barrel?
Of course she couldn’t.
She waved a hand to the youth, and waited inside the gate. ‘Good morning, Pete.’ She smiled at his snub-nosed face, and wondered why so many red-headed children seemed to wear the same features, as if cloned from some ancient red-headed ancestor. He was a lovely boy, bright, helpful.
He skidded his bike to a halt beside her, sliding the earphones of his radio down to his neck. ‘You haven’t seen my pup around anywhere, have you?’
‘No, Pete. I haven’t.’
‘Some useless idiot must have opened the gate. Now he’s gone. I’ve been everywhere.’ He readjusted his earphones and pushed off.
‘I hope you find him,’ she said, but he was away, locked into his music.
She climbed back into the car, drove it down to the shed, parking it beside its much larger relative.
Then she opened the door and stepped out.
And she could smell him. As soon as she opened the door, she could smell the heat of him, the sweat of him, and his sex, a smell previously unknown to her, and one she would never forget.
He had been in here.
No. You’re mad. It has affected your mind. He wouldn’t come here again. Never. Stop it. What are you doing to yourself?
But it wasn’t in her mind. It was in the shed.
No. You stupid woman. You are imagining it. You see Bonny’s boy, and you want to run from him too. It’s sick. You are sick. Your mind has become twisted by it, and I will not allow it to be so. I will not waste my life in fear. There have been no phone calls from him for two weeks. He has forgotten about it, and so must you. It’s over.
But it wasn’t over; Thomas Spencer had been in her shed while she was at the bus stop and she knew it. He had been lying low, waiting for her father to leave town. Now he had come back to keep his promise.
‘No.’ She stamped her foot. ‘No. Get a grip on yourself, Stella Templeton,’ she demanded. ‘You’ve been good. You’ve been fine. Father is ten minutes out and already you are panicking, conjuring up imaginary demons in your head. I will not live in fear for three weeks. I will not. It is only the scent of . . . of . . . of a stray . . . pup. Perhaps young Pete’s little labrador, or a stray dog, a male dog.’
Who has left his stink behind him–all the better to find his way back to you, my dear.
She shivered. Standing in front of the shed, the sun warm on her back, she looked down at the place where her own foot had stamped. Beside the imprint of her sensible rubber sole was a second. A sneaker sole, clear in the soft red dust. Rings and stripes. Twin rings and stripes.
Stealthily, she stepped back, her eyes straining now as she looked into the interior, dim because of the brightness of the morning sun. Her hea
rt was racing as cold tremors passed through her, from head to feet. She looked at her hands, trembling hands. For two weeks they had been steady.
He has left his scent and calling card, the voice from within whispered. If you dare to search inside the shed you will find more evidence. He has lifted his leg against the wheel of the Packard. You know it is true. Don’t deny it. He found good pickings beside the wheel of the Packard, and like a dog he has returned to sniff his old scent and spread a little more. That is the way that it is with dogs.
‘I am not afraid of dogs,’ she whispered, but her lips trembled as they spoke the lie. I will not become a victim of my own imagination. I am not like my mother. I am not like my mother. It is an old footprint. Others had been here. Half the town wears sneakers.
She turned her back on the shed and walked to the house, but with her hand on the doorknob, she baulked. What if he is inside the house, waiting for you?
She backed off and returned to the shed. Arming herself with a heavy hammer, she walked purposefully to the storeroom and flung the half door wide. Only her toys, and her bales of polyester wool. She moved back, looked behind the Packard, and beneath the Packard, and in the Packard. She opened its boot and peered into the dark interior. She checked the old trailer, the bench, and beneath the bench and she saw the dampness there, and the hammer in her hand shook.
‘The floor of the shed is always damp–so much lower than the garden. If he was here, then he is no longer here,’ she told the hammer, and she walked to the back of the house and reached for the doorknob.
Her hand refused to turn it. ‘Stupid woman. What are you doing to yourself? Control this panic. Get on top of it.’
You should have locked the door. Why didn’t you lock it?
For minutes she stood there, her hand on the knob. She could hear Mr Wilson on the other side of the fence. Familiar. Four houses down, Murphy’s dog barked. Loud music was coming from the north side.
Open that door. He will be working at the supermarket. He always works at the supermarket on Saturday mornings.