by Joy Dettman
‘Continue, Mrs Taylor. Explain black. Do you faint?’
‘How do I know? Black is black is black and there is no more.’ She turned her back.
‘Do you remember the accident, Mrs Taylor?’
‘Discuss that particular subject and I cut the appointment short.’
‘Fine. Fine. We’ll find another topic’
She ground out the cigarette and snatched up her packet, spilling the remaining cigarettes to the floor, and she left them there. Her hands, legs, stomach shaking out of control, she walked to the door.
‘I had quite a long talk to your husband. He was able to fill in much of your early life for me. You sign your writing Annie, yet David tells me you dislike him calling you Annie.’
‘People who write bullshit should always use a pseudonym.’
‘Writers usually remember what they’ve written. Explain this one.’
‘I thought you were trained to interpret its Freudian significance.’ She stood looking out into the passage, and he walked to her side, where he leaned against the door jamb, sucking on his own cigarette.
‘Your husband mentioned your father to me, Mrs Taylor. He suggested he was – ’
‘Stark raving mad? I’ll agree with that in part.’
‘David also said you were subjected to physical abuse as a child.’
‘Did you hear the one about the navy psychiatrist who wanted to be buried at sea, Doctor James? Half of his patients drowned attempting to dig his grave,’ she said.
‘You obviously don’t wish to discuss your father. Is there perhaps a topic you would care to discuss? Books? Politics?’ he asked, returning to his chair.
‘Are you into gardening? The roses are beautiful this year. The scent of them at night is – .’
‘I leave my garden to the gardener, and he doesn’t like rose thorns.’
‘The gardener,’ she said, then she shook her head, wiping the palms of her hands across her face.
For minutes he waited, allowing the silence to grow while she stared into the passage. ‘Did you know you are a sleep talker? Your husband told me that you speak frequently of Sam’s roses.’ Her chin lifted. She turned to face him. ‘You also speak of a Ted Crow.’
‘You should be talking to David. He obviously knows the night talker more intimately than I, due to the simple fact that being asleep is not conducive to social intercourse, with self or even with any extras you dig out of your subconscious.’ Panic, anger, had taken control of her tongue, words too sharp, words uncensored began sliding from it. Backed into a comer by their joint scheming, their sharing of her secrets, unconsciously now, she backed inside, stood with her back to the wall.
He was speaking again. She didn’t want to hear him, wouldn’t hear him. So easy to go back. ‘No,’ she said, determined to hold on until this man had gone and she had time to think, to plan her next move. But what? Nothing. Live with it? Die of it? Why bother?
‘They tell us that our writing, and our dreams put us in touch with our subconscious. Allow us to express pain, admit to fear, Mrs Taylor. David said you did not cry when your child died.’
‘Leave that alone.’
‘We are allowed to cry for help. Your child was killed in a freak accident – .’
‘Shut up about my baby.’
‘Do you remember the accident?’
‘I was born an accident. My whole life has been one bloody series of accidents. I remember nothing. I have nothing. No little girl. Nothing. Shut up about that.’
‘But you do remember your little girl?’
‘I remember nothing. It wasn’t my fault,’ she said.
‘No. It wasn’t your fault,’ he agreed.
‘It was. Stop humouring me. It was my fault. Everything is my fault. I built that house. I planned it. I planned those bloody stairs. I wanted that house. Always. Do you know that’s all I could remember once – that house and the date of Johnny’s birthday. They were the only things I wouldn’t let go. Even when I tried to let it disappear into the black, it wouldn’t go. I couldn’t forget Johnny, wouldn’t forget him. Won’t forget him. I mined everything because I wouldn’t play her game. But she kept everything stuffed in the golden syrup tin. The doll’s eyes, and all the stuff she bought home from Aunty May’s – ’
She stopped as suddenly as she had started, her eyes wide, her mouth open. The doctor was watching her. She felt the rush of blood to her face. She turned her back, stood rocking from toe to heel, heel to toe. Rocking. ‘Jesus,’ she said, and she covered her face with her hand. ‘Jesus.’
Sometimes there is no choice – only one way to go. Like the night with Mr Fletcher – a one-way street. She had to get out of here. Get this done and get away. Give him a little. Get rid of him. She coughed, swallowed, then she turned to him, flashed a smile.
‘Give that man a pat on the back. He’s cured me. So now I remember the accident.’ The psychiatrist nodded, and she didn’t like his silence. ‘She fell down the stairs. She was chasing the cat. Wearing a red playsuit. I remember the blood on her golden curls.’ Still he made no reply. She stared at him, then she yelled. ‘Is this what you want? Am I crying yet? Am I bleeding?’ He held her gaze, but remained silent. ‘I was on the front patio, embroidering a little dress, and – ’ Her hand went to her waist. She stepped towards him, her eyes wide. ‘I was pregnant! I thought I was pregnant. I – ’
‘Had you miscarried, rest assured it would have been on your chart.’
She looked to the chart on her bed. He picked it up, offered it. She sat, took the chart, studied it. ‘Psychiatrists must need hides like rhinoceroses. What gives you the right to pick at people’s brains?’
‘Your parents are still living, I believe.’
‘I want David.’
‘Tell me about your father, Mrs Taylor.’
‘What do they call those old gods, half man, half bull?’
‘It escapes me at the moment.’
‘That’s my father. And Mum was a mother earth. She grew babies, then lost them. She lost . . . lost three. Linda Alice was Mandy’s age. Poor Mum. She got stuck with me, couldn’t lose me. Tried hard enough when I was – . She had the longest, most beautiful hair. Gold, like a shower of sunshine, and she used to have trouble with doors – and bulls. Ran into a lot of them. I used to fall out of trees. Funny really. We never had any falls when Daddy was out of town. That’s what love can do to you. We were both dizzy with love when he was around.’
‘Your brothers and sisters, were they also subjected to abuse?’
‘They cried a lot. He always stopped when they cried, but I wouldn’t cry, so he wouldn’t stop. Logical. I could scream, though. God, I could scream. And if you don’t stop this I might let one go.’
‘You never cried?’
‘No. Not since I was eight. I used to laugh. Same, only different. Laughter hurt him, but tears only hurt me. Gave me a headache. Made my nose stuffy.’
‘You were eight when you returned from Narrawee?’
Startled by his use of the word, she spoke on quickly, attempting to cover her reaction. ‘I was six when I came home . . . home from Narrawee.’
‘So you were six when Liza went missing.’
‘If you say so.’ The palm of her hand wiped across her top lip, her eyes sought escape. The door was open. She could leave when she wanted to. Get this over with first. Get it done and then go.
‘Continue, Mrs Taylor.’
‘I think I’ve finished.’
‘Ted Crow worked at the property when you were there.’
‘My David, my very dear traitor. My shield with big holes in it.’ She looked at the doctor. ‘What else did he tell you?’
‘Not enough, Mrs Taylor. Tell me about Ted Crow.’
‘Nothing to tell. I don’t know him. I’m suffocating in here. There’s no air.’
‘The window is open.’
‘It’s not enough.’
‘You have been to Narrawee recently.’
‘Narrawee,
the money tree, where May-the-magic-lady lived. The happy ever after lady. She could go measure, measure, measure, and snip, snip, snip, and then her foot would dance on the old treadle-machine and there they’d be, fourteen pair of little girls bloomers made from one fine old linen sheet. Liza used to wet her pants. It wasn’t her fault. Poor Liza, nothing was her fault. Poke a kitten’s eye out with a stick and it wasn’t her fault, you know – ’
‘Tell me about May.’
‘She had a purse full of green money, but the shops weren’t open the day we got there so she cut up a sheet.’
‘And – ’
‘And she . . . she bought me a doll with sleeping eyes and she didn’t make me give it to Liza when she cried for it either. So Liza threw her doll in the incinerator, and because she didn’t have one any more she thought . . . thought May would give in, and May wouldn’t, because I was her pet, and Liza bit me. I’ve still got the scar – . I’m imploding. I’m going to die.’
‘Did you cry when she bit you?’
‘Tears, tears, tears. You’ve got tears on the brain, Doctor James. Hydrophobia, hydrocephalus, hide of elephant.’
‘Tears are our safety valve.’
‘Bull men grow stronger on tears and blood, but you weaken them with dry eyes. Johnny told me that. Weaken him, he said – .’ She sucked air, rose, walked to the window, pushing it wide, drawing in deep breaths of the warm air. Too many breaths, too fast.
James waited for her to make the next move. He waited for five minutes and still she stood, looking out at the garden, breathing deeply. He walked to her side, took her arm and led her back to her chair, where he offered her a cigarette and waited ready with his lighter.
‘Why do I believe that you want to speak to me, Mrs Taylor? Why do I believe that for many years you have been desperate to speak of your memories – confused as they might be?’ Her head was tossed in denial, but he continued. ‘I was both pleased and surprised to learn today that I had caught up with one of the Burton sisters. I was in my final year of psychiatry at Melbourne University in 1967.’
She stared at him, her fists clenching and unclenching, her face grey. ‘I don’t want to know this. I don’t . . . leave it alone.’
But he spoke on. ‘I actually saw you one day. I remember those dark eyes, the cloud of black curls against the white of the pillow.’
‘One of the poking, prying doctors. And you’re still at it. White coats and stethoscopes. No trees outside the window. Just clouds and – ’ Blood was thundering in her ears, drowning out the sound of her words. She silenced.
Her eyes were black pits. Empty, and for the first time, Doctor James considered his next move. He’d spoken for an hour to David, who held back nothing. Both men had agreed that if Ann had been responsible for Liza’s death, it was better faced than repressed.
He took a stiff and yellowing page from his notebook, glanced again at the words written there in red crayon. Ann snatched it from his hand, shredded it. He picked up the fragment with the hole, worn through by a small moistened finger.
‘Was the word once written there, die, Mrs Taylor?’
‘Stop this. I can’t breathe. Stop this.’
‘The window is open wide.’
‘It’s never enough. There is never enough – ’
‘No locks. No bars. There were bars on that cellar window, Mrs Taylor?’
‘Apples.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
He leaned closer. ‘The employee who disappeared with Liza was never found. Did you climb up to the window, watch him ride away? Did he take Liza with him?’
‘I ate apples.’
‘Apples?’
‘They had apples growing on trees at Narrawee.’
‘An orchard?’
‘A huge tree. Near the old house. Aunty May said it grew from a seed, and they are the best apples in the whole world. I can climb up the top, get my own apples. But I don’t climb in Narrawee. I might get holes in my pretty dresses. My name is Ann Elizabeth in Narrawee, and she doesn’t have holes in her dresses, not like little Annie had in Liza’s old dresses. They put the apples in the cellar to keep them fresh and cool, and if you go into the cellar you can get the biggest apples.
‘I won’t go in the cellar, but Liza does. He gives her apples, and I said, “Don’t you go in that cellar, Liza. He’s bad. I’ll tell Aunty May”.’ But I can’t tell Aunty May, because . . . because . . . because it’s too late. He put his dirty thing in her and now she’s dirty and I have to bury her pants – .’
She screamed then. ‘Stop me. Stop me. Someone stuff up my mouth.’ Her fist slammed into the window screen and the wire ripped away from the frame with the force of her blow.
The doctor was by her side. ‘Let’s get rid of it, if it’s worrying you. I think there’s supposed to be a snib here somewhere.’ He reached across her, removing the screen from its frame, lifting it to the floor.
Her mouth open, she sucked in air, too much, too fast. He offered her a cigarette. She took it, walked back to the bed, and when she failed to light it, she swore at her trembling hands. He offered his lighter, waited until she was sucking in smoke.
‘What else do you remember, Mrs Taylor?’
‘Stop it. Please God, stop it. What good will it do now? What good will it do to wake it all up now? Will it get you a write-up in the psychiatrists’ journal? Doctor James solves 24-year-old mystery.’
‘You are my prime concern at the moment. Consider me the interested third-party. I followed the story after you were released, always hoping that one day I’d read that the mystery had been solved.’
‘Then you just solved it. She’s dead. You’re famous.’
His own pulse quickened, but he hid his interest. His voice remained quiet, soothing. ‘So, she died there, Mrs Taylor.’
‘Yes.’
‘You remember the details of her death?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you speak about it?’
She covered her mouth with a hand, then quickly drew it away. ‘You take some sort of oath, don’t you? A doctor’s oath of confidentiality.’
‘Be assured that nothing you might say to me will go further than this room – if that is your desire.’ He drew a chair towards her.
Her next words were long in coming. Her fingers combed her hair back from her face, then she said softly. ‘Can we go back to the beginning; back where you came in?’ She picked up the writing pad, looked at the words she’d written there.
‘Start wherever you’d like to start. Stop if you begin to feel uncomfortable.’
Silent again, her fingers fiddled, her mouth worked, attempting to create the right words. She swallowed several times, then it came in a non-stoppable torrent. ‘I know this will convince you that I am stark raving mad, and you are probably the last person in the world I should tell, but I don’t write those poems. I might hold the pen, but I swear to you that I don’t even know what I’ve written half the time. I fold them up and poke them away. Later when I pick one up, it’s like . . . like something from a book. Author unknown.’
‘But you know the author, Mrs Taylor.’
‘What is the educated opinion of dual personalities these days, Doctor James?’
‘They make good movie shows. What age were you when you first started finding these poems?’
Perhaps she was relieved by his flippancy. She glanced at him, then away. ‘Little Annie was writing poems before she could write. I am the interloper. Me. Aunty May created me in a looking-glass when Annie was already six years old. She took little Annie back to Narrawee and she brushed her hair with a golden brush, and made it into long sausage curls. She dressed her in a beautiful blue dress with a white lace collar then she showed her, her reflection in a looking-glass. I was born. Annie named me Annie Blue Dress.
‘Annie Blue Dress was special in Narrawee. Aunty May was the boss, even the boss of Uncle Sam. She’d say jump. He’d say, how high. May liked Annie Blue Dress better than Liza. Little Annie was happy
, content to move behind the mirror image Aunty May had created. She’d never been special to anyone except Johnny. Aunty May was such an important lady. What she said was the law. She had beautiful clothes and a big car and lots of money, yet she preferred the girl in the looking-glass to Liza, competition winner, Daddy’s Shirley Temple. Annie Blue Dress was strong too. The only thing that can cut glass is a diamond. Aunty May said so.’
Doctor James waited for her to restart, but when no words came, he prompted. ‘Can you continue?’
‘I was a Narrawee thing. It had to be put away when Annie went back to Mallawindy. We lived together, Annie and me, in a half-real world. For years, we were locked in some place . . . like . . . like paralysed spiders in a hornet’s nest.’ She looked away from him to her hands. ‘Then Dad killed our dog when we were thirteen and something happened inside our head.’ She shook her head. ‘This sounds crazy.’
‘Not at all. Continue.’
‘Little Annie sort of backed off the night Mickey died. She loved Dad because he learned her sign language, and he used to explain things to her, say poetry to her, and tell her things about the world. Everyone would run away from him when he went crazy, but little Annie never ran, and sometimes it paid off. When his mad bull was gone, then the other one would come out of his eyes and want to talk, so she stayed, and she waited, and she talked to him with her hands, and he understood her.
‘Mum couldn’t understand the signing. It was alien. Devil worship. Annie was some demon, sent to try Mum. Anyway.’ She swallowed, licked her lips. ‘Anyway, the night Mickey died, something crazy happened. It was like . . . like walking out of a dark room into light. Everything was bright. The moon was orange and the land was cold, white, and the stars, and the tin roof – . Everything was light.
‘He had murdered my dog. He’d killed him, shot him with his gun and left him in the moonlight, lying there in a pool of black blood. I hated him that night. Hated him. Hated him, but Annie made excuses, like Mum. The dog was dead on his feet. He was half crippled. But he was my dog. My dog.’ She slammed a fist into her breast. ‘A few days later I discovered I could talk, so Annie wouldn’t be outdone. She started talking too, but inside my bloody head.’