The Salt Madonna

by Catherine Noske

  By mid-afternoon, he is beginning to feel it. Dizziness swoops on him at odd moments. He spends half an hour simply staring towards the ocean from his study, out towards the mainland. Without meals, there is nothing to break his concentration, disturb his day. He remembers vast sweeps of time, all moments keyed into the date. The fires in 1983, their smoke rising as a dull sheen on the horizon. Such a day to see a fire, ashes and smoke. The year they arrived, 1976. That first fasting together.

  By nightfall he is shaking uncontrollably – from cold or fear, he isn’t sure. He butters himself two slices of bread, slathering the butter on thickly. One meal a day, he thinks, and allows himself to eat.

  It is hard to make himself get out of bed the next morning. His body is stiff, unwieldy. He lies there for hours, unblinking, before his bladder forces him up. In the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of water from the jug. Out the window he can see the contents of his fridge still spread across the yellowed patch of grass. Birds have started to pick at them, the cake has been unwrapped and is spread as crumbs. Fast, feast, fest, fester, he thinks. The words teeter unbalanced as a list in his mind. He wonders if they are all from the same root, legacy of some ancient Roman tradition or the language of bacchanal. His wife appears behind him, he can feel her presence. The back of his neck itches with knowing she is there. He looks at his reflection in the window and imagines her walking through the doorway, standing behind him at the table, one hand resting on the back of a chair. Her head to one side, like the statuette of the Virgin on the windowsill. He can almost see her. It is just a little dream, a little dream-puffed memory, but in its way it is more real than anything else.

  The voice of a woman disturbs him, and the vision of his wife flickers and is gone. He looks around, bitter with disappointment. Someone is standing at the front door, calling down the hallway. He is only half dressed, still wearing the loose singlet he slept in, trousers but no socks. He reaches for a pullover, discarded on the table, and drags it over his head. He immediately starts to sweat. The voice sounds again, and he straightens himself, clears his throat. At the door, one of the church women is waiting, holding a dish covered with tinfoil. He realises he can’t remember her name.

  ‘Father!’ she says. ‘I thought you might have been out.’

  ‘I’m here,’ he replies, and immediately feels it as unnecessary.

  The woman gushes forth with a torrent of fuss and gossip. Mrs Matthews, he recalls. Val.

  ‘I brought you some corned beef, thought you might like it, excellent with mustard,’ she says. ‘I salted it myself, but we had a side spare.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he says, still standing in the doorway.

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve time for a cup of tea?’ she asks, only slightly pointedly.

  He stands aside, and she leads the way down the hall, bearing her dish in front of her.

  ‘I won’t join you,’ he says.

  She is standing by the kitchen window, looking out over the mess around his back door. He sits down at the table and composes his face into a semblance of dignity. It comes into him like something cold.

  ‘Father John?’

  ‘I won’t have tea. But you’re welcome to some, if you’d like.’

  Gingerly, she places the corned beef down on the table. ‘It doesn’t seem very social of me,’ she says. ‘Can’t I make you a cup?’

  ‘I’m fasting. For Lent.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was meant to be a fast.’ She is wringing her hands in front of her.

  ‘Not always,’ he replies, and waits for her to speak again. She has run out of words.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to disturb you,’ she says eventually. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just thought . . . Will you eat the beef?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Of course not.’ She picks the meat up again and shuffles it between her hands. ‘I’ll go then.’

  ‘You’re welcome to . . .’ he begins, but she has already turned, and he doesn’t try to stop her. He is sorry, all of a sudden, and tired. He follows her down the hallway, waves dutifully from the step when she reaches her car. He watches as she places the meat on the seat beside her and then pauses, scratching her head. She catches sight of him still watching and waves again, smiles too brightly. He turns back into the house, closing the door on her noise, the sunlight, the day. There in the kitchen, standing at the table, one hand resting on the back of a chair, his wife purses her lips at him.

  PERHAPS THERE IS NO point to this. What more can I say to make you see? Chesil is not like other places. There is no way to map it onto another form. An island has its own life; it is not something you can understand objectively or comment on from the outside. It exists in its own right, in the weight of its own history. Even I can feel that. I think of my mother’s life, the lives of others there, my own childhood, and I know that they are something different from the world around me now. More than simply past.

  It is this sensation: this feeling of music caught in my head. Not music, but the same feeling. Salt. I have salt caught in my head. It is sticky when wet. When the wind carries it from the water it is an adherent, clings to everything, your face, your skin. It is the lens through which we see. It burns. It calls to the blood. Salt-corrosive, its own special type of rust. And when you realise, notice the crystals forming as white dust, it is already far too late. Salt crust, salt itch. We used to have to wash the horses, soothe it from their skin. And you taste it on your lips, in the water, in the food. Salt-preserved. Salt holding the island in perfect stasis.

  I said I would imagine, but I don’t know now. Is there any difference between imagining and living, really? It is all the same. Stasis is a myth. Everything exists for its moment and then it is gone.

  The violence is coming. It has been waiting, but now it is on its way.

  VI

  March 1992

  Saint’s Day of Joseph of Nazareth, 19 March

  WITH THE NEW MONTH, Hannah feels herself relaxing, feels everything opening around her. The village feels familiar again, she knows the name of the woman at the store. Her desk has settled into a comfortable mundanity.

  Mrs Culliver waves her into the office one morning as she walks through the gate.

  ‘I’ve had a call from a friend in town, over on the mainland.’ She is speaking in hushed tones, almost excited. ‘A girl from the school there has run away, she’s asked us to keep an eye out in case she turns up here. Sixteen years old. They think she’s with a boyfriend. Apparently she’s been in touch with one of her friends, sent her messages and a photo.’

  Hannah grimaces. ‘Should I ask the kids? Would they know her?’

  ‘No. She won’t come here, they’re only covering bases. But keep an ear open, just in case.’

  ‘Are the police involved?’

  ‘Of course. Not that they’ll do much.’ She clucks her tongue. ‘What can they do? Sixteen going on thirty, Jane said.’

  Hannah smiles awkwardly. Still only makes her sixteen, she wants to say. But Mrs Culliver is sighing and she doesn’t dare risk the fragile collegiality that the confidence has created.

  ‘We’ve had these come in,’ Mrs Culliver adds, handing Hannah an open envelope. ‘I’ve no idea if you’ll have any takers,’ she adds. ‘We didn’t last year.’

  Hannah riffles through the papers inside. There are forms and a practice exam.

  ‘They’re for the city schools,’ Mrs Culliver says before Hannah can ask. ‘They send them out every year. The state government funds a scholarship for the remote kids.’

  ‘Full board and tuition?’

  ‘Oh, just about.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Hannah says, already pulling away again. ‘I’ll see if they’re interested.’

  ‘You’ll need the parents’ permission,’ Mrs Culliver calls after her as she heads out the door. ‘It’s all on the form in there.’ Hannah just nods.

  She keeps the year nines back at the end of the day. Mary and Thomas regard her wit
h a vague curiosity. Ben picks at a scab.

  ‘You’re in your final year here, now,’ Hannah begins when the classroom has emptied out.

  Thomas nods and smiles. Picnic stares out the window.

  Hannah plunges on. It is strange to be pushing them to leave.

  ‘I don’t know if anyone has told you, but there’s a scholarship you can apply for, to get into one of the city schools.’

  ‘Nope,’ Ben says, looking up. Hannah looks at him with a frown and he goes back to picking his scab. Picnic snorts and Hannah pretends not to hear.

  ‘Well,’ she says slowly, ‘if you are interested, you’ll have to sit an exam. There’s a form here for you to take home. If you want to apply, your parents will have to sign it. The exam is held at the end of the month.’

  ‘What schools?’ Mary asks suddenly.

  ‘There are five,’ Hannah says. She glances down at the form again, looks for the names. The front page is covered in logos and self-congratulatory titles. She wonders if they had this when she was here, wonders if her mother knew.

  ‘Okay,’ Mary says. She glances at Thomas before adding quietly, ‘I’ll try.’

  She takes one of the forms Hannah proffers and walks out. Hannah watches her go, satisfied. Stupid that it should make her so happy, she thinks fleetingly, when she herself had wanted so badly at the same age to stay. Picnic and Ben grab their bags.

  ‘No way,’ Picnic says, and heads towards the door.

  ‘You do have to complete year ten before you can take your leavers’ certificate,’ Hannah says. The words come out sharper than she intends.

  ‘Whatever you say, Miss,’ Ben calls, leaving, Picnic with him. Hannah can hear them laughing as soon as they are outside. She looks at Thomas. He is standing in front of her, shuffling his feet. He grabs a form and stuffs it deep in his bag before following the other two.

  ‘Okay,’ she calls after him, as he hurries out. ‘See you tomorrow!’

  She pushes the remaining forms back into the envelope, smiling gently at his retreating back and the awkwardness of his teenage angst.

  ‘How was it?’ her mother asks as she enters the house. It is their ritual, now.

  ‘Good,’ Hannah says. She has repeated this again and again. ‘It’s going well. I’m enjoying it down there.’ Her mother doesn’t quite believe her, she thinks. Or doesn’t want to.

  ‘Do they give you enough?’ her mother asks. ‘Materials and such?’

  Hannah looks at her, head sideways. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘But there are no computers, or anything like that?’

  ‘There’s one,’ Hannah replies. ‘It’s enough. We never had computers when we were kids. It’s better than my last school in many ways!’

  Her mother harrumphs.

  ‘What did you do today?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘Oh,’ her mother says. ‘This and that. Cleared a little of the garden.’

  Hannah nods and smiles encouragingly. There is a basket of washing sitting on the coffee table. She looks at it and is tempted to run away to feed the horses, but she stands and starts sorting and folding each piece, one by one. Her mother watches her but doesn’t move. Outside, the swallows begin their evening dance, rising and swooping to the insects beginning to come out. It is still light enough that Hannah can make out the flowerbed where her mother has worked. The chair from the veranda is sitting on an angle beside it and a trowel still sticks up in the fresh dirt.

  ‘Have they told you how long they want you here yet?’ her mother asks from the couch.

  ‘No,’ Hannah says, breaking out of her reverie. ‘I’m in no hurry to go back though.’

  ‘You don’t want to burn your bridges,’ her mother says.

  Hannah looks across at her, unsure if this is a joke.

  ‘No,’ she says evenly, after a moment. ‘I won’t be.’

  ‘Good,’ her mother says.

  ‘Did you know there is a scholarship now for the island kids?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘At the school? To go on to boarding school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her mother nods. ‘They had it when you were there as well.’

  ‘I’m hoping some of the kids will go for it. There’s a couple of them who have potential.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mmm. Mary Burnett – do you know the family?’

  ‘Not really.’ Her mother’s face is curious, almost wry. Hannah looks down at her, halfway through pairing the socks, and wonders why.

  ‘Why didn’t I go for it?’ she asks.

  Her mother looks up at her. ‘You already had a place,’ she says. ‘Like Sophie. I took you girls out before that stage.’ She pauses and Hannah turns once more to look at her. She is fiddling with a tissue, looking down at her hands. ‘My brother paid,’ she says eventually.

  Hannah blinks in surprise. She imagines her uncle, alone with his wife up on the top of the hill.

  ‘I didn’t think he knew we existed,’ she says before she can stop herself.

  Her mother looks up at her sharply, but laughs – a dry, throaty cough. ‘Edward? He knew,’ she says. ‘It was in your grandfather’s will.’

  ‘Oh,’ Hannah murmurs. ‘Right.’ She turns back to the socks. Her mother’s voice, when it continues, surprises her again.

  ‘He could have challenged it, I suppose. But Edward was always quiet, he was always passive. I was the loud one. Once, when we were kids, he had two of the working dogs down in one of the bottom paddocks, Branagan’s, hunting rabbits. The men were down there putting vines in. The dogs tried to kill a big, old-man kangaroo at the edge of the dam. They had it bailed up, took turns pushing it into the water, harrying it. The little one would block its escape, and the big dog would push it further in, push it under when he could. They would have drowned it. My noble brother just stood there.’

  ‘And?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘And nothing. You just reminded me of it. He just stood there. Darcy ran over and managed to drag one of the dogs off, and the kangaroo escaped. It was exhausted, he said. It probably went off and died of shock.’

  ‘Darcy was there?’

  ‘Yes, that was when he still worked for us, for your grandfather. Before everything.’

  ‘Before us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Before our father, Hannah thinks. Before you were disowned, and before Darcy took you in, and before we ended up here. She waits but nothing more comes. Her mother is staring out the window with a strange resolution on her face.

  Her mother goes upstairs early, after dinner. Hannah sits in the kitchen and thinks about what her mother has said. Her grandfather. Her uncle, paying for their education. Did he resent them? They hadn’t called him ‘Uncle’, she and Sophie; they’d just called him Mulvey. As if he was somehow detached from them, despite sharing their name. She wonders if her mother ever heard, and if it made her sad, or if she hated him as much as they did. She wonders if there was bitterness. He just stood there, she thinks, and wonders about the potency of the image in her mother’s mind. Floorboards creak upstairs as her mother prepares for bed. Your brother, she wants to ask, did you hate your brother? Hannah looks out at the window, wonders why she and Sophie had hated him. Had they learnt to? Had she and Sophie picked up on something accidentally, reflected their mother’s resentment in a simpler, more childlike hate? It is dark enough outside that it is only her own reflection that looks back.

  *

  Mary slides the form down in front of her mother at the kitchen table. Her mother has to put her glasses on to read it, pink frames perched on the end of her nose as she mouths the words.

  She sighs. ‘I’m not sure, love. Better talk to your dad . . .’

  ‘It’s just a test,’ Mary mutters, but her mother has already put the form down. The school logos smile up with faces like money.

  ‘There’ll be more to it if you get in. We can’t afford it,’ her mother replies. ‘You ask your dad.’

  Mary lingers, stares at her im
ploringly.

  Her mother looks up at her and sighs again, leaves the sheet on the table. ‘You’ll help me put the dinner on first,’ she says.

  Mary nods, fetches a chopping board and a peeler.

  Her mother smiles at her with an eyebrow cocked. ‘Funny how good you get when you want something.’

  Mary doesn’t respond but can’t stop herself from smiling. ‘Please?’ she begs. ‘They pay – that’s the whole point.’

  ‘For everything? Your food, your clothes, the whole lot?’

  ‘Everything,’ Mary replies, though her voice wobbles.

  ‘We’ll ask your father,’ her mother says again, but the plural is enough to make Mary grin and hug her mother on her way to the fridge for the carrots. ‘You better hope he’s in a good mood.’

  Mary asks after dinner, standing anxious in the doorway before her father. He holds the form out towards the television, as if having trouble reading it. Mary’s mother stands behind her, one hand on the small of her back. Mary can feel her trembling.

  ‘You think you’re better than us?’ her father asks.

  Mary’s throat catches, her whole body catches. Her mother presses her gently.

  ‘It’s exciting, love, is all,’ her mother says, coming forward to sit beside him. ‘Imagine if she won. She’d be able to study for a university, do a proper nursing degree or –’

  ‘She won’t win.’