Mary reappears on the Thursday, but again sits quiet in the classroom, retreats into herself. Thomas is beside her. Hannah wonders if he is holding her hand under the table, but she never quite catches them. At one point in the morning, Picnic and Ben start catcalling, and Hannah automatically looks again for their hands. Ben throws a paper ball and she sends him outside. He goes, swearing and kicking. The younger kids fuss. Mary just watches, and Hannah feels it as a judgement, an indictment, all her efforts to maintain control as scrambled and insufficient.
At lunchtime, Hannah follows Mary from the classroom. Thomas is with her. They slip away from the other two boys and walk with their heads down across the oval. Another child calls to Hannah, and she turns to him. When she looks back, Mary and Thomas are at the back fence. Hannah watches as the pair of them climb through the wire and away into the dunes. She breathes deep. Go or stay? The other child clamours for her attention: a small boy, crying. Hannah sighs and turns to deal with the problem at hand. In the afternoon, when the bell rings, Mary and Thomas do not file into the classroom with the others. A boy asks about them but Hannah ignores him. She finds herself still feeling for Mary’s eyes on her back, conscious now that she isn’t looking, conscious more of the absence of her gaze than her absence in the room.
‘Mary and Thomas went truant this afternoon,’ she says to Mrs Culliver later, in the office. ‘Didn’t come back from lunch.’
The headmistress doesn’t raise her eyes from her computer screen. ‘Mmm. Are they close, those two? How many days has she missed this week?’
‘Two, and now a half. On top of the whole week she missed, week before last. And she missed a couple of days last week as well. Something’s wrong.’
‘I’ll talk to Ellen,’ Mrs Culliver says. ‘We’ll sort it out.’
Hannah nods. ‘Will you let me know what she says?’ she asks, but doesn’t wait for the reply. She takes her bag from her desk and walks out. Again, again, feels the eyes on her back.
Outside, a couple of the children are still hanging around, waiting for their ride, one from her class, the other from the juniors.
‘You all good, Sam?’ she asks the older one.
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Our dad’s coming. He’s just late.’
‘Okay then,’ she says, and rummages in her bag for her car keys. As she climbs in the front seat, a car pulls into the car park, a dirty yellow station wagon. The children race towards it, stumbling and laughing and pushing at each other. They pile into the back and a man gets out from behind the wheel. One of the girls from year eight is sitting in the shadow of the gate, Hannah realises. Jade. She must have walked straight past her. The man walks towards her and gestures with his thumb. She doesn’t move, so he grabs her by the arm and she swats at him with her free hand. Twisted around to watch, Hannah can’t tell if she is laughing or angry. Together they walk back to the car, and the girl gets into the front seat. The man closes the door behind her and walks around to the driver’s side door. As he opens it, he looks straight across at Hannah. He is smiling. Hannah shivers. She ducks her head, fumbles the key into the ignition. In the mirror she sees the car pull out onto the road and drive off towards the village. She knows him, she thinks inside. It is a smile she knows. Something about it rings an alarm in the back of her mind but she isn’t sure why.
She drops in on Darcy on her way home and finds him sitting at the woodworking bench in his shed. The pieces of an old bridle are laid out around him, the leather stiff, the stitching rotten. He has a stitching wheel and an awl, bent over a cheekpiece.
‘Hoo roo,’ he says, looking up as she threads her way between the clutter. ‘I was just thinking about you. You been out on that black horse?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘I thought you might be able to use this.’ He gestures to the bridle. ‘Not in great shape, though.’
Hannah fingers the dusty leather. It is clearly quality, even through the dirt of its neglect. ‘It’s beautiful. It’ll come good, if you can mend that stitching,’ she says.
‘It was made for him.’
‘For the black horse? You made it?’
‘Yep.’
Hannah stretches her memory but can’t place it. ‘How come you’ve got it here?’
Darcy just shrugs. ‘Your mother didn’t want it. Already had one.’ There is a sympathetic pause and Hannah leans against the bench. Darcy bends once again over the bridle. ‘You been helping out with the parade?’ he asks. ‘Remember going when you were little.’
‘We went with you? How old were we?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t have been more than six or seven. You were all still living with me, then. Before your mother bought your place.’
Hannah doesn’t reply but watches his fingers working across the leather.
‘You okay, kiddo?’ he asks, after a while. ‘You’re quiet today.’
‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘Just thinking about the kids at school. One of the girls went awol this afternoon. The Burnetts, Darce – you know them?’
‘Know Roy,’ he says, and leans over to spit to one side.
‘Mmm,’ Hannah says again. Darcy looks at her curiously but lets it go.
‘Pass the thread?’ he asks. She hands it to him and watches as he slips the end through the needle, ties it on, fingers deft despite their thickness. Outside, a kookaburra starts up laughing, as if in triumph.
‘I should be getting home,’ she says, but neither of them move.
Hannah wakes crying in the middle of the night. There are tears coursing down her face and across her nose, her hair and the pillow wet with them. It takes her a moment to steady herself, slow her breathing, stop gulping at air. She has been dreaming of the man in the car park. She remembers him now. The man is the boy they used to call Nugget. He has changed, of course. His face has shifted, is set deeper and on different lines. But his smile is the same. It was his smile that she used to be in love with. She sits up and realises she is sweating profusely. Her face is clammy where the tears are still wet. She wonders if the kids in the car park are his.
She peels back the sheets and lets the night air cool her skin, sits up and wipes her cheeks with the doona cover. The memories make her mildly uneasy and she wonders if she has been supressing them deliberately. Somehow, slowly, her mind wanders back to Mary, the change in her behaviour. She falls asleep again still thinking about her, the visit to her home, the feeling of her eyes in the classroom.
*
Father John finds himself thinking of the girl at odd moments. She floats into his mind like a shadow, a mirage, and then fades away again. He begins to notice a pattern in it: when he thinks of her, his wife appears. He tries it several times, like conjuring by incantation, and she doesn’t fail him. It is more than memory, he realises. He can feel her there. He begins to think of the girl more often, seeking out his wife’s presence beside him at his desk, or sitting with him in the kitchen. On the third day, he surprises himself by washing, dressing and going for a walk. It is a long time since he has been out beyond the church with no purpose, for the simple act of movement. He wonders if it is the effect of the girl. At the door, he can feel his wife slip her hand under his elbow and fall into place beside him.
The run-down state of the village surprises him. A man nods at him from across the street. A boy stares at him, and Father John wonders if he should be in school. There are people in the pub in the middle of the afternoon. He walks down through the dunes to the river. It is low, depleted by summer, and no longer flowing. There is a bank of sand between the water and the ocean, the mouth closed. Algae blooms in plumes of dark brown, moss-coloured at the surface, rust where it meets the bank, the water shallow and tepid. It has started to rot. The smell is dank and animal, makes his eyes water. He turns and keeps walking across the beach, sits in the shelter of a dune to watch the waves come in. Further along, he can see the silhouette of the Virgin on the point, her arms open to the water. She is not looking at him; her face is turned to watch over th
e bay. He can see the weather-worn profile of her nose, her high forehead. She is beautiful. It is a face to command love. Across from them, the mainland is black through the haze. It is cold, out of the sun. He turns to his wife but she has left him. The water coming up the beach gives the impression of the island sinking. They are falling, he thinks. The island is melting away. The water moves slowly on. When the waves reach the high-tide mark, the line of dried seaweed and broken wood, he stands and walks home.
The mother calls again, late that evening. The bleating voice of the telephone startles him.
‘This is wrong,’ she says, before he can speak. She is crying, her voice catching in her throat. He can hear her sob. ‘I’ve let this happen, Father.’
‘Let what happen?’
‘Mercy,’ she mumbles. ‘Have mercy on me.’
‘I could come,’ he starts, but a man’s voice sounds in the background and just as abruptly she hangs up.
Panic drops through his chest. He sits with both palms flat on the table and wonders what he is being called on to do, what action she expects him to take. He can feel his wife’s hand pressing gently on his shoulder. Breathe, he tells himself. He imagines her smiling softly, soothing him, can feel her massaging the base of his neck. He leans his head back to rest against her stomach. He will go tomorrow.
The mother meets him at the door the next day; again, it is as though she has been waiting. She smiles when she sees him, enormously, overwhelmingly, and surprisingly he feels himself smiling back.
‘I’m sorry about last night, Father. It was nothing, I was being silly. Shall I come up?’ she asks as she guides him towards the stairs.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Let me go alone.’
In her bedroom, Mary is sitting upright in the same white sheets, looking out. She is dressed neatly in a nightgown, her hair has been plaited. It makes her look even younger. She turns to him as he comes in, expecting him, ready. The bruise on her face has almost completely disappeared, her skin is soft and clear. He stands before her and waits to see if she will talk.
‘When I was a boy,’ he says, ‘I fell in love. But then she moved to a different town.’ It sounds ridiculous, even to him. Like a fairy tale. Mary looks at him, but says nothing. He thinks he sees a flash of pity cross her face. ‘Is that what has happened to you, Mary?’ he tries. ‘Are you in love?’
The girl doesn’t respond. He feels like a boy, standing there. She reduces him to something more essential, he thinks. She is mesmerisingly delicate. Her silence is frustrating but powerful, she is powerful. He can feel himself wanting to please her. Eventually he retreats. The mother is waiting again, always waiting.
‘Well?’
‘Better, today, I think.’ He smiles briefly at the hope it gives her, pauses, considers, waits for the slight waver to leave his voice. ‘It is a case of time. Perhaps we could get her out and involved, somehow?’
‘She is refusing to go to school . . .’
‘Push her,’ he says knowingly, hoping the woman can’t hear the falsity of his paternal tone. The girl would, he thinks. ‘We should get her to church, perhaps involve her somehow there . . .’ He realises as he says it that it is a good idea. ‘She could be our Virgin in the Easter parade.’
The woman looks back at him, eyes wide. He can see her imagining it: her daughter lofted above them all. The part is usually played by one of the wives. He will have to soothe them, cosset them a little. But still, he thinks, one of his better ideas. She would be so much more fitting in the role than any of the women.
‘Alright,’ she says. ‘I’ll try.’
‘She needs activity. I think she will start to open up if we can get her more engaged, a part of it all.’
The mother squints. ‘Do you think it will make her talk to you?’
‘Yes,’ he says, trying to sound confident. ‘I think she will.’ He leads the mother through into the kitchen, one hand on her arm to guide her. His wife is there waiting, and he feels himself solidify, feels everything come together again. The mother smiles, and sighs, and waves him to a seat.
‘Have you seen our grapes?’ she asks him. ‘They’re fruiting again. It’s never happened before.’
‘Really?’ He raises an eyebrow, attempts to soften the scepticism in his voice to something avuncular.
‘Yes!’ she says, and laughs. ‘It’s something else!’
*
Mrs Culliver sits in the office, sewing an old bedsheet into a robe. Hannah sighs and looks down at the red and white stripes of her terry-towelling wise man. The robe is frayed, coming apart at the shoulders.
‘Off,’ she tells the boy, and he drags it from around him.
‘Can I go?’ he asks.
She nods and he throws the robe at her, almost runs from the office.
‘Is that the last one?’ Mrs Culliver asks, yawning.
‘No, one more.’ Hannah smiles. ‘That blue one. I wore that when I was here!’
Mrs Culliver laughs. ‘I remember it from when my kids went through. We always use it for Joseph.’ She reaches an arm out and Hannah hefts the draped material towards her. It is heavyweight cloth, almost canvas. The stitching is tight and neat.
‘It looks fine,’ she says.
‘Down at one hem,’ Mrs Culliver replies. ‘But doesn’t matter, we won’t be using it this year.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’ll use the red one instead. Father John wants Mary in blue. Ellen is making a robe for her.’
There is a pause as Mrs Culliver stands to fold the stiff drapes of cloth, bundles the robe into a plastic bag. Hannah watches, needle motionless, and can’t hold back the question.
‘Our Mary? Mary Burnett?’ she asks.
‘Yes. She’s going to play the Virgin.’
‘Have you spoken to them?’
‘She’s alright. They’re just giving her some time at home. They think it might be glandular fever.’
‘Have they had a doctor out?’
‘No, didn’t ever get that bad.’
‘She’s recovering?’
‘She’s well enough for the parade, at least. Father John is helping them.’
‘Has she started talking again, then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She wasn’t talking. In class.’
‘Perhaps she just wasn’t interested in your lessons.’
Hannah makes herself breathe, refuses to bite. ‘She was very quiet.’
‘Like I said, glandular fever. It leaves them like zombies, poor kids. We need to let them look after her.’ Mrs Culliver shakes out the sheet in front of her. The seams march in a straight line from the shoulder to the floor. She turns it over and starts measuring the hem, tailor’s chalk fastidious between two fingers. ‘It’s crazy, you know. Father John was telling me that the Burnetts’ grapes have started fruiting again. They picked out in January, and now there’s new fruit all across the three rows closest to their house.’
Hannah frowns. ‘Really? How is that possible?’
‘They’ve no idea. It’s rather lovely. Ellen’s talking about picking again.’
‘Is it any good, the fruit?’
‘How would I know? I haven’t been up there.’ She looks across at Hannah witheringly.
Hannah is dumb before the inference, and Mrs Culliver snorts.
‘Well then,’ she says. ‘You finished there or not?’
Hannah stops in the village for bread on the way home. The smell of rotting seaweed has crept up from the beach and through the main street. A boy on a bicycle has his t-shirt pulled up over his nose.
‘Hi, Miss M!’ he calls, voice muffled through cloth.
She raises a hand to wave and ducks into the store, releases her breath.
‘Hello.’ Sarah smiles from behind the counter. ‘Bit ripe out there today, isn’t it?’
‘The river?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wonder how it will be for the parade,’ Hannah says. She pulls a loaf of bread from the shelf besi
de her, grabs a half-carton of eggs and milk from the fridge. A plastic tray of Easter eggs sits on the counter, and on impulse she adds one to her pile, a gold and purple replica of the actual eggs beside it. ‘Any mail?’
Sarah rummages in the pigeonholes behind the counter, comes out with a handful of bills and catalogues. ‘Your mother coming down this year?’
‘Probably.’ Hannah hands over the change from her pocket and scoops up the mail. The bread sits in the crook of her arm like a baby. ‘We’ll see you there.’
‘Sure,’ the woman says. ‘Be good to say hello to her in person for once! I haven’t seen her in a while now.’
At home, her mother is waiting for her in the kitchen. She has lost weight, Hannah notices. Her hips and shoulders are angular, they mimic the corners of the table she is propped against. The end-of-day light is soft and calm. Hannah wants to fold onto a kitchen chair and just stop.
‘Here,’ she says. ‘Got you something.’ She offers the Easter egg on her outstretched palm. Her mother takes it and nods.
‘Not yet,’ she says. ‘It’s too soon. Sunday.’
‘I know.’ Hannah busies herself finding room for the milk in the fridge, tucking the bread away. She can feel her mother waiting for her to surface again. ‘The river is still blocked,’ she says from the larder. ‘It’s starting to smell pretty bad down there.’
‘You can smell it in the village?’
‘Yep.’ Hannah stands and turns from the cupboard, closes the door. ‘Tea?’
Her mother shakes her head. ‘Been a few years since it was so bad you could smell it from the village. How high is it? Will it go out?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hannah replies. ‘I haven’t been down. I doubt it will. It can’t be high.’
‘Check it tomorrow?’
‘It’s Good Friday. I was going to ride.’
‘It won’t take you long to duck down there, see how high it is.’
‘No,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m staying clear. It’ll either go out or it won’t, I won’t be doing any good by looking at it. And either way, I doubt the smell will be down before Sunday.’
The Salt Madonna Page 12