'I am remembering primary school,' she says aloud to Chandra. 'The only subject considered important was RK, religious knowledge. Our days were peppered with moral questions. One I'll never forget. "Is it better, when you are asked to do something, to say, yes and do it, or say yes and not do it, or say no and not do it, or no and do it?" The nun was always trying to catch us out. I guessed it was a curly question. They must have sold those straps at Pelligrini's with their special and individual handles. Margaret Mary's handle was silver, while Sister Colomba's was folded leather, a kind of flat, fat-centred figure of eight. Anyway, I knew the answer. I was so certain I thrust my hand into the air nearly propelling myself off the seat, pumping enthusiastically, dying to get in first. She pointed at me. With the handle.
'"It is best to say no, and to do it, because then you don't have to do it if you don't want to, but you probably will," I said, knowing I was right.
'"Come up here, you smart alecky red-head. No wonder the folk of Innisheer'll not go to sea when a red-headed woman crosses their path on the way to the currach. Wait at the side of the platform."' Rory puts on an Irish accent, and continues the anecdote.
'"Class?" she asked.
'The pious girl, a full-blown hypocrite at the age of seven, Raelene, opted for the first response, "Sister, it is best to say yes and do it." She sat down, knowing she had said the correct, though glaringly obvious thing. Her gratification was what Sister was going to do to me.
'"Maureen? What do you think?"
'"If you say no it might be because you can't do it?" Maureen was considered the most intelligent girl in the grade.
'"Now, little people, are you being honest with me, now?" The nun enjoyed herself with these kinds of posers and went through the whole class without revealing the Right Answer.' Rory recalls clearly getting more cuts than the boy who said, guessing, that it was best to say yes and not do it. When asked why, he rationalised, 'You get into less trouble if you say yes.' Although she got the strap practically every day of her schooling until the age of twelve, generally for sticking up for one of the boarder-orphans or her younger brother, this particular day stands out in her memory. 'I stood in front of the class and she hit me on the palms of both hands, and the backs of both knees, for being honest. She caned me for being true to myself.'
Rory tells Chandra the story, without self-pity, not seeking sympathy. Her tears are for her mother, not the powerless child. 'The only thing they wanted to teach was craven obedience.'
In answer to what her mother is like, Rory shrugs. 'I guess, I see something of her in all my lovers. They kind of expose a little bit about each other. Or me. She pretty well describes herself in her letter. She loves her church. She has church clothes and house clothes. Goes to the shops in either, depending on her mood. Tom is your ordinary wussy poof. But he wouldn't contradict Mum when she offered her opinion.'
Chandra's station wagon, an automatic with a manual accelerator, is quiet enough to conduct a reasonable conversation in. Rory enjoys talking of her family, a fact of life she all but ignored in her thirties and early forties.
'Tom and Kim are great to Mum now. She hated Women's Lib in the same way Dr Mannix hated Commies. That's when she and I split asunder. But it is a buzz, this letter. She has finally hit the barricades.'
'What age is she?'
'Eighty-four? Five?'
'Really?'
'My parents didn't marry young. And stayed at home with their parents until they did. Mum has only recently taken to writing to me,' Rory says, softly. 'I guess I'll answer this one.'
'Oh yes. It's a great letter,' Chandra encourages. 'Get to know her, Rory, before she dies.' She pulls into the queue for the car-ferry and they watch the barge on its cable dawdle towards them. Rory lets the dogs out to sniff along the grassy verge. Sun is behind ice-cream clouds which stand out against steel-dark ones stunningly. Pelicans glide about the sticks of oyster leases. One sits on top of a pole. Terns are busy.
'Before we get there, Margot's I mean.' Rory blushes as she attempts to word what she has to say. 'I should admit that I've got a candle lit for her.' She glances at Chandra. 'Guess I should put it out?'
Chandra presses her lips together, grimaces and looks straight back at Rory. And shrugs. The Rottweiler and red kelpie return to the car on recall, leap in, happily grinning as Chandra starts up the motor and they clunk onto the barge.
In the laundry I washed the salt out of my wetsuit, thoroughly. I hung it on a rail in the bathroom and shower. I was walking through my house naked when I heard a car. I dived for my clothes in my bedroom which has a window onto the front yard. Chandra's Subaru. Two women, each with a dog. They were early! I fumbled for a T-shirt and draw-string chinos, neither ironed, both with no buttons or zips. Rory leant against the passenger door, sniffing the sea like an animal discerning something in the air. Chandra must have told her she didn't need any help and dear butch Rory looked a bit miffed. I sauntered out bare-footed and wet-haired. Chandra fell into my hug. The muzzle of her bitch nudged my leg.
'What colour was your mother's champion horse?' I asked into the hair behind her ear. She thrust me away with both hands on my shoulders, pushed me into a position she could look into my eyes.
'Margot, what a question! My mother had several champion horses: a grey, big ugly fellow who could jump a mountain; a brown almost black thoroughbred with long white socks; and a pretty bay mare, my favourite, but far too spirited for anyone but Mum to ride. All those were champions because she was a champion. We had plenty of other horses and some won led classes. The bay mare's father was a champion stallion. I could keep talking about my mother and her horses until the sun sets in the west. But Rory is here.'
I apologised and gave Rory a sisterly embrace. I patted their canine companions one after the other. We went inside. 'Virginia turned up.' Rory's voice was low, pretending the chemistry between Chandra and me was of secondary importance to her. 'By the way,' she said, 'I think there is something happening next door.'
The observation interrupted trivial chatter. Chandra sat in a chair, next to which was my unanswered mail: the invitation to do the advertisement and my Nike contract.
'Nothing like someone else's troubles to get away from your own,' philosophised Rory. 'Come on.'
It was a command. Tess obeyed and I, too, followed her out.
We stood together on the concrete path in my backyard listening. The old fellow to my north was yelling abuse. Although not swearing, each of the words he did use belittled his wife. He had no doubt she was his chattel. The thing that had been niggling me since he was last here, at least a fortnight ago, slowly dawned on me.
'She has been there all that time,' I said to my friend. Rory did not know what I was talking about. He was telling her off for not answering the mobile phone he had given her as a present.
'Where is the mobile phone?' he demanded.
I told Rory I remembered it ringing. 'When I saw her on her back step one day she rushed inside.'
'A gift that was intended to keep her in check when he was not around, meaning he could be a jailer at the same time as being free himself,' grumbled Rory. 'Screws are in jail too. Most of the time.'
'I could have assured him she has not been so much as out the door,' I explained, but it made me angry that the woman had not protested before. She annoyed me with her pathological timidity. I blamed her. My mind was rapidly changing. He was becoming frantic about the whereabouts of the bloody gadget.
He now called her dirty within our hearing.
'Oh for god's sake, no one could be cleaner,' I muttered as we listened. He called her sexually promiscuous. She was plainly a far more alluring character in his imagination than in reality. However, we heard no peep from her.
'I'll string you to the back of the Pathfinder and drag you along the road until you tell me,' he threatened, sounding ludicrous.
'Does this happen often?' Rory asked me.
I shuffled. 'She won't talk to me.'
H
e shouted, 'I don't have a rope in the car, but I do have cable.'
Rory made a face. 'I want to get a look at this jerk,' she said.
The strangest thing about the house to the north of mine is that it has roller doors closing off its front verandah. These were rarely open more than a metre from the ground. Brick veneer walls were broken only once in each room with small aluminium windows. I had not seen it as quite the fortress it was until now. The highly polished four-wheel-drive was parked at an angry angle to the inappropriate garage doors.
Chandra, her guard-dog at heel, was already swinging herself into their driveway as Rory and I came along. We made three abreast behind him and stopped in a line. While the red dog ran about, the black and tan hound was clearly at work.
Chandra spoke in her ordinary voice. 'I know from my experience in refuges that blokes like this are real cowards. The older they get, the more cowardly.' Betraying her anger, she shouted cruelly and loudly. 'Don't blame your soft dick on your wife.'
Rory used a quieter, more sinister, tone. 'And it's not her fault. Nothing is her fault.'
'You pathetic old fart,' both yelled in concert, as if rehearsed.
Nikki kept an eye on her mistress and the man, but didn't growl or move from her sit-stay. I saw the cream faux lace curtains in one of the windows tweak aside and the old woman's face, a vision of fear, peeking out. The roller doors were locked with a padlock a little way open. He attempted once to drag them up then said to himself, 'I've got the spare set in the car, under the seat in a little metal box.'
Rory murmured, 'Boy! are we in Cloud Cuckoo Land!'
I asked, 'Did he hear you?'
Chandra nodded towards the window. 'She did.'
When the old man turned around and made to shove past us, snarling, Chandra jabbed him in the prostate with her right-hand carved snake. Knowing the strength of her upper body, I winced with his pain. She transferred her weight and slapped upwards with her left. She had done this before. I was shocked by such focused hate. He saw the dog and was genuinely scared. He doubled over. Rory prevented me helping him. It was so instinctive I hardly knew I was doing it. She pulled me back.
Suddenly the side window opened and the wife turned banshee. 'Takes a cripple to beat you, you old shrivel-cock. Give it to 'im. Have a go, you bitch. Finish 'im off. 'Ave a geez in the woodpile. Show it to 'im, cunt.' Then she slammed the window shut with a snap lock.
Rory strolled off down the side of the house. After taking a moment to absorb this insanity, I ran to the woodpile. There was the cell-phone on the chopping block, having had the worse end of a furious axe. Rory, coming up behind me, laughed.
'Let's drag him round to have a look. And hope she keeps hopping from window to window to see.' My emotions were so confused, I was swept up by a warrior woman fantasy of retribution. It was something to do. Something physical. I rushed back around the front, to find Chandra standing over the old codger, leaning on her sticks, panting. Nikki shadowed as I lifted him up, turned him round and frog-marched him to the woodpile. Rory was keeping one eye cocked for the twitching of nylon lace. Chandra hobbled on her three inadequate pegs, keeping pace with me and the gentleman of senior years. It was getting hilarious. We all wanted to see his reaction to the state of his 'present'. He was, impotently, infuriated. But careful, because of the dog.
A back window slid open, 'Give the gimp the axe. 'Ave a go, cunt. Takes some sheilas, Herbert, soft-cock, limp-dick, pain in the fucking arse. Millstone. Life sentence. Lock me up in a loony bin! Maybe there they will let me get my teeth out.'
'Oh Christ,' expleted Rory. 'She's driven mad with pain.'
'Okay Herbert, tell us about the last conversation on this poor little exgadget. Tell. What was said?' I toughed in police-speak.
'Nothing. I just rang. I rang once or twice a day. If she didn't answer I had plans,' he boasted.
'Okay, she answered, and?' I demanded.
'She wasn't telling me what to do,' Herbert proclaimed, defiantly.
'She said she needed to go to the dentist, didn't she?' Rory put the leading question.
'Ethel has been saying that for about two years. Nothing new in that.' The ignorant old bastard!
'Maybe the pain-killers ran out?' I suggested. I could feel Chandra, beside me, fuming.
He counted on his fingers. 'Yes, that would be correct. Two days ago to be exact.'
Having let him go, looking at the mangled mobile, hearing the piping of Eastern Spinebills in the forest beyond the fence, sizing up the situation and making no sense of it, I asked, 'What do we do now?'
Chandra could, quite happily, have clubbed the bloke to death if the look on her face was any indication, but she kept her canine killing machine in check with a soft murmur. Rory, whose interest was plainly in the woman, grinned and nodded towards the house. 'At least she's having a good day.'
'Yeah, but what do we do?'
The old man turned pathetic, pleading. 'It costs too much…' he started.
'Nice car,' Chandra was irate. 'Bet you never drive it over sixty kilometres an hour. Why don't you just trade it in on something less expensive? Her teeth can't cost that much.'
Selfishly pedantic, he explained, 'They count your cash, you see. You can't get them on the pension any more. You have to put the money in goods and property. If you are worth something, what have you worked all your life to have in your retirement, they don't pay your dentistry any more. They did.'
'You never listened to what she was saying.' Chandra showed no sympathy for him.
Rory sighed, 'Chandra, cut it out. She likes you.' Rory nodded towards the curious curtains. 'Because you're a gimp. Go and try and get her out of the house. Margot, have you got any pain-killers? Herbert, have you got the pain-killers?'
'Of course, but I wasn't going to tell her that, until…'
'Yeah, we know,' Rory interjected. 'I'll get them. They're in the Pathfinder, right? Under the passenger seat?'
Herbert was obsessed with money, with retirement funds, with roll-overs and negative gearing and government decisions and bank charges. By standing there with him I had opened the floodgates and he yabbered on. If not talking he would be making noise with his lawn-mower, as if his whole existence was in an echo-chamber. I watched Chandra, the 'gimp', limp along with the help of her unique callipers, her obedient hound on alert, at heel. I felt no fonder of Rory for using the word, and I loathed the woman in the house for her prejudices. A magnanimous tenderness for Chandra flooded my sympathetic nervous system yet I felt rebuffed by her strength of conviction and her attitude of superiority to me. Indeed, her violence. I was weak and hopeless. My can-do approach whittled away by want of achievement of solid outcomes, a bunch of lacks assailed me as old Herbert kept up his ear-bashing. No real direction held me to the spot I was standing on, listening and not listening, watching and not watching.
Chandra was having no luck with the petrified pensioner. They stood either side of the locked backdoor, calling each other names. Rory made her way inside from the front or the side door. She was standing at the sink filling a glass with water. An Amcal red and yellow paper bag sat on the sill of the window. She reached for it, removed the prescription drugs, read the labels of about five containers, chose one and removed pills from the bubble pack. She surprised the old lady by appearing behind her in her bush hat with its covering of badges, her ample army shirt bulging at the pockets, tablets in the palm of one hand and water in the other. The door opened. Rory and Chandra had a quiet conference.
Rory came over to me and began talking. 'Haze and Daze are friends of ours.' Chandra joined us, releasing her guardian from duty. Nikki snuffled the woodpile on the scent of a lizard.
'Haze and Daze?' I repeated, 'Sounds like two women behind a fog of marijuana smoke.'
'Hazel and Daisy actually.' Rory went on to explain, 'They're a pair of women with a mission. You can't talk to either of them about anything else but their work. They're kind of reconstituted nuns, if you like. They have a pass
ionate friendship and run a kind of half-way house, a general factotum of a place for those in need of aid. They keep themselves busy. They even run suicide workshops.'
'Rehabs.' The little kelpie joined the big dog in the hunt for the reptile and both women called them off. 'Out of it!'
'Haze and Daze do things for people. Sometimes get funding, sometimes don't. Anytime you go there it's full on.' Rory spoke to Chandra.
Of the old chap beside me, I said, 'I think Herbert needs to see a doctor in case Chandra did any damage, and Ethel needs that dentist.' I wondered why my friends ignored me. They had started chatting irrelevantly.
Rory ruminated, 'It's just that it's an effort to go there as a friend. You get swamped with the details of human tragedy, on every level. It's like walking into a box of tangled wool. But they can get things done.'
'They do,' said Chandra, 'but I'm not saddling them with him.'
Rory addressed me. 'Chandra wants to take the wife there, because neither of us think she will get her dentistry straightaway. What to do with Herbert, though?'
'It's not a good idea to separate these two, is it?' I considered. 'They've been a couple for too long. I mean, who's going to pick up the pieces?'
'A life of torture,' disagreed Chandra. 'Haze and Daze to the rescue.'
Rory opined, 'I don't have my car. What do you say to me driving the big beast out the front here and you and Chandra following?'
'No,' I objected. 'He'll have conniptions.'
Chandra grunted, 'Oh, I don't care about that.'
'I do.'
She stared at me, her face flushed. 'What do you care about him?' she demanded. 'He's already dead.'
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