Eye of a Rook

by Josephine Taylor

  “Arthur?”

  “He took up the role of good Samaritan voluntarily and yet he appeared to have no remorse. No compassion at all for the women whose lives he affected. Ruined, in some cases. As they say”—he runs his finger under the words—“our sympathy should be with the women in this position and their friends, not with those who are instrumental in producing such unhappy results.” He scans the next column of print, is brought up abruptly at the words an account of the operation, thinks to warn Emily. But she is reading it already, they both are—the pair of hooked forceps … and a cautery iron—

  “Oh! No … Arthur …” Her words are choked with distress.

  He picks up her hand, squeezes it. “You don’t have to read it,” he tells her.

  “I think I must.” Her voice trembles, but is resolute. “I had an escape; the least I can do is acknowledge their suffering and allow myself to be affected by it.”

  She turns the page and they read together,

  After the clitoris and the nymphæ were got rid of, the operation was brought to a close by taking the back of the iron and sawing the surfaces of the labia and the other parts of the vulva [cries of “Enough”] which had escaped the cautery, and the instrument was rubbed down backwards and forwards—

  “You’re right,” she says. “And so are they. It is enough.” She turns from the pages and he wraps his arms around her, his brave wife. “What follows, Arthur?”

  He looks down the column, leaning his cheek against her head. “Brown defending himself”—he reads aloud the clumsy, fumbling words—“there was no terrorism, and no large fee taken; for I think I only had ten guineas—certainly not more than twenty [a laugh]—for the operation.” He scans the columns. “More skirmishing over details of letters and statements—the surgeon’s denials—and then the vote. For the removal, 194; and against, thirty-eight. Only five non-voters.”

  It would be pitiable, really, if it were possible for him to feel pity for the man.

  But no. He will not understand Baker Brown—will not excuse his behaviour, or forget the damage he has done to those most vulnerable. The surgeon’s book returns to him, and the woman’s words: I would like to have my hands untied; I will be very quiet. No. He will not forgive the man, even if others might.

  He stands, drawing Emily up with him, and folds her in his arms. They sway and press against each other, and he feels the comfort of it running through his body.

  “Do you ever worry about it, Emmie?”

  “Hm?” Her voice is muffled against his chest.

  “Do you worry that it might return?”

  He holds his breath, waiting for her reply.

  “Oh, of course, Arthur, but less and less all the time.” She lifts her face. “And I know it wouldn’t be the same if it did recur. I would know what to do—and what not to do—straightaway.”

  “And our love-making?”

  “I have thought about this, Arthur, and tried to remember the very beginning.” She fixes her eyes on his; lets him know, in this way, that he must attend closely. “I do not know that the pain was to do with pleasure, with excitement. Not solely, in any case. It was there constantly … only made more severe with any touch or pressure.” Her hand is warm against his cheek, her touch tender. “It is true I could not tolerate anything that made it worse, but it was Mr Baker Brown, I think, who channelled our thoughts in this singular direction, who momentarily fed the distrust which had grown between us.” She smiles at him. “But we know better now, don’t we?”

  Arthur senses something stretch, rise within him. Like a bird that has been grounded, remembering it has wings.

  “Indeed we do,” he says, and kisses the top of her head. “I will always put you first, my love. I will always care for you above all others.”

  They walk to the sofa and sit closely, arms about each other.

  “I wonder, Arthur.”

  “My dear?”

  “Will sense ever be made of such an illness?”

  “Surely one day,” he replies.

  What else can he say?

  CHAPTER 24

  PERTH, FEBRUARY 2010

  ‘That’s it, then.’

  He put his pen down, her husband, and they tidied their sets of notes; money and belongings anaesthetised and sliced in two.

  Alice couldn’t imagine what came next. ‘So we’ll hand these over to lawyers?’

  ‘Yes, they’ll need the information. You’ll need to find your own, of course. Lawyer.’

  Would she? Did it have to be like this, two opposing teams?

  She felt his hand briefly on her shoulder, its absence when it was lifted away. ‘Will you be alright, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Duncan, you’re being more than generous.’

  Alice went to the kitchen sink, leaned over it, splashed water onto her swollen eyes, over her puffy face, combed it through her hair.

  ‘Well, it’s not just that. You’re very alone here.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I need to be.’

  His face was older in the stark electric light, wrinkles pronounced, hair dull. He’d be forty-five this year, she calculated, and suddenly he looked every day of it.

  She picked up their mugs, rinsed them out.

  ‘And what about the pain?’ he asked. ‘Is it any better?’

  ‘Oh, look, it’s okay. Well, it’s not – it’s still there all the time – but it’s manageable. I’m cobbling together all the things that help.’

  She wouldn’t tell him that the acupuncture wasn’t making any difference – not that seemed to last, anyway. She wouldn’t tell him about what had turned out to be her final session with Sasha and the physio saying that Alice was doing well, that she might be able to manage on her own. About the panic that had flooded her, the sense of abandonment and defeat, and her own words: You think I might never get better, don’t you? About Sasha explaining that, no, it was just needing to think about it differently, the vulvodynia, ironing out the highs and the lows, and that, maybe, over time – it may be months, it may be years – management might lead to improvement, even recovery. She wouldn’t tell him that she knew, now, she was not to be one of those lucky ones with an uncomplicated trajectory – better, better, best. That she was trying to accept who she was right now, taking charge of her own body, finding whatever was good in her life and making it enough, otherwise she’d be miserable. Bitter. Resentful.

  ‘And uni?’

  ‘I’ll only be in the one day a week.’ She laughed ruefully, ‘I think we can be civil? And I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, the details. But I’ll leave that up to you.’ At his nod: ‘I’m going to keep an eye out for postdocs at other unis. Maybe something will turn up closer to here – even some sessional teaching.’

  ‘It would help if you got that collection of stories published. Make you a more attractive proposition.’

  ‘I know that, Duncan.’ Did he still think he had to manage her? Give her permission?

  ‘No, I don’t mean just that. What I’m saying is that your writing is good. It really deserves to be published. And that will open doors for you.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. Thanks, Duncan – I mean it.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And you? Are you okay?’

  ‘Not really.’ For a moment, he looked angry. Then he spoke again through a sigh: ‘It’s a lot to adjust to – but I was alright before and I’ll be alright again. And I think you will be too. At least, I hope so.’

  Why couldn’t they be this honest with each other before? This kind? The graciousness, she supposed, was a measure of their defeat. But he wished the best for her and that was something – that was important, she supposed.

  The tap dripped. Dawn entered the window. She turned off the kitchen light.

  ‘Okay, then.’ He stood slowly, lifting his bag. ‘I’ll ring you, Alice. We’ll sort out the rest. It’ll just take a bit of time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  On the deck, she slid her feet into thongs. The sky had that pear
ly dawn glow and the air was parched. Families would make their way to the beach later, once they’d rolled themselves from their Sunday beds.

  Duncan stepped down to the path and she walked behind him to the car, making a memory of that loping walk. Something to keep.

  He put his bag on the back seat, started the engine and raised his hand.

  Then he was driving down the road.

  Then he was at the bend.

  Then he was gone.

  She turned her feet towards the ocean. In the eucalypt at the corner of her street, a magpie carolled and, further along, the casuarina was a conversation of rousing pink-and-greys. She followed the path through the patch of scrub with its tiny, hectic birds. A jay rearranged itself as it darted up from a bush, its wings the sound of ruffling pages.

  She crossed the front road and passed through the bank of melaleucas, their tops angled by onshores, a punch of green in the lee of each stunted shrub. She slipped off her thongs, slid a finger into their loops and stepped onto the path that led through the dunes. Against her feet the sand was cool and she dug her toes into it, feeling its soft squeak against her skin. Then around the last bend and the beach stretching like a woman’s flank to the north and south. She walked over its sweeps and curves and stopped at the water’s edge. The sea was on the verge of waking, each small wave gathering, hovering, momentarily stilled, as if the world were holding its breath.

  She closed her eyes and felt froth between her toes, her feet sinking deeper into the sand with each rippling eddy. She tried to fill her mind with that sensation, tried not to imagine diving deep and floating, feeling the joy of the ocean against her body. She opened her eyes and the sky was lighter still, the beach flooded in pastels. She scooped up a hank of seaweed and burst its tiny brown bubbles as she walked along the shore.

  Near the old boat ramp she cut back through the dunes, meeting the path that went to the tiny beachside shop. The car park was empty. A crow stabbed at some paper beside the bin, gave a short, rusty cry and lumbered away over a stand of banksias.

  She headed inland for the loop back to the shack. The narrow zigzag roads were empty too, each house still. Even the birds hushed themselves as the sun edged over the hill to the east.

  She walked through the quiet streets until she reached her home. She nudged a nail jutting from the verandah. Another thing to fix. She upended a terracotta pot over it to remind herself and walked to the bedroom. She lowered herself into the impression their night-time bodies had made, felt the ghost of his arms around her. Felt fresh tears on her cheek. Felt the reminder of her constant companion, clamping, stinging and aching; turned herself inward with that, through that, to the fragments inside: her life in bits and pieces, and all of it shifting around. And as she cried, she felt them again, Arthur and Emily, all the fragments of their lives milling inside her, too, all their possibilities – for good, for evil – jostling for position, jagged words forming phrases, the scattered scenes of their lives weaving around each other, threading themselves together into some kind of sense.

  But she couldn’t force it, she knew that. And there was something important, she could feel it – something almost … necessary about being in this in-between place, purged by sorrow yet brimming with uncanny expectation. Something was being demanded of her. Something was on the verge of happening: hope, a world shaping itself, a future.

  So she would hold them, Arthur and Emily, in the midst of their pain and suffering. Believe in them. Trust that the writing knew what needed to be done.

  She stood and smoothed the night from the sheets. Pulled out fresh undies, bra, shorts and t-shirt. Looked out of the window with her clothes in her arms, watching the sun rise. The 25th of February. A date to mark. Her new life.

  The bedroom was luminous in the moonlight. Was it this that had woken her, or Emily and Arthur – their lives, their stories? She rolled the sheet off, let the fanned air whisper across her skin, tried to breathe herself into drowsiness, but the tightness in her chest and belly told her sleep would be impossible.

  She padded to the kitchen, pulled the hanging cord. Her papers, scattered over the table in the evening, switched into life, the pen sitting on top.

  It was Arthur, she could feel it – his confusion tying the knot in her gut, his wavering that was a leaping pulse, unsettling hers, his distress and despair sitting in her bowel like stone; his decision that must be made, about Emily, for Emily. And for her, too, she understood. He must make the right decision for her too.

  Alice leaned forward onto the bench, closed her eyes and slowed her racing mind with deep, long breaths. And when her body was quiet enough and her mind still enough, she took herself to him.

  Here he was, her Arthur, asleep in the bed he shared with Emily. The embers of the small fireplace highlighted the shadows of weariness on his young face; his eyelids fluttered and his mouth worked. No, he said, throwing his body around. No!

  She sat on the bed next to him and smoothed his cheek. She felt her way into his fears, his confusion, his anger, his sorrow. She imagined herself a rook and flew into his dream. The elm trees, their crimson flower-bursts. The nest. The egg. Then she bent to his ear and whispered the words that might help: Sometimes, Arthur, we must fend for those who are not able to fend for themselves. A sweep of her hand through his hair. And sometimes we must listen for the quiet voice that tells the truth.

  And then it was gone, that world, in a rush, in a backward plunge that left her dizzy and alone.

  CHAPTER 25

  HERDLEY, DECEMBER 1868

  He is brought to a gasping halt at the sight of them: Kettle Peak and the knolls, solemn and majestic, just as they’ve always been. He turns in a slow circle, breathing in the expanse, filling his lungs with it and hearing, just for a moment, a phantom Taffy panting at his leg. Eleven years ago, he calculates: striding through the chill with Taffy—taking stock of the world he strode through too. It returns to him. Family. What to protect. How to protect it.

  Smoke threads from one of the Hierde House chimneys. Emily will be with Mrs Simpson, little Lou leaning from her mother’s embrace, arms waving, as if she could catch the smells that cram the kitchen—yeast, cinnamon, raisins—in her tiny fingers. And when Lou becomes too heavy, Emmie will see if Bea can tend to her squirming niece and sink with a sigh into the nearest chair.

  He feels the smile on his face, and it reminds him that he could, if he wanted, think as a child might—as he once did—on the failings of guardians, on the loss that scarred his childhood, on that interminable span of time when he and Emily were cleaved from each other, battling something they could not even name. But he is a guardian himself now. A husband, a father—maybe soon a politician under Gladstone, if Father’s retirement opens the way for him to stand, represent the constituency; one day, a baronet. And so he will do what he has done for years now: stay calm, be patient; quietly support any legislation that continues to improve the lot of the poor, the uneducated, the homeless; take comfort in these little steps; cherish thoughts of the future—the influence he will have, the plans he will set in motion. He is only twenty-seven, after all.

  He stamps his boots against ground made rock-like with cold, wiggles his toes in their woollen socks, whacks his jacketed arms across his chest, rubs his gloved hands hard against each other, turns again to the ascent, slipping on heather, skirting spills of rock, feeling the air race raw into his lungs. A cow lows in the distance as he climbs, and rooks cry harshly overhead, making their way north. Heading for the elm thicket, no doubt, the rookery there.

  There was one in that dream that came at the darkest time, the dream that is now only wisps in his mind: entering the thicket, the cradle of elms, and a glossy rook egg. Black, beating wings. His own form reflected, whole and good, in the eye of a rook. Then Mother’s voice, and the egg’s dark tracings settling into a language he could finally, finally understand.

  Here it is, the outcrop of gritstone. The craggy tumble, the gaps and crannies. And now the sku
ll, a bare summit. The vista of villages and ranges. The feeling of being on top of this whole vast, multitudinous world. And again the sense of Taffy alongside him, their breaths hanging white in the chill air, the press of the terrier’s hard nut of a head against his leg. Then that urgent bark. It comes back to him, this memory, with clear, bright edges: the downhill run, the fierce moorcock, remembering Harris and Rattlin and the fight. His own defence of something he could not put a name to, then. Mother. And fending for those not able to fend for themselves. Fighting for others. Fighting for love.

  His feet lead him off again—to the east this time, along a path he rarely follows. And then that cry again, like a rusted lid forced open: another rook, a straggler making its solitary way to the rookery.

  How wonderful to be able to fly. To see the world like a story unfurling below you. To see him, Arthur, brown cap of hair and feet beneath. To see him, Arthur, striding into his future. To see him, Arthur, becoming smaller and smaller until, finally, he disappears.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In both narrative timelines, geographical locations are generally intended to replicate real places, but there are some exceptions.

  In Western Australia: the university where Alice teaches is a composite of a few Perth campuses, and her home with Duncan is in a nebulous setting; Sally’s home in Claremont and Simone’s home ‘in the hills’ are fictional, as are the details of the streets that lead to them; though pelvic pain clinics can be found in capital cities in Australia, this one is made up; the café where Alice and Ena meet is imaginary; and Wrigleys Point has similarities to coastal communities north of Perth, but is not identical with any one place.

  In England: Isaac Baker Brown may have practised in Connaught Square, London, but his surgery there is imagined; Herdley, its buildings and surrounding landmarks are fictional, but inspired by Chinley in Derbyshire, England; and Almsford is a fiction.