Autumn Music

by Dulcie M. Stone

She tucked the blankets around his knees.

  “He’s getting older,” the doctor warned. “Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself out of your depth.”

  “He’s strong.” She straightened. “He’ll grow out of it.”

  “I’m not talking about his health,” the doctor argued. “I’m talking about his mental condition. You love him, of course you do. So send him to the care of people who know what’s best for him. For his mental and physical wellbeing. He needs more than you know how to give him.”

  “Mrs McClure…come in…” Closing her appointment diary, the matronly kindergarten directress waved her to the empty visitor’s chair. “How can I help?”

  “I’ve come about next year. My son will be four in May. My daughter went to pre-school at that age.”

  “Should I know her? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “We weren’t living here then,” she explained. “There’s quite a gap between them. Sean’s a lot younger.”

  “Oh. I see. So your daughter’s at…?”

  “Secondary school. She did very well at pre-school. I expect it will be a good experience for Sean too.”

  “Of course,” the directress agreed. “It always is, don’t you think? Four in May, you say?”

  “I wondered…is there a chance of him starting in the new year? Do you start the children at three? I don’t know. I’m out of touch, I’m afraid.”

  “Both. There’s the three-to four-year old-groups. And the four-to five-year-old groups. Well…,” she smiled, “roughly, that is. It depends on the child’s readiness. You understand.”

  “I brought him with me. The teacher offered to let him sit with the class while I came in. They’re listening to nursery rhymes. Sean loves singing.”

  “Did she now?” The directress pursed disapproving lips. “It’s not usual. Until a child is formally enrolled, it tends to unsettle. You do understand.”

  She defended the obliging teacher. “It’s very kind of her. I presumed it was usual.”

  The directress stood. “We’ll see how he’s getting on. Then we’ll come back and discuss starting dates and so forth. If that’s okay with you?”

  Okay. It had to be faced. The second the directress saw Sean she’d recognise his handicap.

  Of course. His visibly obvious handicap would have been the reason for the teacher’s uncommon consideration. She’d accepted it as a regular courtesy. It wasn’t. The teacher would have expected Sean to play up during the office interview. Handicapped children were not expected to behave as other children. Sean’s appearance had immediately changed the rules.

  Kindness or cruelty? Sympathy or bias? Either way – irregular.

  Ten minutes later, as she carefully closed the kindergarten gate, Sean asked, “Can I stay, Mummy?”

  “Not today, love.”

  “I want to stay!”

  “Another day, Sean. We’ll come back another day.” Not true. There’d be no other day for Sean. Kindergarten was not going to happen for him, at least not this kindergarten. The affable directress had affably explained they’d be out of their depth. “Children like Sean need specially qualified people to work with them. You do understand, Mrs McClure? It’s for his own wellbeing.”

  A black-robed nun, after answering the bell on the heavy wroughtiron gate, ushered her along the brick-paved path of a beautiful prayerful garden so silent that it, too, seemed to have taken the vows. They’d been expecting her, the nun piously murmured as she was ushered into the hushed reception room. Nodding towards a pair of solid wooden chairs, the nun left, closing the heavy ironbound door behind her.

  The high-ceilinged reception room was small, the tiled floor scattered with hand-woven rugs, the walls hung with faded icons. Opposite the long narrow stained-glass windows, peculiarly at odds with the antique room and the pious aroma of incense, hung a cheap plastic crucifix.

  Whatever the sounds in this huge convent, built on a high headland at the edge of the ocean, not one penetrated the thick bluestone walls or the heavy door. The cloistered rooms and the heavenly garden, which for more than a century had harboured unwanted children, were as soundless as the pounding winter surf outside.

  She monitored the closed door.

  It opened.

  Supported by Monica, a frail and tiny nun shuffled into the room.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs McClure.” The nun’s sweetly lilting voice was, not surprisingly, strongly Irish.

  Monica, placing a low stool at her feet, settled the elderly nun onto one of the straight-backed chairs. “Tess…I’d like you to meet Mother Agnes.”

  “Thank you, Sister. You may leave us.” Mother Agnes’s shrunken face was almost hidden beneath the swathes of her black and white habit.

  “We’re very grateful, Mother.” Monica left.

  “Mrs McClure…” The nun’s quick brown eyes, fixed on her guest, were startlingly alive. “I’m very much afraid your dear sister has overstated my skills. I trust you have not come on a wild goose chase.”

  “I do so much appreciate you seeing me, Mother.”

  “Not at all. Your visit brightens an otherwise dull day.” She folded frail hands, set tiny feet squarely on the stool, tilted her head forward and invited, “So, my dear. Talk to me.”

  “Monica thought you could help me.”

  “I repeat, my skills are limited. So…? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We shall see. Tell me more about your son.”

  “Monica has told you about him?”

  “Indeed she has. She tells me he is a most cheerful child. A very bright lad with a quick mind.” Though tremulous the voice, like the eyes, forcefully conveyed accustomed authority. “You would agree?”

  “That’s just it! They told me he’d be retarded. I expected – I don’t know what I expected.”

  “Tell me about the family. Tell me about this nurse.”

  As she talked about family division, the health centre sister, the kindergarten directress, the persistent doctor, Rory’s frequent absence, Sean’s incessant chest infections and almost everyone’s constant pressure to send him away, the black head bowed and the eyes closed, as though in sleep.

  She stopped talking and waited. Patience was difficult.

  Minutes later, the wise eyes opened and conversation was resumed. “So! Since your sister first spoke to me of your dilemma, I have given this matter much thought. Imparting advice is abhorrent to me. People must find their personal solutions. You would agree?”

  Disappointed, she ventured. “Monica said…”

  “Monica is a child. She seeks simple answers.”

  She stood. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “Not so impetuous!” The gnarled hands on the black lap trembled. “Sit down, young woman.”

  “I really don’t think I should have disturbed you.”

  “Please.”

  She obliged.

  “Now that you have disturbed me,” the lilting voice gently teased, “let us see what can be done.”

  Again the black head bowed, the eyes closed and the room was frustratingly hushed. Was the old lady asleep? Or praying?

  “Tess.” Mother Agnes looked up. “I may call you Tess?”

  “Of course.” This was a waste of precious time.

  “I can tell you only this.” The thin black shoulders firmed. “In numberless years working with children, I have worked with many abandoned babies. Too many. Too many – by far too many.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. Forgive me. I’m tiring you.”

  “If one was to question one would…oh my dear…” Yet again the old lady seemed to drift away.

  How dare Monica put them both through this!

  “Do not be so impatient, young woman.” Again, Mother Agnes’s generous smile was warmly mocking. “You may not hurry the good Lord. He will take His time. Give Him time.”

  Embarrassed, she blushed.

  “So, my dear. Keep talking.”

  Courtesy demanding obedience, she haltingly flo
undered, “Monica told me you’ve seen a lot of children with Down Syndrome.”

  “Indeed, yes. Some very bright. Quite intelligent, in fact. Others not so.” Mother Agnes shook her head.

  “I believe Sean’s one of the very bright ones.”

  “Babies. Too many. By far too many…” The entrancing voice was weakening. “Children abandoned for the best of reasons. In good conscience. Of this I have no doubt. And yet…one must wonder…”

  “It’s not just me, Mother. I worry for all my family. I worry about the arguments. I have to think about the family, too.”

  “Intelligence.” Despite the failing voice, the gentle eyes remained lively. “What do you think, Tess? Does intelligence make a difference?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ask this of yourself, my dear. Should intelligence make the difference?”

  “I don’t…”

  “You say your child is bright. Should he be bright for a little while…and then…in the course of time, be no longer bright?” Mother Agnes probed, “What then, Tess?”

  Shamed, she looked away.

  “My dear – Tess – you know in your own heart what you must do. Why do you come to me?”

  “I don’t know, Mother, I don’t. I don’t know what to do!”

  The trembling fingers reached out in silent benediction.

  “Mother…”

  “Go with God, Tess McClure.”

  “Sean! Cut that out! Sean!” The neighbour’s familiar screech sounded the alarm.

  Beth ran from her bedroom “I’ll get him, Mum.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Turning off the gas under the pan of sausages, she ran into the back yard.

  The neighbour’s head bobbed from atop the side fence. “That retard should be under lock and key!”

  “What wrong this time?”

  “It’s nothing, Mum. Honest.” Beth’s strong arms were wrapped around her struggling brother.

  “Nothing!” The neighbour was apoplectic. “My poor Pixie’s wet through.”

  “He turned the hose on!” Beth yelled. “He was trying to water the garden.”

  “He did it on purpose.” The neighbour’s head disappeared. “Pixie! Come inside, lovie. Mummy will dry you. Pixie! Come here at once!”

  “Tell her off, Mum!” Beth raged.

  “It’s only a dog, love. Take no notice of her.”

  “Mum! Do something! She’s always picking on him.”

  “I know. I do know. We can’t do anything.”

  “Dad should tell her off!”

  “We can’t…”

  “He’s wet himself, too.”

  Not another chill! Please not another chill.

  They raced him to the bathroom, stripped him and sat him in the warm water with his toys. Sean was delighted; he loved water.

  “Can you watch him, love? Get him out in a few minutes. Make sure he’s really dry before you dress him.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “No, Beth,” she snapped. “You don’t have to. I need you to.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got homework.”

  “I’ll help you later.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “I do.” She was too tired for this. “I can’t do everything at once. Your father will be home any minute. I’ll help with your homework later.”

  “I told you! I don’t need help!”

  “Don’t you yell at me!”

  “It’s not fair!”

  “Stop yelling.” She fought for calm. “You’ll frighten Sean.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  True. Sean wasn’t frightened. He was happily playing with his toys; the sounds of argument were not unusual.

  “I’ll watch him.” Beth returned to her brother.

  “I’ll put the sausages on again.”

  “Mum…?”

  “Please Beth. Don’t hold me up. Dad will be home.”

  “Why can’t we send him away?”

  Not now.

  “We should send him away.”

  Not tonight. “Your father will be home soon.”

  “He should go to a special place. Everyone picks on him. He should be safe.”

  Safe from the neighbour. Safe from intolerant relatives, bigoted stares, constant chills. From the threat of pneumonia.

  “Please Beth,” she begged. “This is not the time.”

  “It’s never the time!”

  “We’ll talk. But not now.”

  “He should be safe, Mum.”

  “Go turn on the gas.”

  “It’s not fair!”

  Fair? Who knows fair? Not Beth. The world she was growing up in was a fiercely divided world. Confusing inside her home, confusing and violent outside it. In Beth’s world aggressive protest was legitimate and nothing was certain. Not family. Not religion. Not anything. Beth’s world was incessantly bombarded with news of schisms and confusions.

  The new information era ensured there was no escape. The world had shrunk to the size of each television set. Atrocities, wars, genocides, protests, frauds, scandals, petty crimes, horrific inhumanities – arriving with the morning newspaper and peaking with the evening television – pervaded every possible aspect of living, even music.

  Especially music? Not especially, but significantly. Music was the universal language. Songs of protest and freedom and promiscuity and outrage and despair and drugs brought together youngsters who didn’t need to know the words, because the music broke down formerly impenetrable barriers. On the wings of music all messages had become valid, exciting, legitimate, even entertaining. Where once music had disarmed it now armed. Children were thinking as adults had never thought, were talking as their parents had never talked and as many still didn’t talk.

  Those teenagers in Beth’s world not doomed to fight in Vietnam were fighting about it. Those teenagers in Beth’s world reared to respect the church were leaving it in droves. Universally, teenagers were asking questions, logical questions, daring questions, dangerous questions. Logical questions.

  Beth was experiencing the revolution and more. She’d been persuaded that her beloved brother needed to be sent away – for his own safety.

  At least, maybe, this could be stopped. But how?

  Chapter Seven

  December 1971

  The weatherboard house at the end of the unmade road squatted on a lonely wilderness of sunburnt grass. A forlorn relic, the paint was peeling, the roof rusting, the windows filthy and any garden there might once have been was smothered by a mesh of dehydrated weeds. Planted by the front steps was a weather-beaten ‘For Sale’ sign.

  “Journey’s end.” Rory pulled the car alongside the front wire fence and turned off the motor. “What do you think?”

  “You have to be joking!”

  “Say the word, Tess. Give the word and it’ll be renovated in a couple of months.”

  “We can’t afford that much!”

  “Forget the money. You want a way out. This is a way out.”

  He couldn’t be serious.

  “At least look at it, Tess.”

  She refused to move. “I thought we’d be looking at the shop first.”

  “The shop’s my business. This is yours.”

  Heatherfield’s single hardware store was on the market. Had she merely opened a door he’d wanted to open? Quick action was alien to him. He had to have been looking for his own store for months.

  “It’s awful,” she protested. “No wonder it’s not sold!”

  Exiting the car, he roused the sleeping children. “Wake your brother, Beth. We’re here.”

  Beth sighted the ‘For Sale’ sign. “We’re not going to live here!”

  Rory strode ahead, ascended the steep front steps, unlocked the front door and beckoned.

  “Mum!” Beth was aghast.

  “It won’t hurt to look.” She gathered Sean, still drowsy, into her arms and led the way between thick weeds to the front verandah.

  “I’m n
ot going in!” Beth sat on the top step.

  “Suit yourself.” Rory disappeared into the house.

  “Why do we have to move?” Beth sulked. “We don’t have to move.”

  “Your Dad wants to manage his own shop, love.”

  “What about me?”

  “Nothing’s certain, Beth. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

  “He’s looking, isn’t he!”

  “We’re not city people. We’re not comfortable in the city. You were born in the country. You love the mountains.”

  “This isn’t the mountains, Mum.”

  There were mountains. From the front verandah she could see a distant outcrop. Rising to three indigo-hazed jagged peaks, like the house, they stood alone in a wasteland of harsh scrub and spindly gums. They seemed so close she could almost touch them.

  Beth was right. These were not the mountains they knew, not the high impenetrable mountains of the Great Dividing Range. These were mini mountains, standing not in thick forest and lush undergrowth, but rising from an arid desert of thirsty pampas and desiccated trees.

  On the other side of the road, distantly, was a bright red roof challenging an umbrella of tangled willows. In the surrounding paddocks, bounded by immaculate white-painted fences, a ragged file of black and white cows was ambling to their evening milking in a large corrugated iron cowshed. Not high mountain cattle; dairy cattle in dairy country.

  She carried Sean inside. Beth followed. Rory supervised the inspection.

  The three tiny bedrooms, tiny sitting-room, primitive bathroom with gas heater and flaking plaster confirmed the house’s ugliness. The single attraction, despite the additional ugliness of blue plastic curtains and scarred red linoleum, was the huge farm kitchen which ran across its broad rear. At one end were a sink, a wood stove and a laminex-topped workbench. At the other end was a cramped dining nook with fixed benches and table.

  “It needs a bit of work,” Rory admitted.

  “It’s awful,” Beth groaned.

  “Tess…?”

  “You promise you’ll fix it up?”

  “I said so.”

  “We haven’t got the money.”

  “I told you – let me worry about that.”

  “You actually want to move!” Only a few months ago, he’d not listened to her complaints. Now he was urging his family to take this drastic step. Had he, too, wanted to escape?