by Glenda Adams
Lark smiled at him, trying to say something, striving to cope with the attention that was now directed from all quarters at her and Tom and Donna. At least Tom seemed to like her, she thought.
“Did someone mention sex?” cried a student.
“Where? Where?” responded others.
“Lesson number two,” Tom said to Lark. His voice had lost its stridency and had slid into a gentle vibrato. “To be unafraid to take a stand in public.” He put his hand on Donna’s shoulder. “We have to go. See you around the block.”
The letters had been crammed into the tin letter box that sat on the wooden fence by the front gate. A spider had already spun a web over the top of the box. One was from Champaign-Urbana, one from Qantas.
Lark raced up the front steps and into her room. She sat on her bed, balancing the letters in her hand. Perhaps Solomon was sending for her. So if Qantas did not want her, Solomon surely would. Far off a woman seemed to be crying, or crying out.
“We are afraid that we cannot offer you a position with Qantas. We see our air hostesses as ambassadors for our country, and we feel that you do not meet our stringent criteria.”
Lark sat for a moment, not daring to open Solomon’s letter. The woman’s crying was muffled, but quite distinct. Lark sat on her bed and searched through the Herald for jobs abroad, anywhere, fares paid. She looked under governess and then happened to see that the Herald wanted reporters. Perhaps she could be a foreign correspondent. But a woman was crying for help. The voice was muted, as if it were coming through sheets and towels. Lark went to her mother’s bedroom and opened the wardrobe, in case she had somehow been locked in. Then Lark stood again and listened. Someone was now banging on the floorboards. Lark could hear light tapping footsteps on the cement path at the back. She ran to the back door. Her mother, she now imagined, had been trapped in Henry Watter’s project, that strange box he had been constructing for so long in the basement. Lark ran down the back stairs to the entrance to the basement.
The door was closed. On the path was a large, dirty gray sheep, which stood for a moment contemplating the door, then hurled itself against it. Mrs. Watter’s frightened face appeared at the basement window. The sheep backed away from the door, did a clattering little dance on the path, as if it were winding itself up, then rushed at the door again, throwing itself against the door several times. Then it stopped for a moment, tore at the remains of the mint and parsley that grew under the tap, before repeating the dance on the path and resuming the attack on the besieged Mrs. Watter.
When Lark seized the mop that rested against the wall by the stairs, the sheep turned and hurtled toward her. Lark poked the mop at its face, the gray cotton of the mop head matching and blending with the sheep’s head. The sheep stopped and sniffed at the mop. Lark poked it and the sheep backed away a few steps, sniffed at the mop again, then backed away as Lark pressed forward.
Mrs. Watter opened the basement door and peered out.
“Go upstairs quickly.” Lark was trying to shout in a whisper, trying not to distract the sheep from its exploration of the mop head.
But Mrs. Watter’s footsteps on the path reminded the creature of its mightier mission, and with a snort it charged at Lark, who dropped the mop and found herself rushing to the basement door, where Mrs. Watter stood transfixed. The two women pressed the door shut as the sheep resumed its battering. The rooster in its coop began to crow.
“I didn’t mean to get a wild ram,” said Mrs. Watter, close to tears. She looked out the window. “My parsley and my mint.” She shook her head. “And I rented it for a week. I didn’t tell your father. I was trying to hang out the clothes. They brought it this morning. I’ve been here for hours.”
Lark was examining the long wooden crate that Henry Watter had been building. The corners were beautifully mitered. “The project has grown.”
“What do you think it is?” asked Mrs. Watter. “I ask him but he says there’s no news as far as the project is concerned.” She took the cotton drawstring bag in which she had collected for years old rags and old stockings and began sorting through it. “It’ll cut costs when it’s time for him to go, he says. I thought it was a glory box for you. To put sheets and things in for when you married.”
Lark lifted the lid of the crate. Inside was stored a bolt of quilted green cloth and the World War Two gas mask.
“Then I thought it was for his war collection. He was very, very affected by the war memorial in Canberra as you know. But now I worry that he is building his own coffin,” whispered Mrs. Watter. “That would certainly cut costs when he goes.” She had separated the stockings from the rags and was rolling them into neat little balls.
Lark closed the lid and sat on the crate. She picked up Mrs. Watter’s stone-polishing barrel, which always contained pebbles in the process of being smoothed and polished, and began to turn the handle.
“It’s very considerate of him, when you come to think of it. But it’s morbid.” Mrs. Watter was forced to raise her voice over the noise of the tumbling stones.
“I think I’ll be leaving very soon.” Lark was remembering the Qantas letter on the floor of her room above them, and next to it the unopened letter from Solomon Blank.
“You must finish your university. A woman has to be able to take care of herself, stand on her own feet.” Mrs. Watter spread her hands, palms up, and looked at them. “You only have to look at me.” She paused and listened to the sheep. “I didn’t tell your father.” She was shouting, nodding at the door. “He’ll be livid. You’ll always get low pay and no benefits without finishing your uni. I’ve worked so hard.”
“I’ll get a job with security in a year or two. I really need to go now.” Lark turned the handle of the barrel faster.
“There’s no money, no security, if you don’t finish your uni.” Mrs. Watter pursed her lips so tightly that they disappeared. “Don’t you value security? Don’t you value money? A penniless woman is quickly a victim. People take advantage. She loses her dignity. Look at me. And you have only six months until your final exams.”
“Money is important,” shouted Lark, trying to please. “I want it more than anything else.” But that was not true. What she wanted more than anything else was to get away, away from that basement where a bad-tempered ram held them prisoners, away from that house, and away from the continent altogether. What she also wanted was to find true love, someone to be close to, forever.
Mrs. Watter sniffed. “And you’re just the type that would need money.”
“The type?” Lark let go of the barrel handle. She should disengage herself. Dialogues such as this one could only bring misunderstanding and trouble. She did not even know what they were discussing. The stones in the barrel slowly came to rest.
“Some people can scrimp, but I don’t think you can. Your head is in the clouds.”
“Everyone can scrimp if they have to,” said Lark. Her tongue was heavy. She thought she might just lie down on the cement at her mother’s feet and curl up, or she could crawl into Henry Watter’s project and go to sleep for a long, long time. “I’ve been saving, scrimping.”
“Of course everyone can scrimp,” said her mother. “But you don’t like to, that’s the point.”
“There’s no virtue in scrimping.” Lark’s voice was slowing down.
“You don’t have to tell me that,” shrieked Mrs. Watter, and the thumping at the door stopped for a moment, as if the sheep were pausing in order to listen and comprehend. “I’ve scrimped all my life.” She held up the bag of rolled nylon stockings. “There’s no virtue at all. I’m just a fool.” She paused, contemplating the stockings. “But these are just right for tying up the tomatoes and the vines. It would be silly to have thrown them out. After you’ve lived through a depression you can’t throw anything away.”
The thumping at the door resumed.
“It’s that Solomon Blank, isn’t it? Easy for him. The Blanks have money. But remember that families with money don’t like it leavin
g the family. And he’s the one with all the degrees. And he keeps them. They don’t rub off on you, even if you are his wife. You’re too young, anyway.” Mrs. Watter went to the window and stared out. Her agitation had evaporated. “I think ducks would be best. They’ll get along with the rooster, and the eggs are so rich, so good for cooking. I’ll stretch chicken wire across the whole backyard, from one fence to the other, and they can roam where they like. That’ll keep the grass down.” She came back and sat down and took the stone-polishing barrel from Lark and turned the handle quite happily, humming to herself.
The door above slammed shut and footsteps walked, or rather danced, into the kitchen. There was one heavy step followed by several light steps and a skip, a little polka, rather like the sheep’s dance on the cement outside.
“It’s your father,” said Mrs. Watter. “In a good mood. He must have been to the library.” Her voice was now soft, its usual whisper. Lark might even have imagined the bitter exchange about scrimping and pleasure. “He doesn’t tell me anything, he just comes and goes as he pleases, in and out, but I see that he is going to the library almost every day now, two books at a time. That’s too many books, for a normal person.”
Lark climbed on Henry Watter’s box and banged at the ceiling with the hammer handle. The polka above stopped. Lark banged again.
The battering at the basement door continued. Lark banged on the ceiling twice, Henry Watter stamped on the floor twice. Lark banged three times, Henry Watter stamped three times. “In the basement,” Lark cried. “Help us,” the two women cried. Lark jumped down from the box.
“He doesn’t know about the sheep,” said Mrs. Watter. “He’ll get a shock.”
They stood at the window to watch Henry Watter’s rescue attempt.
The sheep had heard the new footsteps skipping down the stairs and was standing alert, ready to charge the newcomer or to continue the assault on the door, whichever seemed to offer the most reward. Henry Watter was in his best navy-blue suit. His black shoes were shining. His chin was fresh and smooth from a recent shave. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, while his jaunty step and expression changed to heavy fury. He took off his jacket, seized the mop as if it were a foil, and advanced on the sheep, his legs bent in the stance of a fencer.
“Hah,” he cried, lunging at the animal, which had remained stationary, puzzled. “Hah,” and he poked it. “Hah.” The sheep clattered backwards along the path. “Hah, Wooliam the First, hah, Wooliam the Second, hah.” The sheep had retreated beyond the laundry door, into the grass. Henry Watter leapt after it, and for just a second looked down at his shining shoes embedded in the long grass and his freshly pressed pants cuffs that would pick up the pods and burs of this wild lawn. The sheep scraped at the grass, getting ready to charge. “Hah, Woolfred, hah, Woolbur,” cried Henry Watter and galloped forward. The sheep turned around and ran down the hill to the gum tree, with Henry Watter behind it, swiping wildly with the mop. And then those shiny shoes skidded in the grass and Henry Watter slipped and slid onto his bottom.
Mrs. Watter and Lark had crept out of the basement, Mrs. Watter pausing for a moment to touch the remains of her parsley and mint under the tap before scurrying up the stairs to the kitchen. Lark was about to follow her when Henry Watter fell. She ran to him and helped him up. There were tears in his eyes. “Mind my shoes and my trousers,” he said. He waved his fist at the sheep. “Who brought that wild thing into our compound? Don’t tell me, it’s a rhetorical question. What’s the point of having a compound at all, if the outside world can penetrate at will?”
“Quick,” said Lark. The sheep, although standing rooted and trembling a little under the tree, looked as if it could spring into action again at any moment. Henry Watter and Lark scrambled back to the path and the stairs. “Were you going somewhere important?”
“Only to Jack Davey,” said Henry Watter bitterly. “That’s all. I was on my way to win my fare to England, that’s all. But your mother didn’t know anything about that. All she knows is to adopt wild fauna and get grass stains all over me.”
“You were very brave,” said Lark, pushing open the kitchen door. “I hope you win, and I hope your story wins, too.”
Mrs. Watter was running water into the kettle.
“Don’t tell your mother,” said Henry Watter out of the corner of his mouth.
He stood in the kitchen while Lark inspected his clothes.
“I’ll just make a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Watter, placing the kettle on the stove and shooting the flint gun to light the gas jet. “We’ve all had a shock.”
“There are no grass stains,” said Lark, swiveling Henry Watter around like a store dummy. “I’ll just brush off the burs, and I can fix your shoes easily.”
Henry Watter stood still like a little boy while Lark brushed his trousers and his shoes.
“The grass was so long,” said Mrs. Watter. She placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. “You were very brave.”
“I have to go,” said Henry Watter.
“But don’t you want to sit for a minute and have a cup of tea?” Mrs. Watter was fussing with the tea caddy and the tea cozy.
Henry Watter ran to the front door. Lark followed him. “Wish me luck,” he whispered.
“I’m just going to sit for a minute,” wailed Mrs. Watter, fanning her chest with her hand.
“Shall I bring the tea?” Lark asked, closing the front door.
Mrs. Watter nodded. Her lip was trembling. “I’ve had a shock.”
Lark patted her shoulder. “I know. That was a terrible experience.”
Lark went into her room and picked Solomon Blank’s letter from the floor.
Solomon Blank wrote: “Summer in Champaign-Urbana is a time for socializing in a capitalistic sort of way, and I am drastically short of money. Yesterday, accompanied by a person of the female persuasion, I went out purloining tomatoes from the university orchard. You would have recognized us as accomplices because we both wore our Bermuda shorts and also our legs, quite tan by now, I should add. It doesn’t mean what you think. In America it’s just a social necessity to have a companion of the female sort. Hope your studies are going well.”
Lark wrote to Solomon Blank: “‘A certain man is absent from his own country for many years; he is persecuted by Neptune and deprived of all his companions, and left alone. At home his affairs are in disorder—the suitors of his wife dissipating his wealth and plotting the destruction of his son. Tossed by many tempests he at length arrives home, and making himself known to some of his family, attacks his enemies, destroys them, and remains himself in safety.’ This is essential, according to Aristotle. The rest is episode. Merely episode. I hope to be leaving very soon myself.”
To Mrs. Watter, at dinner, she said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going. Not just yet.”
“It’s that Solomon Blank, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Watter.
“Hey,” cried Tom Brown as Lark passed by.
He was sitting on the stone wall on the south side of the quad with a group of students from the newspaper, including the columnist Perce, the one who went barefoot and used a length of rope for a belt. Lark looked around, in case Tom was addressing someone else nearby. He nodded and pointed at Lark and beckoned her to him.
She was wearing her air hostess skirt and a twin set and felt terribly, terribly ordinary as she approached Tom and his bohemian group.
“Not bad ankles,” said Tom.
Perce pulled up his trouser leg and turned his foot this way and that. “Thanks,” he said. Then he gave Tom a punch. “Listen, we don’t compliment our women here. It makes them think you like them. Gets their hopes up.”
Lark stopped at the edge of the group. Tom patted the stone wall beside him. “Come, sit.” The conservative leader known only by his initials was wearing a monocle, which he turned on Lark as she slid by him and the half dozen others ranged around Tom. Donna Bird was not there. “Don’t take any notice of F.X.,” said Tom.
“So,” said Tom, “what’s new? Est-ce-que tu as trouvé ‘quelques iris de roche’?”
Lark shook her head. “Nothing really.”
The others were observing this encounter with casual interest.
“Who’s the new female, anyway?” said Perce. “Just out of the cradle, by the look of it.”
Everyone fell silent and looked at Lark, waiting for Tom to explain her. She knew Tom was considered a catch, with his impeccable credentials—a Harvard degree, which he scorned, and a degree from Oxford, which legitimized him in Australia, and his championing of good political causes. Women of all nations wanted him, and the mothers of these girls, in Oslo, Milan, and Paris, had not minded their daughters sleeping with him because they hoped their girls would marry this clever American Tom. Yet here was this Lark, on whom he was lavishing attention, mute beside him, and now Perce was demanding to know her credentials. Tom frowned. Lark waited for him to speak for her, to tell them that she served some purpose.