The Women's Pages

by Debra Adelaide

  Or how laughable would it be, for her. Or even contemptible. That she wouldn’t take advantage of a sexual invitation, that she wasn’t grown-up enough, woman enough, to take it in her stride, to nudge him back, or wink and play along. What was wrong with her? Why on earth wouldn’t she just accept the situation, and lick his ear or place her free hand straight onto his groin? How often was a girl given a chance like that?

  As she countenanced her inability to find a way to react appropriately, at the same time she nevertheless registered the outrageousness of what was happening. It was as if she were divided down the middle by a dotted line. Tear here and you would have the free-spirited, good-humoured Dove, uninhibited by sexual and social mores, and here you had repressed, uptight, frigid Dove: which one would you toss aside? She wanted to be neither. She felt, though, there was no middle ground. All the while, this eternity of confusion, the lifetime of torment which she felt might define her forever, was a mere minute or two while Angela fussed with her bag and Martin said something about getting another coffee.

  Later she would wonder if it was simply her incorrigible politeness, or if there was something more to it, if she were too passive, a willing victim. Was there something about her that invited people to violate her? Was she doomed to be walked over like this, treated as a thing? Later, too, she felt cold with anger and told herself that if it were happening all over again she would have no trouble in pouring the rest of her coffee over his lap, or biting him hard on the ear while feigning a reciprocal kiss. All she knew at the time was that she was incapable of anything but silent restraint. It seemed forever until Angela and Martin trailed away, asking her if she was coming too.

  ‘Yes!’ she almost shouted in relief. And J had no option but to stand and release her.

  The next time she had spotted him he’d smiled again but she had taken a chair from one of the other tables and placed it safely at the edge of the booth.

  *

  She threw the dregs of her coffee into the garden and eased the cat out of her lap. He stretched and walked off down the back steps. A visit to the vet would be a complete waste of time, she thought, not to mention money, for he seemed perfectly well. And then she was smitten by a stroke of pure guilt, like a hot knife had pierced her chest. Her mother would not have thought that. Whatever limited income she had, she would never have begrudged the cat his health check, just as she had never stinted on anything for Dove.

  She walked after him, calling, ‘Viv, Viv! Come on, Viv,’ until she spotted him under a hibiscus bush, his dark grey coat camouflaged in the shade. He would be plotting the death of some small animal, no doubt, a fledgling or a harmless mouse. Cats, she knew, were incorrigible hunters, one reason she’d never wanted to have anything to do with them.

  ‘Viv!’ She crouched down and pushed her arms through the lower branches of the hibiscus. ‘Come here, Viv.’

  He was just out of reach right up against the fence, staring back implacably, his eyes cold grey pebbles, the irises dilating rapidly in the gloom like blots of ink. There were lizards along the fence, she remembered, tiny skinks that flickered in and out of the garden and along the path to the washing line. They would be no match for those sharp dainty claws. She crawled under the bush.

  ‘Come here, you little bastard.’

  He was still, his body sleek, compact, as composed as a pistol in its case. But just as she reached for his front legs, Viv shot past her and ran up the garden. By the time she crawled back out and brushed off her hair he was sitting at the back door, not a whisker moving.

  The hot knife stabbed her again. Viv was an indoor creature, he would not have a clue how to kill anything. The most wildlife he had encountered had been the occasional cockroach, and even then Dove recalled him once half-heartedly batting at one on her mother’s kitchen floor, before giving up all attempts to conceal his disdain for any other form of life and turning away. Viv was not, she now realised with yet more guilt, so much a threat to lizards or birds as a cat that was uncatlike. She wished she could like him more but this only made her feel sorry for him, even contemptuous.

  Viv had spent his life in the second-floor flat that still awaited Dove’s decision to move or sell. He had never stalked mice and the closest he had come to a bird was apprehensively sitting on the balcony of her mother’s living room. It faced the front, a pleasant garden of palms and bougainvillea, and there was a stand of callistemon in the street where in the evening noise scraped from the rainbow lorikeets, an intense clamour like the sudden operation of dozens of rusty tools. Dove found them delightful and infuriating, just a few of them enough to make a racket, like their throats needed oiling, but their energy was thrilling. In the latter part of the day, when the first shadows of evening were being applied, they would descend like gleeful urchins and then depart in a mass, having picked clean the pockets of the blossoming trees. Viv, eyes swivelling, tail twitching at the tip, would not have stood a chance.

  She opened the screen door and he darted inside ahead of her. She tipped cat biscuits onto a plate for him and filled his bowl with clean water. It was months since the funeral. She knew she should be thinking about her mother’s things, and start clearing out her flat. She took her notebook and papers back to her desk in the front room. The young man in the booth, his name had been Jabe, she remembered. Jabez. Meaning ‘cause of sorrow’.

  9

  She could not remember the last time she had seen Mrs Wood. The housekeeper had still come and cleaned and cooked for her father while Ellis was away at school, but during her holidays she rarely saw her. She knew she lived several blocks down the road, in a small flat built before the war. It was on the corner, a red brick building of six flats, with a garden out the back and a side door through a paling fence in the laneway, where not so long ago the nightsoil man had emptied the pans. At the front, behind bevelled glass doors, was a brown-carpeted foyer and a staircase with chrome handrails that curved up to the first floor. A potted aspidistra stood on a squat pedestal and as her eyes adjusted to the light she realised she was not sure of the number. All these years and she had taken the woman for granted, it seemed. She could not have asked her father, who perhaps himself did not know anyway. Outside one of the ground-floor flats was a white wicker perambulator with a rumpled baby blanket and a knitted bonnet hanging from its handle. The door to the other flat still had a Christmas wreath on it and Ellis knew this could not be it either: Mrs Wood would never have allowed a decoration to be displayed so many months out of the season.

  Upstairs, light streamed through a stairwell window showing the third and fourth flats. Behind the door of one she heard the chatter of a radio. She pressed close and heard the sound of a horserace being called. She knocked on the other door, to no response, and so climbed to the second floor, feeling a sudden wave of fatigue hit her with such violence she was forced to sit on the top stair and catch her breath. She felt hot and clammy. Her pulse seemed to be racing. It was as if she could hear the blood coursing through every vein in her body. When her heart stopped beating quite so loudly she rose and went and knocked at the first door, which opened almost at once, before she passed out.

  *

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  A wet cloth was peeled off Ellis’s forehead and replaced with a fresh one. It was so cold that she briefly shivered. She looked around. She was lying on a green velvet couch, her feet dangling over the edge. Mrs Wood sat in a chair beside her.

  ‘Try and sit up.’

  Ellis rose to a sitting position. She was facing a deep window, almost a doorway, which opened onto a balcony, past which she could see the tops of a row of palms.

  ‘Thank you. Yes, I feel a bit better.’

  Mrs Wood got up and went into the kitchen. Ellis heard the clink of porcelain, the rush of water, the rattle of spoons, and presently the woman returned with a cup of tea. She handed it over and sat down again without a word. Ellis took a
sip and without meaning to pulled a face.

  ‘Yes, with sugar. I know you don’t take it but I’d say you need it.’

  Ellis drank again then replaced the cup carefully in the saucer. It was pale green, the same plain design as the yellow ones in their household. She stared at the cup and saucer. The green was so much nicer than the yellow. It was a soft shade. The translucent reddish brown tea looked pretty in contrast to the colour. Leaves and bark. The colours of nature. Finally she lifted her eyes from the teacup to find the other woman staring at her. Then Mrs Wood went and took a packet of Ardath from the sideboard and lit a cigarette with a silver table lighter in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid and returned to her seat. Ellis found her face impossible to read. She stared at her cup again. How long since Mrs Wood had been around, since she had stopped working for them? Then she remembered.

  ‘You don’t drink tea.’

  ‘No. Only coffee.’ She drew on her cigarette and leaned back in her chair. Ellis felt her disinclination to talk most strongly. Clearly the woman was waiting for her. She drained her tea and replaced the cup, then looked her in the eyes.

  ‘I need help. Please.’

  Mrs Wood raised her eyebrows, drew a final mouthful of smoke deep into her lungs, leaned forward and butted the cigarette, then leaned back again, her leisurely movements suggesting she had this sort of conversation every day. She was dressed in the same clothes that Ellis always remembered her wearing: the short-sleeved sweater of a twin set, a grey pencil skirt, and brown lace-up brogues with a modest heel. Dressed like this, she could be doing anything from housekeeping to office work, though Ellis assumed she was still working for the council. Part-time work perhaps, seeing as she was home so early on a weekday afternoon.

  Finally, she spoke. ‘What makes you think I can help?’

  Ellis prickled. She hadn’t meant to imply anything, anything at all. It was simply that she was so alone.

  ‘I don’t know anyone else,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’ Now, thought Ellis, was the moment she might have broken down and cried but she would not. She absolutely would not lose control. She would leave before she became visibly upset, or inadvertently insulted Mrs Wood any further. She did not understand how there seemed such a huge divide between them, why there was such reserve from the woman she remembered as being the only person approaching a substitute mother all her life. She looked around for her shoes, as Mrs Wood had evidently slipped them off when she laid her on the couch.

  ‘No need to be sorry. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘No matter.’ She nodded towards Ellis’s stomach. ‘What about you then? How long?’

  ‘Nearly three months.’

  ‘And you’re certain?’

  Her breasts had been so sore. She felt bloated all over. Her skin felt like it was on fire at times. And at other times, like today, she felt that thrumming in her ears, like the roar of her blood circulating. That was aside from the fact she had missed two periods. She was certain all right. She had felt sick with the knowledge of it for the past few weeks, though that could have been one of the signs anyway.

  ‘And of course you can’t tell Edgar.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  Her father’s name sounded oddly tender and familiar in Mrs Wood’s mouth. Now, with the reference to her father, she did not trust herself to speak, fearing she would break down. She shook her head.

  ‘What about the boy? Or is he a man?’ She sounded cynical.

  ‘He’s twenty. He said he would pay.’

  Mrs Wood having been so passive now seemed hardly able to contain herself. She threw her arms out and sprung up from her chair, exasperated.

  ‘Oh yes. Of course he will pay! Don’t they always offer to pay.’ She almost snorted at the idea, spitting out the last word as if it were poisonous. She paced over to the sideboard and took another cigarette, drawing back on it quickly then going to the window which she pushed up as high as it would go. She crossed her arms over her chest, raising a hand now and then to smoke quickly. From the couch Ellis could see her neat chest rising and falling with the effort of her indignation. Then she threw the butt into the garden and turned to face Ellis.

  ‘It’s just after five. Time for a gin and tonic.’

  Ellis shook her head. Even if she did drink, the thought made her queasy.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Mrs Wood said more to herself. ‘You’re still only a child, really,’ she murmured, going to the kitchen again and taking out the bottle of gin.

  At their house, five in the afternoon, ritualistically, Mrs Wood had always made herself a gin and tonic. Sipping it slowly, she would roll pastry or run beans through the stringer, or shake a bottle of water with a perforated cap over the laundry, rolling it tight to keep it damp for ironing later in the evening. She only ever had the one drink, and replaced the bottle of Gordon’s in the kitchen cupboard rather than the sideboard in the dining room where Ellis’s father kept his bottles of brandy and whisky and the soda syphon.

  ‘I’d better go.’

  She rose and looked around for her shoes. They had been placed beside the sideboard. Ellis held onto it while fastening the straps of her shoes, then straightened up. There was a small silver-framed photo of a younger Mrs Wood and a man in uniform. He had a straight, serious mouth but there were laughter lines at the corners of his eyes. She was wearing a pale belted frock and was holding a small bunch of flowers with two ribbons trailing down to her hem. Her hair, which seemed fairer than now, had been curled and brushed back from her face. Her lips were very dark. Mrs Wood always wore her hair pulled back into a plain French roll, and pale pink lipstick.

  ‘It was during the war,’ she said, holding a cut-glass tumbler from which she took a sip. ‘There was rationing of clothes and other things. It was hard to get material for wedding dresses.’

  She placed the tumbler down and picked the photo up. Ellis noticed the clean line of her jaw, set firm. The precise shape of her mouth, which trembled slightly as she gazed at the photo. She wondered how old she was.

  ‘What was his name?’ Ellis had never heard her speak of any man, let alone a husband. But of course there must have been one.

  She threw Ellis a glance as if considering what amount of information she ought to divulge, then sighed again.

  ‘Frank.’

  She placed the photo face down on the sideboard, and drank from her gin and tonic. Then she put the glass down abruptly, her face closed over and she steered Ellis to the front door.

  ‘I’ll walk down with you, make sure you’re all right.’

  Downstairs, light streamed into the foyer, making dust motes dance. The sweet tea had revived her but Ellis still felt leaden. After she got home she would have to cook dinner, not that she felt like eating. Fortunately she had already shelled the peas and trimmed the chops. She had read a recipe in the women’s pages of the Sun-Herald, describing how to stuff lamb loin chops with a crumb and herb mix and secure them with toothpicks, and pan fry them instead of placing them under the griller. She would finish them off and get the potato au gratin out of the refrigerator, leftovers from two nights before which would have to do. Her father would be home soon, his appetite sharpened from a couple of after-work beers with the assistant bank manager.

  ‘Do you know why I always have a gin and tonic at five?’

  They were at the threshold of the building. Ellis shook her head.

  ‘Frank loved his G and T. The few years we were together, we always had one at five. He made them for us.’

  Ellis murmured. She wasn’t sure where this reminiscence was going.

  ‘My job was to keep a good supply of ice. Hard before we got a fridge. In the first place we lived, two rooms out the back of someone’s house, there was only an icebox.’ She looked directly at Ellis. ‘Can you believe it? An icebox!’ Though she wa
s not laughing. Indeed she was looking quite grave and Ellis got the impression that Mrs Wood was telling her something of great importance, if only she could listen properly enough. ‘And when Frank was away with the army,’ she went on, ‘I would have a drink for both of us, because he couldn’t.’ She paused. ‘And now I have one in his memory.’

  Ellis nodded, unsure if there was anything she could or should say. Mrs Wood had her hand on the bevelled glass front door anyway, before she said goodbye, and Ellis realised that she had still not indicated if she could help her or not. But when she opened her mouth the strangest thing of all came flowing out, as if it were a genie from an uncorked bottle.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened to my mother?’

  But Mrs Wood was closing the door and had either not heard or would not say.

  *

  Three days later Ellis was walking home from the main road. It was nearly ten pm. Her father had at first met her at the stop, but she had become used to the walk on her own, reassuring him that it was perfectly safe in the dark. Several other people from tech travelled on the crowded bus from Broadway to Parramatta Road, and the next bus she waited for at the start of Liverpool Road was always driven by the same friendly driver. It was well lit and had a dozen passengers, who all bonded in the late-night adventure of it; only once or twice there appeared a man who had somehow kept drinking after closing time, and even then the sort of things men like this said were more annoying than alarming. By the time she got to her stop she was in familiar territory.

  The five-minute walk was something she normally looked forward to, though this night she felt strongly the leaden sensation that had overcome her entire body from time to time in the last couple of weeks, no matter how much she slept or rested. She had felt so tired. The last half-hour of Miss Allman’s lesson had passed in a torment of stifled yawns and surreptitious eye rubbing. As soon as she got inside and had spoken to her father she would be heading straight for bed. Normally they sat over a cup of tea or hot chocolate while she ate some toast or a slice of fruitcake. He usually remembered to put the kettle on for them a few minutes before she walked through the door.