If Blood Should Stain the Wattle

by Jackie French

  ‘He’s swallowing better too.’

  ‘I think that’s just because he’s stronger from more food, not any real change in his condition.’

  Four years earlier Jed had seen a flash of the future, showing a far-off Scarlett, a glowing, fulfilled doctor, instead of the child who could not even feed herself. She wished desperately she could conjure up such visions at will, see Gavin in ten years’ time, or twenty.

  Or perhaps there was no vision to see, if the baby she held died.

  We won’t let you die, she thought. Surely if they loved him enough . . .

  ‘Love isn’t always enough,’ said Nancy softly.

  ‘Have you taken up thought reading?’

  ‘It’s all over your face. I see it on Moira’s too.’

  ‘Are you telling me not to get too attached, because one day he’ll die?’

  ‘Darling Jed. One day we are all going to die. That should make us love each other more, not less. Use the time that we are given.’

  ‘That sounds very wise. But doesn’t it just mean life hurts you more?’

  ‘It means you pay for love,’ said Nancy. ‘But it is always worth it.’ She took the baby expertly, and held him over her shoulder to burp him. If feeding Gavin took three times longer, burping him took hours. His small form didn’t have the strength to complain, but pain from wind meant he didn’t sleep, and sleep was also needed if he was to grow.

  And live.

  Please, thought Jed. Let this baby live.

  She glanced at her watch. Time to pick up Scarlett from the therapy pool. Mark 23 — impossible to think of the name without a mental grin — was coming to dinner tonight. Which would be . . . interesting.

  Mother Nature had decided to hide Ra Zacharia’s star/spaceship behind rainclouds for the past few weeks. The river freshened, laughing between its sandy banks, the sky’s addition to its waters making it too cold to swim.

  Would tonight be clear enough for Mark to point out the ‘Morse code’ signal? And if it wasn’t there — or was obviously not Morse code at all — should she point that out? Was it better to leave him in faith and ignorance, in a community where he was obviously happy?

  Jed found herself hoping that the clouds would cover the stars again, so she didn’t have to choose.

  They did, soft and grey as rabbit fur. Mark arrived, driving the white ute they’d seen at the community of the Chosen, bringing a gift of mist-soft woollen ponchos woven by the members they had seen sitting at the looms, a blue one for Jed and one as bright as her name for Scarlett.

  ‘Merino wool,’ he said as Scarlett stroked the poncho’s softness. ‘We buy it locally.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous.’ Scarlett draped it over her shoulders.

  Mark smiled, mist drops on his long lashes. ‘You look like an elf.’

  Scarlett made a face. ‘I know.’

  ‘Elves are beautiful,’ said Mark seriously, then glanced at Jed as if he’d have said more if Scarlett’s older sister hadn’t been standing there.

  Jed remained largely quiet during dinner, letting Scarlett and Mark talk to each other, eating Leafsong’s goat curry and then home-made banana ice cream.

  But Mark spoke little too, just smiled and blinked a lot as Scarlett described the girls at school, Barbie and the barbarians and Soapie Sophie who did whatever Barbie ordered, and Miss Glendinning, who knew EVERYTHING about maths but taught in Gibber’s Creek, not in a university, because she wanted kids like Scarlett to have a real chance and then got stuck with the barbarians and Soapies . . .

  He seemed to like listening. More than that: he seemed entranced by Scarlett, as if she were an unexpected star that suddenly shimmered in front of him. Jed realised Scarlett was growing into a young woman. Not a strapping wench, as Michael might say, but yes, an elf, with her own fairy beauty, her body small but lit up with health and exercise and happiness.

  But Mark was not entranced because he had found a mental equal, thought Jed. Tonight’s talk was gossip, descriptions of school, laughter. How much of Scarlett’s attraction for this young man was her vulnerability, her waif-like elfness, her youth and lack of experience? His confidence must have been destroyed, three years back. Now he could give a girl in a wheelchair a miracle: the strength to walk.

  Not to mention aliens. Jed sighed. The court of King James I had seen witchcraft in everything from a storm at sea to a barren cow, Victorians had believed in fairies, and those left bereft after the massive losses of World War I turned to spiritualism and séances to deal with the overwhelming grief. This era’s explanation for the unexplained was aliens: God had been an alien; humans were an alien–Neanderthal experimental hybrid, or the result of a crashed spaceship, the refugees marrying ‘the daughters of earth’. The pyramids were the work of alien engineers, Stonehenge a signal to call the mothership for help . . .

  What myths would humanity grasp at next? Vampires? Zombies? Trolls?

  ‘. . . and then Barbie said, “What’s so gross about a national product?”’ said Scarlett. ‘She thought Gross National Product meant it was disgusting! I mean she is SO dumb . . .’

  Mark laughed, a little too late, as if he wasn’t sure about the Gross National Product himself.

  He kissed Scarlett’s cheek again as he left, and looked hesitantly at Jed, standing unrepentantly at the front door, then said, ‘Would you like to come to the pictures next Saturday?’

  Scarlett carefully did not look at Jed. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at one o’clock.’

  And Jed, carefully, did not say, ‘He’s too old for you,’ as Scarlett joined her to do the washing-up.

  Scarlett returned from the pictures exactly one hour and forty minutes after the show had ended — Jed had checked with the cinema — exactly long enough to have a milkshake afterwards at the Bluebell and to drive back to Dribble. Just as it should be for a girl Scarlett’s age.

  But Scarlett wasn’t any girl, nor was Mark — Mark 23 — any young man.

  ‘And Barbie was there, and ALL the barbarians! And Mark bought me chocolates, and Barbie came up and said, “HELLOOOOO,”’ Scarlett’s imitation of a would-be teenage seductress was wicked, ‘and Mark just said, “Hi, you must be one of Scarlett’s friends,” and took my hand and looked at me, not her, and Barbie was FURIOUS. They kept looking at us all the way down to the Bluebell. And a FLY was stuck in the icing of the chocolate cake! And then . . .’

  She’s happy, thought Jed, relieved. And Scarlett seemed more delighted by Barbie’s envy than the young man who had caused it.

  Perhaps Mark was in more danger of being hurt than Scarlett, when the young man realised that she not only could not be healed by his guru, but was too sensible to even think she might be. One day, perhaps in a few months’ time and certainly when she went to uni, Scarlett would outgrow Mark, in her new world of medical students and science . . .

  Jed grinned. Yet another new world. Perhaps it was time to keep her promise to Ra Zacharia — for Jed Kelly always did keep her promises — and sit under the stars and feel herself within the universe.

  Tonight, at last, the sky was clear. Jed waited till Scarlett was deep in homework at the dining-room table, then slipped outside, pleasantly tired after a day spent at River View, playing the games that were both fun and therapeutic. She liked the time she spent there, loved being part of something good, adored Gavin and nursed him whenever Matron Clancy briefly relinquished him from her body’s warmth. But despite Nancy’s and Matron Clancy’s barely hidden disappointment, she still felt no call to become a nurse, doctor, physiotherapist or therapist of any other kind.

  Was Julieanne right? Was she wasting herself there, where there were too few opportunities to truly tempt her? Was her growing closeness with the land and the community, so carefully fostered by Matilda, a trap that one day she would deeply regret, youth’s chances wasted?

  ‘Stay . . .’

  Was that the wind? Or a ghostly voice, echoing from the billabong? Surely that was
the scent of sausages? And a conviction deep as the rock beneath the soil that one day, there, she’d find her own fulfilment.

  The voice — or her own subconscious — was right. For the time being, at least, she was simply herself, for the first time in her life: not a schoolgirl, not a homeless waif, not a con woman, nor a uni student, nor any label whatsoever. She was just Jed Kelly, presently dressed in soft tweed slacks that had been daring in 1928 and now were softly worn and comfortable, and an embroidered knitted purple vest with only six dropped stitches, a birthday present from Scarlett the year before, from a pattern she’d spotted in an issue of Woman’s Day.

  Jed Kelly, of Dribble, part of the Thompson clan, with a sister doing her homework at the table indoors, while she watched the stars.

  It felt good.

  She sat on the cane chair on the deck that faced the river and let the night flow over her. Frogs celebrated the damp soil, the little striped frogs that called any time it rained, unlike most others that had their own season of song. The river muttered across the sand, almost inaudible unless you knew its call. Even the stars seemed to sing, impossibly high, so clear that tonight she could see their colours: reds and gold and a cold and distant blue.

  And there was Alpha Centauri, near the Southern Cross. Which star was Ra Zacharia’s supposed spaceship, sending its messages in Morse? She should have brought a notebook, to record each star’s winking, for five minutes perhaps, to see if it might be decoded. But there were so many . . .

  Something bumped the edge of the veranda, then became a steady scratch, scratch, scratch. The wombat . . . Ah, and that boom was the powerful owl, hunting possums, which was why there were no possum growls. Even the big old-man possums would be discreet until the powerful owl pair hunted further away. Nancy had told her this pair ranged as far afield as Overflow, nesting in a different tree or on a ledge each year. Nancy had shown her the one used two years back, in a tiny gully under an umbrella of native figs, though she hadn’t been able to find any others . . .

  ‘Have you found Mark’s star?’

  Jed hadn’t heard Scarlett wheel out. ‘You mean the spaceship?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can believe in spaceships,’ said Scarlett. ‘And I don’t believe a miracle cure can make me walk. But that doesn’t mean that Ra Zacharia doesn’t do a lot of good.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ equivocated Jed. Ra Zacharia had demonstrably done good. But was he guilty of even greater harm, gathering acolytes to do his bidding? She smiled in the darkness. Matilda would say most people wanted to be told what to do. And perhaps she was right. But there was a difference between doing what you were told because you were mentally too lazy or unsure to choose anything else, and obeying from a sense of gratitude for being healed, perhaps even from a fear that if they left the community of the Chosen, the miracle would evaporate. If there had been miracles . . .

  Once again Jed wished it were possible to get Ra Zacharia’s X-rays, and those of ‘Mark 28’, who had supposedly been cured of cancer . . .

  ‘Mark is a good person.’ Scarlett’s voice challenged Jed to disagree.

  ‘I think you’re right. Mark is a good person.’ Not a lie. But he was also a limited one, allowing his mum and then Ra Zacharia to make his life choices for him, nor did he have Scarlett’s deep intellectual curiosity, which Scarlett must know, at least subconsciously, talking gossip with him, and not what she’d discovered in the latest journals borrowed from Dr McAlpine.

  Scarlett sat silent for a few minutes, under the stars. At last she said, ‘Mark told me this afternoon that the spaceship is four fingers to the south-west of Alpha Centauri.’

  Jed held up four fingers. ‘Not much help. Fingers come in many thicknesses. And that still leaves at least forty or fifty stars.’

  ‘I suppose Ra Zacharia would show us exactly which one it was if we asked. Or Mark might, one night he’s here when the stars are out.’ Scarlett’s voice held a slight challenge . . .

  Jed refused to meet it. ‘Probably.’ She felt strangely at peace. She must do more of this. Just sit and breathe the night.

  ‘Look,’ said Scarlett. ‘The first trickle of moonlight on the river.’

  They watched in silence as the pale fuzz became a glow, a slice of cheese, then a vast enormous golden ball, and, finally, an avenue that sparkled along the water. The wombat chomped, oblivious to the moon, and to both of them.

  Perhaps wombats could smell the moonlight, thought Jed, even if they never looked up to see it glow. Perhaps grass took on a moonlit luminosity for wombats . . .

  ‘Time for bed,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a —’

  ‘Long day,’ finished Scarlett. ‘Do you KNOW I’ve been told that three thousand, two hundred and nineteen times?’

  ‘You’ve counted?’

  ‘Extrapolated. Good night, Jed.’ A hug, smelling of rose-scented shampoo and wheelchair grease. Scarlett was good at hugs. Her life had been rich in them. Nancy and Matron Clancy had made sure of that. Jed had only met hugs four years ago. But she thought she had the timing and choice of hug types almost right by now.

  ‘Good night, brat.’

  ‘Are you coming in?’

  ‘In a little while.’

  She heard the back door shut behind Scarlett. The owl boomed again. This time its mate replied, a softer rumble from further down the river. Jed smiled and let the universe enfold her.

  Chapter 39

  23 May 1973

  Sharon Taylor

  River View Nursing Home

  Dear Sharon,

  I hope you are well. We are all well here.

  I am sorry I didn’t write straight after we met. It was a terrible shock seeing you in that café. I did not know what to say, but I have been thinking of you ever since we met. Those people at River View should have told us you are able to get about and everything. It wasn’t fair to your father and me to keep us in the dark.

  I thought you might like to see a photo of your family. Your Auntie Rita took this last Christmas.

  Your father and Bruce send their love.

  Your loving mother,

  Mum

  (Mrs Ellen Taylor)

  SCARLETT

  Scarlett waited till Jed had come back from her morning walk. Sometimes they went together, along the road or on the track Sam had made that was level enough for her four-wheel-drive wheelchair. But other mornings Jed walked alone, up to the billabong and back, as Nancy had often slipped out alone during the times Scarlett had stayed with her at Overflow.

  Nancy had taught all the River View kids ‘land stuff’ — how ant castles meant a big or long rain; flying ant queens meant SOME rain, even if only seven drops; how when the cockatoos or magpies flew in circles, not knowing where to land, it meant storms coming from two directions and that, when they met, it would be bad.

  Good things to know. Interesting things. But only knowledge that could be observed in gardens or along roads or flat, artificial tracks.

  A year ago she had longed simply to get out into the real world, away from the safe prison of River View, and to one day be independent of daily help. Now she was beginning to understand how much of the world was barred to her. She had been nowhere! Well, okay, to Canberra with Jed a few times, to the beach four times, to stay in a camp for ‘people like her’, with someone to hold her as she pretended she really was boogie boarding in the shallow waves. And one day — a soon one day — she would visit other cities too, and even live there, at least for a while.

  But the places she most longed for, the ones she knew Nancy and Jed and even Matilda were too tactful ever to mention, were the ones all around her. The wombat track from Dribble to the billabong. The gullies at Moura, Halfway to Eternity and Overflow, where there were deep rock pools and boulders tableclothed in orchids and cliffs where eagles nested, their white droppings streaking the rock below, where you might climb if you had a back as well as hands and feet that worked.

  ‘Hi, brat.’ Jed took off her shoes at the back door,
then padded into the kitchen. She stopped and looked at Scarlett more closely. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I went through yesterday’s mail.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’ There rarely was, apart from the odd postcard from Jed’s old friends at uni. They didn’t even empty the mailbox every day.

  ‘A letter from Mrs Taylor.’ She read it aloud to Jed, then pulled the photo out of the cheap envelope. It showed a man with grey hair with his arm around the woman she had seen at the café. A young man stood next to them. Behind them sat a house in what Jed called the ‘spotty brick with lace curtains’ style, a white concrete path and carefully pruned rose bushes blooming either side of the front door.

  She should feel something. They were her genetic family. That young man was her brother. But they not only looked like strangers — they felt strange too, even weirder than the community of the Chosen. At least the Chosen lived among the paddocks and hills she had known almost all her life. This suburban family was as alien as the spaceship the Chosen waited for.

  ‘Chin up, brat. At least the Taylors aren’t demanding you live with them. It’s a nice letter,’ Jed added gently. ‘Letting you get to know them.’

  Yes. Nice. Scarlett didn’t want nice. She wanted an apology for abandoning her. She wanted them to weep, to scream, to say, ‘We cut you from our lives and have always felt the wound.’

  Not . . . nice.

  She hadn’t even known her older brother was called Bruce. Or that she had an Auntie Rita. And if her mother . . . that woman . . . had wanted to know how she was, she had only had to write to River View.

  She carefully ripped both letter and photo, then wheeled over to place them in the bin.

  ‘I take it you’re not going to reply then,’ said Jed dryly.

  ‘No,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘Your choice, brat.’

  Yes, thought Scarlett with sudden satisfaction. Her choice. Because she finally did have choices. What to study at university, where and how to live while she did. And she had other choices too.