Orchid visited her old charge once a week, climbing up the mountain with supplies, jams and pickles strapped to her back and her own little boy tied by a cloth to her front. On these visits she gave Grace nourishing potions and draughts. She brushed Angie’s hair and dressed it in a becoming style; washed Angie’s neck and hands and sprinkled her with rosewater.
Angie refused to go with her down to the village, and Davy discouraged it.
Orchid was the woman who cuddled little Grace and rubbed the child with oil, massaging it into the chubby, awkward limbs.
Similarly she visited Eve.
Eve was an irresponsible mother. She left the bairn alone to go off, intrigued by a smell or a sound. She squirted her milk wastefully in the air just to see it arc. She put baby clothes on stray cats and left her baby nude. Her sense of hot and cold never quite found its balance and she’d lug the child out, ill-equipped for the weather. When the wind was wild she climbed trees with the dexterity of an animal, and once up high she’d sit for hours, leaving the child who knows where. She took Faith into the foaming sea, and early on the child learnt to swim or die.
Faith realised she must take responsibility for herself and so established a variety of squeals, peeps, cries and screams that Eve in time recognised and occasionally responded to. There was plenty of leeway in this for both parties. Often it was not until the baby’s wrap was actually burning that Faith would use the ‘I am on fire’ emergency scream. Only when her hunger bordered on the ridiculous would she employ the ‘Milk now, please’ cry.
Angelo was a nervous father. He hovered around the child in case she should be injured. He loathed leaving her in Eve’s care, for he had seen Eve jump up to greet him and Faith fall with a thump to the floor. Eve was like another child rather than a functioning wife. Her cooking efforts always ended with a charming but inedible concoction. She had no concept of flavours or the basics of preparing meals, so almost every chore fell on Angelo.
He was frustrated and overworked.
Angus reminded him, quietly, that he was not to doubt his love, ever, for vengeance was sure. He urged Angelo to be grateful for having Eve at all, for the chances of finding a mermaid were less than the chance of riding a star in the Milky Way, let alone transforming her tail to legs. Angus asked Angelo to pay mind to his children’s children.
At these sessions Angelo was humble, and he glanced over at the glory of Eve in one of her gowns, chuckling with the child on her hip, and their eyes met and a pure white ribbon of love flowed between them, like a cord from one to the other, a soul thread. Angelo’s chest keened and swelled, a crescendo of orchestral music, and he vowed, once again, never, ever to doubt.
Almost seven years passed and one day, after Orchid had dressed Angie’s hair and left already for her own home, Angie studied her reflection and realised her pain had lessened, as if God only allowed the mind to suffer over a doomed love for a certain period of time. She decided to go into town.
She dressed carefully in her purple gown. Her figure, heavier and slack in places, was pulled together in the dress, and the seams bulged over her curves. She scrubbed her face and applied beetroot juice to her lips and cheeks.
Grace followed along behind her mother. She was very small for her age, her bulbous eyes and moon face framed by red curls. She looked like a cherub.
Together they walked down the mountain. It was summer and the trees were a vivid myriad of greens. The salty tang of the sea wafted on the breeze and both breathed in deeply and smiled. The lustre and shine had returned to Angie’s hair, and her pale skin was once more the perfect canvas for the light freckles across her nose. She felt almost giddy of mettle, and even stretched out her hand to her daughter; then a burst of tenderness broke within her and she pulled the child up into her arms.
Angie had not been in town for nearly seven years and the place was different. It was cleaner and brighter; the buildings were more substantial and more structures erected. More natives roamed the streets in their incongruous costumes of feathers, flax and tweed, the odd one in trousers, which gave them a superior air. Although Angie knew nothing of it, just upriver a tribal war was raging.
Grace clung to her mother’s neck and Angie swanned into the township with head held high and a jaunty swing to her hips. Past the Rusty Rose, past the Chinese man selling his wares and past the Qualm’s Arms, where wolf whistles flew out the windows and made her laugh. Attention! How she had missed herself.
Angelo was in the Qualm’s Arms when the dark molasses head and décolletage framed in violet walked past the window. He choked on his beer. He stood suddenly and the barrel he was sitting on rocked and toppled over. He wiped beer from his face and stared at the figure, and the red-haired child in its arms.
Why does she have Faith? he worried.
Angie swung her head around to acknowledge the whistles and their eyes locked. Grace looked too, and Angelo saw that it was not Faith. A sharp twang of recognition grabbed at his groin and rushed his blood. He yelped and made madly out the door, the other men rushing to the window to see what would happen.
Angie felt his burning gaze on the sway of her hips, she felt him move up behind her like a descending shadow. The sky seemed so incredibly blue to her. Grace made a grab at her mother’s pretty face and Angie twinkled down at her with the expression of a woman finally being noticed.
Angelo grabbed her by the arm and swung her around.
‘Let me see,’ he growled.
‘See what?’ said Angie flatly.
Angelo put his hands under the child’s arms and wrenched her from Angie’s hold and up in the air. He studied her face. The beauty spot, the too-large eyes, the wide slack mouth, the freakishness of the child. He pressed the moon head of Grace into his neck and he doubled over the child. Kneeling in the dirt, he suppressed a bellow but his whole body shook.
Angie knelt beside him and, with certainty, with purpose, stroked his transformed hair. He slowly raised his head. His expression contorted, he looked into her amber eyes and tried to speak. He tried to say he was sorry, tried to express compassion, tried to put words to his remorse. She is the mother of my other child, he thought. This is my other child. Grace squirmed in his grip to get a better look at the man who held her so tight.
‘Oh, Angelo,’ whispered Angie.
Angelo slowly reached and touched her face, stroking her chin with his thumb. A mother! With his forefinger he traced the line of her mouth; his groin tightened and felt as if it were pushing into his gut. Angie opened her mouth slightly to speak, and Angelo’s finger slipped inside. He was shattered by the heat of her mouth, so appallingly warm compared to the fishy coldness of Eve’s. Angie’s quim-like heat was a ruinous inferno that radiated through his veins, flushing his face, mesmerising him. He was helpless.
Angie sucked his finger.
Slowly, like the dreadful dragging time of an accident, Angelo was drawn irresistibly to Angie, and suddenly hungry to feel her heat in his mouth, to lick the hotness of it. He clasped the back of her head and drew her face to his and, as their lips met, his heart shocked in his chest. Angie’s mouth softened, opened, their tongues slid together and they kissed, ardently, drowningly. Their daughter Grace’s little fat palms were on the cheek of the mother and the cheek of the father.
Eve was on the sand when a calamitous, crippling pain began eating up her legs like acid, bubbling and broiling her flesh. Her limbs buckled under her and she collapsed, gasping and grasping, as if her heart were being torn asunder.
29.
Blackout
Tom ran across the snowy sand and into the ocean. His gout was splinters of glass in his joints but he pushed himself on until he had Gilda under the arms, and dragged her with a young man’s strength onto the shore, shouting at her, shaking her. He checked her pulse, put his ear to her heart and to her lips and heard the breath of her, slow and faint.
He staggered into the kitchen of the homestead with the fainted Gilda in his arms, water streaming from them
both. Maggie rushed to them and saw the slippers. She wrenched them off Gilda’s feet and stuffed them in the fire, slamming the grate after them, shutting a door on the past. They hissed, spat and crackled like chicken skin. She glared at Tom accusingly. ‘Where did she get them? I threw them away.’
‘They were in Mrs Stone’s estate.’
‘You planned this?’ Maggie accused him, pulling him urgently towards the stairs.
‘It just happened. I can’t get her up those stairs.’
‘We’ll put her by the hearth, then.’
‘It might matter to her,’ said Tom, his breath laboured. He was soaked through. He frowned, the sparse hairs of his eyebrows halting the drips.
Maggie hastily threw cushions on the floor and they laid Gilda on top. Tom turned away as Maggie stripped off her niece’s clothes and covered her with a crocheted blanket. She put more wood on the fire, then sat back on her heels. ‘Have you learnt nothing? Those blasted shoes were what set Mary off!’
‘Gilda should know the truth.’
‘And what is the truth, Tom, as you see it?’ Maggie hissed. She stood slowly, an inch at a time, feeling the chase was over and age had finally caught her, climbed on her back with its strangling arms about her neck. She reached into a cupboard and took down a jar. ‘Make a pot of tea, Tom,’ she said, placing her hand on his arm in a gesture — appeasing but not forgiving — before unscrewing the lid of the jar.
A spicy fragrance wafted from the bronze ointment inside. Maggie scooped a blob of it, warming it in her palms, and massaged Gilda’s feet one at a time with long, sure strokes and firm circles of her thumb and fingers, making their flesh shine greasy in the firelight. She knew all they could do was wait; that in a way the worst was over.
‘Mary’s feet were webbed like Gilda’s,’ Maggie said quietly.
‘Were they?’
Maggie sighed and lifted her face to the ceiling, remembering. ‘Well, they used to be, but the midwife cut them at birth. I was twelve when she was born. A big spark spat from the fire. There is still a burn mark in the floor.’ She put her finger over the mark and went on. ‘Mrs Stone shooed me away but I hid behind the door. She was panicking, as if it were her own hanging, as she made tourniquets on Mary’s ankles and sterilised a knife in the fire. Our mother — all I can remember is her silence. Why she didn’t stop her I don’t know. The midwife cut between Mary’s toes like she was cutting out the devil. Blood trickled down her soles, and the next toe and the next, and Mary cried and kicked and Mrs Stone held her firmer and when she let go there were white marks where her grip had been, which I still remember. So when Gilda was born with the exact same webbing I think Mary summoned up a little of her own cutting, like a circumcision in a way, and forbade anyone to touch Gilda’s feet. The knife is still in the drawer.’
Tom glanced at the drawer, said nothing. He handed her a teacup and they sipped their tea.
Maggie heaved a sigh that rattled in her lungs. ‘I miss my sister — the old Mary, when we were young, before Gilda’s father. She was full of hope.’
‘Hope can devastate.’
They exchanged a look, held it. Maggie squeezed Tom’s knee but she would not be drawn further. ‘When you push a man he just pushes back. There is nothing worse than a woman with illusions, eh, but Mary made a meal of them, a life of them. There you go. What’s done is done.’
Martha entered and quickly took in the scene. Tom poured her a tea, making himself busy as though at a funeral, his knees cracking and embarrassing him.
Martha sat down slowly. ‘I knew a turn was coming. Gilda had that zealous look about her.’
‘We all knew,’ Maggie said.
The sound of Sophia’s motorbike skidding in the slush of the driveway made everyone look expectantly at the door. When it opened, Cecil stood there, his hair rakishly dishevelled from the ride.
Maggie and Tom stood, their whole bodies tense with expectation.
Martha coughed. ‘I’m Martha Page. I’ve heard so much about you.’
‘Oh yes, this is my daughter,’ said Maggie. ‘She’s been keen to meet you. She’ll be pleased you don’t have centaur hind legs — I’m afraid she’s not as convinced as the rest of us.’ Cecil’s presence did not seem unusual to Maggie. A troupe of elephants could not have swayed her attention from her sister’s child.
‘I am, Mum. I am.’ Martha smiled at her mother, and in that moment Maggie realised that children were what made life worthwhile. Then her attention went back to Gilda lying there so helpless, like a small child. Her hair was drying in ringlets and slightly steaming with the fire. She knelt again.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ said Cecil kindly. ‘Sophia lent me her bike,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Will she be all right?’ He nodded towards Gilda.
‘I must phone Sophia and tell her what’s happened,’ Maggie said distractedly.
‘I’ll do it, Mum.’ Martha went into the hall and they listened to her speak.
Tom quietly poured tea for Cecil and offered him a chair. Cecil accepted thankfully and with great care, so as not to disturb the intimacy of the room. He had the sense he was too large for the space.
Martha returned. ‘Sophia’s coming as soon as she can. I spoke to Joel and he said he’d look after the bar, said Val was there and would help.’ She sat cross-legged near Gilda’s head.
It began to snow heavily — the thud of it was audible — and Cecil and Tom went outside. Chopping sounds could be heard and they returned with armloads of wood; it was clear no one would attempt to sleep that night.
Gilda didn’t stir, except for the flickering of her eye sockets sending frissons along her blue-veined lids, and the pulse of her neck. She had an ethereal, otherworldly air, lying there.
When Cecil and Tom returned there was an edge to them, Maggie noticed. Tom stepped forward with words poised, but he turned when Sophia arrived. She was greeted with wan smiles.
Martha needed to escape the laden atmosphere of the kitchen. She felt heavy with dread and something she could not explain, as if Gilda had already passed into spirit. She went upstairs to get the quilt off Gilda’s bed. As she began to pull the cover she saw the shell box resting in a pool of light shining in from the night sky. Martha looked over her shoulder, as though she were being watched, faltered, then gently lifted the lid. She fancied it glowed within, and inside was the prettiest mirror she had ever seen, its glass black, bottomless.
Martha did not hear the footsteps on the stairs, only the rush of impatience that came into the room, and soon Maggie was standing behind her daughter. Maggie gasped when she saw the opened shell box and positioned herself protectively between it and Martha, her face alarmed. She took Martha by the shoulders, forcing her to look at her, and searched the young woman’s face.
Martha went to speak — to ask all the unknowns that now bubbled up from childhood, all the questions she had not asked of the adults, for she had sensed the taboo. There were too many secrets. They stared at each other, frozen and gagged, and then Martha closed her eyes, bowed her head obediently and left the room.
Alone, Maggie half reached towards the box before snatching her hand back and holding it close to her chest, crossed over the other hand. Oh, mother of God, she silently prayed. Then she quickly picked up the box as if it were a bomb, the shell edges like sharks’ teeth, and furtively glanced about the room. She hurriedly put it down again, wiping her hand on her clothes, and sat on the bed in indecision. Then it occurred to her that Gilda was not Mary.
There was a shout from downstairs. Maggie slammed down the lid and ran down to the kitchen.
Gilda was awake. She lay supporting herself on her elbow, her shoulders impossibly white and fragile-looking. Her expression confused, her hair messed and her eyes wild.
‘There was a man on the beach and he was searching and he fell — I made him fall.’ Her voice was husky, as though she had not used it for a hundred years. She frantically pulled up the covers to look at her feet. ‘I didn’t dr
eam the slippers, did I — Tom?’ Then she began to giggle, mildly hysterical, and the rest of them laughed too, jerky and unnerved. And then Gilda stopped, her eyes squinting at the old man.
‘Cecil?’
Cecil half stood and enquired after Gilda’s health, but before she could reply, Sophia slammed her hand on the table, making everyone jump.
‘There’ll be plenty of time to ask how it’s going later. We may as well get on with the show.’ She stood up, hands on hips. ‘It’s here, ladies and gentlemen, and now is as good a time as any.’ Sophia was determined not to brook any objections, especially from Maggie, who made fluttering movements as if attempting to put out a fire. ‘You can’t protect her forever,’ Sophia added gravely.
Maggie tore her eyes away from her friend’s and looked at Cecil. ‘Where is it?’
‘Had it delivered to the Qualm’s Arms — came off the container early evening. I came to tell you but it didn’t seem like the right time.’ Cecil stood as he spoke, touching the brim of an imaginary hat to Gilda.
‘Hang on a minute …’ said Gilda, but no one was listening.
‘We can show it in the drawing room.’ Maggie made a resolution in her mind and this conviction gave her voice authority.
‘Righto, well, I’ll get the truck, shall I?’ said Tom.
‘The truck for what?’ said Gilda, standing with the bedclothes wrapped around her, panicking slightly.
‘Yes, get the truck — grand idea,’ said Maggie, opening the door. The outside light came on and, with French Resistance nods and promises of a quick return, they left. There was the sound of the V8 ute and of the old Harley sparking up, and both vehicles tore down the road.
Half an hour later Gilda and Martha were sitting together in the kitchen of the homestead, listening to the noises of pulled ropes and clanging of metal and heavy dragging, accompanied by plenty of ‘Steady on!’ and ‘You take that side’. Gilda heard Joel and Val. Why had they come? She felt the whole town was in on something, and butterflies leapt in her belly and way up behind her ribs.
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