by Joy Dettman
‘Mrs Morrison!’
But she was gone, in her nightgown, gone out the back door, down the verandah and out the side gate.
He did not pursue her. This business of the tombstone had upset her. Perhaps placing the dead infant in with his grandmother had been poorly done, though a practical solution at the time. Three funerals in five days, the heat excessive, the earth bone dry, and that boy had not gone to term, had not breathed, had not been baptised. It was Charles who had suggested he be placed with his grandmother. Moe Kelly had seconded the motion and the grave diggers had applauded with blistered hands — earth newly broken being more easily removed.
And at the time, Norman had not been himself. Still traumatised by his mother’s passing, and now his so-wanted son’s, he had left the arrangements to Charles. Later, as things had evolved, he had come to believe it was God’s will that his son be forgotten and Jennifer Carolyn raised in his place. However, for Amber’s peace of mind, a name, if not a date would be added to his mother’s stone. Archibald Gerald perhaps, for her father. She had been fond of her father.
He raised the subject the following night when she poured her glass of brandy early. He poured himself a small drink — only to empty the bottle.
‘I have been thinking we should name him for your father, my dear.’
‘Don’t try to crawl around me, Norman. I meant what I said last night.’
Two more days, the brandy not replaced, he found her pouring cooking sherry. He claimed the bottle, emptied it onto a shrub growing beside his back verandah.
For three days his meals were flung at him, his bed remained cold, and tiny Jennifer, rarely heard, now screamed for the breast.
‘We will make other arrangements for her,’ he said. ‘I will take her to Melbourne at the weekend, deliver her to the authorities and confess my guilt. Until then, she must be fed, Amber.’
‘And what will people think of me then?’ she snapped.
‘It is of no consequence what people think of you, or of me. We must have peace in this house.’
‘I have to live in this filthy town!’
‘Then tell me, tell me, please, what it is you want me to do, my dear, dear Amber, and I will do it, only feed that child.’
She knew what she wanted him to do: to get out of her life, or to give her the money to get out of his. Couldn’t say it. She bared her breast and fed the baby.
Exhaustion tumbled Amber into sleep each night and nightmares flung her back into wakefulness. Each was different, but each the same. Her son’s cry led her into dark forests, through graveyards where she wandered between gaping holes searching for him. She found him too, and in terrible places — in the creek, hung from a hook in the butcher’s shop, floating face down in the green sludge of her mother-in-law’s grave. She found him in cartons of groceries, under the bridge. Always dead.
Maisy saw her despair. She took both children to her house each afternoon while Amber slept, her nightmares fewer by daylight. Gertrude spent too many of her days in town caring for her grandchildren while watching weariness strip the little flesh from Amber’s fine bones. But on many a day when Maisy couldn’t come, when Gertrude stayed at home, Norman came from work to find his wife locked in her room and the two children screaming.
‘Amber. The children need you. Amber!’
His voice dragged her from dream. She’d found her son in her mother’s old trunks, underneath the verandah, found him crumbling, but had placed him to her breast. And woke heart racing, her arms empty.
Opened the door, saw him, the living baby screaming in his awkward arms, Cecelia bellowing at his knees. Put the infant to suck, and its sucking made the emptiness within her grow. Its sucking opened gaping hollows in her heart.
Nothing inside her now.
Empty now.
Hollows have a way of filling with whatever the wind blows in. Amber’s hollows filled with a rage she had to contain. She was an inferno of unreleased rage. It glowed in the dark, lit her way when she walked in the night. Lit up the darkest corners of her mind, showing her what she should not see, showing her the beast she’d wed for his railway house and for his mother’s fine bone china tea set. Showing her the beast’s child, ugly, clumsy.
And showing her the infant’s finer bones, her well-defined features, her big blue eyes. Loved her beauty. Loved that tiny nose, that little chin. Hated her own daughter’s flat, fat face, her thick Duckworth feet, her coarse dark hair.
Hate and love became confused. Had to hate the child of that stranger and love her own. Must love her own. She’d carried her. Did love her. Did. Did. Hadn’t she rejoiced at the moment of her birth?
Ruby she’d thought to name her, Ruby Rose, a pretty name for a pretty child. Ruby and Amber, she’d thought, mother and daughter. And I will be the perfect mother to my perfect child. I will make a perfect home. I will cleanse myself in my child.
His mother had scoffed at her choice of name. For two weeks her beautiful baby had remained nameless, and at the end of those two weeks there was no beautiful Ruby Rose, only Cecelia Louise, flat-faced, hook-nosed, infant replica of the old Cecelia.
Hated the sight of her.
Had to love her.
How could anyone love that pig-eyed, sullen, wilful, screaming, resentful . . .
Resentful of Jennifer.
And why shouldn’t she resent Jennifer? Amber resented her beauty.
And she smelled wrong.
Cecelia smelled right.
In the dark, Cecelia smelled beautiful. Smelled like home.
Home?
Wanted to go home.
Where was home?
Not her mother’s hut. She hadn’t been down there since she’d left the place. Norman’s house was home, his mother’s fine furniture, her velvet rug big enough to near cover the parlour floor, her peacock feathers in their expensive vase, her heavy drapes.
This house was home.
Not Norman. Couldn’t stand him. Couldn’t stand the smell of him. Always hovering over her. Always watching, trying to touch her. Couldn’t stand the thought of his thick hands on her.
Cecelia had his hands. She had his feet. But in the dark, in bed, when she couldn’t see her, when she held her close, she could feel love for her.
Did love her. Not him. Loathed him.
‘You are my wife, Mrs Morrison. You swore your vows before God —’
‘Take your God and shove him, Norman. And take that baby with you.’
In an era when God sat assuredly in heaven, when man, made in God’s image, sat a few degrees to his left, when wives loved, honoured and obeyed their husbands — whether they did or not — Amber was severely out of step.
She had been raised by an independent woman to believe that man’s reward was gained on earth by hard labour, that Sundays could be better occupied in digging post holes than in praying. In a good woman of sound mind, wrongful attitudes can be forgivable.
Amber’s mind was not sound.
It happened in mid-March. She’d nursed Jennifer at ten at night, then crawled back into Cecelia’s bed where she’d slept soundly until dawn. She’d dozed thereafter, waiting for Jennifer’s call, but for the first time the baby had taken it into her head to sleep through the night. Amber’s breasts were full. Perhaps the low neck of her gown released a leaking breast, or dreaming again of her crumbling son, had she bared her breast so he might suck. The how of it was of no concern, just the awakening to bright light and to the pure and perfect peace of her own girl’s mouth at her breast, and to the sweet relief of a full breast emptying, and the blissful relief as love for her girl filled the gaping hollows within her soul.
‘Mummy’s precious girl,’ she whispered as she kissed the sweet-smelling hair, buried her nose in the scent of it. ‘You’re Mummy’s own very precious girl, aren’t you? Take it all, my beautiful,’ she said. ‘Empty me.’
THE BIRTHDAY
Cecelia celebrated her fifth birthday on 26 March. Gertrude rode in on the Friday for a b
irthday lunch and was relieved to see her daughter looking more relaxed.
Norman appeared less stressed and quite expansive — for Norman. He asked after Gertrude’s health. She told him she was well. He suggested there could be a thunderstorm before the day was through. She said her tank and garden could use the rain, that she’d spent half of this summer bringing water up from the creek. He suggested she pay the water carrier to fill her tank. She told him the water carrier cost money and with the creek just over the road she preferred to take what she needed free of cost. That was the limit of their conversation.
Amber had bought Cecelia a frilly pink dress for her birthday. That girl wasn’t the right shape to wear frills, but if you can’t say something nice, then you’re better off keeping your mouth shut. Gertrude kept her mouth shut. She kissed her granddaughter, wished her happy birthday, then offered a brown paper-wrapped parcel. It contained a rag doll she’d spent a week of nights in making, and one of those nights in stitching in a full head of black woollen hair. She’d made a frock, underwear, had knitted stockings, constructed shoes from a piece of black satin. She watched it unwrapped, eager for Sissy’s reaction.
There was little reward for her labour. Within minutes of the unwrapping, the doll’s face wore a chocolate icing-sugar scar, and one shoe, plus the foot, had been chewed to pulp. Gertrude said not a word. If it meant biting her tongue to a rag, she would play a part in the lives of her granddaughters.
Maisy and her four-year-old twin sons arrived at two. The doll’s bloomers came off while its sex was determined.
‘Kids will be kids.’ Maisy laughed.
Kids would be kids. Gertrude picked up the bloomers, placed them with the frock on the table, and sat a while longer catching up on local gossip. Maisy knew everyone and most of their business. At three, mercifully, she guided her pair of monsters towards the front door. Amber walked out with her, and Sissy, still dragging the now naked doll around by its hair, went out to the back verandah where Jennifer was sleeping in her pram, a mosquito net keeping the insects at bay.
Gertrude was washing the dishes when she heard the baby scream. She went to the back door and saw Sissy untangling her head from the netting. There was no question as to why Jenny screamed; there were pinch marks on the cheek, the skin broken by fingernails.
‘You mustn’t hurt Jenny.’
‘Did not,’ Cecelia denied.
‘I can see the mark of your fingernails. You mustn’t do things like that, Sissy.’
‘Did — not — do — noffink,’ Sissy said.
‘You’re fibbing to Granny —’
The doll missed her head by inches. It landed in the lavender bush as Sissy flung herself to the floor to scream.
Amber came. She knew who was at fault. ‘What did you do to her?’
‘She pinched the baby.’
‘And you hit her?’
‘I did no such thing. She knows that I saw her being a naughty girl. That’s all that’s wrong with her.’
‘And you threw her doll away.’
‘As if I would, Amber. She threw it at me — and she doesn’t need comforting either,’ Gertrude added as Amber picked up that hulking great girl. ‘Look what she did to this little one’s face.’
‘She was only trying to make her smile,’ Amber said. ‘You’re always coming up here, fussing over her, putting her before your own granddaughter.’
‘That’s not true and you know it. It’s the first time I’ve been near her all day,’ Gertrude defended. She placed the quietened baby back into her pram and retrieved the doll. ‘Come with Granny and we’ll dress your dolly in her pretty clothes again.’
Cecelia, straddling her mother’s hip, was exactly where she wanted to be. She snatched the doll and pitched it further.
‘She needs curbing, Amber. Her behaviour is getting out of hand.’
‘Save your meddling for your darkies,’ Amber said. ‘It’s not needed here. Neither are you.’
Gertrude stepped back, just a reflex step, then another, not so reflex. She’d left her basket in the hall. She collected it on the way out.
Her horse was waiting for her out front, her good and patient Nugget. She placed an arm over his neck and leaned for a moment, feeling the need of that contact. She felt picked up and shaken to her roots, her heart dancing at a hundred miles an hour.
Amber had always had her father’s fair colouring, his curly hair, his fine-built frame, but never his eyes. She’d seen them today, had seen him looking back at her, and those eyes could still send tremors from the base of Gertrude’s skull running down her spine. She looked at the hand stroking her horse’s neck, expecting to see it trembling. It wasn’t. Her shaking was internal.
She’d learnt to keep most of her feelings inside, to keep herself to herself. Self was the best place to keep some things if you didn’t want them turning into common town gossip.
She glanced at the house, placed the basket on a fencepost, then, foot in the stirrup, she mounted, set the basket before her, flicked the rein and started for home.
And she had troubles there too, brought on by her meddling.
Did she meddle? Maybe she offered advice too readily, but it got to be a habit. And when a man’s wife or child was sick, he wanted someone to tell him what to do. Most in town trusted her to meddle. Some even paid her to do it.
Shouldn’t have told her that Sissy needed curbing. Maybe shouldn’t have agreed to falsify that birth registration. Shouldn’t have taken little Elsie from Wadi’s camp — or should have sent her home to him a month ago. Should have done a lot of things and shouldn’t have done a lot more. But you can only do what you think is right at the time, and sending that girl back to Wadi to starve wasn’t right.
Not that he was starving at the moment. Three of her young goats had gone missing in recent weeks. She knew he’d taken them, knew why he’d taken them. Three times he’d come for Elsie. She’d hidden. Gertrude kept her milkers tethered now, in the orchard paddock behind her house. That thieving old coot knew better than to venture too near. She’d pulled the rifle on him the last time he’d come creeping around, and got off a shot too, just to show him she knew how it was done.
It was a mistake becoming attached to those kids. She’d done it before. Two years back she’d brought in an eight-year-old boy with a chest infection and got him well. Wadi had come to her door demanding him and the boy had gone willingly. Six months later he was dead. She’d sworn that day she’d never do it again, but she’d gone and done it again. Couldn’t stop herself . . . from meddling.
A planter of seed, Gertrude, a gardener. She loved the watering, the tending, the watching of a spindly plant grow sturdy. Three months ago she’d planted a silent matchstick child down the bottom end of her kitchen; she’d poured in goat’s milk, plied her with fresh eggs and sugar, tended her and watched her grow from that silent matchstick child into a pretty, smiling girl.
Watched her little belly rounding out too, and for a time had convinced herself good eating was responsible. It had little to do with eating, and was no shock at all to Elsie. She liked babies, knew where babies came from, and saw nothing wrong with having one of her own. Gertrude had put her age at ten or twelve when she’d brought her in, and God only knew how she’d got into that state. Elsie wouldn’t say.
Ernie Ogden knew she was in the family way. Last week he’d arranged with Vern to take her out to the mission. They’d come by late one morning but Elsie had seen them coming and she’d taken off. All day she’d been gone, Gertrude and the men convinced she’d gone back to Wadi. She’d come home at nightfall.
It had to be done. Vern was coming down tomorrow, planning to catch her eating lunch — and Gertrude not looking forward to tricking that little girl.
She glanced at Vern’s house as she rode by. Joanne Hooper was seated in the shade of the verandah, her boy at her side. She nodded a bare acknowledgment to Gertrude’s wave. Like old Cecelia Morrison, Joanne had never made the transition to country. City bor
n, city educated, city clad, she’d moved to Woody Creek with her first husband during the war years. He’d been worth a fortune, but hadn’t lived to spend it. Everyone had expected Joanne to sell up and make a beeline back to the city when he was killed, but she’d wed Vern instead. She was a nice enough woman — though not nice enough for Vern.
Their boy was a worry to Gertrude. No doubt they fed him well, but he looked like a half-starved, elongated gnome, all ears, eyes and mouth. He clung to his mother — or she clung to him. Vern barely got a look-in.
Gertrude rode on, not eager to get home today, knowing that Elsie would be waiting at the gate for her, waiting with a smile. She wouldn’t be smiling tomorrow — and Gertrude would be feeling like Judas Iscariot.
It was nice to be welcomed home, nice to have the gate opened and closed behind her, nice too knowing that her stove was burning, her kettle boiling, her goats not tangled up in their tethering ropes and no chooks in the garden. But she had to go. She’d get proper schooling at the mission, and if she didn’t, then her baby would. The decision had been made and Gertrude had to stick to it. She had a daughter in town and two granddaughters. They were her family, her future. She had to put her mind to making that relationship work.
‘Home again, me darlin’.’ Gertrude greeting that smiling face as she handed down her basket.
Elsie had a way of hop-skipping when she was happy. Gertrude followed her down the track, knowing that she couldn’t go playing tricks on that trusting little girl, that she had to be told that Vern was coming tomorrow.
They got the saddle off, got Nugget back into his paddock. They gave the chooks fresh water, collected ten more eggs, and it seemed like the right time.
‘Vern will be coming by to take you out to the mission, darlin’.’
Didn’t say when and Elsie didn’t ask. Her smile vanished, and, fifteen minutes later, she vanished.
Gertrude milked her goats, moved their tethers, filled up their water trough, had a look in the shed for Elsie, looked underneath the tank stand, overgrown by her climbing rose. There were too many places to hide on her acres.