by Joy Dettman
She swung an empty lemonade bottle at that bald head one windy afternoon, and was surprised at the results. Jenny fell over. She didn’t bawl and didn’t get up.
At twenty-two months, Jennifer had less meat on her bones than a day-old lamb and less hair on her head than a newborn mouse, which made the inch-long split in her scalp look worse than it was. Amber picked her up and ran with her to Norman. He didn’t see the scalp wound, only the left eye socket filled with blood. He carried her over the road to the constable’s house, while Amber comforted Cecelia, who hadn’t realised that a little hit with a lemonade bottle would cause so much fuss.
Ernie Ogden’s wife had seven boys. She’d seen her share of blood. She mopped out the eye socket, looked at the gash, told Norman it would need a few stitches, told him to press the pad to the wound, then she yelled for her oldest boy to ride down and fetch Gertrude.
Norman carried Jenny home, her tiny arms clinging to his neck. Perhaps the seed of love had lain dormant in his heart since her baby mouth had first turned to his touch. He realised how deeply its roots had become entrenched that day when he held her down on the kitchen table. He could feel the pain in his own bowel as Gertrude placed each stitch into baby flesh. His spectacles fogged for her, and when it was done he scooped her back into his arms.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Forgive your daddy.’
He had not asked the question of Amber, the how, the where, and thus had not received the lie. She attempted to take Jenny from his arms; he didn’t release her, but walked with her up and down the passage while she sobbed the last of her pain into his shoulder.
Gertrude asked the question. She was packing her equipment into her cane basket. Norman came to the door to hear Amber’s reply.
‘She fell over. She never walks if she can run,’ Amber said.
Jenny heard that lie. She lifted her head from her father’s shoulder and, her big teary eyes looking into his, she removed her sucking thumb from her mouth and pointed it at Cecelia. ‘Sissywidabotta, Duddy,’ she said.
‘I did not do noffink to you.’ Jenny’s speech, still unintelligible to an adult, was crystal clear to Cecelia, who had watched the entire bloody operation with morbid interest. ‘You’re telling big fat liars.’
‘What did she say, love?’ Gertrude asked.
‘Noffink.’ Cecelia backed away to her mother.
‘Can you show Daddy what happened to your sore head?’ Gertrude encouraged.
Eyeing the stranger who had hurt her, Jenny slid the long way down to the floor, took Norman’s hand and led him out to the back verandah where, with two hands, she picked up the lemonade bottle.
‘Sissywidabotta,’ she repeated.
‘She’s telling liars,’ Cecelia yelled, but Norman had the bottle, Jenny’s sucking thumb was accusing her again and two sets of eyes were believing that thumb.
‘I did never do noffink like that,’ Cecelia screamed. She knew that the fastest way to change the subject was to throw a tantrum. By necessity, all conversation ceased when she screamed.
‘I know you didn’t do it,’ Amber soothed, on her knees beside her. ‘No one thinks you did it, sweetheart.’
‘A baby doesn’t know how to lie,’ Gertrude said.
‘She doesn’t know what she’s saying either, and I don’t know what she’s saying. As if Cecelia would hit her with a bottle.’
Jenny stood watching her sister’s performance, her thumb returned to her mouth, the other hand feeling her stitches, while Norman placed the offending bottle with others of its ilk beneath the verandah. She ran to him. He picked her up, but a glance at Amber and he set Jenny back on her feet.
He is afraid of her, Gertrude thought, and a wave of compassion washed through her. She’d never liked the man, had once likened him to a bloodhound. He had the bulk, the hangdog eyes, even the jowls of a bloodhound — but one whipped into submission as a pup, trained to fetch and carry for an old bitch. He was of a size to be dangerous, but off his mother’s leash he belonged to no one. Not to Amber, that was obvious. Not to that screaming brat of a girl kicking herself in circles on the verandah. Maybe little Jenny could claim him. Someone had to claim him or he was a lost man.
It’s hard — no, it’s near impossible — to see the wrong in those we love, she thought, and when we do see it, we do our best to ignore it. Through the years she’d ignored the worst of Amber. There were times she’d told herself that Norman deserved what he got, that he should have known better. He was ten years older than Amber and city raised; he should have known better. Fifty, a hundred times, she’d blamed him for ruining her daughter’s life. Today Gertrude allowed herself to admit that her own girl was the despoiler. She was ruining Cecelia’s life, and unless she was stopped, she’d ruin Jenny’s. There was something sadly wrong with Amber, something missing in that girl. Always as pretty as a picture, but there was hard, non-giving glass in front of that picture now and God only knew what behind it.
‘Get up from there. You’ll get splinters in your bottom,’ Gertrude said. Cecelia raised the volume. ‘You need to get her to school, Norm?’
‘She’ll go when she’s ready to go,’ Amber replied.
‘She’s more than ready to go. She needs to be spending her days with kids her own age, not abusing babies,’ Gertrude said. And she needs a few of those kids to give her back a dose of her own medicine. ‘She’s supposed to be reading and writing, adding her sums, not splitting babies’ heads with lemonade bottles.’
‘She didn’t hit her, I said, and don’t think you can start coming up here again, tossing around your advice on child raising. I spent more nights in other people’s beds than I did in my own — and so did you, you unprincipled old trollop.’
‘Turning your attack on me, my girl, won’t convince anyone that a lemonade bottle didn’t make that gash. And lifting that girl up like that won’t do your back any good either. You’re pregnant again, aren’t you?’
‘If I am, you won’t be getting anywhere near it.’
‘Vern’s boy is in boarding school,’ Norman said.
‘His useless mother spends her life trotting to theatres in the city, that’s why he’s at boarding school,’ Amber said.
‘She’s not trotting anywhere right now. She’s in the Alfred hospital with a growth. They’re operating next week,’ Gertrude said.
‘Oooh, cross your fingers, Mum. You might get another chance at him,’ Amber said, hauling her load indoors.
Gertrude turned to Jenny, standing quietly at her side. The side of her scalp was swollen, the flesh raw, four spiky black stitches standing tall. It would leave a scar, but her hair would eventually grow through to hide it. Tiny wee ears, dear little nose, wide, watchful eyes. Even in the state Gertrude had seen the stranger, it was obvious she’d been a beautiful woman. This mite had her fine features and her Mediterranean complexion, not her eye colouring though. That woman’s eyes had been brown.
There’ll be bigger problems than split scalps in this house before those two girls are much older, she thought as she reached down to kiss the tiny mite who leaned into her leg like so much thistledown.
‘Keep those stitches dry for a week, Norm,’ she said. ‘Dab them with a bit of iodine twice a day. I’ll come in on Friday and take them out.’
DESERTION
Trouble came in cycles when it came to Woody Creek. Months could pass and not a call made on Gertrude’s time, then some star moved out of line and they were back at her door again, day or night. She delivered another Duffy on the night following Jenny’s accident, delivered it in a shed not fit for dogs, but plenty of the flea-riddled mongrels wandering in and out. Clarry Dobson’s wife went into labour that same night. She wanted a girl and ended up with another boy. On the Tuesday, one of the tree fellers came to get her. Big Henry King, a champion wood cutter, who could fell a tree faster drunk than most could do it sober must have been sober. His axe had slipped, sliced through his boot and damn near split his big toe in two. Big Henry’s foot ha
dn’t seen water in a year or two and his house had seen less. The Kings were a cut above the Duffy family — they didn’t own flea-riddled dogs, though Henry’s wife may have made up the shortfall. Gertrude refused to go inside so Henry hopped outside and sat on the crate he used as a kitchen chair. She washed his foot while he cursed her. It seemed that he’d missed the bone. She flushed the wound with saltwater then stitched where she could while he called her everything but a lady. By the time she’d reached the stage of dousing it with iodine, he was threatening to come after her one night with his axe, but she bound it tightly and told him to stay off it for a day or two, unless he wanted to lose his toe. She didn’t tell him to keep it dry. Unless it rained, there was not much chance of him getting it wet.
‘I’ll pop in on Friday and see how it’s going. Keep it up higher than your heart and it will give you less pain,’ she said. He was walking up to the hotel for a painkiller before she was on her horse.
Then that same day, Joanne Hooper died on the operating table.
Vern brought her home on the Wednesday night and they buried her on Thursday, the service held at the little Methodist church, which was hard pushed to hold twenty-five, including the pastor. They packed in fifty that day and fifty more stood outside. They were there for Vern. Few in town had been on more than nodding acquaintance with Joanne.
Gertrude didn’t go to the wake. She went to Norman’s house, intending to take out Jenny’s stitches. Amber was pale. She’d spent the day vomiting.
‘When are you due, darlin’?’ Gertrude said.
‘None of your business,’ Amber said.
‘I’ll take Jenny down with me for a few days. Get some rest.’
Jenny would forget her first ride on Gertrude’s horse. She didn’t enjoy it and was pleased to be lifted down to Elsie’s arms. She enjoyed Joey, a fat little boy, the colour of creamy coffee, who toddled behind her all day. She didn’t cry for her mother, and when on the following Friday she was lifted down from the pony cart at Norman’s gate, she clung to her grandmother.
‘Ina-cart,’ she said. ‘Go ina-cart now.’
Norman did not argue when Gertrude took Jenny home for one more week. He had plans for that week. Cecelia was to commence school.
Miss Rose, the infants’ mistress, was a pixie of a woman, four foot ten, her features pointed, her auburn hair cut in a sharp fringe and chiselled bob. She’d believed in fairytales at nineteen, had planned to marry her Prince Charming and raise a family of pixie children, but her fiancé had gone off to fight a war and he hadn’t returned. As a nineteen-year-old girl, she’d vowed never to wed but to spend her life in some worthwhile cause. Too small and gentle-natured to nurse, teaching had been her second choice.
She didn’t look like a teacher, didn’t dress as a teacher; she clothed herself in filmy greens, pretty pinks, plums, in beads, gold buckles and foolish hats. She was wearing one such foolish hat on the morning Norman delivered a screaming Cecelia to her classroom. The hat flew west as she stooped to speak to the child. Norman retrieved it.
‘She’ll settle down quite quickly when you leave, Mr Morrison,’ Miss Rose assured him.
During her seven years of teaching, Miss Rose had known many difficult days, had handled many difficult children, but that Monday eclipsed all others. She’d dodged a flying slate, calmed a bitten infant, bathed a scratched face, tolerated an hour of screaming, and all before noon, when she called for reinforcements.
Woody Creek’s school was a little taller than the average house but looked much the same as many residences. It consisted of three large rooms, each one opening onto a wide west-facing verandah. There was a cloakroom down the southern end of the building, partially open to the elements, and a narrow washroom at the northern end. The headmaster, John Curry, taught the senior children in a large room at the southern end. He wasn’t a big man, but he kept a firm control. Miss Rose ran down that verandah fifteen minutes before the lunch hour, Cecelia’s scream pursuing her.
‘Please,’ she said.
No more need be said. Her normally alabaster complexion was rosy red, her auburn hair, where never a tendril stepped out of line, was awry.
Like Galahad to the rescue, the headmaster led the way back to the junior room where he found the girl lying on the floor between two rows of desks, the other children grouped together near the door, watching the show. Some were amused, some chewed on hair, chewed on fingers. All were interested when he hauled Cecelia to her feet, carried her screaming out to the yard and dumped her beside the flagpole.
She ran the two blocks home, screaming all the way. Norman returned a relatively tame child. She remained relatively tame until he was out of sight, when the school day continued as it had begun.
‘Miss Rose, she pulled Irene’s hair nearly out by its roots.’
‘Miss Rose, she dug her fingernails nearly through my neck.’
Mr Curry spoke to Norman at the station. He suggested the girl may be unteachable. He mentioned her lack of respect for mistress, students and for himself. He suggested an educator in the city who was seemingly having some success in teaching the unteachable. Norman listened with great respect. He didn’t mention that his daughter had no respect for him, nor did he agree that the girl was unteachable. He nodded, and Mr Curry went on his way convinced the problem had been overcome.
The stationmaster continued walking his daughter to school and the teachers gave up attempting to get rid of her.
‘Do unto others as you will have others do unto you, Cecelia,’ Miss Rose said. ‘A badly trained dog bites, Cecelia. Are you a badly trained dog or a child?’
She bit Irene Palmer at playtime. Bit Ray King later. Threw missiles.
‘Miss Rose, Sissy Morrison pulled Valma’s pants down and some boys were looking.’
‘Miss Rose, she’s sitting on Sophie and pulling her hair out by the roots.’
Previous hair-pulling had gained the offender a full day of wearing a long hay-band wig, be the offender male of female. It was uncomfortable and reputedly full of head lice. No child chose to wear it more than once. The wig, offered to Cecelia on her second day at school, had ended up the in lavatory pan.
Cecelia grew taller during the months of Amber’s pregnancy. Her face, all broad chin and brow, was as flat as a freckled dinner plate, with as much character. Norman purchased a large rubber protective sheet when her bed-wetting became a regular occurrence. He paid Clarry Dobson’s unmarried sister to handle the laundry, while Amber kept to her bed, or kept to it during daylight hours. She walked on moonlit nights, walked for hours.
In the care of her grandmother and fed well on goat’s milk, eggs and garden greens, little Jenny grew in height, confidence and vocabulary. And her hair grew through, not dark as expected, not straight like the stranger’s, but tight, springy coils of gold.
‘She’s one of God’s angels, sent to us for a purpose,’ Nancy Bryant said.
She visited with Gertrude now, or with Jenny. She brought tiny hand-knitted sweaters and her grandson’s outgrown garments for Joey. She praised Elsie’s biscuits, praised her chubby brown-eyed son, and in time Elsie stopped running when she saw Nancy’s smart green gig coming down the track.
During the seventh month of Amber’s pregnancy, Charles, the parson, wrote suggesting Amber spend the final months with him and his wife in Melbourne. They were now living in central Melbourne, just around the corner from a fine lying-in hospital. Amber wanted to go, but Melbourne was a six-hour train journey away and that trip in her delicate condition could put the unborn child at risk.
In early March, Norman placed a phone call to the Willama hospital, explaining his wife’s situation and asking advice. One of the doctors agreed to make the trip to Woody Creek to assess the situation. He arrived at the designated time and, to Norman, looked little more than a callow youth, a youth who drove a sporty car. Norman paced the passage for an hour visualising what that youth may be doing to his wife.
He was at the door when it opened.
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‘The pregnancy appears to be progressing well,’ the youth reported. ‘However, given your wife’s history, all care must be taken. We have a well-equipped hospital in Willama, experienced doctors. I would suggest the child be born there, and the final weeks of your wife’s confinement be spent in Willama, close to medical assistance.’
There was a boarding house a few blocks from the hospital, run by a nurse and her husband. The youth offered to take care of all arrangements.
‘Should there be any difficulty in arranging transportation, the hospital now has a reliable vehicle, which for a small fee . . .’
The youth’s fee was not small. Norman paid it, then the sports car went on its way and Amber found new energy to argue for Melbourne. Her infant was not expected until late April.
‘What’s the difference between sitting in a comfortable first-class carriage for six hours to sitting on your mother’s couch, Norman?’
‘The doctor suggests —’
‘To hell with what he suggests. I didn’t want him up here in the first place.’
Norman did not relent. A room was booked for her in Willama, from 19 April. Vern agreed to transport her there. Maisy agreed to travel with her.
So March passed. Cecelia had her seventh birthday. Norman bought her a book. She didn’t like books. It ended its life in the lavatory pan.
And April came, a delightful month of warm days and cool evenings. Perhaps Amber walked too far on the evening of the sixth day of April. She awoke on the seventh day in pain.
Born to breed, Amber never suffered long in expelling her babies. Within two hours of the first twinge, she was pushing the head out. Gertrude, again waiting to deliver her grandchild, prayed to God, to Jesus and his mother, to anyone who might be up there, to please, please take care of this baby, to please allow it to be born alive, to let it breathe.