Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  ‘He educates them.’

  She sent her last goat on its way, passed the bucket over the fence, then climbed between the wires. He led the way back to the house.

  Apart from Elsie’s lean-to and a couple of chook pens, every building, every gate and most of the fences on her patch of land had been built by Gertrude’s father. He hadn’t been a tidy builder but he’d built strong.

  ‘You said you’d marry me forty years ago.’

  ‘You were better looking then.’

  ‘So were you — but I’m willing to cut my losses.’

  ‘Take that milk into Elsie for me, will you? I’ll feed my chooks.’

  Her father had built her shed, a big one, or built three tall solid walls and roof, then knocked together two massive doors to fill a fourteen-foot gap. Gertrude couldn’t remember them being closed in her lifetime. Ten or fifteen years back, she’d given those doors a second life as walls for her cockerel pen. She made good money from her cockerels at Christmas time.

  Her father had planted the orchard — and cared for his trees better than she. She hadn’t pruned them in . . . not since the year Amber wed. There was only so much time in a day, and a damn sight less on a winter’s day.

  Good sense told her she ought to move in with Vern. They could never marry. She’d walked out on Archie Foote over thirty years ago, and when she’d tried to divorce him, he’d come back and ruined everything. She hadn’t tried a second time, maybe a case of leaving sleeping dogs lie.

  Her granddaughters needed her in town and she knew it. Norman needed her in town. But Elsie and Joey needed her down here too. If Vern’s offer had included taking them with her, she would have gone in a minute. He never said a word against them, but there was no way he’d have them living in his house.

  It was Vern who had suggested the lean-to. He’d paid for the roofing iron, donated the timber — his plan to get Elsie and Joey out of her kitchen. Then along came Norman and ruined his plan, for which she’d been grateful. They’d constructed a worthy addition to her house, big enough for bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers, which had cleared a lot of space in her kitchen and bedroom.

  She scooped wheat from bag to basin, tossed it to her chooks, then turned to look at her house and Vern leaning in the doorway. His head near brushed the top of her doorframe. He always ducked it low when he entered, more habit than necessity.

  She didn’t join him, not immediately, but stood, her back to her chicken-wire gate, attempting to see the house through his eyes. It wasn’t much of a house, but a pretty sight right now. A pink climbing rose had forgotten its place. It clambered up her western bedroom wall and over most of the roof, adding colour and insulation.

  Vern’s house, by comparison, was palatial. He had rooms leading off rooms, verandahs leading into rooms, lawns and garden he paid Wally Lewis to keep weed free and a hedge of the finest roses in all of the land. She loved his roses. Maybe she could get used to a bit of luxury.

  How would he feel though, when they came knocking on his door in the middle of the night, wanting her to bring the babies?

  He was accustomed to it. Since he’d bought his first car, a lot had come knocking on his door.

  Did she want to live in town, start wearing skirts instead of trousers? Vern didn’t like her trousers. He’d bought her the most beautiful blouse back before Amber had got involved with Norman. She hadn’t worn it since Amber’s wedding. Not that she had anything against pretty things; she loved pretty things — not a lot of use owning them if you had no place to wear them, though.

  She glanced over her paddocks, her land, her safety. She’d sworn once that she’d never leave it; swore too that she’d never again join her life up to any man’s.

  Vern wasn’t just any man. Vern was Vern and she loved him like a brother — though not always like a brother. Kissing cousins, she and Vern. We should have wed back when we were kids, she thought. Should have lived on his farm and raised a dozen sons. Should have. Could have. She’d been born to farm, born to breed.

  Healing wasn’t in her blood. She was a midwife by default — or her fault for marrying a half-mad quack with itchy feet, who, depending on his mood when he woke in the morning, might set her up in a mud hut with a mob of missionaries intent on healing the hordes of Africa, or install her in a cabin on a luxury liner while he doctored the rich. She’d spent the best part of eight years following him around the world, and had nothing good to say about those years, other than what little she’d learnt of healing, she’d learnt from him — or on him.

  She’d manhandled a black baby into the world one night when Archie had ridden off for supplies and stayed away for three weeks. The father of the babe had paid her with a scrawny chicken. She’d wrung its skinny neck and fried it for her dinner, picked its bones for breakfast then made soup out of them that night.

  She’d done her first stitching of flesh on Archie when he’d come home bleeding like a stuck pig from a two-inch gash over his left ear. A mob of Spaniards had done their best to make her a widow at twenty-one, and in hindsight she would have been better off had they been successful. She’d stitched him up and they’d moved on.

  He was an opium addict, had been an addict when she’d wed him, though she hadn’t known it at the time. He’d told her he had weak lungs, that the crate of medicine he’d carried to Africa was vital to his survival. Maybe it was; laudanum was a potent mixture of opium and alcohol. She hadn’t known what it was back then. She hadn’t known much back then. She’d cried for him the first time she’d seen him crazed by his need for his medicine. And when the madness left him, when he’d promised to use no more, she’d believed him. In Germany, in Japan, she’d believed him. Argentina, when he’d used his drugs on her and aborted her baby boy and almost killed her in the doing of it, she stopped believing.

  ‘All fixed, Tru,’ he’d said. ‘All fixed.’

  She’d tried to leave him in Argentina. He’d told her she’d never leave him, that she was necessary to him. He hadn’t needed her; he’d needed the money his family paid him to stay out of Australia, and would continue to pay him while she was at his side. They wouldn’t let her starve, he’d said, though she’d done her fair share of starving.

  For near on eight years he’d collected that quarterly payment. It had followed them to India, to his opium paradise, to her heated-up hell. The trains were purgatory. They’d spent days on them, travelling native class, hard seats, chickens squawking, livestock bleating. The stink, the heat — she’d passed out and known why. Archie, too sick and sorry for himself, hadn’t noticed he’d planted another baby inside her.

  There’d been nothing much left of Gertrude by then, other than hope for her baby, other than determination that he wouldn’t find it, other than the knowledge that she had to get away from him before he found out about this baby and murdered it too.

  He’d got his money, got his opium, and she’d watched him and waited, able to read him now like her father could read the weather in the morning sky. She was almost four months along with Amber the day her stars had slipped into alignment. She’d got away.

  Until her dying day, she’d never forget that coming home. The smell of the town. The scent of wet gum leaves. The goats, the grass, the orchard just bursting into bud. And the sounds of home, the cackle of chooks, warble of magpies. And her mother’s scream. And her arms, and her tears, and her father holding her, and the smell of his pipe tobacco. Safe. Safe. Home.

  She’d been back for a week when Mick Boyle’s son went down with scarlet fever. Two weeks later, half of the kids in town started dropping like flies. She hadn’t known much, but the little she’d known was fifty years more advanced than what old Granny McPherson, the then midwife, knew of treating the disease. She’d worked with her for weeks, and about all she could recall of that time was the relief of being home and of her baby fluttering around inside her.

  Granny McPherson brought Amber into the world, a pale, bald little mite, but with all of her bits and pieces
in the right places. She hadn’t looked like Archie, not at birth. Maybe as a three year old she’d shown a fleeting resemblance to Archie’s sister, but she’d outgrown that. She’d never missed having a father, or she hadn’t while her grandparents had lived. They’d adored her and she’d adored them. Lost them too early. One after the other they’d gone, he first, and less than a year later she’d followed him.

  Just Gertrude and her darlin’ girl then, living too far from town, scratching for every penny. And old Granny McPherson growing too old to deliver a difficult baby. Gertrude was young enough, strong enough. She hadn’t wanted the job, but they’d kept on coming to her door.

  How many times had she lifted Amber from a warm bed then set her down on a strange cold couch? One too many. Amber had grown old enough to resent it. She’d grown old enough to resent any calls on her mother’s time, Vern included.

  After the death of his first wife, he’d asked Gertrude to wed. She was thirty-nine at the time, young enough to have half a dozen sons. They’d had a daughter each. They’d wanted a few sons.

  Fools, both of them. She should have moved out to his farm back then and lived in sin, but her own and Vern’s upbringing wouldn’t allow that. She’d heard nothing from Archie in thirteen years. Vern was convinced that he was dead. She wasn’t, so they’d set the wheels of divorce in motion. The solicitor sent the papers to Archie, care of his father, and six weeks later the sod turned up on her doorstep.

  That was the end of her marriage plans — and her relationship with Amber. She blamed Archie Foote for ruining the bond she’d had with her girl. He’d rip a rare flower from its stem and crush it beneath his boot, for no reason other than he could.

  And he wasn’t a good place for her mind to go wandering near nightfall. The sun and hard labour scared him away. Come nightfall and every memory of him was like a pit of quicksand, waiting to suck her down.

  ‘How old is she now, Trude?’

  Gertrude turned her eyes from the past to Vern. He was still standing in the doorway, smoking again, maybe watching her face remembering. He could read her well, as she could read him.

  ‘She was thirty-two this year.’

  ‘The little one, Jennifer,’ he clarified.

  ‘Jenny? She’s not long gone four.’

  ‘She was talking away to Jimmy like a little old woman today — discussing tombstones.’

  ‘That’s Norman’s doing. He speaks to those girls as he might to his parson uncle.’

  ‘So, how about it — moving into town and having some say in her raising?’

  Maybe he glimpsed the thought of refusal, which wasn’t what he’d come out here for.

  ‘Come down to Willama with me when I go to pick up the Abbot boy. We’ll stick a ring on your finger.’

  ‘I’ve still got one somewhere, Vern. I’ve been thinking about it, but we’re past making the change.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ he said. ‘They’re letting him out on Monday morning. We could go down on Sunday night.’

  She sighed. And why shouldn’t she go with him? Maybe she didn’t want to move in with him, but there was no good reason why a couple of their age couldn’t spend time together.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind doing some shopping down there . . .’

  ‘We’ll make it an overnight shopping trip. Give you plenty of time for shopping,’ he said, happy now, that grin splitting his face and shaping it up just fine.

  Something about that man’s grin had a softening effect on her heart, something about it — about him — made her smile.

  ‘I haven’t got that much to spend,’ she said.

  OLD LOVERS

  She took care with her dressing on Sunday evening. She wore the blue silk blouse Vern had given her, then a cool change blew through, dropping the temperature down enough to make her know she’d need a cardigan. She tried on a worn green thing she’d had for years and it was an insult to the blouse, so she changed her trousers for the skirt she’d made for Amber’s wedding, then reached for the stranger’s lightweight black coat, not expecting it to fit, but over that silk blouse it fitted well enough.

  It was a beautifully cut thing, lightweight but woollen or a wool mixture. There’d been a time when she’d owned fancy clothes, when Archie had chosen to spend his money on her back. Most of what she wore these days started its life on her treadle sewing machine but she recognised class when she saw it.

  ‘You’re a fine-looking woman when you take trouble with yourself,’ Vern said.

  ‘You’ll have to keep reminding me to sit with my knees together,’ she said, straightening her skirt as she settled into the passenger seat.

  ‘I’m a truthful man, Trude. I can’t say that that’s what I’ve got in mind.’

  ‘You’re a terrible man. I ought to change my mind about going.’

  ‘But you won’t.’

  She didn’t. The evening drive was pleasant, the meal that night was too much, but nice anyway. He’d booked a room at a small hotel, a double room. She told him he was past it, told him she’d forgotten how it was done, but he had one thing on his mind and, when all was said and done, neither one of them was past it.

  They ate a good breakfast in the dining room and were waiting at shop doors for them to open. She bought four yards of hard-wearing grey fabric and two of a pretty floral for Elsie. She bought a pair of shoes for Joey. Vern wanted to buy her a pair with heels three inches tall, and got niggly when she wouldn’t try them on.

  ‘You’re moving in with me,’ he argued. ‘You won’t need to walk in them.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was moving in with you, and even if I do, I won’t be getting around in skirts and high-heeled shoes. If you want to waste your money, buy me a bag of wheat for my chooks.’

  ‘Bugger your chooks,’ he said. ‘You’re my wife. I want to buy you nice things.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything in a hurry so it’s no use pushing me. Let me come to my own decision in my own time.’

  At ten they picked up the Abbot boy; by midday they were back in Woody Creek and Gertrude pleased to be there and back in her trousers and comfortable shirts.

  She told Elsie that night that she might be moving into town with Vern and asked her how she’d feel about staying out here alone with Joey.

  ‘For how long, Mum?’ Elsie said.

  ‘I don’t know, love. It’s just a maybe.’

  Elsie and Joey in bed, Gertrude, weary in body but not in mind, wasn’t ready to sleep. She poured a mug of tea, put the lamp out and pulled a chair up to her open door, needing time in the dark to sort out her mind. There was a moon shining bright tonight, enough to see by. She sat looking out over her land, sipping scalding tea and attempting to dissect the past twenty-four hours.

  Old mopoke calling, a plover replying, her mind slipping back to other nights, other doorways in other lands, waiting for Archie to come home.

  He’d had the looks of a saint and the soul of a devil. She’d been wed around three months, had been on the boat to Africa when she’d gone to her cabin to get a jacket and caught him and a friend there in what might be called a compromising situation. To a nineteen-year-old country girl who hadn’t known about such things, she’d seen no more than two naked men. Embarrassed, she’d closed the door and run.

  A year on and she’d known more — known a lot more. She’d pitched a bucket of water at him, as she might at a rutting dog. Archie hadn’t been happy. He hadn’t marked her face but he’d damn near crippled her.

  No one knew the full truth of her years with Archie. Her mother wouldn’t have understood what she was talking about. Her father wouldn’t have wanted to know that she knew of such things, and maybe she hadn’t wanted Vern to know how much she knew.

  Her biggest mistake had been made in keeping what Archie was from Amber. She’d raised her to believe her father was a clever doctor who travelled the world healing sick children. And it wasn’t a lie. He had been a clever doctor when he’d used his skill in healing. She’d told Amb
er he’d disappeared in India so she’d had to come home to Granny and Grandpa. That wasn’t a lie. He’d gone missing all right, as had the sixteen-year-old son of a British army officer, who, with a dozen of his cronies, had gone looking for him; she hadn’t waited around to see if they’d found him either.

  Thirteen years of not thinking about him, then he’d turned up at her door, better looking in his forties than he’d been in his twenties, and dressed like a toff. She’d greeted him in boots and trousers, and he’d laughed in her face. She’d stopped his laughter. She’d loaded up her father’s rifle and pointed it, told him there were easier ways of getting shut of him than the divorce courts, and there was plenty of room on her land to bury vermin too, then she’d let off a shot at his shoes and laughed at him when he’d danced.

  He’d gone, though not far enough. He was a nephew of Mrs Monk, out at Three Pines. He’d gone out there, and on the following Sunday, he’d ridden in with Max Monk, a chap of Vern’s age, neighbour and friend of Vern’s since boyhood. She could hardly pull a gun on him. And Amber was at home. She’d seen that wedding photograph. She’d known who he was. Thirteen, at the stage of crossing over from girl to woman; he couldn’t have chosen a worse time to show up.

  ‘That mongrel would charm the bloomers off a nun and have the choirboys’ off for seconds,’ she told the night.

  They hadn’t stayed long that Sunday. She’d made it clear to Monk that she didn’t want Archie on her land, and he hadn’t come back. But, unbeknown to her, he’d gone to the school and taken Amber from the playground, bought her fancy shoes from Miller’s store, a white Sunday-go-meeting frock from Blunt’s. She hadn’t brought them home, not then. She’d hidden them somewhere.

  Gertrude may never have found out she’d been meeting her father if not for Amber’s first verbal attack.

  ‘You had boyfriends all the time you were married to my father,’ she’d said. ‘You took me away from my father because he loved me. I’m going to live with him in Melbourne, and his house has got more rooms than Monk’s house.’