Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  On the Wednesday of the second week, Cecelia arrived home with her dark hair a nest of rag sausages.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  ‘Mum did it,’ Sissy said.

  ‘So it will be curly like mine,’ Jenny said. She’d stood for an hour in Maisy’s bathroom watching the operation. Sissy had a lot of hair.

  ‘The end most assuredly does not justify the means. Do you hope to sleep in those things?’

  ‘I have to.’

  Usually difficult to rouse in the mornings, Cecelia rose and left the house before he had the stove burning. He was serving the porridge when she returned, her hair now a mass of corkscrew curls. The specialist of the mind had not promised to perform miracles, only stated that his patient might lead a useful life. He had made no mention of his patient performing miracles.

  ‘I see you have invited a movie star to share our porridge, Jennifer,’ Norman said.

  He was not known for his humour. His breakfast table was not normally a place of laughter, but that morning his girls laughed at him, then with him, and perhaps for the first time he knew the true meaning of Home, sweet home. Then, miracle of miracles, Cecelia went willingly to school — if only to display her bobbing curls, which he had to admit were an improvement. They lent shape to her face, balanced her height, did something to disguise her heavy chin.

  A week more that woman remained at Maisy’s and each evening of that week time was stolen from Norman’s after-dinner lessons by his daughter’s need for rag curls; however, Maisy had assured him the visit would soon be brought to a close. It was common knowledge that her second daughter was marrying Ernie Ogden’s oldest son on the final Saturday in September and that the Macdonalds would require every bed they could get. Maisy and George might round up three cousins between them, but the Ogdens could multiply that three by itself, double the total and still insult as many again who had not been invited.

  Cecelia was old enough to show an interest in wedding gowns and wedding plans, Jennifer perhaps not. Her after-school visits to her mother shortened, and on the Saturday prior to the wedding, she spent the morning at the station and the afternoon with her friends.

  She had three best friends: Dora Palmer and Gloria Bull, who were already ten, and Nelly Abbot, who wouldn’t turn ten until February. Jenny and Nelly sat together at school and Mr Curry confused their names. They were of similar size and colouring. He didn’t confuse Dora and Gloria who also sat together. Dora was long and dark, Gloria round and dark.

  Jenny had realised early that her friends had mothers and fathers and she only had Norman at home. Since she’d first asked the question, she’d been told that her mother had become very sick and had to go away. Jimmy Hooper’s mother had gone to a city hospital to be made well and she’d died. Jenny’s mother had gone to a city hospital and been made well, though it had taken a very long time. She liked the idea of having a mother, even if she couldn’t live at home, which Norman said was due to a lack of beds. Which wasn’t the real reason, because Gloria’s father and mother were fat and they slept in the same bed in the same bedroom, as did Dora’s mother and father, who were thin. Amber was thin, Norman was a bit fat, but they would have fitted in one bed. They didn’t want to fit, that was the reason why Amber lived at Maisy’s. They didn’t even want to talk, because Norman, who had always played poker on Friday nights with George Macdonald, had stopped going over there to play.

  It was confusing. It was worrying too, but today she wasn’t even going to think about spare beds and mothers and Norman’s poker, because she and Dora and Nelly were playing mothers in Gloria’s playhouse shed, which was out the back of the hotel and the best place to play because Gloria had no little sisters or brothers wanting to play, and no big ones to spy on their play — her older sister went to high school in the city. She had the best dress-up things too. Gloria’s mother had given her a box of hats and bags and scarfs, things people left behind in the hotel rooms, and on that Saturday afternoon she brought out a huge bunch of paper flowers, grown too dusty to leave in the dining room. The Bulls were preparing for an influx of wedding guests on Friday night.

  It was the flowers that suggested their game that day, and Nelly’s grandmother, who had died two weeks ago. The friends clad themselves in hats and stray gloves, tied scarfs at their throats, chose purse or handbag, then, armed with their paper flowers, they walked sedately across the railway lines, across the park and sports oval, to the hole in the cemetery fence, where they climbed through and made their way to Nelly’s grandmother’s grave, still a red hump in the earth with only a wooden cross.

  ‘We’re going to get her a stone when things get better,’ Nelly said, playing the game. ‘Stones cost a lot of money, you know.’

  ‘My word they do,’ Dora said.

  They gave the hump four flowers, poking their wires deep into the dirt, then they walked off to visit Jenny’s grandmother Duckworth, who was lucky because she’d died in the olden days when people had plenty of money. Her stone was tall and white and had three fat angels climbing on it — except today the Macdonald twins, either bored with the wedding plans or their visitor, were climbing on it and drawing rude body parts on the angels.

  ‘We’re telling on you,’ Nelly said, forgetting she was a grown-up lady.

  ‘Get lost kid’s-stuff,’ they said.

  The twins had learnt nothing of importance during their time away at school, other than how to catch a train into the city and where to get a free meal when they got hungry. The principal had threatened to send them home if they repeated the exercise, and as they’d wanted to go home, they’d repeated it twice. Their end-of-year exam results, which arrived home before the twins, included the words incorrigible, young rogues, and concluded with expelled.

  Mr Curry refused to take them back. He suggested a good reform school. George told him what he could do with his good reform school, then gave up, as he’d given up attempting to drive his truck. Harry Hall could park that thing on a sixpenny bit if required.

  The twins, thirteen last May but still waiting for their growth spurt, weren’t the size of average thirteen-year-old boys. Dora, waiting for her growth spurt to stop, was close to them in height and not scared of them. She had two big brothers, who were a foot taller than her and who’d get those twins if they ever hurt her.

  ‘We’re going straight over to tell Mr Denham what you’re doing,’ she said.

  The twins dodged Denham when they could, but he wasn’t in sight so they continued their drawing. One drew a giant sausage on the top angel’s round belly. The other one gave it a smiley face. The girls may not have understood its meaning, but had seen similar rude drawings quickly washed away or painted over. They walked off to continue their game.

  Dora’s grandmother’s grave had a shiny black stone. They gave her four flowers, then shared the last of their dusty collection between a mother and her five children who had died of diphtheria thirty years ago and a lonely grey stone that had no name, only J.C. LEFT THIS LIFE 31-12-23.

  ‘She’s your mother,’ one twin yelled.

  ‘Yours was Snow White, you dwarves,’ Dora yelled back, then, their borrowed hats held down, the girls ran for a hole in the wire fence because the twins got upset when anyone called them dwarves.

  They chased them, chanting one of their stupid rhymes.

  ‘Old J.C., she went off to have a pee,

  Squatted down behind a tree,

  Dropped her pants and found Jenny,

  Old J.C., now stinks out the cemetery,

  Since many long years ago —’

  ‘We’re going straight to Mr Denham and telling him that you said dirty things to us, as well as drawing dirty things on Jenny’s angels,’ Dora said, safe on the other side of the fence. ‘He’ll make you scrub them like he made you scrub Charlie White’s windows.’

  ‘On a ladder,’ Nelly yelled, ‘because you’re dwarves.’ She had three big brothers and wasn’t scared of the twins
one little bit.

  They ran then, handbags flapping, hats in hand, scarfs flying, across the oval, over the road and down through the memorial park, the twins yelling after them.

  ‘Ask your father why your mother went mad if you don’t believe us.’

  The girls were safe in the park. The Macdonalds’ house windows overlooked the park fence and one of the Macdonald girls was always looking out. The twins were scared of their sisters.

  Dora knew there was some secret about Jenny, who had her birthday on the same day J.C. had died. She’d heard her mother and father talking about Jenny, and about her mother, who no one had expected would ever come home. She hadn’t heard enough to know what the secret was, only enough for her father to tell her that she must never mention anything she might overhear in the house. She eyed the twins, who could be old enough to know the secret.

  Jenny wanted to go back to the playhouse. She walked away from the group to sit on the swing and watch things.

  A swagman, an old one, walked across the road wearing a long black coat. He had a Father Christmas beard and walked with a stick, though he didn’t use it like Mr Foster used his walking stick. She thought he’d walk past, but he didn’t. He was going to cut through the park. She swung a little and closed her eyes. She liked swinging with her eyes closed. It was a bit like flying. She thought he would have gone past, but he’d stopped and he was looking at her. Then he looked down and reached for something in the grass.

  ‘Yours,’ he said, offering something on a chain.

  She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. She’d been told to stay far away from those swagmen. Lots of them passed through Woody Creek now, young ones and old ones. She shook her head.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it fell from your handbag, madam.’

  Then he smiled and tossed what he’d found, and with a reflex catch it was in her hand, and he was walking on his way towards the sports oval. It was the most perfect, precious thing she’d ever seen in her life! She stopped her swinging and slid from the seat.

  ‘What did he give you?’

  Little girls are all-seeing. They clustered around her, eyeing the pretty thing, a pearl trapped in a tiny cage of gold.

  ‘He found it. Just down there,’ Jenny said.

  ‘He should have given it to Mr Denham.’

  Jenny nodded. That’s what you had to do if you found things that didn’t belong to you. She didn’t want to give it to Mr Denham. It was so beautiful, but someone must have lost it.

  Old J.C., she went off to have a pee,

  Squatted down behind a tree . . .

  MRS MORRISON

  Maisy came to the station on the Wednesday prior to the wedding. Had Norman known why she was there he would not have greeted her with a smile.

  ‘Could you see your way clear to take her for the weekend?’ she said.

  ‘We have no spare beds.’

  ‘Sissy said Jenny could sleep with her and Amber could have Jenny’s room.’

  ‘I believe her mother has offered her a bed.’

  ‘You know as well as me that she won’t go near that place. I’m sorry to do this to you, but it’s happened. I didn’t invite her, Norman, and I didn’t think she’d stay this long. Not that I mind having her. She’s doing most of the cooking and cleaning for me. If it was anyone other than the Ogdens, I’d find room somewhere, but I can’t have her there with Mary and Ernie. They know everything. It would be too uncomfortable for her and for them.’

  ‘She will be at the wedding?’

  ‘Lord, no! That’s another thing I feel bad about. She’s been my best friend for thirty years and I can’t even invite her to my daughter’s wedding. It’s a terrible mess all around.’

  Did he feel a mere hiss, a whisper of pity — pity for his wife, the whore — or perhaps for his neighbour, his girls’ surrogate mother? He could not have managed without her these past years. Now she was asking something of him.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘It would only be for the weekend.’

  ‘I’ll pay for her accommodation at the hotel.’

  ‘It will be full of the Ogdens and their relatives on Friday night. I wouldn’t ask you, but I’ve already asked Jean White and . . . and she’s as bad as the Ogdens. Just Friday and maybe the hotel can take her on Saturday and Sunday. She’ll clean the house up for you.’

  His house did not require her cleaning. He did not require her to touch one grain of his dust.

  Maisy wouldn’t leave; the station lad was listening.

  ‘If I tell her to stay out of your way, she will, Norman. You wouldn’t need to see her. George isn’t putting off his poker night. Come over straight from the station.’

  He had missed his Friday-night poker. He looked towards the house denied him this September, and Maisy, seeing him waver, pressed her advantage.

  He capitulated. ‘Friday night,’ he said.

  He stayed well clear of his house that Friday, stayed clear of it until ten minutes before six, until the smell of her beef and onion stew began wafting across the station yard. He followed it home, where he found his girls setting the table for four. The woman spoke to him. He acknowledged her with a nod. At six, she served the meal, then placed the fourth meal into the oven and left the room. Norman ate hurriedly, collected his pouch of small change he put aside for poker nights, then he left the house.

  She kept to her room on Saturday morning. He and his girls left at ten thirty for the wedding and didn’t return until the train, loaded with wedding guests and the honeymooners, had gone on its way. Mary and Ernie Ogden were not on it. They and their four youngest would return to Melbourne on Tuesday’s train.

  ‘All I’m saying, Norman, is it would cause less talk in town if she was to stay where she is for the weekend,’ Maisy said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He roused his girls early on Sunday morning and by nine thirty they were on their way to spend the day with Gertrude. On their return, in the late afternoon, they found the woman up a ladder cleaning windows that had not seen a cleaning cloth in seven years.

  Her egg and bacon pie that night was a work of art. He watched her cut it, serve it.

  ‘Take your meal with us, Mrs Morrison,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to overstep —’

  ‘The girls will appreciate your company.’

  On Monday night, the girls gone to their shared bed, Norman was seated on his front verandah smoking a final cigarette when Amber returned from her evening walk. She did not immediately enter the house. Perhaps the lack of light lent her confidence to raise what was in her mind.

  ‘You need a housekeeper, Norman. I need . . . need a home.’

  He expelled smoke, considered several replies but could not find an apt one, or perhaps found it but couldn’t speak it.

  ‘I’ve stayed out of your way,’ she said. ‘It’s worked out all right, hasn’t it?’

  She had stayed out of his way. His house was clean, his laundry flapping on the clothes line in the morning, ironed and put away by evening. His girls were happy.

  ‘Could I stay a few days more, a week — and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll go. I’ll just be the housekeeper, Norman.’

  ‘The girls will soon become disenchanted with their shared bed, Mrs Morrison.’

  ‘If they do, I’ll go.’

  ‘Decisions are best slept on,’ he said.

  Norman did not make decisions lightly. He slept two nights on this one, then, while the girls were at school on the Wednesday, he spoke to Amber of a week’s trial, then perhaps a week-by-week business arrangement. ‘You will be paid a small wage, from which I shall deduct board and lodgings —’

  ‘You don’t have to pay me, Norman.’

  ‘If the arrangement continues past the week, you will receive a wage, Mrs Morrison. I have drawn up an agreement, which we shall each sign.’

  Perhaps she glanced at his agreement before signing. He retained the original and offered her the carbon copy. Perhaps she
read what she’d signed, or burned it. It stated that he would make no demands on her, over and above her housekeeping duties; that he would accept no interference from her in the handling of his daughters; that he would require the kitchen between seven and eight from Monday to Thursday, at which time she would absent herself; that after the deduction of bed and keep, he would, each Friday, pay her seven shillings and sixpence.

  So the last of Jenny’s belongings were moved into Cecelia’s bedroom, and Norman’s moved into the nursery, a wall away from the girls. His housekeeper was given the front bedroom, somewhat separated from his little family.

  He was ever watchful. He did not trust her. She was subdued, had come to his house armed with two bottles of her blood-strengthening tablets, which she kept in her room. He did not venture there. At times, while he tutored his girls between seven and eight she came to the kitchen to wash a tablet down, then stood on at the door listening to his lesson. Occasionally, he caught her staring at him, and twice she’d attempted to apologise.

  ‘I’m sorry, Norman.’

  ‘We are all sorry for many things, Mrs Morrison. Our aim perhaps should be to do nothing more that may in the future require apology.’

  Trust may grow in time, but, like damaged nerve endings once crushed, trust is slow in making a recovery. During daylight hours, when he listened to his daughters’ laughter, when he saw their smiling faces, their well-ironed frocks, he sometimes felt the first feeble tingle of trust’s growth, but as night came down around his house and he lay in his narrow bed, that feeble tingle became an ache. His shoulder would not allow him to trust.

  Jean White shared his shoulder’s distrust.

  ‘She’s as fake as a two-sided penny,’ she said to Charlie midway through October.

  ‘What’s she done to you?’

  ‘Coming in here giving me the leftovers of her fake hospital manners, that’s what she’s done — and looking at my hair roots while she’s doing it. Have you noticed how she won’t look you in the eye?’

  ‘You wouldn’t either if you’d done what she’s done.’