Pearl in a Cage

by Joy Dettman

  She wore it all day, wore it at the dinner table, put Amber off her meal with it. Norman didn’t notice.

  PEARLS IN GOLDEN CAGES

  Family wars are fought on many fronts. Pretty frocks become casualties; beds become the battlefields; Christmas Day — on Christmas Day even the soldiers took time off in the trenches.

  Norman gave his daughters slim books of poetry, their names and the date written on the flyleaves. What did Sissy want with a poetry book? She wanted that green dress in the new catalogue, wanted her own bedroom, wanted to go to Frankston with the Hoopers. She knew they were leaving sometime between Christmas and New Year. She’d expected an invitation before Christmas but all she’d got from them was a lousy box of hankies.

  The war recommenced on Christmas night, in bed, and during that gap between Christmas and New Year, Jenny spent her days donating her services behind the post office counter.

  It came in the mailbag, a tiny parcel, so small there was barely room on it for the stamps and address. Miss Jennifer Morrison. The Stationmaster’s Daughter. Co Woody Creek Post Office. And whatever was inside it, rattled.

  She should have opened it at the post office, as she opened her Cara Paris letters, but this was different. This was from someone in Geelong, and who in Geelong could possibly know her name? One of the many Duckworths? But why? She carried it home intact. Norman cut the string. He lifted the lid and poured the contents into his palm.

  It was a pair of earrings, small pearls inside golden cages, an exact match for the pendant old Noah had found in the park and thrown to her when she was ten.

  Jenny reached for one of the precious things. Sissy reached for the other, while Norman studied the box.

  ‘What did you do with that necklace, Daddy? It’s exactly the same as these.’

  He wasn’t so certain. He went to his room and returned with the pendant, and it was the same, though its tiny cage and pearl were larger.

  ‘Who would send such a thing to a child?’

  There was no accompanying card, no name of sender. Norman dropped the pendant into the box and reached out a hand to claim the earrings.

  Jenny knew who had sent them, and the knowing sent a shiver down her spine. She knew too that she should have told Norman and Mr Denham about old Noah finding that necklace. She hadn’t — only because she hadn’t wanted to get into trouble for talking to strangers. And she hadn’t spoken to him anyway, and most of those swagmen walked on over the bridge and never came back. But old Noah kept on coming back. He’d been back here at least three times. And he knew her name, knew Norman was her father.

  She handed her earring back more willingly than Sissy.

  ‘Where did you find the necklace?’ Norman said.

  ‘It was in the park. Near the swing.’

  ‘A mystery,’ Norman said.

  He closed the box, took it to his room, then the meal proceeded. Only one topic of conversation, though; it continued until the tea was poured, when Sissy took her cup and flounced into her bedroom. Sissy didn’t give a damn who had sent those earrings. She wanted them. Margaret Hooper had pierced ears and a dozen pairs of earrings.

  Then the Hoopers left for Frankston without her, and their leaving coincided with Sissy’s week of menstruation. She was a big girl. Perhaps she suffered more than most, and while suffering she craved toffee, which Amber wouldn’t allow her to make. They argued, or Sissy snarled until she drove Amber from the house. Then she made her toffee.

  Jealousy, boredom, too much sugar brought out Sissy’s ill humour and her pustules. By the second week of January, her face was a riot of pimples. Amber’s sugar canister was empty and would remain empty. As was her butter dish. You can’t make toffee without sugar and butter.

  Boredom can turn the mind to odd pursuits. Sissy spent a day removing the flyleaf from her book of poetry so she could return it to Mr Cox and get the money back. She was capable enough when the desire was there to be capable. The flyleaf was removed cleanly. Amber said she couldn’t see where it had been. Amber would have said black was white if it saved her from Sissy’s tantrum. Mr Cox wouldn’t take it back. He told her he’d placed a special order for that book.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of call for poetry books up here, dear,’ he said.

  He was still apologising when Sissy caught sight of a large sign his wife was propping in the shop window. A radio talent quest was to be held on 19 February, in Willama. If there was a time, a date, an instant, when the fates conspired against Jenny Morrison, it was then.

  ‘You might tell your father about that quest, dear. Your sister could have a good chance of taking the prize money,’ Mrs Cox said.

  Sissy burned. At that instant, she hated, loathed, despised, detested her sister. She’d come down here to get the money for that book so she could add it to Amber’s money so they could get a postal order to send away for that green dress, which her father wouldn’t pay for, and all she’d got was someone else singing Jenny’s praises. She was sick of it. Sick, sick, sick of it. Wanted to haul off and hit Mrs Cox. Wanted to throw that book at her head, push her through that window.

  And those bloody Hoopers could have invited her down to Frankston. And Jim could have given her a friendship ring or something halfway decent. Bloody handkerchiefs. She had a drawer full of handkerchiefs. She wanted those gold earrings, wanted to get away from Amber’s nagging her about her pimples, nagging her to slim down.

  She wasn’t fat, just solid. She had nice hair, thick, near black, mid-shoulder length. Her face was as flat as a flounder; her chin too heavy; her eyes not quite green and not quite brown. She had her paternal grandmother’s parrot nose, though not as large, and when in an amiable mood, when her pimples were controlled, her face painted, she was definitely not the plainest girl in Woody Creek.

  But her sister was the prettiest, and she could sing, and some secret admirer had sent her a pair of gorgeous earrings, and this morning Sissy wanted to scratch her eyes out.

  She stood before the poster reading it, then with relief turned to Mr Cox. ‘It says no child performers.’

  ‘Fourteen and over, it says, dear. Down near the bottom.’

  Sissy hadn’t got that far. She saw it now. Jenny was fourteen.

  ‘You can put my name and Margaret Hooper’s down. We’ll go,’ she said.

  ‘It will be a little different to our own concerts,’ Mr Cox said. ‘They’ve got judges coming up from Melbourne.’

  Sissy raised her eyebrows, so what? He turned to his wife who was better with words than he. She explained that each contestant had to fill in a form and sign it.

  ‘If Miss Hooper wants to take part, she’ll need to get a form, Cecelia.’

  ‘You can give me one then.’

  They gave her two, one for Jenny. She filled in one and pitched the other into the kitchen stove.

  Then, three days later, Norman came home with his little hair cut to the bone and an entry form for the quest — and an offer from John McPherson to drive him and Jenny to Willama for the evening.

  ‘I tried to give my entry form to Mr Cox yesterday and he told me that he couldn’t take any more,’ Sissy said.

  Norman nodded. He also couldn’t take any more. He filled his mouth.

  Jenny was studying the entry form. ‘It says there’s prize money.’

  It said too that the concert would be held in the Willama theatre where the finalists would be chosen to take part in a radio broadcast, after which the winners would be announced.

  First prize was twenty pounds, second, ten, third place was five.

  ‘If he gave you that entry form today, then he’s a rotten old liar,’ Sissy said, staring at Norman across the table. Norman again filled his mouth. ‘If she’s going, then I’m going. The Hoopers will drive me down.’

  Norman swallowed. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  His knife and fork placed down, he glanced at the three watching faces, aware there was no way of avoiding this confrontation, the thought of
which raised acid in his stomach. His feet moved on the lino, urging him to walk away. He coughed, aware he must remain.

  ‘We have heard enough of “Daffodils”, Cecelia. Now the subject is closed.’

  ‘No one has heard her in Willama,’ Amber said.

  ‘Good God, woman! Are you . . .’ Mad? Deaf? Blind? He flinched, shook himself, looked at the ceiling for support, then back to his daughter. ‘Your recitations are an embarrassment to me — as I believe your last experience was an embarrassment to you. There will be no repetition.’

  ‘She doesn’t embarrass you,’ Amber said, flicking her fork towards Jenny.

  Norman did not look at his housekeeper often. Tonight he looked at her.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Her voice delights me and many, Mrs Morrison.’

  Jenny stared at the entry form. She’d known about the talent quest. Miss Rose had spoken to her about it. She hadn’t known there was prize money.

  Sissy sitting opposite had buttered a slice of bread, celebrating butter’s return to the ice chest. She wasn’t a fast mover, not usually. Tonight, like a magician’s sleight of hand, the bread left her plate and was slapped butter side down on Jenny’s head.

  ‘Well, I can tell you straight, she doesn’t delight me. I’m sick of her,’ she howled and ran to her room.

  Norman went after her.

  Jenny removed the bread but left most of the butter behind. She sat, her fingers pinching out the grease, while Amber went after Norman.

  ‘Return to the kitchen and apologise to your sister!’ Norman commanded.

  ‘You always take her side,’ Sissy wailed.

  ‘She is the one with butter in her hair, for which you will apologise!’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Amber said.

  ‘This does not concern you, Mrs Morrison.’

  ‘It concerns me. The way you put that little bitch before your own daughter concerns me.’

  ‘You are here under sufferance. Recall the terms of our agreement and remove yourself.’

  ‘If she wants to be in that concert, she can be in that concert.’

  ‘Do you want to subject this girl to the ridicule of strangers?’

  ‘You cruel bastard —’

  ‘You have not yet seen my bastardry, Mrs Morrison. I suggest you may if you do not remove yourself from this room. Now!’

  Sissy was starfished across the bed, attempting to kill the mattress with thumping fists. Amber attempted to get to her. Norman kept her at bay. He was a pacifist. She’d fight to the death. He had the bulk. She may have weighed seven stone. He wanted Sissy to apologise. Amber wanted to comfort her.

  Jenny stood in the passage wiping at her head with a tea towel. And for the first time in her life, she saw Norman put his arms around Amber — to pick her up. He carried her to the kitchen where he reached for his key. He carried her to his room, tossed her to his bed and locked his door, while Jenny stood near the back door ready to make a quick getaway.

  ‘Go to Maisy. Wash that butter from your hair. Stay there.’

  She didn’t need to be told twice.

  She slept the night in a single bed in Jessie’s room and didn’t want to go home in the morning, so she didn’t go. She stayed at Maisy’s until lunchtime, then went around to the Palmers’ where she remained until six, watching Mrs Palmer and Dora dye faded green bedspreads maroon. Had to go home then. Afraid of what she might find when she got there, but she had to go.

  And it was over. Amber was serving a steak and kidney pie. Sissy was reciting at the quest, Jenny was singing. Life was back to normal, or to as normal as it got in Norman’s house, where nothing was ever normal but everyone pretended it was.

  It became totally abnormal two days later.

  ‘You will see Miss Blunt this week and be fitted with . . . the necessary.’

  Norman had always waved away any mention of undergarment. Jenny knew what he meant. Maisy had told her a dozen times that she needed to wear a bra. She must have told him.

  Then he said the magic words. ‘Your mother has suggested you should have a suitable frock for the quest.’

  Something had happened the night of her buttered hair. Even Amber was being abnormal.

  Jenny went to see Miss Blunt the next morning, and once that bra was fitted, she didn’t want to take it off. Miss Blunt let her wear it, even if it wouldn’t be paid for until Friday. She allowed her to try on a blue print frock and it fitted perfectly. The colour was functional enough to suit Norman, the fabric light, but Miss Blunt said it was of a good quality. She said it was very suitable for a girl of Jenny’s age.

  ‘Mum is coming in on Friday, Miss Blunt. Can you . . . can you put this one somewhere else . . . in case it’s sold before she comes?’

  Miss Blunt hung it in her back room and Jenny ran over to Maisy’s house to show off her bra, ran around to the Palmers’ to show Dora.

  Sissy’s green dress came in the mail on Thursday. The material was as soft as spider’s web, beautiful but not functional.

  On Friday, Jenny and Dora were on the park swing when they saw Amber walking home from Blunt’s. Back to the Palmers’ to get Dora’s sandals — Jenny wanted to try them with her dress — then home to Norman’s house. The parcel was on Cecelia’s bed and already opened. Her second bra was in it, a pair of stockings, the garters — and a dirty brown replica of the pink thing she’d inherited from Sissy.

  Couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her. Stared at it expecting it to turn blue, willing it to turn blue, while her head, her heart, her blood turned to ice. Dora picked the ‘thing’ up, held it before her. Jenny stared at her, then snatched the frock and took it out to the kitchen. ‘Miss Blunt hung the one I wanted in her back room.’

  Amber always did her mother act when Dora was around. She stretched her mouth in a smile. ‘The blue was more suitable for a twenty-year-old woman. Hang it up.’

  Jenny dropped it on the floor, wiped her hands on her hips, cleansing them of that gruesome thing as she turned to go.

  ‘Pick up your frock and hang it.’

  ‘It’s not mine.’

  Amber picked it up and threw it at her. Jenny evaded it. Dora had more respect for new frocks. She caught it and followed Jenny to the station. Norman knew she’d tried on a dress. He knew that Miss Blunt had said it was suitable.

  ‘She bought the wrong one, Daddy. I’m taking it back.’

  He looked at the brown rag Dora had placed on his office counter. He’d had a bad few weeks, and could see nothing wrong with the frock. The colour was functional, the fabric was of a good quality.

  ‘Be grateful that you have a new frock to wear, Jennifer.

  There are children in town who have never seen a new frock.’

  ‘That’s like telling me to be grateful I’ve got smallpox instead of leprosy!’

  ‘Watch your lip.’

  ‘I want that blue print dress, Daddy.’

  ‘A frock is a frock,’ he said. ‘Take it back to the house.’

  ‘You may as well take it back to Mr Blunt and get your money, because I’m never, ever going to wear it.’

  ‘Your mother chose it for you!’

  ‘And you know why she chose it.’ She turned away, stepped away, then turned back to face him. ‘You know, Daddy. You have to know.’

  He looked at Dora who was listening to every word. He was not one to air soiled family linen in public — nor did he like the airing of it by others.

  ‘I am not impressed with your attitude, Jennifer. Say goodbye to your friend, then go back to the house.’

  She walked away from him, walked east down the platform. He followed her. ‘Go back to the house.’

  An obedient girl, easy to handle, always an agreeable child. Not today. She ran from him.

  ‘Jennifer! Jennifer!’

  Wasn’t going to let him see her crying over a dress. Ran fast, across the railway yard, Dora behind her, ran all the way to the Palmers’ house. They served tea in big mugs like Granny’s mugs, and
they served up sympathy by the bucketful. They served plum jam sandwiches too. She stayed late at the Palmers’ house, too scared to go home. She’d never disobeyed her father. Three times Mrs Palmer told her she should go home, but she didn’t make her go.

  People were normal at the Palmers’; they talked and laughed like human people, and they were everywhere, nine of them, plus Weasel Lewis and Irene tonight. The house was full of chatter and the smell of sausages frying up for dinner. Jenny and Dora had peeled a huge saucepan full of potatoes while Joss took to the skin of a tough pumpkin with a tommyhawk. Loved that house, loved the cooking and everyone under Mrs Palmer’s feet in the kitchen, wished she was one of Mrs Palmer’s kids, or wished she was a little kid again and she had no mother and Norman was at home cooking sausages and she was sitting on the kitchen table watching him cook.

  Maybe her mouth was watering for sausages when the clock told her it was six thirty. Maybe Mrs Palmer saw her mouth — or her eyes still watering. She buttered a slice of bread, popped a sausage onto it, added a dollop of tomato sauce and handed it to her.

  ‘You have to go home, pet. Your dad will be out looking for you. Try to look on the bright side. Not a soul is going to see what dress you’re wearing when you’re singing over the wireless.’

  Jenny licked tomato sauce from her hand. ‘I’ll see me, Mrs Palmer.’

  She left them to their feast and took a bite of bread and sausage, but her mouth was too scared to swallow it, and when she got it down, her stomach agreed with her mouth. She was walking past the park when she heard him.

  ‘Good evening, Jennifer,’ he said.

  He was back. She didn’t run from him tonight. Wished she could ask him about those earrings, or just say, How was Geelong? Couldn’t. ‘Good evening,’ she said.

  A warm night, not hot, but he was still wearing his black overcoat. He had a newspaper, had a pair of glasses perched on his nose so he could read it. He took them off, placed them into his coat pocket.

  ‘You’re late about,’ he said.