by Joy Dettman
There was little conversation on the way home, only Jim’s apology when he bumped Jenny’s exposed knee while reaching for the gearstick. Only Norman’s brief comments on the road, only Lorna’s yawn from the rear seat, Sissy’s blubbering, Margaret’s and Amber’s soothing.
The radio broadcast, timed for nine thirty, had started on time but ended late. Then the newspaper photographer had to line up the winners for a photograph, and not one either, but a dozen. It was after eleven when they got away.
There were car lights on the road ahead. One would be Maisy, one John McPherson. Jenny wished she was in Mr McPherson’s car, or wished the road much longer. Didn’t want to go home. Wanted to stay out there, bobbing along a dark road in the middle of no-man’s-land. They were approaching the town when she broke the silence with words she’d practised for the last fifteen miles.
‘I promised to take the necklace and Elsie’s things back tonight. Can we drive down there first, please?’ She’d made no promise. Her throat knew it was telling a lie. It choked the words out.
‘That fine with everyone?’ Jim said.
Not fine with some. ‘Cecelia is distraught,’ Amber said. ‘Take them back tomorrow.’
Six hours of multiple Morrisons was five and a half hours too long for Lorna. ‘Stop here,’ she said. Jim stopped the car on Blunt’s corner. Lorna got out to walk the last block home.
‘Which way, folks?’ he said.
‘Home,’ Amber said, so Jim turned left, over the railway lines, then right into Norman’s street, Jenny’s heart pounding like a hard-punching fist in her stomach, afraid now of Norman’s lack of response.
Sissy was eased from the car, supported by Amber until Norman took his share of the load.
‘Out,’ Amber’s demand was directed at Jenny who had remained in the car.
‘I’ll run straight in and straight out, Daddy. I promise.’
Promises going left, right and centre tonight, but she had to put off the inevitable, had to stay away from Norman’s eyes, get to tomorrow and to daylight before she had to look at his hangdog eyes. Had to get that necklace and dress back safe to Granny too, get her prize money safe down there or it would end up in the stove.
‘Off you go,’ he said.
Margaret, happy to continue her outing, drove with them out along the forest road where the car’s headlights lit their narrow way between those trees, showing a strange green world never noticed by day, showing the colours of the great trunks, glinting in the eyes of wild things, that light like a moving pool, erasing the black for an instant, but only an instant.
Jenny opened the gate, then slid back into the car to ride the last track. The balls of both feet were screaming, her toes so tired of clinging on. She couldn’t bear to put those shoes on the ground when she stepped from the car, but she forced them to carry her just a few yards more.
‘Granny,’ she called, but not too loud, just in case she was sleeping. A light was showing beneath the door. Jenny opened it, took the shoes off and crept in. She peered into Gertrude’s bedroom, expecting to see a shape in the bed. It was empty.
The table lamp burning low, its flickering light playing with her shadow, she unhooked the necklace, placed it on the table, removed the folded envelope from her bra, placed it beneath the beads, took Elsie’s wedding frock off and hung it over a chair, pulled her own frock on, found her shoes where she’d left them. That was the beauty of Granny’s house. Things stayed where they were put.
She was tying her shoelaces when she saw broken glass on the floor, saw the photograph propped against a bucket, its ruined frame fallen into the hearth tray. She reached for the photograph, took it to the lamp and turned the wick a little higher. They were like a film-star bride and groom, Granny’s hair done in much the same style as she did it today, his hair cut in the same style as Jenny’s.
‘I love your haircut,’ she told Itchy-foot. ‘And I’m glad I look like someone, even if Granny doesn’t want me to.’
She placed the photograph face up on the table, beside the beads and prize money, and was out the door. They were coming through the goat paddock gate in single file, Gertrude, Elsie, Harry, Joey and little Lenny. She walked through the dark to meet them.
‘We thought you had it won, darlin’. We couldn’t believe how beautiful you sounded over the air.’
‘I said to Mum it was like hearing some singer on a record,’ Elsie said.
They talked as they walked her to the car, but Jim was in no hurry. He joined the group, then Margaret came high-stepping around the car.
A minute can be ten minutes long or ten minutes can become one. Time is stretchable. It’s shrinkable.
Those same minutes in Norman’s house were agonisingly long, loud, and painful.
Cecelia had collapsed in the passage and his attempt to lift her had moved something in his back. He couldn’t straighten.
‘Give her one of my pills,’ Amber demanded.
‘Walk away from her, Mrs Morrison. She enjoys an audience.’
Certainly a poor choice of words. They increased the volume of Cecelia’s wail, and offended her mother.
He stood in the passage supporting his back with a hand and considering that pill bottle he’d taken charge of. Tonight he was tempted, sorely tempted, and tempted too to help himself to a handful.
‘You loved it, didn’t you? You loved them making a fool of her, didn’t you?’
He attempted to walk away, but pain shot from his back down his buttocks to thigh. He groaned and was forced to stay.
‘You wanted to laugh at her with the rest of them, but you didn’t have the guts.’
In any argument, there must be two participants. He tried once more to move and almost joined his daughter on the floor. Gathered himself, sighed.
‘Let us not forget it was your decision that she should recite, Mrs Morrison. Let us not forget that it was you who chose to allow that girl to make a fool of herself. Go to your room. I will deal with my daughter.’
‘Give her a pill and she’ll settle down.’
‘If you remove yourself, she will settle down.’
‘Remove myself to where? I have to sleep in her bed?’
‘No doubt you have shared worse beds.’ His mouth was working independently of his head, but his back was killing him. He needed to sit down, lie down. He made a conciliatory gesture. ‘Use my room if you wish.’
‘I’ll sleep in the gutter first.’
‘As you no doubt have.’
He was not a cruel man. He knew himself to be soft-hearted. He had never raised a hand in anger, rarely raised his voice in anger. He was in pain. He wasn’t himself. He heard his voice rising, then heard his words silence Sissy’s wail. He saw Amber step back, then back again as his mouth sprayed her with the venom of his tongue, whipped her, then brutalised her with the bludgeon of Cousin Reginald.
Cowed by his bastardry, she backed into Cecelia’s room, closed the door. And he saw Cecelia rise green from her collapse, her eyes staring at a monster. She got away from it. She followed her mother, slammed the door as car lights played across the parlour window.
That car shocked him back from the place where his mouth had been, jarred him, sending new pain screaming down his buttock, down his leg. God’s punishment. He punished evil tongues.
Got himself out to the gate, where he took Jenny’s arm and walked her away from the house, walked her through the railway yard to the station, moaned as he eased himself down to the station bench where he sat in silence, waiting for the pain to abate.
‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she said.
He offered his station keys. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘Tea and silence.’
He had thought to discuss the desecration of her hair, the borrowed frock. Now? What did it matter? What did anything matter? He had sworn never to use Amber’s adultery against her, and he’d flung it in her face, and in front of Cecelia. What breed of man was he?
He sat staring at the water tower and at the moon perched on its
rim, looking like a child’s lost balloon caught up there by its string. Watched it for minutes, willing it to fly free, while she brought him tea, brought him biscuits, then sat with him, in silence, or silent for a time.
‘She was pulling my hair, Daddy. I had the scissors, so I cut it.’
‘Silence!’
He sipped his tea, refused the biscuits. She ate four, emptied her mug and stood, waiting for his, and looking at the moon. Hated standing there and no words. Wanted him to lecture her, lock her in her room, tell her she couldn’t sing any more, anything.
‘I was sorry I did it—as soon as I did it.’
‘God forgive me,’ he said. ‘God forgive me.’
She placed her mug on the platform, and reached out to hold his face between her hands. ‘You didn’t do anything to forgive, Daddy.’
‘Then God forgive me for that.’
He reached out with his free hand and touched her exposed ear. She was clad now in her old school dress, her school shoes, but the child was gone. The audience had applauded a woman. He’d watched a woman walk on stage, heard a woman’s voice.
‘I borrowed you for such a short time,’ he said. ‘The child has been lost with that beautiful hair.’
‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’
He lifted a hand for silence.
The lights were turned off in the railway yard once the train went through. The streetlights were turned off at midnight; no lights showing at Norman’s house. Dark now, only the moon now—disappearing behind the water tower.
‘I remember things, Daddy—from before. I can’t pretend any more. I know things from Jessie Macdonald too. I know my mother was in jail in Melbourne.’
Shock moved him, sent a jolt of white-hot pain radiating through his back to his bowel. ‘You . . .’
Too hard to find the words. He’d flung all he had at that slut, that diseased whore. Only the ache remained where those words had been festering for years. Only a gaping hole in his gut now. Her infection had eaten through. So he watched the moon, going, going, gone.
‘You’re making me scared, Daddy. Talk to me.’
She stood before him, reached again to touch his face, and he grasped her hand, held it to his heavy cheek and he wept.
‘My pride,’ he whispered. ‘My only pride.’
She held his head against her, patted his back, kissed his face, like Granny had patted her, had kissed her. She was the grown-up now, holding her crying child. ‘I love you, Daddy. I love you best in the whole world. You know that. You know that.’
He stood later, much later, and he couldn’t straighten. She helped him back to the house, supporting him up the steps, taking it slowly. She walked him down the passage, helped him off with his jacket. Took off his tie, removed the studs from his collar, held his arms while he sat down on the bed then lifted his feet up.
‘You’ll be better in the morning,’ she said. ‘Everything will be better in the morning.’
Deep, undisturbed sleep is the privilege of youth. Jenny had left her door open so she might listen for her father, but her day both physically and emotionally draining, she did not listen long.
Norman lay immobile, his back having found a nominal peace, though not his mind. It abused him, inflicting its bare-fisted blows. A man on his back cannot evade his own punishing mind; he cannot shield himself from self-inflicted pain. Imprisoned with self, by self, he lay, tears trickling, filling the cups of his ears, which overflowed and ran down the creases of his neck to his pillow. He thought of the brandy flask in his kitchen cupboard and for an hour or more willed himself to rise, to fetch that flask and kill his pain, still his mind.
The house was still, the town was still, when, in the early hours of morning, he rolled from his bed. Pulverised by pain, his feet on the floor, he knew the brandy was too far away so he reached for his underwear drawer and the bottle buried deep.
The pressure required to unscrew the cap ripped him apart, but he got it off and poured a mound of her poison to his palm, and from his palm took one pill with his tongue. She’d swallowed one dry tonight, he’d seen her do it. The taste was brutal. His tongue wanted to reject it. Cruel tongue, it deserved the punishment. He placed a second pill with the first, then stood, fingering what remained in his palm while his stomach threatened to vomit out her poison. Moved too fast. Excruciating pain overrode his stomach’s need and, with a shaking hand, he attempted to pour the pills back into the bottle. Spilled them, to bed, to floor. The bottle top? His hand feeling for it found her pills, then found the cap. He replaced it and made his slow way to the kitchen to spit the vile paste. Or wash it down. Kill his pain as she killed her pain . . . killed her . . . humanity.
Did she feel pain? Did she feel anything other than what a rabid bitch might feel for her pup?
He swallowed the paste as he reached for his brandy flask, placed high in the kitchen cabinet. One sip to cleanse his tongue. He took it with him to the window, where he stood supporting his weight, his hands on the kitchen sink, while staring out into black. Silent house. Silent world. A second sip from the flask, a third, then, its comfort in his hand, he started back to his room. His feet stilled before Cecelia’s closed door. He’d lost his fight for that girl when her mother came home—or perhaps before.
The door squeaked as he opened it, only opened it an inch or two, enough to see two heads on two pillows. How many pills had the whore horded in her handbag? How had she settled that girl tonight? Did he care tonight?
He should care.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against . . .
Forgive her betrayal? He could not. It was a dagger driven deep into his heart and worn there daily since she had attempted to decapitate him with the garden shovel. He could not remove that dagger, could not forget its presence, only ignore it, only bury it deep in the darkest pit of his mind and stay far away from its entrance.
He’d entered there tonight. Now he couldn’t find his way out.
How many beds had she shared in the years she’d been gone? How many diseased dogs had she lain with? How many fools had she diseased? How many in this town looked at him and saw the dupe, the fat fool who had taken his whore back into his home?
Jessie Macdonald knew, a girl, a mere slip of a girl, eighteen, nineteen. There were eight Macdonald girls, and if each of the eight had told eight more . . . Eights began to multiply in Norman’s mind, became sixteen, became thirty-two and sixty-four and one hundred and twenty-eight, and two hundred and fifty-six, and five hundred and twelve and . . .
The town would take no more of his multiplication. It escaped Woody Creek’s boundaries to multiply in Melbourne.
Ogden had found that spitting shrew. Ogden’s wife had seven sons, one wed to a Macdonald girl. Multiplication doing well in Melbourne.
And Charles knew, so every Duckworth knew. How many Duckworths were laughing at him tonight? He closed the door, slid the metal flask into his trouser pocket to clink against her bottle of poison, while he deducted Duckworth deaths, tried to recall family births. He could not, but certainly each flat-faced, newborn Duckworth looked north tonight and named him fool.
Born a fool, fatherless, friendless. His mother’s fool, his wife’s fool, his daughter’s fool.
Until he’d chanced upon his Jenny-wren, his fairy child with her pink shell ears, content for so long to perch upon his shoulder, to lift him high on her fragile wings.
Not so fragile tonight. He’d seen those wings flexing, had heard her pure, sweet voice filling that large hall, reaching out, reaching out over all of the land, calling to others of her kind.
He was not of her kind. He was a fat fool, fit only to keep food in the mouth of a diseased whore who’d traded her body for bread—but offered no such trade with him. Ate his bread. Spent his money.
A man with a dagger buried in his heart could know these things but keep his distance from that knowledge while that knowledge was his alone to know.
‘He cannot hide from the multitud
es,’ he said, patting his pocket. Flask and bottle clinked, comfortingly, companionably, bitterly.
The taste of her pills still on his tongue, he washed his mouth once more, then opened the front door and stepped out to the night.
At that point, the man who was not himself felt whoever he had become entering into the muddy wallow of an unknown place.
THE WINDOW
Jenny may have slept until midday had her window not caught the full force of the morning sun. Her sleep had been heavy, but her body and mind rested, she began emerging slowly from dream and her sheet—a butterfly shedding its clinging cocoon. As the sun crept higher, her bed, placed alongside the window, absorbed every ray. Not willing yet to awaken, she rolled to her right, turning her back on the glare.
The stirring of air opened one eye. Amber was at the chest of drawers removing sheets. The eye closed and Jenny feigned sleep until Amber walked out, until the door closed.
And the key scratched in the lock.
Norman was in charge of that key. What was she doing with it? And what was she doing getting out clean sheets on Sunday morning? Clean sheets were for Mondays.
Had Norman locked that door last night? Then she remembered last night, remembered putting him to bed, or getting him onto the bed.
She sat looking at the chest of six deep drawers, all bar one containing linen. A junk room, favourite dumping ground for anything that didn’t have a home. Two vases and the big preserving pan lived on top of her wardrobe. A calico laundry bag hung by its drawstring on a hook behind her door—not for her dirty washing but for old clothing saved for the relief committee ladies. The wardrobe was against the wall between her room and Sissy’s, and in the corner, at the foot of her bed, a carton of old newspapers sat on a whatnot that had once lived in the passage where Norman could knock it from its three legs on dark nights. Nowhere else for that whatnot to go but in the corner of her room.
She stripped off her nightgown, dressed in the clothing she’d worn yesterday and walked to the door, aware that it was locked but trying it anyway. She was being punished for last night, for the haircut. She’d expected that, but had expected it to happen last night, not this morning. She shrugged and returned to her bed to squeeze out a few more winks of sleep.