Liberty

by McWatters, Nikki;

  Mrs Lotte, the stiff-lipped, grey beehived proprietor of the Young Ladies Boarding House in Kelvin Grove, ran a tight ship. There were very specific rules of conduct, all printed up on a piece of paper that was framed and glued to the back of my door and one of the rules was very clear about making noise: No music that could be heard outside of your own room and no noise after dark. I looked out the window and down to the backyard but still couldn’t work out where the din was coming from.

  I needed some quiet to study because this Law caper was pretty heavy going. Thick books about the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of the law was mind-numbingly boring and took great wads of concentration to get through. And I loved music. While law was my main interest, music was my passion, but that sultry afternoon in Brisbane, the two of them did not go together well at all.

  Wearing my tattered slippers, a pair of cotton pyjama shorts and an old but very comfortable t-shirt, I went out into the hallway: a long and dingy tunnel of orange carpet that had a pattern that reminded me of carroty vomit. I was determined to find the annoying source of the music. I couldn’t believe that Mrs Lotte hadn’t already shut it down. There were no other girls about because most went shopping or socialising on the weekends; there was a strict rule about never being allowed to have a second person in your room, so socialising at the boarding house was out of the question. There was a communal room on the ground floor where you could read or watch the small television or listen to the radio or play the piano, but few ever used it because the television reception made everything look like a snowstorm, the radio crackled and the piano was out of tune. And we weren’t allowed to eat or drink in there.

  I headed down the staircase, following the sound, which seemed to be coming from the back of the building near the kitchen. The dining room was empty. Four round tables were neatly set for dinner even though only a handful of us ever ate there. My board, paid for by Dad, covered my meals and I forced myself to eat the swill that was served up. Mrs Lotte was a terrible cook and very heavy-handed with cabbage. I walked through the room and into the large kitchen. The music was getting louder. At the back of the kitchen was an open door leading to another room. I stepped forward but felt suddenly very silly. What was I going to say? I very tentatively gave a gentle knock on the door. No response. I knocked louder.

  ‘Hey there,’ a male voice called out. ‘What’s happening?’

  Mrs Lotte’s was an all-female boarding house so I was taken aback and began contemplating a quick escape. I was stunned and paralysed with embarrassment when I was confronted by a young man who, for a moment, I was sure was Jim Morrison himself. A few seconds later I came back to earth and asked myself what exactly Jim Morrison would be doing in a boarding house in Brisbane playing his own record to himself all day. The fellow had no shirt on and my face was as hot as a stove-top ring!

  ‘Hi … um …’ I stammered. ‘I wonder, if you could, I mean, I’m from upstairs. I think my room is directly above you and I’m studying … and …’ I gave a self-conscious shrug and a half-smile.

  ‘I’m so sorry, hey. I’m Luke.’ He grinned, revealing perfect white teeth, as he flicked his long brown hair out of his face.

  ‘I’m Fiona,’ I mumbled back.

  ‘You want me to turn the music down. I paint. Music helps. When I’m in the zone, you know? You want to see what I’m working on?’ He stepped back and invited me into the room. I inhaled sharply. Mrs Lotte’s rules came rushing into my brain. Never more than one boarder in a room. But I was confused because Luke could not have been a boarder because he was a boy.

  ‘I can’t … It’s against the rules. Sorry … I …’

  ‘But I’m staff here,’ he said. ‘So I don’t know if that counts. I’m the new cook.’

  ‘Oh thank goodness,’ I said, quickly, putting a hand to my mouth. ‘I mean …’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I saw what she was cooking you girls and you will be pleased to know that from now on you will get edible food.’

  I looked around, frightened that Mrs Lotte would walk in.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Luke laughed, reaching out to touch my forearm. ‘She’s gone to do the shopping. She won’t be back until three.’

  ‘Oh good.’ I exhaled, relaxing a little. ‘In that case, can I just say I’m really pleased someone else will be cooking from now on. To be honest, she’s a bit of a dragon.’

  ‘She’s my aunt,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Nah.’ He smiled. ‘You’re right. A real fire-breathing dragon sometimes. I get where you’re coming from. She terrifies me.’

  I couldn’t believe I’d just said something so offensive about my landlady to her own nephew. I wanted to burrow into my slippers like a snail. I was also acutely aware that I was in my pyjamas and he was shirtless and only wearing a pair of low-slung jeans. He was deeply tanned and between the two of us there was a lot of skin.

  ‘Just pop your head in and look at my paintings.’ He winked. ‘I’ll make a deal. You look at my artwork and I’ll turn the music off.’

  ‘Okay, deal,’ I answered, sounding amazingly flippant and nonchalant for someone who wanted to hot-foot it out of there like a spooked rabbit. I poked my head around the door jamb and looked into a room that looked like it had been ransacked. There was stuff everywhere. By the window that looked out over the sparse backyard was a canvas on an easel. The painting was really amazing. Without thinking, I stepped closer and put an appraising hand up to my chin.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I said, as if I were a veteran art critic. ‘You’re very talented. What is it exactly?’

  ‘I call it “Acid”, you know, like the drug.’

  I looked at him as if he were speaking another language, showing my naiveté in all its glory.

  ‘You know, Acid. LSD?’

  I nodded unconvincingly.

  ‘You’re not a city girl, are you? I can tell.’

  I gave a high-pitched giggle and pushed my glasses higher up my nose. ‘No,’ I said with a sigh. ‘You’re quite right. I come from a land of tattered shacks and bullock carts on the Darling Downs.’

  Luke chuckled. ‘I don’t know what you just said but you make it sound primitive.’

  ‘Primitive pretty much sums it up. Bandaroo Flats. Blink and you’ll miss it. The only drug out there is a real downer and it’s called boredom.’

  ‘Well … hey, I don’t take drugs myself,’ he said, suddenly quite serious. ‘I don’t need to. I live my whole life on a natural high. But I’m intrigued by the whole idea of the psychedelic: the music, the art. It’s like a world of intense colour and sounds.’

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about but I liked the painting. It was a swirling vortex of geometric shapes and colours. I snapped my attention away from the painting and realised again that I was standing in my pyjama shorts in a boy’s room and if Mrs Lotte turned up I’d be in deep trouble. The music was still blaring from the record player in the corner of the room and it was kind of a sexy beat. I was blushing and folding down into myself, trying to pull my t-shirt down over my legs.

  ‘You go to the uni?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep. Doing a Law degree.’

  ‘So you’ve got brains too. Cool.’

  ‘Well, just the one.’

  He looked at me, confused.

  ‘You know. Just the one brain. Like, you know. Regular. People.’ I was blabbering and sounding like a foolish girl all tongue-tied around a boy.

  ‘Well,’ Luke said, going to his record player and taking the needle off, silencing the music. ‘I think I’ve had enough of The Doors for one day. Sorry to have disturbed you, Fi.’

  He called me Fi and it sounded so informal and friendly. I liked it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said as I walked past him and back into the kitchen.

 
‘Hey Fi?’ he called after me. I turned around. ‘I like your glasses. They’re pretty cool. What’s your favourite food?’

  I gave a weird little snort and shook my head, trying to think of something tasty.

  ‘Maybe meatloaf and potato chips.’

  He gave a nod and returned to his painting.

  Back in my room I found it hard to concentrate on the thick, wordy legal books even though the music had stopped. I managed to fill the silence with my own turbulent thoughts. I sure wasn’t one of those boy-crazy girls like back at home, the ones who date every guy in town like they’re auditioning husbands. I was focused and ambitious. Laura called me pig-headed sometimes. My mother had been a nurse back in Edinburgh until she’d met Dad. She had to quit her job at the hospital because married women weren’t allowed to work. She’d been a great mum but I knew she was frustrated with the boredom of domestic life. She was a voracious reader and had written stories that she had shoved into a suitcase under her bed, never letting anyone read them. I didn’t want that life for myself. ‘The tide is changing,’ she once told me as I’d sat on the edge of her bed while she plaited my hair. ‘Being a wife and mother is wonderful. But you need to be something for yourself as well. You have the world opening up to you. So reach for the sky.’ Opportunities for girls were opening up as the sixties were inching toward the seventies and I wanted to push my foot through that opening door. Heck, I wanted to kick it down.

  Despite my personal reassurances of my ambitions I still couldn’t get the image of the shirtless Luke out of my mind. I turned the pages. I twirled the biro between my fingers like a cheerleader’s baton and couldn’t settle myself.

  Too distracted to work, I decided to get dressed and go find a bus into the city to buy a new outfit. I looked into the mirror and tried to tidy my unruly hair. And maybe a haircut.

  ‘Jeanne! Jeanne!’

  I turned to see who was calling me and saw my cousin Aimee standing by her horse with a group of women I barely recognised.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she gasped and beckoned me over.

  I was in no mood for conversation but wiped the dust from my swollen, bloodshot eyes, sighed and walked over to her.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘For a walk,’ I answered. ‘To take the air. This city feels like an unwanted embrace sometimes. Crushing me.’

  ‘Well, don’t go far.’ She gave me a penetrating look. ‘Is your father all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘As well as he can be with legs that pain him like fire pokers in his bones. He’s fine. I’m … well, I’m just needing some air.’

  I didn’t want to share yesterday’s frightful news with her because I knew she wouldn’t understand. To girls our age, Lagoy was a fine catch. Aimee gave me a concerned nod of her head as I walked off, out the gates, through the shadows that were cast by the towers and walls, over the wooden moat-bridge. I held my breath to avoid the stench of the thick, brown, curdling sludge beneath.

  The roads in summer were always dusty. Packhorses and carts trundled noisily along, overtaken by groups of travellers and the occasional messenger. But as soon as I turned off into the forest I was enveloped by the quiet and gentle murmur of the woodlands. I saw three grey squirrels in a huddle but they darted into the undergrowth as I came closer. A bird with a hooked beak sat on a branch and regarded me curiously.

  ‘We could elope,’ I called to it. ‘Yes. That’s what we could do.’

  I kicked at a stone hopelessly. If I eloped with Colin they would track us down and kill us both, and I loved him too much to risk that. And my father would meet the same fate. I was already risking severe punishment by going into the forest, unchaperoned, again. I didn’t care. I felt numb. Hiding away in the forest for even a brief time to refresh my spirit was all I could think to do that morning. A fleeting escape but better than none at all. I wanted to talk to my mother and here I felt her presence. The words ‘follow your heart’ flitted on the breeze but I shook them away. My father and Colin were both in my heart. But my predicament saw me having to choose between them. To run away with Colin meant certain death to my father, but to marry Lagoy would break Colin’s heart.

  Earlier that morning, Lieutenant Jean Lagoy had led a group of men along the road to Paris to recruit reinforcements to our garrison. He would be gone for days. I wished I could crawl up inside the wide, rotting log by my boot and hide away from the world – from Lagoy and Colin and my father. Papa should have told Lagoy that I suffered some terrible affliction like falling sickness or that I had a violent temper. But he must have been in complete shock when Lagoy arrived with his demands and threats. The previous night, Papa had spent the better part of the evening sobbing, begging me to forgive him. ‘I am sick and not long for this world,’ he had moaned. ‘I would have refused in a heartbeat and let the rogue run his sword through my heart but I could not risk a similar fate for you, Jeanne. I let your mother fall into hands that took her life and I would not see it happen again. A miserable marriage is still better than death. He will be away fighting so much … I’m sorry.’

  I knew my father wore all the responsibility for my mother’s murder. While at first it looked like he had betrayed me and thrown me to the lion, Lagoy, I understood that he was accepting the arrangement to save my life.

  ‘But …’ he had whispered as the night shadows grew long, ‘it might not work … but Jeanne, what if I gave you the silver that the Lieutenant has promised me, you and Colin could take it and ride far away, start a new life where Lagoy will never find you?’

  ‘But he would kill you!’ I gasped.

  ‘And I’d die happy knowing that you would have a life of happiness ahead of you. Yes! That’s what you shall do!’

  ‘No, Papa.’ I had shaken my head, not only aghast at his suggestion but at my own response, which was to entertain his idea as a glorious possibility. ‘No. I will not let them kill you. With the silver gone, you’d be executed for stealing from the Captain’s purse.’

  ‘At least it would be quick.’ My father had smiled sadly. ‘Not like this never-ending eternity of pain slowly killing me.’

  ‘Not another word,’ I’d said and put him to bed. All night, through the tears, I had imagined a new life far away, perhaps even in England.

  I walked along, deeper into the forest, humming one of my mother’s old songs, lost in my thoughts. Beneath my grey, hessian cape I had my two small hatchets hidden on my belt and they reassuringly banged against my thighs as I walked.

  In the small sunny glade I found my basket, left there from the day before. It was damp from the overnight dew. A small field-mouse sat inside, nibbling at the remnants of the bread.

  ‘Hello there.’ I smiled. ‘Oh, that you were a horse instead of a mouse. You could carry me away to some faraway place and I could …’

  I stiffened. At the sound of my voice saying the word ‘horse’ I heard a clop like a heartbeat thudding up through the earth into my feet. Quickly, one hand on the sturdy handle of my hatchet, I fell into the shadows and held my breath. Surely the Burgundians were not so close. It was the sound of one horse not a stampede of them. The mouse darted up and out of the basket and away into the underbrush. I was well concealed, pressed against the branch of a cool tree.

  ‘Jeanne! Jeanne? Where are you?’

  At first I was terrified it was Lagoy but I quickly realised it was Colin and exhaled, stepping out into the clearing and called back.

  ‘Here, here by the oak! Here. Colin.’

  ‘Jeanne, you will marry that pompous fool over my dead body! I just came from your father,’ Colin shouted as he rode into the open, sunlit circle of dirt.

  ‘Don’t wish it too hard, Colin,’ I called up to him as he brought my cousin’s horse to a halt beside me. ‘That pompous fool would quite happily dispatch you with his sword. He called you the chicken boy.’

 
‘He what?’ Colin said, sliding from the saddle to stand before me. ‘How dare he!’

  ‘This is just the way it is and always has been,’ I whispered, not able to look him in the eye as he took my hands. ‘My father has nothing. You know that. After my mother’s death he never really recovered. If I do not marry Lagoy I will be punished, perhaps put to death. I’d sooner go to my grave than marry him but I wouldn’t want my father to have to weather that loss.’

  ‘What price did Lagoy offer for you?’ Colin asked angrily.

  ‘Please don’t say it like that.’ I grimaced. ‘The Captain gave Lagoy permission. It is done. Lagoy is giving my father a small amount of silver as a form of compensation, I suppose. Given that he would not get any sort of dowry from my father, it is generous because he is marrying beneath him.’

  ‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ Colin said, looking down at me. ‘It’s Lagoy who is marrying up.’

  ‘I will never love him,’ I said. ‘You will always have my heart, Colin. I promise you that.’

  ‘I want more than your heart, Jeanne. I want all of you. Every hair on your head. Every kiss.’

  He lifted my chin and kissed my lips softly. I shut my eyes and wished I could jump into that kiss like a bird flying up into the sky.

  ‘We’ll run away. Now. Just go,’ he said, pulling back. ‘Your father told me he would sooner see you loved by me and I know he has offered us the silver, when he gets it, to escape and make a new life.’

  His eyes were panicked and he was flushed.

  ‘We wouldn’t get far and my father would be killed,’ I said sadly. ‘I love you, Colin, but I cannot let that happen.’

  ‘If the Burgundians arrive we might all be killed.’ Colin shrugged and touched a finger to my lips where the kiss still lingered. ‘I can’t bear to think of Lagoy’s lips on yours,’ he said and I could see a tear in his eye.

  ‘Then I shan’t ever kiss him.’ The very thought of Jean Lagoy’s lips made my skin crawl.