Careful, He Might Hear You

by Sumner Locke Elliott

  ‘Oh, you can’t go yet, Lila. You have to wait for the boomerang.’ Hands clutched at her. Someone tried to refill her glass. The woman in the leopard-skin dress was making for her with outstretched arms. She pushed them away. What a dreadful raffish crew. They’d probably all been at that awful costume party and repeated the story, and laughed. Now they were laughing at her. Well, let them laugh. No wonder they were all failures, with their lack of any moral sense.

  She wiped his face, wiping away the picnic, the past.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said. Took PS by the hand and hurried him out of the summerhouse, Pony scuttling behind.

  ‘What’s up, love?’

  ‘I think there’s a boat at four o’clock.’

  ‘Come over to the kiosk and I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, thank you, Pony.’

  ‘Well, don’t get your shirt off.’

  Pony looking up at her like a hurt child.

  ‘After all, we’re Sin’s friends. We knew her very well.’

  Indeed you did!

  The loudspeaker hummed and said, ‘Now we come to the big event of the day—’

  Pony grabbed at her.

  ‘They’re going to start now. Stick it out a bit longer.’ The dancers had left the stage and a white-haired old man was standing at the microphone holding a sheaf of papers while a woman in a blue voile dress laid out gilt-painted boomerangs on a table.

  Trapped now, Lila felt them being pushed along with the crowd towards the dais. Someone introduced the white-haired man as ‘Mr Champion, our president.’

  There was scattered applause and a voice called, ‘Good on you, Champ.’

  Mr Champion shuffled his papers, adjusted his broken glasses, thanked the committee, the ticket sellers, the pianist, the tea makers.

  A man with beery breath behind Lila said, ‘Get on with it, for Chrissake!’

  Spots of rain fell. Mr Champion extolled the dead.

  Canonised by clichés they had spent their lives avoiding, the defunct authors and poets became enshrined in the hall of fame, laid the foundations of a national heritage, handed down the torch and burned with a pure white flame at the mercy of Mr Champion’s rococo prose. Relatives tripped up the steps to the platform and accepted gilt boomerangs with deprecating smiles. In the thickening gloom as rain fell, the crowd melted away, a ferry tooted dismally on the river and Mr Champion droned on, came at longwinded last to Sinden Scott, a brave little soul cut off in her prime just when she was about to reap the harvest, enjoy the fruits, find the pot of gold.

  ‘Bear we our little sister to the Tomb …’ intoned Mr Champion.

  ‘She hath set down the half-filled cup of life.

  From Sunlight she hath hastened to the gloom;

  Mother an hour, and one quick year a wife.

  Our Little Sister of the Pen! The brave,

  Kind, sanguine spirit falters to the grave.’

  PS tugged at her dress. ‘Lila, I want to go to the—’

  ‘Shh. In a minute. This is all about Dear One.’

  ‘And now, a golden boomerang to keep her name returning.’

  ‘Go and get the boomerang, pet.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s for you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll come up with you.’

  ‘No. No.’ He pulled away angrily. ‘I want to go to the—’ Damp laughter from the few people left. Lila stumbled up the steps, shook Mr Champion’s hand, accepted the sticky golden boomerang from the woman, turned and said:

  ‘On behalf of her son—’

  The rain poured down and the people scattered. She found herself alone on the platform. After all her fussing, not even Pony had waited.

  It wasn’t until much later that evening at home, atomised and berated by George, that Lila remembered they had left the boomerang on the ferry.

  Everything in the Big House seemed very wound up, funny, spooky a bit, with no one around except Diana, who had opened the door when George brought him back. She had pulled him inside, saying, ‘Oh, he’s late,’ and shut the front door in poor George’s face. Her neck was red and splotchy. ‘Your aunt’s waiting for you upstairs, love,’ she whispered. She prodded him towards the stairs with her great big hands.

  ‘Don’t worry, lovey,’ she said, and winked at him.

  He went up the stairs, holding on to the rail, and paused on the landing.

  ‘Go on, don’t keep her waiting, love. Please. Don’t get us into trouble, there’s a good boy.’

  Diana was crying as she ran through the green baize door to the kitchen.

  He knew what he was going to be asked.

  No one was about upstairs and Vanessa’s door was closed. He stood in front of it, wondering what to do next, when it opened suddenly and Vanessa nearly fell over him.

  She said crossly, ‘Doors are to be knocked on. Don’t you know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s hear you knock then.’

  She closed the door. ‘Now knock,’ she said from inside.

  It was one of those games she liked to play, so he obliged.

  ‘May I come in?’ Now she was telling him what to say.

  ‘M’come in?’

  She opened the door again. ‘Certainly you may. Welcome home, PS. Did you have a nice weekend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Vanessa.’

  ‘Kew, Vanessa.’

  ‘Why are you late?’

  ‘We missed the boat.’

  ‘Who brought you home?’

  ‘George.’

  ‘Yes, you may sit down but I hadn’t yet said so, had I?’

  It was going to be worse than he thought. It was that picnic, of course. But he mustn’t get Lila into trouble; she was sick.

  ‘What did you do over the weekend?’

  What a big moon through the window.

  ‘I asked you a question, PS.’

  ‘Er—nothing.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  What if she didn’t let him go home next Friday?

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘You didn’t leave Neutral Bay?’

  ‘No.’

  It was going to be all right now. He’d saved Lila.

  Vanessa took a bunch of keys from her dressing table and said, ‘Come with me.’

  They went across the hall and she unlocked the door of the spare room and snapped on the light.

  The bed had been taken away and on the floor was a whole toy town and yards and yards of railway line with crossings and signals. At a little green-and-red station the train stood waiting with its perfect black engines marked BRITISH RAILWAYS and six beautiful carriages with windows and a red luggage van with sliding doors. Tiny milk cans stood on the platform, and tin people, a conductor blowing a whistle.

  ‘Look,’ said Vanessa.

  She knelt and touched a switch. Lights sprang on in the little carriages and the train moved, sprang forward with a twitch and ran around the tracks, over a bridge on to a siding, shunted and raced forward again around and around the track.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’

  His head on the floor watching the little train rush towards him, thinking of a real bridge over a river with yellow jellyfish.

  Then the train stopped, the lights in the little windows went out. He looked up at Vanessa.

  She said, ‘It took us all yesterday afternoon to put this together as a surprise for you and now you come home and tell me a naughty lie.’

  She didn’t seem angry, but sad.

  ‘A lie between you and me, who are friends,’ she said.

  Found out. He stared at the train. Was she going to send it back now?

  ‘A lie between friends is the most hurtful thing in the world,’ said Vanessa. ‘Stand up, please.’

  Stood up. Wondered, what next?

  ‘Lila took you to that picnic, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

&
nbsp; ‘Then why did you say you hadn’t left home?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Was it because you knew I had said you were not to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you think I would punish you if I found out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Six and a half.’

  ‘Six and a half is old enough to know that I would never punish you for something that is not your fault, but Lila’s. Don’t you know that?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You were forced to go against your will, weren’t you?’

  He fingered the train engine.

  ‘Don’t touch that, PS. Did they say you had to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they say why?’

  ‘Because—um—the people knew Dear One.’

  ‘Don’t use that silly name. Say “my mother”.’

  He didn’t want to, but he burst into tears, leaned against Vanessa helplessly, sobbing into her thigh, wondering what had made him cry.

  Vanessa stroked his head. ‘Was it awful?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he gulped, hiccuping. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘it was awful.’ Anything to agree with her now, get it over. It wasn’t really a picnic, he told her. There were no other children to play with, just a lot of grownups sitting around tables drinking stuff and he heard a little girl called Pony tell Lila that his mother never wore shoes and you know what, she ran off in the middle of the night with a strange man and there was a nasty old lady called Conchita, who called him Boy and knew a lot of poofters. She didn’t like him because he’d stopped Dear One from finishing something. And it rained! And he wasn’t going to write stories! Ever! Bosh and balls, he said as an afterthought.

  ‘Whom did you hear say that?’

  ‘Pony.’

  ‘Promise never to say it again.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I promise, Vanessa.’

  ‘Promise, Vanessa.’

  ‘And don’t talk about poofters either. A poofter is—well, an ugly name for something. Like calling someone a dago, see?’

  She dried his eyes. ‘Cheer up,’ she said.

  So he wasn’t going to get into trouble after all. He needn’t have worried all day. Because now, funnily enough, Vanessa was smiling and her voice was soft and pleased as though he’d just got top marks at Miss Pile’s. Her eyes were very bright and sparkling and she patted him.

  ‘Can I play with the train now?’

  ‘Tomorrow. There’s a jolly nice chicken for supper so go and wash your hands.’

  She locked the spare room, led him to the bathroom. Handed him the new cake of Morny soap.

  ‘Remember, PS, that you are never again to tell me a lie because I shall know.’

  Nice smelly soap. Nicer than the plain yellow bath soap at home.

  Vanessa crossed the hall, opened Ettie’s door. Ettie put something quickly into the wardrobe, closed it, twinkled and glittered across the room, her little hands making knots in the air.

  ‘Aha,’ she said. ‘Tum tum tum.’

  ‘I knew,’ said Vanessa, ‘that if I made enough fuss, Lila would take him to that loathsome picnic.’

  ‘Oh, my dear—’ Ettie, very concerned, executed a small dance, made fawning gestures. Stopped, surprised, when Vanessa laughed.

  ‘It seems to have had quite an effect on him,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘Ah,’ said Ettie, understanding nothing but that Vanessa seemed not displeased. She stood still, obediently waiting for the next remark, while Vanessa studied her fingernails, found them apparently to her liking.

  ‘Hysterical,’ she said. ‘Poor little thing.’

  Ettie, directed now, said, ‘Ah, ah—poor little lamb.’

  ‘He turned to me, clung to me, Ettie.’

  ‘Ah, yes, he would, Ness.’

  Vanessa lit a cigarette, let the match burn down almost to her fingers, said:

  ‘Well, we’ll see. One can’t hurry these things but—’

  She seemed to see something beyond the room, behind the moon outside.

  ‘I promised you it wouldn’t be forever, Ettie. Our penal servitude in the colonies. We may all be back in London sooner than we think.’

  ‘Ness, Ness, oh, you good thing.’

  ‘Supper,’ said Vanessa crisply. Then her back said, going through the door, ‘There’s no need to hide bottles in wardrobes, Ettie. No one is stopping you having a little sherry in moderation, but it must be out in the open.’

  Lila slid the rabbit into the oven, slammed the door, burned her wrist slightly, sucked it.

  ‘No letter,’ she said to George. ‘No letter, no telephone call the whole week. That’s what worries me. When I got there today, the maid was waiting with him at the gate. I thought she’d come storming out of the house but the blinds were all pulled down as though they were out.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘It’s not good. Not when she’s silent. Oh, I don’t like it a bit when she’s silent. Mater used to say, “Ness is quiet; watch out.” He told me she’s bought him a train, it fills the whole room and then—listen, listen, don’t read the paper, I want you to hear this. She wouldn’t let him play with it until he’d told her where he’d been. Blackmail, if you please. So of course he told her about the picnic. Had to. Now he’s upset about telling on me. Hardly said a word coming home on the boat, wouldn’t eat his jam sandwich. So meek and subdued all the time, saying, “May I?” the way she makes him. Every week he comes back more like a different boy. Listen, how long can it go on?’

  George said, ‘How long can we go on? I’m out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I got the sack today.’

  Lila sat down heavily at the kitchen table and closed her eyes, thought, He didn’t say that, waited for the illusion to pass, but in a moment the new, freshly painted black trouble clicked in her mind.

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Said it was temporary but—’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe it. They don’t sack people who work for the unions.’

  ‘Even the unions are broke. They sacked Dave Petrie and he’s worked at the Trades Hall for fifteen years.’

  ‘George.’

  ‘Two weeks’ wages.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘He’d better be.’

  ‘I loaned Vere two pounds today,’ she burst out. ‘Some man she’s been writing songs with got drunk and—’

  ‘We can’t keep the whole family, Lila.’

  ‘We have to keep him.’

  ‘I know.’

  All she could think of now was that Vanessa mustn’t find out. Not yet, anyway. Not until they could see light, see something ahead.

  An old poster flashed into her mind. ‘vote for george baines.’

  ‘To think,’ she said, ‘that they could do this to a man who has all his life supported Labour. A man who was very nearly in Parliament.’

  George said, ‘You certainly picked a good time to remind me of that.’

  They were floating paper boats in the discoloured tin bath in Mrs Grindel’s laundry and Winnie said:

  ‘Are you going to be on the dole like us?’

  ‘What’s the dole?’ he asked.

  ‘When your dad’s out of work. Like Mr Baines.’

  ‘He’s not.’

  ‘Yes he is. He got the sack. My mum says youse’ll be going to live with your other aunty for good now.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Yes you will.’

  Angrily, he sank his boat with one fist.

  ‘I’ll never!’ he said.

  ‘You’ll hafta.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Will I? ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re Another Mouth.’

  His heart beating very fast, he looked at Winnie, at her gap-toothed grin, her stringy hair done up in cotton rag curlers, the ring of dried orange marmalade around her lips. Horrid Winnie.
Always knowing about things before he did and scaring him. Wouldn’t the Lawson children love to belt her with a big thorny stick.

  ‘You’re common!’ he told Winnie. That was the Worst Thing you could call anyone at Miss Pile’s school.

  Winnie’s face puckered up, turned puce colour and she began to cry, as she always did, in great silent gulps and gasps. She ran out of the laundry and into the kitchen.

  ‘Mum. Mum. PS says I’m common.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Mrs Grindel’s voice very sharp, and when he came sheepishly into the kitchen, her face as red as Winnie’s. Two red Grindel faces glaring at him.

  ‘Did you call Winnie common?’

  ‘She said—’

  ‘Never you mind what she said; did you call her common?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Then Winnie doesn’t want to play with you any more. Now you go home. Go on.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll give you sorry. Winnie’s as good as you any day. Don’t you come back here at weekends and put on airs just because you got servants waiting on you all week in that posh house. Maybe you’ll be better orf living there and playing with those snobby Point Piper kids who think they’re all the bloody Prince of Wales!’

  No good telling her that the Point Piper kids didn’t like him because he didn’t have a father and was a bastard. He went meekly out and climbed through the hole in the fence, saw Lila pegging the wash on the line, ran to her through a wall of wet sheets and long woollen underwear.

  ‘What’s up, pet?’

  ‘Winnie said—’

  ‘Mrs Baines!’

  Mrs Grindel’s red face over the fence. ‘I’d like to speak to you for a minute, please.’ Mrs Grindel as haughty and red as her own rooster. Lila went over to the fence and he heard mutterings of ‘Needs a good smack if you want my opinion; what’s she been teaching him? We was good enough for his real mother.’ He hid behind the wall of flapping sheets until Lila came back and said:

  ‘PS, you hurt Winnie very much.’

  ‘She said I had to go and live with Vanessa for good.’

  ‘I’ve told you over and over again—’

  ‘She said George got the sack and I’d have to go.’

  ‘Now listen, pet. George did get the sack—’

  ‘I won’t go. I won’t live in that house. I won’t.’

  ‘Stop shouting and listen to me. George is out of work just for a little while—’