‘If you’re at all interested, there’s a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk here.’
She clicked away across the hall and there was silence again. He waited for a while, counted twenty and then carefully unlocked the door, trying not to make any noise. He opened the door a crack and peeped out. A plate with a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk stood on the floor just outside the door. There was no one around.
He sidled out of the bathroom and picked up the plate and the glass, started to tiptoe towards his room when he caught sight of Vanessa in her room. She was sitting in the big yellow silk armchair and smoking a cigarette. She made no move and for a moment they stared at each other across the hallway.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Listen, have you ever heard the story of the tortoise and the hare? They had a race, you see, which seemed pretty absurd because everyone knows that a hare can run very fast and a tortoise can’t run at all. Well, what happened, actually, was that the hare was so sure that he would win that he sat down under a tree and had a jolly nice nap, do you see? And so of course the tortoise caught up and passed the hare and won. Well, I’m a tortoise.’ That seemed to be the end of the story so he went into his room and ate his sandwich and drank his milk. He felt suddenly very sleepy. He climbed on to the bed and heard, as he went to sleep, Vanessa singing softly in her room.
Lila laid Mater’s best slightly darned damask cloth on the dining room table and got out the good dishes. There was no silver left and she hoped that Logan would not notice the kitchen knives and forks. The chicken was in the oven and she reminded herself for the eleventh time that she must not worry herself sick over the extravagance of it, nor of the few yards of cretonne hastily pinned together that morning to hide the cracks in the leather armchair. There was enough to be sick about. She had been sick ever since Vere’s telephone call to Miss Gulf; had wandered deliriously up and down the street with threepences to pay for the calls to Vanessa (always busy, out, can’t come to the phone, said the maid or cook), finally had got hold of Ettie, who said she thought that he was at the Hotel Waratah, and then at long last to Logan and the frightening garbled story.
She was afraid to ask too many obvious questions in front of the eavesdropping Gulf sisters and Logan’s replies were so vague that she had wanted to rush to him then and there but Logan had said no, he would come over to the house so they could have a long chinwag. He would come late tomorrow for tea. He kept telling her not to worry because he was on her side. Good old Lila, he kept saying, over what seemed to be the noise of raucous laughter and the strumming of a ukulele in the background. She gathered that there had been a fight and that he had told Vanessa to go to hell, but this only served to increase Lila’s premonition of doom. The rainbirds had been noisy all day.
When George came home, his creased face and hunched shoulders warned her that it had been another fruitless day of job hunting and she minimised the ominous facts. But that night, in breathless sleep, she had had troubled dreams in which she ran down endless white corridors on board a monstrous ship trying to find PS, and seeing Logan, tried to make him sign some adoption papers, but there was no pen, no ink and the papers were made of wool.
She had awakened wan and shaky, got busy in the dark winter morning with mops and pails. All morning she scoured and scrubbed, dropping wet tea leaves on the sitting room carpet to keep down the dust as she swept, fighting down the rising tides of asthma. Once, George, catching her kneeling, delving for fluff, said, ‘Do you think he’s going to look under the bed?’ But she was touched when he went off and borrowed the Grindels’ trowel, weeded the front lawn and painted the front steps with oven black.
Now, as she arranged the shillingsworth of daisies in Sinden’s blue-sky vase and placed it in the centre of the table, she felt, in spite of everything, the quick anticipation of the hostess. It wasn’t Cousin Ettie’s posh house but it was home and it was the kind of home that Logan was accustomed to and that was on their credit side. She plumped the tired cushions on the sofa once more, inspected the chicken, looked at her rhubarb pie, felt better. Felt almost hopeful. Passing the bathroom, where George was shaving, she called:
‘Don’t use the guest towel; it’s for Logan.’
‘Think I was going to mop the floor with it?’
She hurried into her dark-blue morocain, put on her pink imitation pearls and Mater’s brooch; put on dabs of dry rouge and lipstick, resented her long Scott face, regretted her mole. Back in the sitting room she arranged the snapshots of PS to show to Logan. The carefully selected happy pictures of PS on the beach, at the zoo, blowing out birthday candles and one sitting with George on a camel.
George came in wearing his blue suit and, watching his face absorbed in the paper she thought, I must handle this myself. Or as much of it as I can myself. ‘You dear love,’ she said silently to George.
At six o’clock she opened the front door and peered down the darkening street. A new twittering fear had begun in her.
‘He must have missed the half past five boat,’ she said.
‘It wouldn’t be Logan if he was on time,’ said George.
By six thirty she had made four trips to the front gate and back.
‘Look,’ said George. ‘The watched Pop never boils.’
‘What?’
‘He might have forgotten.’
‘Forgotten!’
‘You said he sounded blotto on the phone.’
‘Yes, but—oh, no, he couldn’t have forgotten. I said the half past five boat and he said yes and I said get off the tram at Ben Boyd Road and he was writing it down—’
‘How do you know he was writing it down?’
‘It sounded like it. He said how do you spell that? Oh, no, he’s coming. It’s just that the chicken is ruined, that’s all.’
After a minute she added, ‘He’s coming because the child’s whole future is at stake.’
‘Yes, that would worry Logan,’ said George.
Then the front gate slammed.
‘I told you,’ she cried triumphantly, and ran into the hall, arms outstretched in welcome, stopped when she saw Miss Gulf at the door.
‘Telephone, Mrs Baines.’
‘Oh, is it a gentleman? We’re expecting—’
‘A man. He didn’t give the name.’
She hurried up the dark cold street with Miss Gulf, past the supper-lighted windows.
‘We were right in the middle of our tea,’ said Miss Gulf.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lila. ‘But it must be important.’
‘We don’t mind,’ said Miss Gulf. ‘Only my sister isn’t well, you know, and the telephone ringing frightens her. We don’t like the phone ringing.’
‘I know. I’m so sorry, dear.’
Into Miss Gulf’s stuffy hallway, wheezing now, picking up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, who’s that?’
‘Lila. Logan?’
‘Lila.’ He sounded blurred. ‘How are you? Well, how do you do, how are you?’
‘Logan, what’s happened? Where are you?’
‘I’m at the Carlton with Vere. I rang up old Vere and we’ve been having a little spot of auld lang. She’s a bloody marvel; doesn’t look any diff’rent—’
‘Logan, dinner’s all ready and we’re waiting—’
‘Hello? Lila? Is it you?’
‘Of course it’s me, Logan. Listen—’
‘Lila, I lost your number, see, and I had to get hold of Vere, so Vere’s here with me and we’re having a couple of spots—’
‘You tell Vere that you have to—’
‘Lile, I’m sorry about tonight. I have to catch the train.’
‘The train! What do you mean? The Melbourne train? Tonight?’
‘Ness’s put a lawyer on me. Some chap she sent up with a paper about PS. Threatening me. Don’t like to be threatened, Lila. Told him where to get off, no uncertain language. As I said to you, I’m on your side so don’t worry—Just a minute, Vere’s saying
something.’
Lila heard Vere’s loud voice in the background, then Logan put his hand over the mouthpiece.
‘Oh, my God,’ Lila said, and then, ‘Logan—Logan, are you there? Hello?’
‘What? Oh, hello, Lila. Yes, listen. Vere says to come on in now.’
‘Where? Where?’
‘To the train. We’re going up to the station now. I’m on the—what’s it, Vere? Vere says to tell you I’m on the second edition of the Limited but don’t tell Ness, Lila. I don’t want Ness around or that effing lawyer of hers. OK?’
‘I’ll come at once.’ Oh, God, oh, God, what next?
‘Something wrong, Mrs Baines?’
‘No, Miss Gulf. Thanks so much. So sorry.’
She fled back down the street and into her own house, cannoning into George in the hall, blurted out the news, tore into the bedroom wardrobe to get her hat and coat, screaming, ‘What time does the Melbourne express leave?’
(And even if we’re on time, how to talk about adoption papers with Logan drunk and so little time?)
Leaving the ruined dinner, leaving all the lights burning, they slammed the front door and ran down the street to the tram stop.
On the ferry, chugging much too slowly to Circular Quay, she tried to assemble her thoughts, marvelling at George’s calmness. He had struck up a conversation with the man next to them about the overcrowding of the harbour, too many overseas liners going too fast, not observing the speed limits. One day, George said, there’d be a bad collision. And pollution too on beaches. He was back making a political speech. She felt admiring, yet exasperated, then touched when at the Quay he hailed a taxi. The driver said he thought the Melbourne express left at eight o’clock. The big tower-clock hands pointed to a quarter to eight as they drove up the ramp to Central Station.
‘Platform One,’ yelled a porter in reply to Lila’s screech.
They hurried into the cavernous smoky cathedral and threaded their way through the crowd, first to the wrong gate, then back to the right one, losing each other momentarily in the sea of people disgorging from the Lithgow train, got breathless and panting into the queue at Platform One.
At the gate, the guard snapped, ‘Platform tickets.’
‘What? What?’
‘You havta have platform tickets, lady. Window Four. Go through that arch over there and turn left.’
George said, ‘You wait here.’
‘Run,’ she cried needlessly for he was already running across the great hall towards the distant arch. Running, she thought, for someone else’s mistakes, someone else’s child.
She peered through the grille at the crowded platform beyond, trying to spot Logan or Vere in the dim brownish light. Trunks and bags of mail were being loaded into the luggage van and beyond it, people were leaning out of the train windows and talking to others on the platform. Some were already kissing goodbye, the last late stragglers were hurrying through the gate. The train moaned and lurched back a few feet as the engine was coupled on. The precious minutes flew by.
‘Let me go through,’ she begged the guard. ‘I have to find someone.’
‘You have to have a platform ticket, lady.’
‘Jesus.’ She had never said that irreverently in her life. Never felt so impotent, so angry. Frantically she turned her head towards the arch, saw George running back, almost knocking over a child, frantically waved him on. They ran through the gate and on to the smoky dim platform.
‘Can you see them?’ she said, scanning the lighted windows of the train.
‘You look this side, I’ll look that,’ said George, and they hurried on, looking from right to left, searching the faces in the windows, the seated people in compartments opening baskets of fruit, the kissing forms, the weepers and consolers on the platform benches. The train seemed to stretch on endlessly. Now they were at the next to the last carriage, now the last, now the engine spurting fire; the shapes of hairy, shovelling men. They started back again. Doors were beginning to slam and lock all down the train. She saw a bright red dress and beads; gave a scream. ‘There’s Vere.’
Vere and Logan on the platform bench were calmly eating fried potato chips out of greasy paper. A bottle of Pilsener stood next to Logan’s battered suitcase.
‘Logan,’ she cried, and he stood up uncertainly, gazing at her in a muddled way. Then he shouted, ‘Lila!’ staggered forward grinning, and she felt herself being picked up in the air, hugged and kissed. ‘God bless you,’ he said thickly. Put her down and embraced George. ‘Dear old George,’ he said. ‘God bless you. Sit down, have a drink.’
‘Where the hell were you?’ said Vere, her face flushed and bright, laughing too loudly.
They all crowded on to the bench and Logan kissed Lila again.
‘Logan, don’t go—’
‘Plenty of time,’ he said, reaching for the bottle.
‘Don’t go tonight,’ she begged. ‘Come home with us. We’ve got to talk.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he said.
Vere took a teacup out of her bag and he filled it. ‘Let’s all have a loving cup,’ he said. ‘Good to see you, know that?’ He slapped George’s knee.
‘Logan, stay with us. Come home with us now.’
‘ “Father, dear Father, come home with me now,” ’ sang Logan.
‘He’s got to escape the virgin queen,’ said Vere, and Logan laughed and embraced Vere.
‘Got to escape the virgin queen,’ he said. ‘Virgin queen’s got papers. But it’s all right. I fixed it all. I fixed it.’
‘How did you fix it, Logan? What happened?’
‘Good to see you, Lila.’
‘Logan, for God’s sake—’
‘How’ve you been, Lila?’
‘George, make him understand.’
‘Look here, old chap, you better come along with us.’
George took Logan by the arm and they all stood up.
‘ “Come home, come home again, Kath-leen,” ’ sang Logan. He emptied the cup, took hold of Vere and they went into a travesty of a waltz. Two men on the train leaned out of a window, bellowing and applauding.
‘All aboard,’ yelled a voice.
A whistle blew.
‘Got to go, love,’ said Logan. He reached down unsteadily for his suitcase and Lila clung to him.
‘Logan, we want PS.’
‘Right, dear.’
‘You’ve got to let us adopt him.’
‘Absolutely. Write to you about it, love.’
‘No, you’ve got to stay and sign the papers.’
‘No. No more papers. Won’t sign papers, love.’
‘All aboard!’
‘Told Vanessa to go to hell. Told her she couldn’t take him out of the country. All fixed, love.’
‘But that leaves everything just where it was. What you’ve got to do is get him away from Vanessa. We’re his parents—’
The train jerked and moved slowly.
‘Tell you what I’m going to do, Lila; I’m going to write you a long, long letter about the whole bloody thing. We’ll get him away from the virgin queen. Don’t you worry, love.’
‘But Logan—oh, my God—’
Vere screamed, ‘Logan, you’ll miss the train.’
He spun around, grabbed Vere to him, kissed her.
‘Cheerio, kid,’ he said.
‘Cheerio, kid,’ said Vere. ‘Keep your chin up, kid.’
Logan kissed Lila again, made a stumbling movement towards George, saw George make a dart to catch him, sidestepped and stumbled towards the moving train, where a guard was holding open the last door.
Lila and George ran forward as the guard reached out, took Logan’s arm and hoisted him into the train, slamming the door. Logan leaned out and Lila caught his hand, hurrying along beside the slowly moving train.
‘We’ll send the papers,’ she cried. ‘You’ve got to give him to us.’
He nodded, smiling, waving with his free hand. ‘Going to be all right,’ he yelled. ‘Going up to the
Northern Territory, up to the Roper River. Going to find gold, Lila. Send you all the money in the world. God bless you, Lila.’
Suddenly she was screaming, ‘Do something, do something,’ above the roar of steam and voices, but he kept nodding and smiling as the train gathered speed and their hands parted and he was being drawn away from her, his figure growing smaller, his arm waving to her over other waving arms, merging into them, vanishing.
‘Do something,’ she called. ‘Do something.’ She walked slowly after the quickly vanishing train. ‘I’m sick of you,’ she called. ‘I’m sick of your dreams that come to nothing. You stayed away and let her die,’ she said quietly now to the green and red lights of the lumbering luggage van disappearing down the track into the night. ‘Let her die,’ she repeated to dimming red and green lights and to a guard waving a lantern, felt her unmistakable gift come back to her and knew for certain that none of them would ever see Logan again.
She turned and walked slowly back down the platform, past Vere, still waving at the empty track, tears running down her face. She saw George waiting for her and took his arm and together they walked through the gate and found their way through the echoing arches to the Circular Quay tram.
‘I’d like to know just who you think you are,’ said Ellen, the cook, very hatchet-faced, one long hair growing out of her chin, putting the last of the broken bottles into the rubbish tin and slamming the lid down. They were standing in the kitchen garden under the bathroom window.
Careful, He Might Hear You Page 22