The Day They Shot Edward

by Wendy Scarfe

  He crept a little closer. A hand emerged from the darkness and drew the figure forward. Matthew saw its paleness and the curve of the fingers. The arm, if there was one, was shrouded. Matthew crouched by the verandah steps. It might see him if he darted inside, might reach out that hand and grasp him. The white faceless figure stood still. Then in the quiet of the night Matthew heard a few whispered syllables of sound. The figure moved. It was a woman. The hand fell away from her back and a man’s figure, enlarged by the darker shadows stretching from the wall and surrounding him, loomed over her. She seemed to grow taller as if she reached up or stood on her toes.

  He heard a couple of faint gasps which could have been fear or surprise or the end of a laugh. Who were they? As Matthew edged nearer, his foot slipped on a pebble and he scuffled to his knees on the gravel. In a moment the figures froze, melted and dissolved into the shadowy world from which they had so fleetingly emerged. The moonlight caught a flicker of whiteness at ground level as if a real foot might have disturbed a hemline. Then there was nothing. He strained his ears but heard only the erratic chirrups of night insects. They had disappeared. Matthew fled up the steps and through the kitchen door into his room.

  He fell asleep almost at once. Sometime in the night he dreamed that a door opened and closed very softly in the house.

  Gran was reading. She had been to the library and returned home with a basket of books. Margaret had scrummaged in the basket, turned the volumes so she could read the titles and grimaced. Now she lounged on the settee reading her Ladies’ Journal while Gran stood under the single electric bulb which dangled from the ceiling and lit part of the kitchen. It threw a sharp cone of brilliance on to the kitchen floor but beyond its perimeters shadow and light merged in frustrating fuzziness. Sometimes Margaret complained but she refused to move the settee from against the wall and made much of the necessity for looking at the pictures rather than reading the print.

  Matthew had a wooden stool Edward had made him. He placed this in the circle of light near Gran and crouched over his own story book. Gran could stand for hours reading like this.

  ‘Are you reading an interesting story, Gran?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Gran, is your story interesting?’

  ‘What, Matthew?’

  ‘Is your story interesting?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Mother, Matthew is talking to you.’

  ‘What? Were you, darling? What was that?’

  ‘Is your story interesting, Gran?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a very good story.’

  ‘What happens in your book?’

  ‘It would be better for you to read yours, darling.’

  ‘But I know what happens in mine. I want to know what happens in yours.’

  ‘It’s a French book, Matthew. About a man called Candide. He has many adventures and gets into all kinds of trouble. It’s written by a famous French writer, Voltaire, whose ideas helped to create the French Revolution. Now that was a big adventure. That was a time when people took power from their king and the rich and powerful and tried to use it themselves.’

  ‘Did they win?’

  ‘No, not entirely.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘A lot died.’

  ‘Is it all right when a lot of people die?’

  ‘No, not really. But sometimes … it happens when people fight for a good cause.’

  ‘What is a cause?’

  ‘Something people believe in. Some people want to change the world to make it better.’

  ‘Old Peter says people just want to change things to suit their fancies.’

  ‘Old Peter’s a cynic.’

  ‘What’s a cynic?’

  ‘A Greek—’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Matthew, do be quiet. My head aches with your questions.’ Mother rubbed her temples with a finger from each hand. Her fingers were delicate, the white of a sapling peeled down to its inner, unprotected core. Her nails glistened like wet pippy shells. With circular, repetitive somnolence her fingers stroked. Round and round and round. Matthew felt his own skin tightening, loosening, tightening, letting go. The fingers hesitated and then began again massaging, stroking, whirling him away.

  ‘Let him be, Margaret. I don’t mind answering him. How is he to learn?’

  ‘At school. I hope.’

  ‘Not well enough. He has a dreadful teacher. She fills his head with the worst sort of chauvinistic rubbish. The Empire—right or wrong.’

  ‘Everyone thinks like that now. I’ve been invited to play the piano at a musical soiree to raise money for the war effort. Everyone will be there. I think I’ll take Matthew. It’ll be good for him. You’d like to come. Matthew?’

  ‘Will you play Mr Schubert, Mother?’

  ‘Great heavens. He was German. I’d be hooted out of town. I shall play some Irish songs: “Galway Bay”, “The Mountains of Mourne”, maybe “Mother Machree”.’

  ‘And what is the difference between German and Irish songs?’ asked Gran. ‘The British are at war with Germany now. They’ve been at war with Ireland for centuries. It’s so typical of their arrogance. Slaughter the Irish and appropriate their music to serve their own Victorian sentimentality.’

  ‘I like Irish songs. Everyone likes them.’

  ‘Of course. They wallow in the nostalgia of the dispossession they have caused. And feel no guilt.’

  ‘Well, I intend to play them. They’ll go down well. I’ll tell them I’m Irish and I shall take Matthew in a green velvet suit.’

  ‘Margaret!’

  ‘Dark-green velvet vest and knickerbockers and a cream silk shirt. And I’ll wear a cinnamon skirt and jacket and a cream blouse—and a straw hat with a big cream rose. We’ll stun them, Mother. They’ll call us the good-looking Donahues.’ She smiled at the thought.

  ‘What about practising now? Come, Mother. You haven’t sung for years. You loved to sing.’

  Margaret snatched the book from her mother’s hand and tossed it on the settee. ‘Come on. Come on.’ And she pulled her into the parlour. Throwing open the piano stool she tipped music books onto the floor as she searched for her Irish songs.

  ‘Here. Here they are.’

  She spread the book on the piano stand, curtseyed to her mother and Matthew, lifted her skirt, settled herself on the stool and began to play. Sarah said nothing. Head slightly inclined she listened to the first verse. Margaret bent over the piano, stroking and pressing the keys as she had her forehead, and the room filled with the aching loneliness of the immigrant. .

  ‘Now, Mother, now.’

  Gran leaned her hand on the piano as if sharing some weight and began to sing. The melody wept and ran around the room reaching longing arms, bare and lovely, first to the door then the window. Trapped, it sank in on itself, wrapping ghostly garments about its head, sobbing, sobbing. Overcome by its inescapable forlornness Matthew rushed to the window and pulled it open. Now it could escape into the pale-blue moonlight. It could wing with the soft moths and mingle with the dark perfumes that attracted them.

  ‘Oh, Gran!’ he cried. ‘Music is so beautiful. Is it always so sad?’

  ‘Often. Beauty is sad. John Keats said:

  She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

  Bidding adieu;’

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Margaret. ‘It is so romantic to be Irish.’

  ‘Only if you’re not in Ireland, Margaret. Have you forgotten how the British shot the Irish patriots after the Easter Rebellion and James Connolly, a wounded man. There is no romance in Ireland.’

  But Margaret was lost in her dream of social acceptance.

  ‘Come to the soiree with us, Mother. You could sing. Your voice is still lovely. They’d call us “The Artistic Donahues” as well!’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘I can’t applaud it, Margaret. I just can’t. Hypocrisy and police informers among us at home. Death or mutilation to thousands of young men
overseas. It’s such an ugly war.’

  Margaret was taking Matthew to the March Past. Another contingent of soldiers was leaving for Europe. It would be a wonderful show, she said. Everyone would be there. Sarah refused to join them.

  ‘Look,’ she said and spread the previous day’s paper on the table. ‘Look.’ And she pointed to where columns of names marched up and down a black-bordered page. ‘A few weeks and all those young soldiers you see today will be here. If their names are in heavy print they may be luckier than the ones who survive—mad, blind or legless.’

  ‘Well, they’ll go anyway, whether we go to the March Past or whether we don’t. I can’t change anything.’ And Margaret flounced out of the room. Gran went back to washing dishes and Matthew who was helping her dry up put his plate on the table and read some names aloud.

  ‘Why are all these names here, Gran?’

  ‘It’s the Casualty List.’

  ‘What’s a casualty?’

  ‘Someone injured or killed in the war.’

  ‘Are all these people dead?’

  ‘Many of them. And many very seriously hurt—wounded.’

  ‘How did they die, Gran?’

  ‘Shot probably—by other men—the so-called enemy.’

  ‘Where are they now then, Gran?’

  ‘In France. At Gallipoli. Somewhere in Europe where they never should have gone to fight a war that is none of Australia’s business. Sometimes, Matthew, when I see some poor shell-shocked creature driven insane by what he has had to face of human brutality I wonder who is the more insane—him or the people here who whip up a frenzy of patriotic hatred.

  ‘Try not to run with the mob, Matthew. Make your own decisions, your own choices. And read. Education is power. Read history. It’s the only rehearsal we have for living. And novels so you understand people. In great novels you will find all the people you have known. They act out the stories of their lives and it is also our story. If we do not understand the past or people we can make dreadful mistakes—like this war.’

  Margaret had returned to the kitchen. Dejectedly she stacked Victor’s plates in their separate cupboard.

  ‘What airy-fairy notions you put into Matthew’s head. Education is power! A dreamer’s fantasy, Mother. To be free to make choices Matthew needs money and social position. And how are we to give him those?’

  Confused, Matthew looked from one to the other. ‘Gran,’ he asked, ‘Mother wants me to go with her today. Should I?’

  ‘Of course you should!’ Margaret snapped. ‘I’m your mother and sometimes, just sometimes, I’m entitled to choose what I think is right for you. You’ll enjoy it. Lots of bands and marching music. The city decorated. We’ll go to Rundles. They have an upstairs balcony and we can drink lemonade spiders while we watch.’ She hustled him around, finding him a clean shirt, trousers and jacket, helping him polish his shoes. Gran went on with her chores silently. Occasionally Matthew glanced at her.

  ‘Mother,’ he said anxiously. ‘Mother, all the men whose names are in the paper in the black, black print are dead. Gran says that if we go to the March Past today, in a few weeks all those soldiers will be dead, too.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Matthew! What nonsense! Our going to the March Past won’t make the slightest difference to what happens to them. We’re just going to enjoy the celebration. If they get killed it will be a long way from here.’

  ‘“But that was in another country”,’ Sarah quoted sadly.

  ‘I don’t think I want to go.’ Despite his mother’s reassurances Matthew felt a guilty apprehension about those names. They sank under the weight of the print like heavy stones sank into soft earth. The soft earth which slid over coffins lowered into holes in the ground. Matthew felt his breath stick in his throat and shake in his chest.

  ‘Do I have to go, Mother?’

  ‘Yes, you do. Sometimes I want a say in what I do with my own child.’ And she glared angrily at Gran who suddenly, to Matthew, looked littler and paler.

  ‘Gran, are you all right?’ he said as he ran to her.

  ‘Yes, darling, of course. I’m tired today, that’s all. Your mother’s right. You go with her.’

  ‘But you said …’

  ‘Yes, I said. And your mother said. We both say too much. Just go with her. Have your lemonade spider.’

  ‘But the men in black print who will die?’

  ‘Too big a burden for you, darling. I was wrong. You can’t make choices you are not ready for. Now run along. It’s time I had one of my private days with your grandfather.’

  ‘Your key to the shades.’

  ‘If I can find it today. I’m afraid the shades are becoming so numerous that your grandfather will think he’s back on earth again.’

  ‘Then he won’t be lonely, Gran.’

  ‘No. I don’t think he’s lonely, darling.’ And she kissed him.

  Mother hummed a little tune as she held Matthew’s hand and strode along the footpath to the tram stop. The cable tram was festooned with three-cornered coloured flags and a Union Jack fluttered at either end. The tram could not cross the barricaded Main Street so Margaret and Matthew walked again, through the thickening crowd. Margaret was a tall woman and her hat and head bobbed and dipped to her stride on a level with the hundreds of other heads and hats, but Matthew could see nothing except the white or pastel blouses of women and the grey, black or brown woollen fronts of the men. Women’s bodies smelt sweet and light; men’s bodies smelt thick and hot and dense. Sometimes bodies were so close that his nose rubbed against the suffocating texture of suits.

  When he looked down he saw shoes, skirts, trousers. When he looked up he saw a nose, a piece of hat brim, the jut of a chin, the plane of a cheek, a beard. He clutched his mother’s hand and followed her, even when she became locked in a group of people moving ahead like articles on a conveyor belt. He felt his arm pulled to its full length as she disappeared and wondered how far it would stretch without toppling him off balance. Corseted by encircling bodies his lungs shrank and he breathed in gasps so agonisingly compressed that he thought he would suffocate. Isolated from his mother by yet another group of people he panicked and using his head butted his way through the crowd in front of him.

  ‘Easy does it.’

  ‘Go easy, son.’

  Voices from above reproved him but he continued butting, pushing, wriggling, eeling until once again he was able to walk beside his mother. Oblivious to his difficulties she admonished him to keep up, not to loiter or get lost. He caught fragments of music muted by the bodies around him. Once when the crowd parted he was ejected into an open space where the sun felt suddenly and brilliantly hot and a roll of drums and a blare of trumpets so assaulted his ears that his hands rushed to cover them. A band was swinging past and the sun blazed from a shock of brass trumpets all held at right angles to marching faces. The music, harsh and domineering, ricocheted around the street bouncing off the front of buildings in hideous after sounds.

  People cheered and men threw their hats into the air. In front of Matthew the bass drum whoomed, boomed, whoomed, boomed. This was not Mr Werther’s music or Mr Schubert’s or Gran’s songs, which mourned to escape into the night. This was ugly, loud music crushing everything in front of it. It rolled down the street rumbling like gun carriages, heaved along by straining horses. Like the reverberations from exploded cannon balls it obliterated all other sounds. Lost were the delicate modulations of voice, the sweetness of birds’ songs, the subtlety of melody: all were silenced, all crushed. Matthew didn’t know why people cheered. He could hear nothing but the blare of the band.

  Rundles was busy. Most of the tables had been jammed on to the balcony with its white wrought-iron railing. With little excited giggles and coy apologies Margaret found a seat for Matthew and herself. She settled herself nodding and smiling to all around, patting her hair, peeling off her gloves, adjusting her skirt so that its folds fell elegantly over her legs and did not scrunch up tightly under her, dragging across he
r stomach.

  Under the balcony, verandah roofs from street-level shops and businesses projected over the footpath. Men and boys who had climbed on to them sat or stood in groups. Streamers knotted to the balcony festooned the railings. Balloons, Union Jacks, rosettes decorated the posts. Below, on the street, Matthew could see only hats: cloth hats with coloured bands; straw hats with flowers and ribbons; rakish caps; felt hats with brims and hard homburgs with tiny outcropping ledges. Hats, not people, moved, turned, tilted, bowed, swept forward, hovered, retreated, even spun an occasional full circle to mingle with hats moving in another direction.

  The soldiers came. The centre of the road between the hats was clear for them. The sun flashed off their bayonets. The band thumped and brayed and the crowd roared. Some straw hats broke away from the crowd like icing crumbling at the edge of a cake. They became women—Matthew could see their gowns. They ran across to the soldiers and kissed them as they marched, running alongside them until they were breathless and forced to stop. Then, looking rather lost, they edged back into the crowd which absorbed them and they became, once again, simply a hat.

  ‘Why do they carry knives, Mother?’

  ‘Hush, Matthew.’ Margaret looked embarrassed.

  ‘To disembowel the enemy, young-un.’ A man near to them picked up a silver butter knife and lunged with a broad grin at Matthew’s stomach. Startled, Matthew slid backwards. His weight overbalanced the chair and both fell to the floor.

  ‘Oh, dear. Not a good soldier. Not yet, anyway.’ The man laughed and winked at Margaret.

  ‘You are certainly not a good soldier, Matthew, darling. The gentleman had you in full retreat, didn’t he?’ With eyes sparkling at the gentleman she reached a hand to Matthew.

  ‘I don’t want to be a soldier. Never!’ he retaliated angrily. ‘It’s silly. My gran says they’ll all be dead soon and in black print. She didn’t want me to come.’