by Wendy Scarfe
‘Can’t really bear … too awful,’ Margaret whispered.
‘Not necessary. Go home,’ Edward reassured them.
Later the men came to tea.
‘Those rough men … must they?’ Matthew heard his mother say.
‘Who carried the coffin for us,’ Gran replied, ‘and need a cup of tea and our thanks.’
They were awkward, holding their teacups clumsily, winking at Matthew, smiling nervously at Margaret. When they prepared to leave, Matthew jumped up and taking Edward’s hand walked with them to the gate.
‘Well, King Jack,’ one of them laughed, ‘nothing to stop you now.’ And he slapped Edward on the back.
‘Why do you call him King Jack?’ asked Matthew.
‘That or Jack the King.’
‘My name’s Edward John,’ he explained. ‘Edward John Kingsley—Jack for John and King for Kingsley.’
‘You can play all sorts of tricks with words, can’t you, Jack?’ said his friend. ‘For instance, there’s that word Anna-Kist. Now who did Anna kiss and what a naughty girl she was to stir up so much trouble.’
Edward laughed. ‘Go on home, you old buffoon. There’s no Anna here, kissed or otherwise. You’re the trickster.’
‘Not me, Jack. Not half enough education to get into trouble.’ And his friend laughed, winked again at Matthew and left.
‘What is Anna-kist, Edward?’
‘Just a joke, Matthew. Just a joke. They’re good mates.’
People called after the funeral. May Goodman put an arm around Margaret. ‘You poor young thing, you poor dear. So much to endure. So brave. So very brave.’
They sat in the parlour talking in low voices. Margaret summoned Matthew to meet Mrs Goodman and he stood awkwardly with his mother’s arm around him, like a small ornament on a shelf placed neatly for display. Mrs Goodman admonished him to be grown up now, the man in the house.
Mother said sadly: ‘He’s all I’ve got.’
Matthew, remembering the ghosts in the garden, said: ‘But, Mother, there’s Edward.’
‘Edward! Nonsense! No one,’ she repeated firmly. And Mrs Goodman patted her hand and kissed her cheek.
‘You don’t think she’s rather patronising?’ Gran asked later. ‘Riches bending to poverty?’
‘Not at all,’ Margaret snapped. ‘Not at all. She knows we have come down in the world. She recognises breeding when she sees it; class.’
‘That’s certain.’
Gran’s dryness provoked her. ‘Then who am I to mix with?’
‘Edward,’ said Gran.
‘Edward?’
‘Yes, Edward. And don’t pretend to me, Margaret. Even Matthew has seen ghosts in the garden.’
‘Ghosts!’ And she blushed.
‘So what about Edward?’ asked Gran.
For a moment Margaret’s eyes softened dreamily. Then she shrugged. ‘I’m tired of being poor, of being afraid. You think I don’t understand the implications of Edward’s politics. I understand enough to know that he’d never be welcome at the Goodmans’. Look at those rough men at the funeral.’
‘Good men.’
‘And their rough wives,’ Margaret added.
‘Not necessarily. Hard-working women like us.’
‘Of course they are. What else could they be but poor, struggling? Watching annuities shrink until each time you draw you see yourself looking deeper and deeper into the jar, scratching round the bottom, licking your fingers to taste the few remaining crumbs. Remembering what it was like, once.’
‘Edward loves Matthew. He could be a father for your boy.’
‘But not a husband. He’s too risky. If I marry again it will be for safety.’
‘You made one mistake, Margaret.’
‘And you think I’m going to make another? Not likely.’ And she got up and strode out of the kitchen.
Mr Werther visited. He brought a pot of honey with a tiny honeycomb house in it, a delicate wax structure in a sea of honey like a ship floating in a bottle. Margaret brought him into the kitchen. He bowed to her and offered his gift and his commiserations. Matthew loved that word, stepping daintily and elegantly off his tongue. He bowed to Gran and offered her his sympathy. Gran smiled at him and brought out her best English teapot and cups as Margaret excused herself and returned to her room.
‘She is distressed. Yes? Poor lady.’
‘Yes,’ Gran lied.
Later Matthew heard her say to his mother, ‘He is so kind, so gentle.’
‘A German visiting here. What if the Goodmans saw?’
‘And if they did?’
Gran rarely threatened but now her voice had an edge which indicated an end to her tolerance.
‘They might …’ Mother retreated then rallied. ‘You know what they say about Huns. You should have heard them at Rundles.’
‘Them. They. Who are them and they? Am I to be ruled by them and they? Are Matthew and I to be ever the victims of your character misjudgements?’
Margaret burst into tears. ‘I don’t know what you want me to be. My life is impossible.’ Matthew went into the garden. It was peaceful there. Perhaps he should visit old Peter. People didn’t confuse old Peter.
Several days later the man in the cigar-brown suit called. Matthew opened the front door and froze into silence.
‘What is it? Who? Oh!’ Margaret exclaimed. She glanced quickly at Matthew. ‘Off you go.’
‘No.’
‘Matthew.’
‘No.’
‘Do as I say! At once! Now!’
He ran. ‘Gran!’ he shouted. ‘Gran! That man who was unkind to Mr Werther. He’s at the door. Gran tell him to go away.’
Gran hurried out. ‘What a to do,’ she said. ‘Heavens, Matthew. Be quiet.’
Margaret’s voice came from the parlour: ‘… too much this time. Deserves a spanking.’
‘Don’t you dare, Margaret,’ warned Gran.
‘Can’t anyone come here to sympathise with me? Surely I need a little consideration sometimes.’
‘Of course,’ the man’s voice now. ‘Of course you do. May told me—look at you, so alone, so much in need, so brave.’
Gran came out snorting. ‘Let’s go into the garden, Matthew. I must get outside.’ And she hustled him in front of her out the door.
‘Gran,’ he asked, kneeling by her side to pull weeds, ‘does Mother have a key to the shades? Will she speak to Father?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Your mother does not set great store by the past.’
‘But she talks a lot about it.’
‘It’s not the same.’
‘Why does she cry so much? It makes me sad.’
‘She has many things to worry about. Her youth was blighted.’ Matthew considered ‘blighted’. He remembered that when frost shrivelled flowers in the garden, Gran had complained they were blighted.
‘Was it her fault?’ he asked.
‘No, not really.’
‘But you said—’
‘Yes, I know you’ve heard me blame her but sometimes I am too hard a judge. Your mother was only a young pretty girl who loved unwisely.’ She ruffled his hair. ‘But now she often forgets her sadness and is happy. You’ve seen that, Matthew.’
He thought and nodded. ‘Then she did love Father.’
‘Once.’
‘Did you love Grandfather?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died when we were at sea. On the way from Ireland. Many years ago.’
‘Then he is buried in the sea, not in the ground?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s nicer.’
‘Yes, I think so, too.’
‘When people die, Gran, they can’t come back? Can they?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you speak to Grandfather?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps because he is buried in the sea. Life came out of the sea. Maybe Grandfather’s life force
has been reshaped there. Maybe water and time are the same: always there somewhere in the universe, flowing, shaping, creating, but never disappearing. Grandfather is always there because water is always there. And time is the same, always there. We change its meaning when we call it past, present and future but time itself does not change. So,’ she laughed, ‘why should I be a prisoner in the prison we’ve made for ourselves? Perception is just a prison if we never question it.
‘There now, that’s confusing enough for any little boy. You’ve got a silly old Gran and a poor silly mother but we both love you. And Grandfather would have loved you, too.’
‘Do you tell him about me?’
‘Of course.’
Matthew felt pleased.
Matthew took refuge in his derelict sandstone cottage, a windowless roofless husk of human habitation that lay like a shell roughly blasted, full of holes and half-filled with sand, in the dunes. In one corner an ant mound, dry and warm and bubbled with balls of dirt, protected a hive of small black creatures. Occasionally heads and frantic antennae popped from holes or dashed out frenetically to run up and down, round and round and back into the hole again.
In another corner a round dark hole housed and sometimes concealed a neat brown hairy spider with shiny pincers. Crouched near his hole, all parts fitted together like a tiny machine, he could unwind and run with mechanical precision on high fast extended legs. Sand filtered through the door and window spaces into mounds and slopes hot from the sun. The wind scuffled and sucked outside. Occasionally it entered through a door, blowing dirt and sand into a flurry of dusty breath; but usually all was still and quiet.
Once when Matthew came a snake slithered away from the doorway, its arrow head and stocky body black and thick against the pale ground. He stood back politely to let it pass. He felt no resentment in sharing his refuge with these creatures. They did not assault his security or his privacy as the man in the cigar-brown suit, who now regularly invaded his home, had done. He was always there in the parlour, talking and talking and talking to Mother. He lounged back on the settee, legs crossed at the ankles, one arm resting along the back of the couch, fingers tiptoeing in the direction of Mother’s shoulder.
Mother admonished Matthew to be polite but Gran always found work to do in the garden or her room.
They quarrelled, his mother and Gran. This was not new. Matthew had heard the crescendos and diminuendos of their irritations for years. But now Gran was afraid. He felt her fear spread through the dialogue. The man was the cause of her fear. When she argued it was as if she were struggling to lift something from dark liquid, squeeze it out and thrust it at Mother. But Mother would not take it. Each time Gran thrust it she threw up her pretty hands and pushed it away.
‘He’s after something, Margaret.’
‘A fig for your suspicions.’
‘How does he earn his living?’
‘How should I know? He’s a gentleman. He’s not going to tell me that—a woman.’
‘You’re a fool, Margaret. He’s not honest. Does he ever ask you about Edward?’
‘Occasionally,’ she laughed. ‘I think he’s jealous.’
‘What exactly does he ask you?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. Why should I?’
‘He’s after something. Or someone.’
‘Perhaps he’s after me.’ Margaret bridled.
‘What man isn’t?’ said Gran.
‘What do you mean by that? My own mother, too.’
‘You gather too many moths, Margaret.’
‘It’s fun.’
‘No, it’s not a game. This man isn’t playing a game. Don’t your intuitions tell you anything about him?’
‘Only that he’s smitten. Like Edward.’
‘It’s a pity you never see past yourself,’ Gran exploded and walked out.
Later he had heard Gran say to Edward: ‘He comes here too often, asks Margaret too many questions.’
‘She knows nothing.’
‘Those boxes—they’re politically subversive.’
‘She’s forgotten them, Sarah.’
‘I hope so.’
He dreamed of the man and Edward and his mother and the boxes. His mother sat on the boxes in her nightgown, her hair loosened down her back. It was on fire. Yellow and red tongues of flame with blue lightning flickers licked the strands of her hair so that its redness appeared like a bush burning fiercely from within.
Matthew watched helplessly, waiting for her figure to ignite and shrink into a blackened twig. He begged Edward to help but Edward shouted, ‘Keep sitting on the boxes!’ She screamed that she must dry her hair because it was wet and dripping down her back. Matthew could see it dripping pieces of fire but he could do nothing. The man in the brown suit held out a towel to her, enticing her to jump off the boxes to dry her hair. She reached towards him.
‘No!’ Matthew screamed. ‘No! Don’t take it! Don’t!’
Gran rushed in. He clutched her.
‘I had a dream. Edward was there and that man and Mother and her hair was on fire.
‘Will Edward come back soon?’
‘Of course.’
‘How far away is Mildura?’
‘Not far for Edward.’
‘That’s good.’ And he drank the hot milk she brought him and went back to sleep.
Edward had gone to Mildura some weeks earlier. He had helped Gran bury all Father’s plates and cups and knives and forks at the end of the garden. In the incinerator they burned his clothes. They closed the canvas blinds on the verandah room, stuffed papers in the interstices and prepared to seal the door. Edward pulled out his boxes and put them in a corner of the parlour.
‘They’re just boxes, Sarah. All houses have boxes. The more obvious, the less suspicious.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Gran, but she sounded uneasy. ‘Perhaps my room?’
‘Where?’ Margaret laughed. ‘It’s so cluttered now. Leave Edward’s love letters here. Then we know he’ll come back—for them.’
‘I’ll come back for all of you,’ Edward said and Margaret teased: ‘All of us will be glad then.’
‘Oh, Margaret,’ Gran reproached later. ‘Leave him alone. You don’t really want …’
‘Sometimes I do. He’s so attractive. And I’m free now.’
‘It’s cruel.’
‘Edward can look after himself.’
Matthew wished he did not feel so confused. Mother said that Edward could look after himself but he heard Gran talking to Edward and he knew Gran was worried about him.
When he came to say goodbye Margaret was away at the Goodmans’. ‘I’m sorry, Edward,’ Gran said.
‘No matter,’ he shrugged.
‘You don’t think …?’
‘No. It’s not possible, Sarah. We’re too different.’
‘Such a pity, Edward. Such a pity.’
He shrugged again, then, leaning across the table kissed Gran on the cheek.
‘You’ll still come to visit us?’ she asked.
‘Of course. Who else discusses the state of the world with me as you do?’
‘Matthew loves you,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I had hoped … You’ll take care in Mildura?’
‘I always take care.’
‘You’re a fake, Edward. You’ve never taken real care in your life.’
‘If I took too much care, Sarah, I wouldn’t have a life—not the sort of life I want anyway. Care is for the cautious and the cautious don’t change anything.’
Gran looked at him, puckering her mouth. ‘You’re a fool, Edward. You know what has happened to political organisers in Mildura. Two ended up in the river with broken jaws.’
‘They won’t do that to me. I’ll break a few jaws maybe …’
‘Just what I mean, Edward. Don’t give them excuses.’
‘Reasons, Sarah, reasons. Fruit pickers live like pigs, paid a pitta
nce, no rights—and as yet no organisation. Someone’s got to change that. The first meeting I hold will be in front of the biggest plate-glass window in town.’
Gran laughed. ‘You’re too clever for your own good, Edward.’
‘Impudent the last judge called me.’
‘They had no evidence then.’
‘And they’ll get none this time.’
‘They mightn’t need it, Edward. They can manufacture it, remember. Don’t forget the Twelve.’
‘I don’t forget them, or what they wanted—what we all want.’
‘Take care, Edward. Please take care. You’re a reckless man.’
Edward hugged Matthew and kissed Gran again. ‘Take care yourself, Sarah, and don’t you worry about me.’
But long after he’d gone, Gran sat looking at the kitchen door that had closed behind him.
‘Oh, Matthew,’ she said. ‘The old Greeks thought man was “master of ageless earth … lord of all things living … hunting the savage beast … taming the mountain monarch … teaching the wild horse … the wind-swift motion of brain”.
‘Edward could do all those things and yet in some ways he is powerless. I wish he understood that. He’d be safer.’ And the hand which she reached to him to fondle his shoulder felt heavy, as if she were leaning on it.
The man was visiting Mother again. Gran had retired to her room to rest. Matthew decided to see old Peter, who ignored his arrival. He was sketching a piece of plant with thick pudgy leaves and a tiny yellow flower. It was like a human with grossly fat arms and legs and a minuscule face.
‘It’s ugly,’ Matthew said, thinking of the marigolds orange as light stripped from the edges of the sun.
‘It’s not.’ Peter went on drawing.
‘It’s flower is too small and I don’t like it.’
‘Nobody asked you to like it or dislike it. If you’ve come here to argue and set up your own opinions then go away again.’
Matthew grinned. Old Peter was always like this. You could say your thoughts to him and he’d say his back and both were like flat stones, quite without mystery.
‘Edward has gone away to Mildura.’
‘It’ll be hot there.’
‘Will it?’
‘It’s always hot in Mildura.’
‘He’s gone to change things.’
‘Young fool.’
‘Gran says people can do anything. She said that one day people will make glass that doesn’t break.’