The Memory Tree

by Tess Evans

  Rhonda put a sympathetic arm around Sealie’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let that old fart get to you.’

  ‘My brother’s over there. His wife’s just had a baby . . .’ Sealie turned away but not before the other girl saw the tears in her eyes.

  ‘This little piggie went to market . . .’ My grandfather and I are playing our favourite game as he changes my nappy on the picnic rug they brought down to the river. I’ve been crying and Godown has returned to the house for my bottle. It’s a hot day and my grandfather decides to take my singlet off. He hesitates before replacing my little blue-and-white sun-dress. He does this carefully, knowing how I hate having things pulled over my head.

  ‘There, little princess,’ he says, smiling. He picks me up and holds me close, as he sings.

  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me

  I once was lost, but now I’m found

  Was blind but now I see.

  The air is hot and humid as the sun sucks up the moisture left by last night’s summer storm. I can hear a bee droning, and a truck on the road above. Later, we are going to feed the ducks, but it’s a lazy, blue day and just now I’m content to drift off to sleep in my grandfather’s arms. He sits on the riverbank holding me, humming to himself. It’s the last really happy moment of his life.

  The day has deceived us. A putrid yellow seeps into Hal’s drowsing head and insinuates itself like smoke along the synapses into the temporal cortex, the frontal lobe. Behold, here I am. Hal holds me tighter, cradling my head with his large hand. The soft down tickles his lips as he kisses my sleeping face.

  Behold, here I am. Take the child . . .

  Hal shields me with his own body. ‘I can’t. I won’t.’

  This is no test, Hal. Grace is needed.

  It’s Paulina’s voice now, soft and pleading. Send her to me, Hal. My beautiful granddaughter . . . Send her to me.

  ‘Paulina. Please. Don’t ask me to do this.’ Hal’s tears fall like rain on my sleeping face.

  I’m so lonely here, Hal. I’ll love her. Care for her . . . She’s a pure soul, a soul without sin, too good for the evil world.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’ Hal’s face, looking down at me, is a thousand years old. ‘I’ll do anything for you. Not this. Not this.’

  The voice of God is mighty and terrible. Will you deny your wife this one thing? If you ever loved her, if you love this child, if you love Me, your Lord and Creator, bring them together as I have ordained. This is your one chance, Heraldo. Your one chance at salvation.

  ‘I promised Zav I’d care for her.’

  You failed to care for your wife.

  Paulina’s voice holds infinite hope and sweetness. She’ll be an angel of God. In my care . . . In my care . . .

  Hal smoothes my little sun-dress with shaking hands. He runs clumsy fingers over the delicate lace edging at the neck and hem and marvels at the angel-song blueness of the flowers. He takes my hands, kisses each finger, then sings some more of my song. His voice is quavering. An old man’s voice.

  ’Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear

  And Grace my fears relieved

  How precious did that Grace appear

  The hour I first believed.

  Hal steps into the storm-swollen stream and walks with careful steps. The river flows swiftly at this point and he staggers a little. The cold seeps through his shoes, his socks, his trousers. The water is above his knees and the wet fabric, heavy and cold, clings to his legs. He is chest-high now, and holds me tightly, resting his head lightly on mine. He kisses my cheek and we look deep, deep into each other’s eyes. ‘Don’t be afraid, little princess.’ He takes a final step and lays me—Oh! Gently, lovingly, upon the breast of the wide, brown river.

  When Godown returns with my bottle, my exhausted grandfather is pulling himself up onto the bank. His face is composed and his eyes are quiet.

  ‘I have heard the Word of the Lord,’ Hal says, ‘and I have obeyed.’

  Godown looks at my blanket, then in my basket. ‘Hal . . .’

  ‘She’s gone, Moses.’ He indicates the fast-flowing waters.

  Godown backs away, his hands raised to ward off the dawning realisation. His groan is deep, terrible, like a woman in labour. ‘Hal. You must tell me.’ He seizes the wet shirt with both hands and screams into the bewildered face. ‘Hal, tell me! Tell me now!’ He pauses a moment to steel himself. ‘Hal, for God’s sake—what have you done?’

  Book II

  And all of those people who loved me—what they were doing when I drowned? If we could freeze the moment, we would see Godown testing the temperature of my milk on the inside of his wrist, my mother’s hand raised to her new haircut and Mrs McLennon skimming through her Women’s Weekly as she waited to be served at the corner shop. We would see my Aunt Sealie slipping on the rubber gloves to begin her second dressing change for the day. And my father? We would see him sweating, grimy and exhausted, peeling back the paper on his ‘C’ rations chocolate bar while the world disintegrated all around him. Hal, of course, was with me, watching till I was safely on my way. He even waved goodbye, as though he were seeing me off on a train.

  Chloe and Ariadne held each other and wept.

  1

  GODOWN WADES MIDSTREAM, FRANTICALLY SEEKING some sign of me, while Hal sits on the bank, composed and dreamy. Seeing nothing but muddy brown water, Godown splashes ashore and runs up the embankment to the nearest house, before returning to his clumsy, panic-stricken search. Neighbours arrive, and then the police and ambulance as Hal, kneeling now, lifts his arms in a wide, prophetic gesture.

  Kindly women attempt to place a blanket around his shoulders (he is shivering violently). He thrusts them off and continues to embrace the sky, as people in the crowd whisper to each other. Poor soul. It was his granddaughter.

  It isn’t long before those murmurs of pity become a swell of horror and anger. They say he drowned her. A helpless little baby. Put her in the river. How could he do it? His own granddaughter! He’s a monster. An evil monster. The crowd moves forward, but is intercepted by the police.

  It takes four of the policemen to restrain Hal. ‘I am an instrument of the Lord,’ he shouts, struggling with his captors, ‘and I sit at His right hand. I have surpassed the strength of Abraham. My sacrifice is infinitely pure.’

  It is clear that there is no point in questioning him in his current state. Tranquilised, limp, his energy depleted, Hal is taken to a locked ward where he is put on suicide watch.

  ‘If he becomes violent again, use the restraining jacket,’ the duty psychiatrist orders.

  Godown, hands hanging loosely by his side, watches as Hal is taken away. Two police cars have gone to collect Kate and Sealie. Rubber-clad figures are diving from a boat. There is nothing he can do. Looking up at the empty sky, he releases a great roar of pain. Primitive, abandoned, it rides the river current right down to the sea. Onlookers shuffle in embarrassment. They have no reference for such a sound and watch, helpless and voyeur-like, as the big man sinks to his knees, sobbing with unrestrained grief.

  ‘Godown.’ Sealie leaps out to the police car and runs to his side.

  Godown stands up, swaying, as they clutch each other in terror. Neither of them wants to look at the river where I lie on a bed of debris, not far from where they are standing.

  Only minutes later, an arm rises from the water, signalling that they have found me. Hearing the commotion, Sealie runs forward and folds me in her arms.

  A man in uniform tries to take me from her. ‘Are you its mother?’

  ‘Her mother! Her mother! No. I’m her auntie. You can’t have her. I’m keeping her safe for her father. I promised.’ She looks around wildly. ‘Her mother should be here. Where’s Kate? Why hasn’t anyone told Kate?’

  At that moment, my ashen-faced mother comes running, sliding down the embankment to snatch me from Aunt Sealie’s arms. She calls my name. Begs me to wake up. And finally whispers terr
ible, loving words that are mine alone.

  The man approaches again. ‘We need to take her,’ he says, but makes no move.

  My mother’s face is ravaged. She is an old, old woman. She challenges the man in uniform; defies his outstretched hands. ‘Wherever she goes, I go. She’s too little to go with strangers.’

  The man opens a car door and I ride in my mother’s arms towards the awful formalities that await me. Aunt Sealie slips in beside us. Her lips are bloodless and there are deep shadows around her eyes. ‘Kate,’ she says. ‘How can you ever forgive us?’

  Hal wakes up in a strange room on a narrow bed. The sun filters through a grille over the window, making little diamond patterns on the slightly grubby wall. He looks at these for a while, then tries to count them. There are twelve across, or maybe fourteen. There are at least as many down, although it isn’t a square. Twelve across, fourteen down? He feels a minor wave of irritation when he attempts to get out of bed to check. The bedclothes are tight and he can’t move his arms. He struggles a bit and then falls back and stares at the heavy door. Ha! He knew it! There is someone watching him. Just on the other side of that door. Eyes that penetrate the wood. He realises that his skull is glass and they can see right though to his brain. He tries to call out, but his throat hurts and all he can manage is a croak. God, he’s so thirsty! And so very tired. He struggles, but fails to resist the overwhelming desire for sleep.

  A few hours later, when Hal drifts into consciousness, there’s a new voice in his head. A lead-coloured voice, with traces of bright, poisonous green. They think you are defeated. The sound oozes slug-like through the soft tissues of his brain. But you have the power to break free.

  ‘You bastards.’ Hal screams. ‘I know what you’re up to.’ He spits in the face of his carers, bucking and thrashing against the restraints, until his exhausted body refuses to move another muscle.

  There is some difficulty finding the right dosage, but eventually the medication calms Hal to a degree that he is deemed fit to be interrogated. His questioners find that he can remember the events of the day in vivid detail.

  ‘Why did you go down to the river in the first place?’

  ‘All rivers flow to the Jordan. There were little yellow daisies in the grass. The ones the girls make into those necklace things.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A boat went past. With a girl and a boy. We waved to them. The boy was rowing. He’d taken off his shirt.’

  ‘That doesn’t tell us why you went there that particular day.’

  ‘I was instructed.’

  ‘Who? Who instructed you?’

  ‘God. He said. “Take the child to the river.” ’ ‘Did you know what you were going to do then?’

  ‘No. Not then.’

  ‘When did you know?’

  ‘When the Lord spoke again. I took off her singlet. It was very hot. Then the Lord commanded me and I obeyed.’

  ‘Did you want to do it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you want to drown the baby Grace?’

  ‘No. I loved—love her. I miss her. We used to sing together.’

  Hal began to cry.

  ‘Enough for today. Take him back.’

  ‘Why do you think God wanted you to drown the baby Grace?’

  ‘She was a sacrifice. A pure sacrifice. Paulina told me. Grace was too good for this world.’

  ‘Who’s Paulina?’

  ‘My wife. My wife’s name is Paulina.’

  ‘Your wife was there? Aren’t you a widower, Mr Rodriguez?’

  ‘My wife is taking care of Grace. God promised me that.’

  ‘Do you regret what you have done, Mr Rodriguez?’

  ‘I am the Lord’s faithful servant. An instrument of his power. You are weak and evil men. Followers of the Enemy. God alone guides my hand. You can lock me away and tie me down but you won’t break me. I am the last of His prophets.’

  The police need to question Godown. Apart from Hal, he’s the last person to have seen me alive. The torrent of weeping has drained him and he answers the questions in a low, flat voice. The sergeant sounds brisk, but Godown notices that his hand shakes as he writes the brief story of my life.

  After this painful ordeal, Godown staggers out of the police station as though he is drunk. It has been agreed with the news services that the details of the drowning will not be disseminated until Zav can be informed. Meanwhile, there’s Mrs Mac.

  Godown stands looking left and right, his large hands opening and closing at his side. He has never felt so unsure, so insecure. How can he possibly tell Eileen? Together they had agreed to do nothing. To wait to see how things developed. And this indecision—the big man corrects himself—this cowardice, this moral failure has had consequences beyond anything they might have imagined.

  The sun is setting and the promise of another hot day hangs in the still, dry air. The bitumen looks ready to bubble, its spongy depths reminding Godown of that black hole that Hal had described in the early days of their friendship. They’d shared so much since then and Hal is dearer to him now than his own sister and brothers. Godown has achieved contentment, a sense of belonging, in Hal’s house and in Hal’s company. He remembers his exhausted friend returning home with Zav after the escapade on the mountain. He remembers the night Sealie’s hopes for the ballet were dashed. On these occasions and on many others, he and Hal sat down with a beer. Sometimes they talked quietly. Other times they just kept each other company. And it wasn’t just in times of adversity. They shared a good few laughs, too, and little family jokes. They always referred to Spiros as ‘my husband, the pig’ and Zav’s room as ‘the tip’. Football, too. At first Godown couldn’t understand this strange game, but now he followed Fitzroy as though he’d been born to it and he and Hal were both proud to wear Mrs Mac’s hand-knitted scarves. Zav followed Collingwood. He always managed to be at odds with his father.

  Zav. Standing on the footpath outside the bland suburban police station, Godown becomes aware of a crisis of faith. The religion he has preached all these years, the God he has prayed to, worshipped, is distant and impersonal. No amount of praying had prevented this terrible event. All he had wanted to do was to help Hal through his dark hours and he had failed. He wipes away the tears with a crumpled handkerchief, suddenly aware that a woman is looking at him curiously. She steps forward, as if to speak, then turns away abruptly.

  He stumbles down the street and hails a taxi.

  ‘Where to, mate?’ There’s a patch of sweat on the driver’s blue shirt and the upholstery stinks of stale cigarettes. Godown opens the window. He may vomit at any moment. ‘I said— where to, mate?’ And Godown finds himself giving an address two suburbs away. He isn’t ready to face Eileen McLennon. Not yet.

  The journey takes about twenty minutes, and as he pays the driver, Godown wonders what has made him come. He looks at the two-storey terrace with its iron fence and tiny cottage garden. He has never been here before and isn’t sure how he’d remembered the address. He hesitates, then rings the bell. Its chime seems to echo in an empty house, but the door opens even before the sound dies away.

  ‘Poor dear Pastor, come in,’ says Chloe, and he’s drawn into the cool interior where she indicates a sofa. Sinking into its softness, he closes his eyes. Chloe and Ariadne watch him, their brows furrowed, their faces troubled. With some effort, he opens his eyes and attempts to focus. The two women swim before his vision in their flowing, grey silk dresses. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he says. He is confused and unable to continue for a moment. He has to remember how to move his lips, his tongue, so that he can form the words. The sounds he makes coagulate in the humid air. ‘It’s Hal. He—he drowned little Grace and I don’t know what to do.’

  The twins sit beside him, stroke his bowed head. He can feel their pain throbbing through their fingers. Chloe leads them in prayer. They pray for me, for my grandfather, for the strength to face the coming days. Godown is too shattered to form the words, but the
twins hold his hands as they pray and he is momentarily calmed.

  When his hands are released, he returns reluctantly to the present, to the little room that, he now sees, is crowded with strange objects such as a sailor might collect. He hadn’t noticed them earlier and strangely, wants to stay to look more closely at the shells, pieces of coral, driftwood—and pebbles, smooth as pearls. He wants to handle them, glean their meaning.

  ‘You must go now, Pastor Moses,’ Chloe says, drawing him towards the door. ‘You have work to do.’ They regard him gravely. ‘We will be here when you need us.’

  ‘The church,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you at . . .’

  ‘The church is lost. We’ll be here.’ And they close the door, leaving him alone at the gate. The address he gives to the next taxi driver is Eileen McLennon’s.

  Alice answers the door, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘It’s Moses,’ she calls over her shoulder. She turns back to Godown. ‘Come on in, Moses. We’re out the back. It’s cooler there.’

  Godown follows her down the passage and onto the back verandah. It is overhung with Boston ivy, already showing flashes of red as it clambers over the railings and up the posts. A large liquidambar filters the sun’s last rays through its thick green foliage. Eileen is sitting on the lawn in a deckchair and struggles to her feet as Moses approaches.

  ‘Sit down, Eileen.’ He glances at Alice, who is going back into the house. ‘Stay, please, Alice—if you don’t mind.’ The two women look at each other in alarm. Something is very wrong. They can hear it in his voice.

  Godown kneels beside the deckchair and takes Mrs Mac’s hand in both of his. He feels its bones; fine, like those of a small bird. He strokes her fingers, which he notices are slightly puffy from the heat. He’s just nervous. Then an unbidden thought— Dear God! He’s going to ask me to marry him! Why is Alice hanging around? Honestly! She tries to look meaningfully at her sister to no avail. Well I might just say yes. He’s a good man.