She knelt in the shaft of sunlight the curtains would not absorb. Reached beneath the bed and drew the parcel towards her as a communicant draws the cup. Unwrapped the sheet. Then leaned back on her haunches just to look at the dress for a while. Minutes passed while her eyes took in nothing but pearls, the curve of neckline heartbreaking to her in the shape it still held, its fragile threads.
When her feet began to numb Cress carefully stood, using the end of the bed for balance. Then she stooped and pulled the dress from its folds. Was surprised by its weight as it fell from narrow shoulders into the beam of light. Turning, she pressed it to her own body, gripping it to her waist, glancing up – as women do – to find the mirror. The action was pure instinct, and she was startled by what she saw. Holding it there, she did not see the reflection of an old woman and a wedding dress. Nor was there an image of its young owner, years ago. Staring, transfixed in the half-light, she thought not of brides but of angels. Shapes, presences, things that remained when bodies were gone. Her hand trembled lightly over the pearls. She looked up and around, but the room was untouched, the bed, the window, the drumming heat very much of this world.
The mirror, though: it was more than one-dimensional. She saw this as the figure in the reflection calmly returned her gaze. It was at once substantial and weightless, this figure, and Cress bent her head – a fraction, infinitesimal – towards it. She looked and looked. Neither seeing nor not seeing. Above her, on the wall, the Virgin Mary wore a similar expression. Cress put a hand to her heart. As she did the dress slipped and moved sideways. Suddenly everything was normal again, the image in the mirror just an old woman holding a dress, looking ludicrous. Cress pursed her lips, impatient. Stupid old thing. She re-wrapped it, quickly, carelessly, and pushed it beneath the bed with the toe of her shoe. There were real things, she told herself, to think about now.
Kieran knew that Abby’s house was old, but it was not old like his own, or like Angela’s. There was no garden, to start with. Just bare patches of grass burned by summer, a couple of shrubs, and at the top of the stairs, outside the front door, a pot sprouting dead stalks, marigolds perhaps. Half-hearted weeds collapsed against the chain-wire fence.
It was, he’d decided, a house that kept secrets. Above the clipped yellow grass its walls and windows colluded in their blankness: nothing could be gauged from them, nothing told. The cream of the weatherboards was dull but not chipped, the sliding aluminium windows clean but bare. Without awnings they made him think of a woman without eyebrows, without lashes. The front door, which was always closed, had a panel of opaque glass and a bell. He wondered if it had ever been rung.
Apart from the weeds the yard was neat: wheelie bins tucked together near the side path, a hose looped over a tap. Further back, a shed with a tilt-a-door and a clothes hoist with a peg basket. Sometimes there was a washing trolley parked beneath flapping clothes, and on these days he craned to see the items pinned to the lines as if they were messages left there, clues. But the flowery dresses and blue drill work shirts told him no more than he already knew.
From the end of the street he watched for her father’s white sedan. He came home at precisely the same time every day, turning into the driveway at half past five. If he was going out again he would leave the car out, parked inside the gate and beside the house; otherwise he climbed out to open the garage door, drove the car in, and walked back to the front gate to close it before he went upstairs. He was a medium-sized man, well-built. He carried a small blue esky with a white lid. When he had locked the car or closed the gate he went straight upstairs; he didn’t stop at the letterbox, he didn’t pause in the yard. His face, which was tanned a deep brown, was unknowable, but his body, even from a distance, looked constrained in the blue work clothes, as if they were a costume that hid his real skin. As if it was capable of much, much more. If he was close enough, Kieran could hear his heavy boots on the stair treads as he climbed, the click of the back door as it closed behind him.
On the days the car was left outside, Kieran felt physical relief shudder through him. He didn’t have to worry about her when her father was going out. That still felt odd to him: that a girl alone in a house at night was safer than when she wasn’t. But in Abby’s case he knew that it was true. Just the week before he’d heard shouts even through the closed windows, even from across the darkened street. The sound made him feel sick but he’d crept close to the house anyway, flattening himself against her neighbour’s high fence. He listened with his whole body, as if the vibrations of sounds and meanings might come up through the soles of his feet, or through his palms. When the shouting had stopped, all he could hear was a soft sound like a whimper; very quiet, quieter even than a kitten. Then silence. He’d waited for a long time, to make sure. Then he’d slipped away.
Now, standing behind the bus shelter on the opposite side of the road, he wished hard, crossing his fingers behind his back, that tonight her father would come home and go straight out again. He closed his eyes, whispered please to no one in particular, though he would have liked a falling star. In his mind he visualised the car – white, always clean – nosing into the front yard and stopping. The gate left open, the car just inside, ready to go again. That’s all that was needed.
And that was exactly what happened. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing: the car turned into the yard and stopped. He heard the engine rumble and die, watched the driver’s door open, the figure emerge and then lean back into the car for the esky. The door clicked closed, the gate stayed open. He was going out again. The wish had worked.
Kieran breathed deeply and smiled to himself; when the coast was clear he stepped away from the bus shelter. He hadn’t seen Abby, not even a shadow behind the window at the front, but today that didn’t matter. Today he had done something better. As he rounded the corner towards town his legs felt like steel and his arms were powerful, swinging by his side. Strong. Maybe more than strong. He walked tall, not thinking of a destination, feeling like a wizard, someone special. Someone who could keep Abby safe.
Laura spent the morning making a checklist of work that was needed and made calls to the funeral parlour and the celebrant. Through it all the tiredness stayed and after lunch she gave in to it, lay down and fell instantly asleep. When she woke she felt renewed, optimistic. She took the old school case and sat in Angela’s armchair in the parlour.
The case had been carefully preserved: the only signs of wear were the original grazes from being dropped at bus stops and hauled on and off school port racks. It wasn’t even dusty. Now that it was here, propped on her knees, she stared at its geometric patterns and let them take her, just momentarily, back to her seven-year-old self. The little girl who loved the structure and routine of school, the smell of desks and ink wells and chalk and the elementary readers with their pictures of Dick and Dora; the girl who thrived on the approval of teachers and the A-grade report cards they wrote her. Who, even then, pretended it was Angela who parted her hair in the mornings and tied up her pig tails, Angela who made her Vegemite sandwiches and wrapped them in greaseproof paper, who chilled the cordial in the plastic drink bottle packed, along with her copy book, inside this red and white school case every morning.
She breathed in, blinking away the skinny, needy schoolgirl, and unlatched the lid of the case. It was full of papers. Documents. Envelopes, foolscap sheets. She lifted the first layers to see more of the same beneath, along with some documents or booklets, it was hard to tell, stowed inside a plastic bag. Near the bottom there was an old velvet box she recognised as Angela’s. Laura held the papers in place and fished it out.
Inside, three pieces of jewellery. Two plain wedding bands identical apart from their size, and a gold chain. She recognised the smaller ring: it was the only jewellery Angela had ever worn, round-edged, rose-gold. She held it up between forefinger and thumb. From this angle she could read the inscription: August to Angela 25-6-1952. The other, bigger ring was insc
ribed too: Angela to August. Laura stared at the words, stung by their intimacy, by everything they implied. There, in the palm of her hand, her father acquired a shape, became more than a shadow; he was a young man with eyes, fingers, emotions. More than a missing father – a lover, a missing husband. August to Angela.
She leaned back in the chair and closed one hand around the rings; with the other she felt around on the floor for her teacup. The tin roof cracked like a whip under the sun. Laura looked from the window to the bookshelves to the empty fireplace, tried to place the shape of her father between them, among them. The shape of her parents as a young couple. But the room was already too crowded with images and emotions she’d filled it with long ago. The handsome, loving, dead father; the preoccupied, angry mother.
She returned the rings to the box, lifted the gold chain, and saw the locket for the first time. It was not a conventional heart shape but a rectangle in the same rose gold as the rings. It had a tiny crimson jewel at its centre and a catch, which gave easily when she pressed it. Inside were two black-and-white miniatures, a woman and a man. Laura brought the pictures close. She’d never seen them before. From the high collars and the stern faces above them, the woman’s upswept hair and the man’s beard, she guessed they were her grandparents. But maternal or paternal? Were they Angela’s features, or August’s?
There had been just one photograph of her father in the house when she was a child. Thinking of it made her look up from the locket towards the bookshelves where the photo had always been. Perhaps it was the light: the photo didn’t seem to be there. She squinted, running her eye along the books, seeing it in her mind’s eye: a young man, tall and fair, hands in the pockets of his baggy trousers, laughing towards the camera, or the person holding it. His eyes were creased up, kind. As a child she had often stared at this photo, holding it up close to her eyes as if that would reveal something, perhaps the back of his head, the exact colour of his eyes, the smell of him. As if, up very close, the photo might speak; he might whisper something to her, the answer to one of the endless questions she’d gathered in her head. What made the train crash that night/Why isn’t Mum like other mothers/Do you think I’m pretty?
But the photo wasn’t there. She turned back to the school case and the mound of papers it held. Took a deep breath, and began.
The first thing was a birthday card. Happy Birthday, Mum, among throngs of yellow roses, her own handwriting at perhaps ten, fifteen years old. Below it another, then another. She opened them and placed them on the floor beside her. Next a bunch of receipts, paper-clipped, that she’d need her glasses to read. Certificates: First Prize, Ballina Art Show, 1990; First Prize, Ballina Art Show, 1991. An exhibition catalogue dated 1996. A scattering of business cards: galleries, government departments. Two caught her eye: the card from Michael Peters Gallery, Noosa, looked new and had a handwritten mobile number. And Belshannon & Martin, Lawyers, with the same address, an outdated local phone number and a sky-blue background. She put them to one side.
Inside the plastic sleeve was an assortment of papers that looked more official: some seemed to be clippings from newspapers or magazines; others were clumsily typed. She unfolded the first. It was a newspaper clipping without a date. The headline read: Mothers will give evidence, and below it: Women who relinquished babies for adoption in New South Wales over the past sixty years have been invited to tell their stories.
She rifled through the next few documents. More clippings, some longer than others, all reports from that first State Inquiry into Adoption Practices. But in amongst them, some stories and even some single paragraphs and sentences carefully cut from a magazine, pasted down, and some pages of typing that looked like quotes. She plucked a couple out randomly and read:
How many children do you have? One. No, two.
There is no language for absence. The words themselves are missing.
My grief creates someone else’s joy.
They told me I was lucky. That I should think myself fortunate. That I could pick up my life, start again.
And a list, written in Angela’s hand:
Department of Child Services (Families?)
non-identifying information
CentreCare
Jigsaw – Linda/Jemma/Jenny?
Brisbane.
Laura replaced the collection of clippings in the school case along with the jewellery. Closed the lid. She looked up, and felt she was seeing the day for the first time: the sun hot through the windows and the sky bleached to an ice blue. My grief created someone else’s joy. She finished her tea and went to the window. There was something about those words and all the others that irritated her. They were all so sentimental, she felt them curdling at the base of her throat. Where was Angela’s sentiment when she, Laura, was a child? You won’t survive in this world, young lady, Angela had told Laura over and over, if you’re going to be a sook. Laura grimaced at the memory. Bloody absence, all right, she said aloud.
Outside the sun was wilting leaves and drawing the scent of eucalyptus from them. It was too hot, but she wanted to get out, to move, to shake off the prickling under her skin. She took a towel and her togs and decided to drive to the sea.
Cress thought about a beef casserole for dinner, with beans, and perhaps a date loaf. She’d have preferred a sponge pudding herself, or a crumble, but knew most of it would go uneaten. Kieran would watch as it came out of the oven, admire it, smile, and then ignore it. Date loaf was the only cake he would eat. She’d tried him with cream-filled butterfly cakes, rich chocolate, plain scones – useless. Your mother loves my scones, she would scold, they’re her favourite. But Kieran would just nod seriously, the way he did watching the ‘Quiz’, and make himself a peanut butter sandwich.
Making the date loaf was, she knew, a way of avoiding other things, like thinking about Angela’s funeral. For some reason it made her feel nervous. She measured butter and syrup into a bowl, added bicarb. A shame it had to wait for the daughter to arrive: these things should be organised quickly, and done. For everyone’s sake. She stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon and greased two tins. And then there was something to wear. It would have to be the brown pleated skirt and beige blouse; there wasn’t time to find anything new.
She tipped the dates from the packet and began to chop. An image of Ed’s funeral reared up suddenly in front of her: the full church, Shelley’s face. Empty, she’d thought at the time, as if she’d used up everything in the days before, all emotion, and there was nothing left, not for anyone. She’d realised, watching her daughter, that it was their first experience of loss, both of them. Even then, they’d had no sense of what it really meant.
She looked down. When had she finished the dates and started on the beans? She had no idea, but now, beneath her hands, there was a pile big enough to feed a family of nine. She grimaced. Kieran wasn’t fond of beans. Well, they would have to be used somehow. She picked up her Day-to-Day Cookery to look for sauces but there was Ed again, at her shoulder, shaking his head. Calvinist, she heard him say. And then turning to Shelley: There is a part of your mother that never grew out of the Depression.
Kieran walked past St Barnabas, taking the back way home. It was nearly closing time; he went in through the front door anyway, to see who was there. Everything was quiet, but as he walked past the counter Iris popped up from where she’d been kneeling, making him jump. Kieran! she cried, Just the man! She came scuttling out, straightening her skirt and complaining about dust. There’s a heavy box up the back, damned if I can move it. He looked sharply at her as she took his arm. Pardon my French, she said, and led him off.
In the back room where the deliveries usually came were several boxes and cartons, along with some bentwood chairs and a broken rocking horse. It’s this one, Iris said, indicating a cardboard packing box with St B – china & glass scrawled across one side. Kieran sized it up, but bef
ore he could slip his hands beneath it Iris was talking again. He paused. And this one too. She was standing beside a tea-chest that had already been opened; some of its contents unwrapped and left on the floor. Cups, some plastic: the usual. I thought Cress had done this one, Iris said, frowning, bending to retrieve some of the discarded newspaper. She looked over at him, her head cocked to one side. He was waiting until she’d finished. Just down the front, if you would, she said, and laughed as he grunted at the weight. He staggered down aisle two and settled the box on the exact spot on the floor where Iris was pointing.
You’re a sweetie, she said, patting his shoulder. She went back behind the counter and began to pack up. Kieran headed for the door. As he reached it Iris’s voice stopped him again. Is your grandmother all right? she called, and when he turned he saw her stretching her lips in front of a hand mirror, a lipstick in her other hand. She seems a bit edgy. She applied the lipstick and snapped the mirror shut. Looked at his blank face. Maybe it’s the heat, she said, turning away. You get along now, it’ll be getting dark.
Kieran didn’t bother to wave. He closed the big arched door behind him and wandered off, brushing dust from the box off his shirt, and whistling.
Laura swam from one end of Convent Beach to the foot of the headlands, then back. After she dried off she stood near the rocks, looking out. The sea was a dark blue cloth flung out by invisible hands, billowing silvery in its creases and folds. Flung out again and again, never perfect. This was what she’d thought as a child, watching the sea as her feet mined the shallows. Pippis in a bucket beside her. Somewhere to the left or right – she looked both ways even now, as if her mother might appear – Angela would be crouched with her sketchbook. Dune flowers bloomed and faded on the sand.
The China Garden Page 7