The Other Wife

by Juliet Bell

  ‘Jane. Are you all right? You look quite pale.’ Sister Bernadette, a nun who’d been at the school since long before I arrived, appeared on the path.

  With great effort, I focussed on the nun’s concerned face. ‘I am fine, Sister, thank you. Perhaps I’ve had a little too much sun, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, child, go back to the boarding house and rest. I was just coming to check that the pool and the changing shed were properly locked.’

  My thoughts raced to the two girls inside the shed. I could remember sitting in that assembly with Helen, the words depraved, sinful and deviant echoing in my head. I could still feel the horror and humiliation, and I still regretted how I had let that change my relationship with the only person I had ever truly loved.

  ‘I’ve already checked, Sister.’ I blurted the words out too quickly. The nun frowned.

  I forced myself to calm down, to slow down. ‘Everything is as it should be.’ I put my hand to my forehead. ‘I do actually feel a bit unwell. Could you walk with me back to the house, please?’

  ‘Of course.’ The sister took my arm and I allowed her to lead me away from the gate, the fence and the girls in the changing room.

  Chapter 26

  Betty

  Something was wrong. Betty knew it the instant she walked into the church. Edward was standing at the end of the aisle, his father by his side. Where was Freddie? His brother was supposed to be his best man. Old Mr Rochester’s face was thunder. And Edward was staring at the wall. He didn’t even turn as Betty approached in her long white dress and veil.

  Look at me! Edward didn’t hear her silent scream. She wanted to shout out loud but she was supposed to be the perfect bride, in the perfect dress, in a perfect ceremony.

  Edward looked at her as he said, ‘I do,’ but his eyes were glazed. Betty felt a pull she wasn’t familiar with. His face was tight and anxious. Her arms ached to be around him. Her lips yearned to whisper to him that whatever the trouble he was carrying might be, everything would be all right.

  When the ceremony was over, they walked back down the aisle, her hand on Edward’s arm. The reception was a blur. She didn’t know anyone there, except the Masons, and all she wanted to do was get away from them. A lot of people came over to talk to Edward, but he remained stony faced. There was no sign of the charming, handsome man she had met at the show.

  After the wedding, they flew to the Great Barrier Reef for their honeymoon. On the plane, Edward stared out the window and silently drank. She tried to reach him with the happy chatter that Mr Mason had taught her was proper, but her new husband might as well have been a million miles away. Finally they reached their resort. Finally they got past the volley of welcome hosts and porters and smiling staff. Finally they were alone.

  Eliza’s cheerful manner wasn’t getting her anywhere. Betty stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Who’s gone?’

  ‘Freddie. He’s run off with that Abo woman. She’s up the duff and he says he’s going to marry her.’

  She didn’t need to ask what that meant. Edward’s father wasn’t going to let an Aboriginal baby inherit his property.

  Edward looked at her properly for the first time. ‘So Freddie is gone. He’s free. I’ll inherit Thornfield now. I’ll have to go back and run that bloody place.’

  The silence hung between them for a second before Betty rallied. ‘But that’s years away.’ She moved closer to her husband. ‘We have time to have fun now.’

  She leant towards him, so that he could feel her warmth, as her breast brushed against his arm. She saw it then, the look in his eyes.

  ‘Let’s change and go for a walk on the beach,’ she said. ‘I love the beach.’

  She chose a bikini, even though it was too late to swim. And a silk sarong that wrapped around her body like water. She looked good and she knew it. She walked very close to him. ‘I love being outside.’

  He wrapped his arm around her, so she was walking pressed into his side. ‘I love the ocean. We’ll get an apartment in one of those new blocks overlooking the sea.’

  An apartment sounded small, enclosed. Betty tensed.

  ‘With a balcony that goes all the way along so it feels like you could dive straight off.’

  She nodded. That would be all right.

  ‘Yeah. We’ll get somewhere near the water, away from my father.’

  ‘And away from the Masons!’ Betty pulled away from him and spread her arms wide to the heavens, declaring her freedom to the world.

  Rochester laughed. ‘Away from all of them.’

  She spun around, losing her balance and careering back into his body. They fell onto the sand, breathless and laughing. She turned onto her side, raising her head up on her hand. Her husband had flopped onto his back. She reached a hand onto his chest and traced a line with her fingertips, down over his ribs, and onto his belly. She watched him watching her. Her gaze met his. Neither of them spoke.

  She pushed herself up onto her knees and swung one leg over his torso, straddling him. He was still watching her, his calm expression giving way to something else – desire, of course – but something else as well. There was a questioning look in his eyes.

  Betty looked one way and then the other along the deserted beach. She could hear voices from the hotel bar, but they were out of sight. She untied the halter at the back of her neck and removed her top, letting it drop to the sand beside them. Then she reached for him.

  ‘Stop.’

  She froze. He wanted her. She could see it in his face and hear it in his ragged breathing.

  ‘I don’t think Mason told the whole truth to my old man about you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The innocent young virgin?’

  Betty froze. That was still what she was supposed to be, wasn’t it?

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ He pulled himself up onto his elbows, and then rolled, turning her under him and pressing her into the sand with the weight of his body. His fingers tore at her bikini bottom. Betty clawed at his back, pulling him to her. He grabbed her wrists. One hand and then the other, were pulled above her head and pushed hard down into the sand. And then he took her. She lifted her groin to meet him, thrusting against him. She welcomed his anger and his hurt and his passion.

  When he was done, he straightened his clothes and stood up. Looking down at her spreadeagled in the sand, he smiled.

  ‘I’m not complaining. Being all proper during the day, and then a wildcat in bed. Are you sure you’re real Eliza Rochester?’

  Betty slowly recovered her clothes and stood up beside him. He wasn’t disappointed in her, though. He wasn’t angry. Maybe she could try. ‘I’ve never really liked being called Eliza.’

  ‘Why not?’ He nodded before she could answer. ‘You’re Elizabeth, aren’t you? They said it at the wedding.’

  They had. And it was right, she supposed. ‘People used to call me Betty.’

  ‘Short for Elizabeth again. Elizabeth.’ He rolled the word around in his mouth. ‘I like it. It’s regal. Elizabeth Rochester.’

  Another life. Another name. Maybe this was just what happened.

  She let him take her hand and lead her back to the hotel.

  ‘Mr Rochester!’ The voice called out to them as soon as they came close to the lights of the resort. ‘Mr Rochester!’

  The messenger was a short Aboriginal boy. ‘Mr Rochester. There was a telephone call for you to the front desk. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Did they leave a message?’

  ‘Yes.’ The boy handed over a folded piece of paper. His eyes dropped to the ground and he hurried away.

  ‘What is it?’

  Edward read the words, then let the paper slip from his fingers, to be carried away by the sea breeze.

  ‘My father. He’s dead.’

  Chapter 27

  Jane

  From the window of
what used to be my dormitory, I could see the gym and I could feel the small garden behind it calling to me. True to my word to Miss Temple – to Gail – I had not been back there, but the urge to go was getting stronger. It was as if after months of being too overwhelmed to think about Helen at all, the thought of her was at the centre of everything once again. I missed her. I missed being close to someone, being kissed, being touched.

  ‘Jane? Is everything all right?’ Gail’s voice was warm. ‘It’s very hard to forget, isn’t it?’

  That surprised me. ‘You think about her too?’

  ‘Of course I do, Jane. Helen was a lovely girl, and her death was an utter tragedy.’

  I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

  ‘I think she would have been pleased to see how well you are doing now, Jane. And she wouldn’t have wanted you to brood over what happened.’

  I wasn’t so sure. Helen would not have wanted me to brood over her death, but I think she would have wanted me to reflect on how I’d let my guilt tear us apart. I hoped that by protecting those girls by the pool I had somehow started to right that wrong. I prayed that Helen was proud of me.

  ‘Come on, Jane, why don’t we get some tea? I have cake in my flat.’

  I followed Gail, glad of her invitation. I’d never been inside Gail’s flat before. When she opened the door, I found myself walking into a modern, comfortable place, larger than my own living quarters but still compact. There was a sitting room, complete with a television, bookshelves and a single large sofa. I could see her bedroom through an open door. Another open door led to a small kitchen and somewhere, no doubt, was a bathroom.

  It felt like a home. While Gail made tea, I browsed her books. Titles by Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem sat next to D H Lawrence and Jacqueline Susann. I raised an eyebrow at a couple of the titles.

  ‘Have you read many of those?’ she asked, setting the tea tray down on the coffee table.

  ‘I think the nuns wouldn’t be too happy to see some of those books.’

  She shrugged. ‘What I read in my own time is my own business.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But what? There is more to this world than the sisters here will tell you about. There are so many ideas to be explored.’

  As she spoke, she poured the tea into big white mugs and laid out two slices of cake onto mismatched plates.

  I examined a shelf decorated with a series of framed photographs.

  ‘Is this your family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The picture showed a couple and two teenage children. The woman had long dark blonde hair, and a happy smile. I peered closely and saw that the girl was a young Gail. ‘You look a lot like your mother,’ I said. ‘She’s pretty.’

  ‘Thank you. When I was a little girl, all I wanted was to grow up like her.’

  I studied the photos some more. There was one taken recently of Gail and a man with his arm around her shoulders. I glanced at the boy in the family picture. Perhaps they were the same person; it was impossible to tell.

  ‘Jane, your tea is getting cold.’

  I returned to sit next to Gail on the sofa. We drank our tea and ate our cake, talking about books and films. It turned out she loved old Hollywood – Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Cary Grant and Clark Gable. She was horrified by how limited my knowledge of the movies was. ‘Well, I’ve lived here since I was little,’ I protested, when she discovered that I hadn’t even seen Gone with the Wind.

  ‘Then you must come and watch some with me next time there’s something on TV,’ Gail said. ‘When we both have the evening off. We could even sneak some beer in as well.’

  I didn’t risk further teasing by admitting I’d never had a beer, but, as I left her flat later that evening, it occurred to me that I had just had a couple of hours of something approaching a ‘normal’ life.

  My first real experience of normal.

  I liked it.

  I wanted more of it.

  Chapter 28

  Betty

  Their long journey began the next afternoon.

  Betty tried to be helpful. She repacked the few things they’d got around to unpacking, folding Edward’s clothes as neatly as she could. But the husband she’d only had a day to get to know was already a ghost to her. He moved silently around the hotel, only speaking to make arrangements or on the telephone. Finally he’d gone for a walk, leaving Betty alone in the room amid the remains of her honeymoon.

  When he didn’t return after an hour, Betty set out to look for him. She found him sitting alone at one end of the bar, whisky in front of him. She perched on the stool alongside him. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  He wouldn’t be, would he? Betty didn’t know how to comfort another person. Her daddy had comforted her, and then Mrs Mason, but that was a long time ago. Since then, she’d never had anyone to comfort her. Nor had she ever taken the role of comforter herself. But that was what a wife did, wasn’t it? It was what Mrs Mason had done. She’d taken care of everyone. That was the role Betty had to play now. She had to take care of her husband.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  The barman placed a lurid pink drink in front of her. ‘Complimentary cocktail of the day,’ he announced. She took a sip. The sweetness was cloying and out of place.

  ‘Everything’s screwed up now,’ Edward said as he turned his glass in his hands.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘It won’t be the way we planned. It won’t be an apartment on the beach. It’ll be the property. The land. And the workers. And the cattle. All of that to manage.’ He downed his remaining drink. ‘That’s who I am now.’ He looked at her. ‘And that’s who you are now, too.’ He laughed bitterly.

  ‘But you’ve got a manager and agents and workers.’

  He shook his head, and glanced at her, and then looked away, over her head, out towards the beach. ‘I have responsibilities.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Not just the property.’

  Betty felt her freedom starting to slip away. She would go where she was taken. Again.

  An hour later they were in the air, the twelve-seater plane coughing and sputtering on the runway before gliding into the sky. Betty watched the beach and the island get smaller and smaller until they disappeared from view.

  ‘What did you mean?’

  Her husband didn’t look at her. ‘When?’

  ‘When you said ‘not just the property’. You said you had responsibilities.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ll see.’ He turned his shoulder away from her, closing the conversation.

  Betty turned back to her window. For a while there was only sky and sea and cloud. They were suspended in nothingness. Betty’s stomach clenched. A person could drift away entirely here with nothing to hold on to at all.

  They had to wait for a connecting flight in Townsville, and it was dusk by the time they took off for Sydney, where they would spend the night before flying to Edward’s home the next day.

  As they rose above the city, Betty gasped. The land all around was on fire. Bright red and orange flames flickered and leapt in the evening dusk. She could see sparks rising into the sky, flying away just as she had so longed to do.

  ‘Edward. Look.’

  Her husband glanced dully out of the window. ‘There’re burning the cane. That’s all.’

  That’s all? How could he say that? The fire was beautiful. Betty stared at down at the flames, feeling as if she was being drawn into the light and the heat. She forgot where they were going. She forgot what was expected of her. She was miles away and years before, safe on her father’s lap watching the flames dance and jump in the hearth.

  Chapter 29

  Jane

  Gail rapidly turned me into something of a film buff. I grew to share her love of the golden era of Hollywood. For me, Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn were my favourites. There weren’t a lot of modern films on television, and I didn’t like what there was. Things like James Bond were so violent, so cru
el. Give me Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Cleopatra any time.

  At least once a week, Gail and I would sit in her tiny flat and watch a film while we drank tea and ate cake. Very occasionally we’d tempt fate with a beer or two. If we got caught, we’d both lose our jobs, but Gail said that I got too hung up on rules, and that it was nobody’s business if we had one drink.

  Gail and I laughed at the same jokes and cried over the same movies – I even contributed some of my meagre wages so we could buy a brand new VCR machine for her flat. Then we watched more and more movies, sharing a box of tissues strategically placed on the sofa between us for the weepies and giggling helplessly at the comedies.

  It was fun. It was like having family.

  It was like being normal. I could lock away thoughts of Helen and the love we had shared.

  One evening, reading the paper in the staffroom, I saw that a film we had been eager to see was on television that night. I put the paper down and hurried to Gail’s flat. I knocked, but, as I so often did, walked in without waiting for her answer.

  I froze just inside the door.

  Gail was half-sitting half-lying on the table, her skirt pulled up around her waist, her blouse and bra gone. Her bare legs were wrapped around the naked hips of a man who was towering over her, his shirt hanging open. As I stood rooted to the spot, he thrust into her. I heard her cry out, not in pain or protest, but in pleasure as she reached for him.

  I fled, slamming the door closed on what I’d seen.

  Chapter 30

  Betty

  It was evening by the time their small plane began the descent towards Thornfield. Betty had long since stopped looking out the window, bored by the endless empty red-brown landscape passing below them. But as they sank towards the ribbon of graded earth that served as a landing strip for the homestead, Betty leant towards her window. There was a river that seemed to curve around a cluster of buildings. Nearest to the water the buildings were rough tin things – not much more than huts. Further back she saw sheds, though not like the backyard sheds in the city. These were vast. The word Thornfield was written in large white letters across one of the iron roofs. And then she saw the house. She heard herself gasp. She knew the Rochesters were rich, but she hadn’t realised that they lived in a whole other world.