by Averil Kenny
‘It’s beautiful. Why on earth do you keep this hidden away in a . . . guest room?’ She’d almost said dingy, and censured herself for her automatic fault-finding.
Sonnet glanced at the bed over which she leaned. ‘I see; a hoax to lure unsuspecting young women in. How do you plan on wrangling me into this next?’
Her frank manner seemed to throw him. He considered Sonnet for a sluggish moment. ‘Another drink?’
Sonnet burst into laughter, stopping short when answering humour failed to materialise on his face.
‘A drink would be fine, Brenton.’
‘I’ll nip down to my bar. Stay right here.’
He disappeared, not unlike a small boy running to locate and show off his favourite toy. She squinted critically at her muted reflection in the picture glass. Her bun was a mess. She tried, in vain, to tame the unruly red.
‘What a tangle!’ She didn’t mean the hairdo. She held her hands to her cheeks and blew a long, steadying breath.
It’s my choice, I’m a grown woman, I brought my own protection, and I’m attracted to him. So, if I want to have sex tonight, I can.
She sat on the bed, to wait.
*
Sonnet held the empty spirit glass in her hand, stifling the urge to yawn, while her date mauled her neck. That last, heavily spiked drink had dampened any desire she’d harboured this evening. On Brenton, however, their nightcap had worked a wonder. He was panting with inebriated enthusiasm now, all trace of languor vanished. She suspected, from the fumes coming off the mouth toiling near her ear, he’d shored himself up with multiple shots, and several cigarettes with the blokes downstairs.
She sighed to cover an escaping yawn, and Brenton drew back with a grin. ‘Yeah, you like that? Oh, baby, I can do more of that . . .’
He pushed her back, and she acquiesced with an awkward crumpling that did nothing to improve the emerging feeling of pointlessness.
His hands began an insistent groping of her layers, and she amended her objective for the evening: As long as I stay in my garments, this is just necking. He hasn’t even bothered to kiss my mouth . . .
In experiment, she nudged her lips towards his and was rewarded with a kiss, which, though failing still to ignite any fire, sent a minor crackle of excitement skittering down her spine. She wriggled, trying to unpin herself, and Brenton used the moment to press himself heavily between her legs. His jeans generated a mild abrasion against her bare legs as his hips rocked rhythmically against her pelvis. Brenton was already at a gallop, puffing hotly at her throat, while she hadn’t yet quickened her pace. She turned her head away, and immediately two hands rose to paw at her breasts.
‘You Hamilton chicks have got enormous knockers,’ he said, pulling roughly at her dress, sending one delicate button flying across the bed.
It might have been that sentence alone.
Perhaps it was the frantic, churning plight of her little belly echidna. Or maybe it was merely the waste of the delicate button. In any case, Sonnet became very, very still.
Her eyes flew open – long enough to take in the antediluvian gaze of a giant blue bird, fixed upon her.
Sonnet wriggled beneath him for a better glimpse. It was a luridly hued dinosaur in close-up portraiture: large, grey helmet, two holes bored in a scythe-like beak, and blood-red wattles hanging from a cobalt-blue face. Amber eyes fixed upon her with an unblinking stare so recriminatory, Sonnet gasped.
Brenton fumbled roughly at their compressed groins, shoving layers aside.
‘What’s that?’ she cried.
‘Yeah, that’s me, baby.’
She strained around him, exasperated. ‘No, that picture, the . . . bird thing. Look!’
‘It’s a bloody cassowary painting.’
Cassowary.
Instantly, the word invoked Gav’s gristly after-dinner tales of feisty, flightless rainforest birds – taller than humans, with talons like cutlasses, which could garrotte a jugular in a single kick. Elusive as they were dangerous.
Who got so close to a cassowary they could paint such a marvellous image?
The shock of cool denim against her innermost folds was galvanising. Sonnet came back to herself.
‘Brenton – no, wait!’
He grunted, struggling free of his fly.
‘Hang on!’
He pushed back against her with a growl, releasing himself fully.
For a split second, Sonnet heard her own voice commenting from a patronising height: Like ripping off a bandage. Real quick, then it’ll be over.
But she wasn’t a bandage, and nothing was getting ripped tonight. She fought the crushing weight.
‘Geez, you like it a bit rough,’ he said, lining himself up.
‘Brenton, stop!’ It was a sob.
He was deaf to her entreaty. His engorged flesh pressed, solidly, into her dry lips. Sonnet had a brief image of a broom handle; a sword.
‘No!’
He pushed harder still for admittance. She felt the first stinging ring of his ingress.
‘Get off of me, you sonofabitch!’
She pummelled at him now, but he was a tree fallen upon her, impervious.
‘Stop!’
He fell from her with a yowl, halted only by the searing rake of nails on his neck.
‘What the hell?’
His shocked disgust curdled her terror instantly into shame. ‘I’m sorry!’ she cried, scrambling away – scrabbling together her dress, her underpants; herself.
They panted at each other from opposite corners of the room now.
He clutched at a scarlet clawing on his throat. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I told you to stop!’
‘You want it one second, and next thing you’re tearing at me like an alley cat.’
‘I wanted to stop!’
‘You’re just being a prick-teaser! Come here . . .’
‘I don’t want you, Brenton.’
His lips curled. ‘You don’t know what you want. Leading me on! What are you doing up here, if you’re such a frigid prude?’
‘You brought me up here for a tour! Can’t you be alone with a woman without assaulting her?’
‘You knew what we were coming here for.’
Sonnet trembled to her feet, chin thrusting. ‘I am taking myself home.’
‘You’re a lesbian with that heifer of a Hardy chick, anyway. Everybody knows it.’
Sonnet picked up her empty glass and held it high in the air, fingers trembling, until he began to smirk.
She let go.
Brenton winced as the glass exploded on his wood floor.
‘Useless cow,’ he spat. ‘You don’t even deserve to be screwed out of pity.’
Sonnet put one heeled toe on the last, thinning cube at her feet, and crushed it. ‘Don’t ever come near me again, Brenton Furse.’
The door slammed behind her as Sonnet dashed for the rear stairwell.
The back entrance was now shut and deadlocked. Acid rage rose in Sonnet’s throat to comprehend a man who would wheedle her into bed, but lock her escape route, just to be sure.
The erupting roar as she descended the grand pub staircase in pursuit of freedom was only confirmation that every cad in town knew Brenton Furse was upstairs bedding Sonnet Hamilton.
She faltered on the final step, wondering if he’d sold bloody tickets. The pressing crowd and vulgar catcalls were, altogether, a fray she could not conceive of breaching.
Just put your head down and run for it, idiot!
Then, she perceived another, gentler voice . . .
Hold your head high, my Sonny girl.
Her mother’s voice, her mother’s saying – the first she’d heard of it in years. And just in time.
Sonnet lifted her chin, fastened her eyes on the doorway, and pushed forward. She was a bull bar, ramming through lowing cattle, towards home.
CHAPTER 24
PEARLS AND SWINE
T
he face peering through the cott
age door was strained with worry. Sonnet plodded up the sunlit hallway, eyes enflamed, nerves jangling at the hurried rapping. Just Olive, returning the girls after church.
Breathe.
Sonnet could hear Plum leaping up and down on the porch, eager to show off her Sunday school craft. She slid the double bolt aside.
‘Good morning, sleepyhead!’ Olive said, scrutinising her face. How anomalous to find Sonnet, of all people, still in a nightgown at midday.
‘Are you okay?’ Olive asked, ushering the girls through.
For a second, Sonnet thought Olive could smell the rank odour of fear leftover from her long run home in the wee hours, wearing a damned cocktail dress. But she couldn’t possibly. Sonnet had scrubbed that man, and her humiliation, right out of her body.
No, more likely Olive wanted Sonnet to confirm the gossip she’d already heard in the church pews this morning.
Sonnet’s inflection was tight. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Why?’
‘I was worried when you didn’t come home last night.’
‘Obviously, I came home. I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘I didn’t hear Brenton drop you back. I was . . . concerned.’
‘He didn’t.’ Sonnet received Plum’s proffered Garden of Eden mural with a mimed wow. ‘I brought myself home.’
Olive was open-mouthed. ‘He let you walk home in the middle of the night? That was inviting trouble for a young woman like you, Sonnet!’
‘No woman invites trouble,’ Sonnet said coldly, turning away to thumbtack Plum’s garden to the pantry door.
‘But anything could have happened to you!’
Like what, getting raped? That was only if I stayed.
Plum whined that Sonnet had bent her picture, she’d covered over the serpent; she was ruining it! Sonnet threw her hands up, and left her to the rearranging.
Olive studied Sonnet. ‘You’re definitely okay?’
Sonnet’s urge to cry was unexpected. ‘You can see I’m fine! Unless you’ve heard otherwise from that ruddy pulpit and your morning-tea gossipers.’
Immediately, she regretted her tone. Her conscience throbbed.
Olive laid an alfoil-covered plate on the kitchen bench. ‘Just some lunch I saved for you. I’m glad you’re safe. I’ll leave you in peace now.’
Sonnet shrugged coldly, hating herself for it. ‘No thanks, I’m not hungry.’
*
When Olive appeared in near-identical fashion the following morning, rubbing one foot along the opposite calf in that irritating habit of hers, Sonnet’s first reaction was sheer peevishness, born of guilt. Another tiff with Olive was exactly what she didn’t want on a Monday morning while trying to hustle two contrary sisters through breakfasts and into uniforms.
Plum, throwing herself around Olive’s waist, was extricated with uncharacteristic brusqueness. ‘Plummy, I need to talk to Sonnet. Fable dear, best you pop up to the bus, too.’
Fable’s ensuing eye roll, as she shepherded a complaining Plum from the cottage, expressed Sonnet’s feelings precisely.
‘What’s with the secrecy?’ Sonnet asked, nipping at her toast.
‘Oh, Sonnet,’ Olive cried, forehead puckering with anguish, ‘I’m so sorry! I was wrong!’
A sour wave rose in Sonnet’s throat. She couldn’t seem to swallow her mouthful.
‘I misjudged this town. I promised you the furore about you girls would die down. I said you had to be patient and they’d eventually come to accept you as individuals in your own right.’
‘I know what you said then – what are you saying now?!’
‘It’s your shop—’
Sonnet launched to her feet. ‘What have they done to my shop?!’
‘Your beautiful sign. Someone’s . . . defaced it with something . . . awful!’
‘What?!’
Olive shook her head, backing away. ‘I can’t repeat it. I won’t! Gav’s already there. He was in early this morning, saw it before almost anyone. Leave your bike, come with me.’
*
Arriving at the bookstore, they found Gav atop a ladder, Sonnet’s sign already covered in a drop cloth. Gav’s assistant, David, was on the other end of the sign. Both men nodded briefly at the women as Sonnet flung her way out of the car, but nobody spoke.
A running commentary on the sign’s removal, however, was being provided by curmudgeonly Edward Fletcher, who walked Main Street early each morning with his blue terrier, minding everyone else’s business, except his dog’s.
‘Ah,’ he cried, as Sonnet appeared. ‘Here’s the “lady” in question now. Raking up all kinds of trouble round here, aren’t you? Just like your mother.’
Sonnet stumbled at the gutter, blinded by ballooning rage.
Edward turned back to the sign, summarily dismissing Sonnet. ‘That’s it now, fellas. Lift her up to the left and unsnag her there.’
Sonnet whirled on the man, spittle at her lips. ‘I saw some of your dog’s trademark defecation up the street there, Mr Fletcher. Go take care of your own mess!’
Finally, the sign was down, and carried into the shop on their shoulders with the sombre, stilted manner of pallbearers. David headed back to Emerson’s Hardware. He would not meet Sonnet’s eyes as he left.
The front door jangled closed. Sonnet wheeled on the Emersons.
‘Show me!’
Gav stooped, grimacing, to sweep the cloth aside. It was a sickening do-over of Fable’s grand reveal: her whimsical artwork ravaged by violent, slashing strokes of red paint. The only part of the sign untarnished was Sonnet’s name, which had been worked into the staining curse, twisting her sign into a foul palimpsest . . .
Sonnet’sucks
old mens dongs for free
Bookstores
HAMILTON WHORES!
Sonnet staggered back from the sign. ‘Sonofabitch!’ she roared, sweeping a stack of books off the Story Bar.
Gav moved quickly to cover it over.
‘No!’ Sonnet cried. ‘Don’t you dare! If the whole town’s talking about this sign, there’s no use trying to protect me now.’
‘Whole town didn’t see it,’ Gav soothed, ‘I was one of the first in this morning, had it covered as fast as I could.’
‘And yet it only takes one loudmouth in this town, doesn’t it? They’ll talk of nothing else for years! Another town legend they’ll all agree to never forget!’ Sonnet smacked another pile of books onto the floor for good measure. Olive rushed upstairs, stifling sobs.
Sonnet thought then of Lowe’s school bus, shuddering its way into town, about to deliver two girls into a furious green ants’ nest of biting hearsay. Her blood boiled. Fable must never, ever see the artwork she had laboured over so cruelly corrupted.
‘Get me some paint, Gav.’
‘How much and what colour?’
‘Don’t care, just get it for me! Please.’
‘On my way!’
*
Olive, descending the staircase some minutes later with eyes wiped clean, and aspirin dissolving in a glass of water, was taken aback to find her niece kneeling before the sign, tracing letters in the air.
‘Can we please cover it up now? Haven’t you seen enough?’
‘Not on your life, Olive! I’m staying shut today, and I’m going to repaint this damned sign myself. I’ll be back in business under my own banner by tomorrow!’
‘You’re just going to paint right over Fable’s lovely work?’
‘I’m not quite the dab hand Fable is, but I did all right myself in art – well enough to string a few letters together. Don’t care about aesthetics anymore. It’s about ownership and pride now.’
And war.
Olive nodded, foot worrying at her calf. ‘What can I do to help?’
‘Cups of tea, Olive. Lots of tea.’
*
It was back-breaking work, requiring multiple coats to cover the scarlet letters. Not until her sign was redeemed, could S
onnet breathe easily.
She worked until late into the night, with Gav keeping a dogged, silent watch over the process, and later, Kate propping her up with irreverent humour. Kate had arrived unexpectedly after her own day’s work – slipping in quietly to kneel beside Sonnet and take over the hair-drying of stubborn wet patches, without being asked.
Kate’s presence, salve though it was, only confirmed Sonnet’s dread. These hateful words could never be obliterated, neither by time nor paint, and indeed already had seeped forth, like fetid swamp waters, into every home in Noah.
When the hairdryer finally gave out in a smoky puff, Kate sat back on her haunches to muse, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, they reckon, but words will never hurt me. Always thought that saying was bulldust, but frankly this proves it.’
Sonnet saw an image of Fable’s face, shuttered by blank despair. Her heart hurt.
She’d sent Olive home to care for the girls with strict instructions to defer any discussion of the sign until Sonnet could talk them through it. She had an epic rant scheduled for later. The sign defacement provided the perfect illustration for two young girls who needed to learn how the world generally, and Noah Vale specifically, treated women. Olive’s case for sweeping it under the carpet as quickly as possible – for the girls’ sake – had met searing rebuttal.
‘Half this town is already draped in carpets! It’s my sign, and my story to tell!’
How quickly Olive’s horror had been overridden by reluctance to make a fuss, much less a scene.
At last the sign was finished. Sonnet stood between Gav and Kate, face tipped critically, assessing her finished product.
‘That’ll show ’em!’ said Gav.
‘But why Hamilton’s Books?’ asked Kate. ‘My “Sonnet’s Books” joke wasn’t that bad!’
Sonnet knelt to dab at a suspicious wet patch. ‘I’m taking back our rightful place on this street. Now, let’s get her up!’
*
Rumbling home in Gav’s utility at midnight, Sonnet’s mind turned determinedly to her imminent reopening. Olive had insisted she should take a few days off to let things ‘cool down’, but Sonnet was already raring to go.
She wanted to show her face in town tomorrow, and it would be on a head held high!
I hear you, Mama.