by S. C. Farrow
‘Thanks for taking the kids today,’ Kelly says.
‘That’s all right, love. I’m happy to look after ’em. It’s not like I’ve got anything else on. And they’ll be good company.’
Kelly tenses her shoulders. ‘I can’t pay you. Things are a bit tight.’
Louise frowns, concerned for her friend. ‘You don’t need to pay me, love. Look, why don’t you come inside and have a cup of tea before you go to work?’
‘Yeah, okay.’
In the kitchen, Kelly sits at the table while Louise pours boiling water into the tea pot.
‘So, Daniel still can’t get a job, eh?’
‘He’s trying, but…’ Kelly swallows hard. ‘It’s been two years since he left the army, three since he was in Afghanistan.’ She hesitates. ‘He gets so angry. And has these… Episodes. Emma’s started grinding her teeth in her sleep.’ She pauses, struggling under the weight of her confession. ‘I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know how to help us.’ She shakes her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off…’
Louise puts her hand over the top of Kelly’s and gives it a comforting squeeze. ‘When Jack came home from Vietnam,’ she says, ‘he was a different man. War does things to them. Terrible things. A doctor told me once that soldiers are taught to survive. They’re taught to ignore their feelings. Then when they come back home, they don’t see the world the way they used to see it.’ She pulls a cup and saucer closer. ‘He said sometimes it can take years for those feelings to come back again, and when they do… Well, let’s just say a lot of marriages don’t make it.’
Daniel walks into the house. It’s dark and quiet. He checks the children’s bedrooms. They’re not there; their beds are still made. He frowns as he walks into the lounge room. Light from the television flickers in the darkness. The sound is barely audible. Matthew’s toys are all over the floor. There’s a glass of wine on the table. Kelly is asleep on the couch.
Daniel stands in the doorway looking at her. He knows she works hard. He knows that her shop assistant wage is the only thing keeping the family afloat.
He walks over to the couch and kneels on the floor in front of her. He slips the thin strap of her tank top off her shoulder and presses his lips to her naked skin. He loves the smell of her. The taste of her. A tear wells in the corner of his eye as he remembers the day she walked into the footy club. She was so beautiful… He was playing pool with some of the blokes in his unit. He’d lined up his shot then for some reason, he doesn’t know why, he glanced up and saw her as she walked through the front door. And that was it; he was smitten. His mates nagged him to hurry up and take his shot. He did, but he was so distracted he sunk the white then quit the game. The others complained, but he didn’t care. He guzzled a glass of Dutch courage then walked over to the woman who’d just walked through the door and introduced himself.
Her eyes flutter open. ‘Oh, shit. What time is it?
‘It’s late.’
He kisses her again. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘I had to work late. They’re still at Louise’s.’
Daniel nods then hangs his head.
Kelly frowns, concerned, as she runs her fingers through his hair. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.
Kelly wraps her arms around him. ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘It’s okay.’
Kelly sighs as she drags the blade of the box cutter through the tape that secures the cardboard flaps. She jumps, startled, when the Andy the manager taps her on the shoulder. ‘It’s time for your break,’ he says. Kelly frowns as she glances at her watch. It’s almost eleven o’clock. She’d been so deep in thought… She retracts the blade and puts the box cutter in her pocket and makes her way to the staff room at the back of the store.
At home, Daniel sits alone with his rifle in his hand. Beads of sweat trickle down from his temples as the smell of animal dung and dirt, baked in the stifling heat, creeps into his nostrils, and the sounds of war, of distant and sporadic gunfire, fill his aching head.
Then, above the sound of helicopters and gunfire, he hears something else. Breathing. Faint. Intermittent. Laboured. Hyper alert, he grips his rifle and attempts to pinpoint the source.
He raises the rifle and sets off, ghost walks, heel-toe-heel-toe, into the darkness. The further he goes, the louder the breathing gets.
In the distance, a phone starts ringing.
He ignores it and keeps going. Finally, he spots a captured insurgent who stands with shoulders slumped, hands tied behind his back, and with a filthy hessian bag pulled down over his head. Great waves of fear and frustration and betrayal surge inside him as he circles the man, jabs at his chest, stomach, shoulders, and back with the barrel of his rifle.
The phone keeps ringing.
Furious, Daniel whacks the insurgent in the back of the knees with the butt of his rifle.
‘Ahhhh…’ The insurgent falls to his knees, his war-weary body slumped in pain and despair, his head hanging down.
The phone keeps ringing.
Daniel walks around in front of him, then rips the bag from the enemy soldier’s head and tosses it on the ground.
‘Look at me,’ Daniel says.
The insurgent doesn’t move.
‘Look at me!’ Daniel shouts.
The phone keeps ringing.
The insurgent slowly raises his dirt-caked face.
A tear hangs tenuously on the edge of Daniel’s lower eyelid as he looks down at the terrified man.
As he looks down at himself.
In the staffroom, Kelly presses her mobile phone to her ear as she stands at the bench stirring a cup of cheap instant coffee.
In the kitchen, the phone on the wall rings and rings.
In the bedroom, Daniel grips the .22 calibre rifle in his trembling hands as sits on the edge of the bed that he shares with her and presses the barrel up hard beneath his chin.
He can’t take this anymore.
The phone rings out.
He can’t take this anymore.
BAM.
The Hanging of Jean Lee
THURSDAY 15TH FEBRUARY 1951
Four days before the execution
The pungent odour of turpentine and beeswax, used to polish the pine wood floor, lingers in every hard-angled corner of the chapel as Sister Agnes kneels in a pool of pale lamplight, in the silence that’s loudest before dawn, with her head bowed, her eyes closed, and her fingers woven tightly together as she whispers to God. ‘I’m lost, Father. I’ve lost my way. I have no idea what I’m doing here. What am I doing here? What is my purpose? Help me, Father. Guide me. Please don’t let me stray.’
At the end of her prayer, Agnes rests her head on her hands and sighs. She didn’t sleep well last night. In fact, she hasn’t slept well for many nights. For the last four months, her sleep has been broken and plagued by nightmares.
There are so many who are lost. So many who need their help. The Community’s resources are stretched to the limit, as is her ability to feel sympathy for those she’s sworn to help. She used to find satisfaction in this honest, down-to-earth work. But now... Now, she’s not so sure.
***
The late afternoon sun beats down on the laundry’s ancient brick walls making them hot to the touch. Inside, the windows in the large stand-alone building are firmly shut and barred. The lime render, not painted since 1921, flakes off the walls.
Steam rises in clouds from the boiling water in the massive coppers and is trapped in the arched ceiling creating an unbearable humidity. The nuns leave the outside doors open, but without a breeze the building is little more than a steam room.
Thirty-seven girls work in the overwhelming heat. Kathleen, the youngest, is barely thirteen-years old. She was sent here because her widowed father decided he could no longer care for her. And with no living relatives to take her in, this was the best he could do for her. Now, she spends her days in the laundry folding sheets and her nights in the crowded do
rmitory curled up in her cot and sobbing into her pillow.
At twenty-two, Edith is the oldest girl. When she was seven-years old and starving hungry, the corner grocer caught her stealing biscuits when her alcoholic mother neglected to feed her. Now a woman, Edith has the most responsible job in the laundry, ironing altar linen and the parish priest’s surplices.
Other girls stand at the row of sinks that line the far wall scrubbing tablecloths from city restaurants. Some use giant mangles to press sheets for the women’s hospital while the rest soak the sheets and habits that belong to the nuns.
‘We’d better hurry,’ Sister Margaret says, as she uses the long wooden pole to heave a soaking wet sheet from a copper boiler into the nearby laundry trough. ‘It’s almost time for the penitents to go to tea and for us to go to Vespers. You don’t want to miss it again tonight.’
‘I missed it once,’ Agnes sighs, sweating profusely beneath the starched white wimple that covers her head as she cranks the handle on a giant wringer. ‘In fourteen years, I’ve missed it once.’
Suddenly, Reverend Mother appears in the doorway carrying a linen laundry bag. Sister Margaret panics. ‘Reverend Mother… I was just telling Sister Agnes that we’d better hurry if we want to make it in time for Vespers.’
Reverend Mother frowns, exasperated by the woman’s zealousness. ‘There’s plenty of time before you need to be in Chapel, Sister.’
Margaret purses her lips, ‘Yes, Sister, I’m sure there is.’
A short robust woman, fifty-five-year old Reverend Mother has been head of the community since 1918. Mother, father, teacher, confessor, she has guided dozens of wayward young women towards creating a better life for themselves. In return her maternal need, powerful and undeniable, is quietly satisfied. She hands the laundry bag over to Margaret. ‘It’s a donation of women’s clothes. Be sure they’re clean.’
Intolerably hot, Agnes rolls up the sleeves of her habit as Margaret sets the bag on a nearby table and plucks out a woman’s frock. The pastel colours, stark against the drab colour of the laundry, catch Agnes’s eye as Margaret holds it up by the oversized shoulder pads to inspect it.
It’s an afternoon dress. A petite size. Made of polished cotton the floral pattern is light and summery. The calf-length skirt drapes over a pink taffeta petticoat. The short green sleeves are turned back to reveal pink lining and a pink belt hangs in loops around the pinched waist.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Agnes says, reaching out to feel the fabric.
Despite some signs of wear and tear, some dull spots around the armpits, some mending around the waistline and hem, the quality of the fabric and the stitching is unmistakable. It’s an expensive dress, designer, and from the faint odour of jasmine perfume caught between the warp and weft threads, it seems it was much loved by its owner.
‘Sister Agnes.’
Agnes tears her eyes away from the dress to look at her Mother Superior. ‘Yes, Sister.’
‘As you know, Sister Ruth is unwell. I need someone else to take her place on care visit tomorrow.’
Agnes hesitates to respond. She wants to help, she truly does, but she doesn’t know that she’s got it in her. She doesn’t know that she can find the compassion.
Reverend Mother frowns as she waits, senses the hesitation.
But a moment later, Agnes relents. ‘Of course, Sister. Who will I be visiting?’
‘Jean Lee. Her appeal to the Privy Council has been refused. The Premier has announced she’ll go to the gallows on Monday.’
‘Monday?’
‘I hope I can count on you.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Reverend Mother gives Agnes a small nod and then turns and leaves the laundry.
Sister Margaret shoves the dress back in the laundry bag and hands it off to Edith. ‘You heard Reverend Mother.’ As Edith walks away, Margaret grips the wooden pole and turns her attention back to the copper and the hospital sheets perking in the boiling water. ‘What’s the world coming to when they can hang a woman?’
When they can hang a woman, Agnes thinks. Hang a woman… Who murdered an old man. The thought tumbles over and over in her mind. What does she tell this woman? What does she say to her? How does she find the right words?
She goes back to wringing the sheet.
How does she find the words?
FRIDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 1951
Three days before the execution
Heat ripples above the tar on the road as the tangerine sun arcs across the mid-morning sky. Already oppressive, the heat of the day forces the acrid smell of blood and bone to permeate through the cab of the 1943 Chevrolet tray truck.
In the passenger seat, Agnes clutches the carpet bag in her lap as she almost gags on the smell. ‘Do you mind if I roll down the window?’ she asks Albert Gordon as they rumble along Nepean Highway towards the city.
‘Go ahead,’ Gordon says, keeping his eyes firmly on the road. A man of few words, he applied for the position of groundskeeper at the Community of the Holy Name after his beloved wife Sarah died of lung cancer in 1945, just three years after their only son Lionel was killed at El Alamein. Now, he lives in a cottage on the convent grounds, works seven days a week, and drinks his way through the long lonely nights without his family.
The rest of the journey is travelled in silence until they reach Coburg when Gordon makes a right hand turn from Sydney Road into Urquhart Street.
Agnes frowns as she looks at him. ‘The main entrance is on Champ Street.’
‘They moved her,’ the old man replies.
The truck rumbles along the narrow road until they reach the south gate, a segmental-arched opening set within the wall and mounted with a cornice. Beneath the arch are two doors that can open wide enough to admit a heavily guarded truck.
‘This is it,’ Gordon says, pulling the Chevy to a stop.
Agnes rolls the window all the way down and waits as he climbs out of the cab to inform the guards she’s here to visit one of the prisoners. She peers at the gate and the massive bluestone wall. Made from blocks cut from one of Coburg’s own bluestone quarries, it’s at least twenty feet tall and surrounds the entire prison complex.
The wall… Agnes can’t help but think about the purpose of it. It’s the same as the wall that surrounds the convent. The same wall that keeps the inmates in and the rest of the world out.
Lost in thought, she’s startled when she realises Gordon is standing beside the passenger door. He turns the handle and yanks it open. ‘I’ll be back to collect you at three,’ he says, holding out his hand to help her out of the cabin.
Agnes clutches the carpet bag as she takes his hand and slides out of the front seat. As Gordon walks back to the driver’s side of the truck, Agnes stares at the gate.
How do I do this? How do I find the words? Dear God, let me find the words.
Then she holds her breath and steps into the world on the other side.
***
Perspiration beads on Agnes’s forehead as she waits alone in the small reception room. Heat from summer’s endless days, settles in the bluestone blocks that are coated with cream coloured paint. Suddenly, a female guard enters the room. She eyes the nun up and down, assesses her carefully before speaking.
‘My name’s Smith,’ she announces. ‘As soon as you sign in I’ll escort you to see the prisoner.’
The ‘prisoner’. She too has been stripped of her name.
Guard Smith eyes the bag in her hand. ‘May I ask what’s in the bag?’
‘Clothes,’ Agnes replies. ‘I was told she could wear her own clothes.’
‘Yes, but I will need to search it before taking you onto the block.’
Agnes nods. ‘Of course.’
Agnes signs the visitor register while Guard Smith searches the carpet bag. She inspects each item thoroughly then stacks them in an untidy pile beside her. The final item is the floral afternoon dress. She holds it up, casts an eye over it, then proceeds to remove the pink belt hanging in the loops a
round the waist.
‘Is that necessary?’ Agnes asks.
‘Don’t forget to sign the register.’
Finally satisfied that Agnes isn’t secreting weapons or anything dangerous into the prison, Guard Smith unlocks yet another gate and leads the way onto the block.
The clank of the gate slamming shut behind them echoes in the cavernous space in front of them. Agnes looks around. Light struggles to illuminate the building that opens out in front of them, but Agnes can see that everything, steel and stone, is painted with the same cream coloured paint that was used in the reception room.
‘This way,’ Smith says, leading the way down the wide corridor.
The silence is unsettling as they pass a dozen recessed wooden doors, a prison cell hidden away behind each one. And the heat. It hangs in corners under the stairs and the arch of the roof that towers above them. There’s no escaping it.
Then something up high catches Agnes’s eye. She gasps when she looks up to see a massive wooden beam spanning the width of the upper level. Agnes realises this is the beam that was brought from Melbourne Goal when it closed in the 1920s. This is the beam that hanged Ned Kelly. And Elizabeth Scott, Agnes Murray, and Martha Needle. Suddenly, the muffled sound of coughing startles her. Agnes tears her eyes away from the beam and looks at a nearby cell door. She hadn’t thought… There are people in these cells. People. Prisoners.
‘This is it.’ Smith says, pointing through the dim light to a cell a few feet away.
The door of this cell is nothing like the others. This one has a door made of iron bars. It’s an observation cell where prisoners are kept under constant supervision. Fingers gripping the handles of her bag, Agnes peers inside.
In the frail light that creeps in through the lone window set high up in the wall, Agnes can see her sitting on the edge of the cot, a cigarette burning between her bony fingers as she watches a cockroach scuttling across the floor in front of her feet. Lost in thought, she has no idea that Agnes is watching her until she scoops up the insect and carries it toward the bars that cut her off from the rest of the world.