Digging to Australia (24 page)

‘What is it then?'

‘It's something rather delicate – to do with his water-works.

He won't tell
me
, let alone the doctor. So we don't know quite what it is. Well how can we if he won't have any tests? But she doesn't think the prospect's good. Not if he keeps on like this. Not if he lies in bed and doesn't eat and lets himself go.' Her voice trailed off in despair. We sat quietly in the blatant sunshine and a blackbird thrilled me with its song.

23

Once Susan had gone away the days were dull. All the other girls had paired off like lovers and I didn't have the nerve to interfere, to upset the balance. Home was a miserable place. A half-finished plant-pot holder dangled from a chair. Mama was too sad to finish it. There was a sickly quietness everywhere and a smell of soaking sheets, for Bob had become incontinent. I sat with him the mornings after Mama had cleaned him and propped him up against his pillows and folded the paper at the crossword for him. I sat and watched his bleary eyes strain at the crossword puzzle, the branched yellow bones of his hand clutching his pen.

‘Why won't you go to hospital?' I asked him impatiently. ‘It might be something simple. They might make you better.'

‘No use,' he muttered, ‘happier in my own bed.'

‘But you'd be even happier if you were better.'

‘I'll not get better.'

‘Not if you don't try! Try for Mama at least. She's exhausted.'

‘Look after her for me …' He reached for my hand but I pulled it away.

‘Do you actually want to die?' There was a little shock in the air like a gasp. I had the feeling that Mama was hovering somewhere listening, her hand flying to her mouth. I had spoken the words that had not been spoken. Bob was ‘not right' and ‘not getting any better,' ‘there wasn't much hope,' but we had not said the word ‘die' before, or the word ‘death.'

‘Leave me be,' he said and I went out gladly, afraid that I might throw something at him if I had to stay any longer and listen to his plaintive voice.

One day I arrived home with a bag of groceries for Mama. The house was quiet. I guessed that Mama was upstairs with Bob. It was a warm and sunny day, a picture-book spring day, and the shops were full of Easter eggs. As I had walked I had been thinking about Johnny. I went to the butcher's and I remembered Mary and her warning. I remembered the prickly snarl on Johnny's face and I wondered if Bronwyn had ever gone back. I had not dared, not again, not after I'd seen something in his eyes, something that replaced the blankness.

I never warned Bronwyn. Why not? Was it simply carelessness, forgetfulness? Or was there intention in this omission? No. It was just that I didn't see the point. She wouldn't go. I knew for all her talk, she'd never have the nerve to go
.

I walked along the main road to the church, and hesitated outside, overcome with curiosity, just wanting to know if he was still there. I didn't want to enter the place. I didn't want to see him. I just wanted to know whether he was there. I certainly didn't really think he would be. I walked softly between the graves where wild flowers were tangling in the long grass. I made no sound. I held my breath. And then I heard whistling. It made me cold, despite the sun, as if I'd opened a door onto a landscape recognised from a dream. I ran then, not caring that the eggs were jolted in their box or that a tin of beans was squashing the lettuce.

When I opened the door I was greeted by the depressing smell of fried liver. Mama was making yet another nourishing lunch for Bob to leave. I put the shopping on the kitchen table beside an exercise book which I didn't at first recognise. Puzzled, I picked it up. It had Bronwyn's name on the front. There was some of her scrappy work in the front, a story never finished, a spelling test with red crosses beside it. I flicked through to the end, and there were the angels I had drawn for Bronwyn, hermaphrodite angels with wings and leering faces and breasts and penises jutting like giant thumbs.

‘Well?' Mama said. She had come into the kitchen silently and was standing beside me looking over my shoulder. I put the book back on the table. ‘Well?' she repeated. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?'

‘Nothing,' I said.

‘Mrs. Broom doesn't say nothing. She says blasphemy. She says sexual perversion. She came round here trembling like a … I don't know what … aspen or linden or something … and I didn't know where to put myself.'

‘It wasn't
just
me,' I objected. ‘It's Bronwyn who's sex mad. I only drew them for her because she can't draw.'

Mama pursed her lips and shook her head as if it all was too far beyond her.

‘Did she say it was me?' I demanded.

‘Apparently.'

‘I'll kill her,' I said. A trickle started inside me like the first inkling of a landslide. I tasted rage.

‘What you
will
do,' Mama said, ‘is go round and apologise.'

‘I will
not
.'

Mama picked up the book and flicked back to the picture. ‘If you don't,' she said, ‘I'll show this to Bob.'

‘I don't think Bob would mind,' I said. ‘He thinks the human body's a beautiful thing.'

‘Beautiful!' Mama scoffed, waving the crude childish pictures in front of my nose.

‘Oh all right then.' I kept my voice even, but something was rushing within me. So much anger for such a small thing, so much anger directed at so dull a target, I was surprised at the force of it. And more surprised still by the way my face and my voice behaved themselves and gave nothing away.

‘Anyway,' she said, ‘what's happened to Bronwyn these days? I haven't heard much about
her
lately.'

‘We're not friends anymore,' I said.

‘Oh don't be so silly! You were such great friends at Christmas. It's all Susan, Susan, Susan these days. Why not go round and see Bronwyn? Apologise to her mother. Get it out of the way. You've nothing else to do. Unless you want to mow the lawn?'

I went out and walked along the flat sunny streets. There was the sweet smell of flowering currant in the air, and raucous daffodils nodded beside the garden paths. My feet carried me to Bronwyn's house. I was threaded through with rage, a cold controllable rage that had little to do with the stupid angels. It was to do with the past. It was to do with Bronwyn knowing things about us, reminding me, by being there, by hanging about looking so lost and lonely, hanging around like a warning, so that I had to keep glimpsing her, I had to keep remembering the things I wanted to forget. I wanted to do something, I did not know what. I wanted her exorcised.

But I did not mean to cause her any harm
.

When I knocked at Bronwyn's door there was at first no reply and I turned to go, half relieved, but then the door was opened by Mrs. Broom. She peered at me as if puzzled and then drew me inside the dim cabbage-smelling hall. ‘Jennifer,' she said, gripping my wrist with her cold fingers and regarding me sadly.

‘I
am
sorry about the angels,' I said. ‘We were only mucking about.' I was pleased with the way my body behaved, my eyes serious, my face properly contrite.

I heard Bronwyn moving about upstairs and then her face appeared over the banisters at the top. ‘Hello,' she said coolly.

‘All right,' Mrs Broom said. ‘I was surprised at you. I wasn't sure whether it was wise to let Bronwyn play with you again … but I've been praying for guidance and I think you deserve another chance.'

‘Thank you,' I said, and my other hand squeezed her cold wrist in a play of affection. My lips made a smile. I wondered if she ever looked in her innocent daughter's underwear drawer, if she'd ever seen the playing cards.

‘You can go up and see Bronwyn if you like,' she said. ‘But please, girls. No lewd talk.' She let me go and I climbed the dreary stairs. It was cold in the house, even on such a warm afternoon, and the landing light bulb glared weakly.

‘What do you want?' Bronwyn asked as soon as she had shut the door behind us.

‘Nothing.' I looked around. The dolls were grey with dust. Cats' cradles of cobwebs linked their fingers. There was the lidless stub of my old lipstick on her dressing table and a grubby powder puff. I sat down on Bronwyn's unmade bed. She stood and glowered down at me.

‘Where's Susan?' she demanded.

‘Don't know,' I lied.

‘Fallen out?'

‘No.'

‘Oh.' She folded her arms across her chest. She looked dirty and tired and smelt of stale perfume and sweat. I felt the cold reptilian quickening of the anger in my belly.

‘Why did you tell on me?' I asked.

‘Why not?' she said.

‘Because it was sneaky.'

‘I had to say something,' she said. ‘Mum was hys-ter-ic-al. I couldn't say it was me. Anyway, I can't draw.'

‘She seems all right now,' I said.

‘She's been praying,' she explained. ‘That always calms her down.'

Mrs Broom came in with a tray of orange squash and biscuits. She put it on the floor, looked at us both searchingly and shook her head, before she went out.

‘What have you been doing then?' I asked, biding my time.

‘In what way?'

‘Just generally. I haven't seen you for ages.'

She went to the mirror and bent to study her face for a moment. She licked her forefinger and smoothed her eyebrows. Then she picked the tray up and put it on the bed and sat down. She wore her school dress, although it wasn't a school day, and she looked enormous and bloated, over-inflated in the childish dress and the big flat kippers of her sandals. I took a ginger biscuit.

‘Wouldn't you like to know,' she said. She swigged her orange squash and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The smug look was back.

‘Not particularly,' I said, ‘I was just wondering.'

She munched a biscuit and brushed the crumbs off her lap onto the floor. Her finger-ends were gnawed right down so that they were ragged and blood-flecked.

‘Well, I'd better go then,' I said, and hesitated, waiting for her to crack.

‘Don't,' she said. ‘Not yet. Mum's so pleased that you're here. She thinks you're worth praying for. She still thinks you're my friend. I told her your granddad was ill, that's why we hardly see you.'

‘He is,' I said.

‘Really? That's a co-in-ci-dence.'

There was a tense crunching quietness while we finished the biscuits.

‘Have you seen Johnny lately?' she asked.

‘Have you?'

She tapped the side of her nose and smiled complacently. And I hated her in a pure quicksilver way as I remembered just what she was like, with all the little bits of secrets she hoarded, like bait. She was like a fisherwoman teasing a fish. And it wasn't even true, it was another one of her lies. I thought she must have forgotten the difference, that her whole world was woven from untruth – ‘a tissue of lies,' Bob would have said.

‘Well you probably already know then,' I said, casting my own piece of bait.

‘What?' the smugness dropped from her face so swiftly it was almost comical.

‘Nothing,' I said, teasing her now. I could almost feel her bite, feel her tug.

‘Oh go on,' she pleaded.

‘So you haven't seen him?' I asked. ‘You never went back to see him?'

‘I never dared,' she admitted.

Only I know that this conversation took place. And only I will ever know. No one can wrench it from me. I told Bronwyn to go back. She had been unsure in the light of day, she said, whether it was wise. Even stupid Bronwyn who couldn't say long words hesitated in the light of day. She asked me to go with her. But I said no
.

‘
It's you he wants,' I said
.

‘
Don't you mind?
'

‘
There's something he wants to tell you.' She blinked at me with her pale eyes. ‘There's nothing to be afraid of,' I said. ‘I've been going there for months
.'

‘
All right then,' she said. But I never thought she would. I never really thought she would
.

Mrs Broom invited me, tried to persuade me, to stay for lunch but I explained that I had to get back to help Mama. I was sorry. She looked so disappointed. I might have stayed if it had only been Mrs Broom but I wanted to get away from Bronwyn with her smugness and her weakness and the blinking of her deceitful credulous eyes. I had finished with Bronwyn and all the gloominess of spirit I associated with her. I had to get back out into the sunshine and the fresh air. She called me back as I left the house and handed me a paper bag. ‘A present,' she said, smiling oddly. I walked away from the house before putting my hand into the bag. It was full of hair. My own cold, dead, childish hair. I threw it in the gutter.

24

Bronwyn was missing. I knew even before I knew. There was an uneasiness as if the world was holding its breath at my wickedness. A sort of waiting for the worst.

I am not an evil person, not wicked, nobody could call me wicked, I would never harm a fly. It was only wishful thinking that led me to tell Bronwyn to go to Johnny, when I was frightened of him myself. It was only wishful thinking. And is that a sin?

Bronwyn's desk was empty and there were rumours, dark rustlings, and a police car parked outside the school. Miss Clarke was preoccupied and ignored the whispering and inattention.

Because I had gone missing myself, and because I was the only person to have been friendly with Bronwyn, I was seen as connected in some way. This time I didn't enjoy the attention, didn't need it. By lunchtime the school was stiff with rumour and speculation and I was clustered round by girls asking questions, or just wanting to be seen with me. Susan held my arm proudly, shielding me from the fray. I was so much the centre of attention I had to force my face not to grin but to look properly grave and concerned. I
was
concerned, and frightened, and the grin wasn't real, it was just a reaction to the excitement, a sort of reflex. All around, girls who had never even spoken to Bronwyn brimmed with tears and muttered ‘What ifs' to each other, thrilled with fear.