Eloquent Silence (6 page)

‘We don’t want some sleazebag barging in here and trying to ingratiate himself into Dad’s will.’ Her jaw was set and her eyes were blazing. Enough control of the family had slipped through her hands already and she was not about to allow herself to be the victim of any more unfortunate circumstances.

Ham-fisted domination was not a phrase with which Tootsie was familiar, nor would it have meant a great deal to her if someone had whispered it in her ear.

‘Humpf!’ said Phillip as he felt his face burn right up to his hairline. ‘Only human, weren’t they? Probably like the rest of the human race and let things get a bit out of hand then didn’t know what to do about it.  Best let sleeping dogs lie if Tootsie’s going to get herself all het up about it.’

Douglas felt as if his smile was painted on. He was no more anxious to cross the formidable Tootsie than any of the others but he did not intend to let the matter rest, either. Keeping the matter hush-hush, he went on defiantly keeping in touch with the stranger. He had fielded the phone call and didn’t want to let those sleeping dogs lie. If there was another sibling out there he was anxious to make his acquaintance.

In the course of negotiating over the spare parts for the firm where his missing brother worked, Douglas went further towards arranging a meeting with Brian.

A date was set for Brian and his wife to travel to Queensland to meet his long lost relatives. The timing had to be set to suit Tootsie, when she had a reasonable length of time to adjust to the change and digest the fact that there was another sibling in the wings of the von Hildebrand theater.

He quietly prepared, bought a superlative caravan and a massive four wheel drive to pull it, purchased all the sundry items that would be necessary for the long drive north-east. He was exhilarated, although his wife was a little more wary about the exercise.

‘I absolutely forbid you all to have anything to do with him,’ Tootsie affirmed with fury when she was invited to participate in the reunion. ‘If any of you do I’ll never speak to you again. Never. Until the day I die. Not a word, ever. Coming over here and barging into the family is not an option for this man. He could be anyone.’

Tootsie worked up a full head of steam and did the rounds of the family dragging her placid husband and several grown children who still lived at home in tow. Something cold and argumentative had settled around her heart for the last years since she had heard about this person who was trying to scale the embattled walls of the von Hildebrand family and Tootsie would fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo. She knew herself to be at the epicenter of a fiasco which must be controlled at all costs or Tootsie would go down fighting in the attempt. How dare he? What did he expect to gain from acceptance into the family? She was baffled.

The family was also baffled. Why was Tootsie in such a state about the matter? Was it because she was in denial about her parents having done such a thing, which in her eyes was almost a crime? Having a child out of wedlock, ‘getting into trouble’, even sex outside marriage was incomprehensible to Tootsie. She turned up her nose in disgust at any mention of such concepts.

Despite all of her strong opinions and years of training of those around her, her husband, Bernie, had kicked over the traces a year into their marriage and had an affair with a blonde and buxom waitress from the local Chinese Cafe. In a fit of confession, he had revealed all to his wife’s brother, Phillip, who, with family loyalty at heart, had gone helter skelter to his sister, Commander-in-Chief Tootsie. She had brought Bernie to heel quick smart and had given Tootsie something to hold over his head for the balance of the marriage. Sally swore he had never raised his eyes from the ground from that day forward.

The battle regarding the phantom relative in the west and a proposed reunion with him continued to simmer in the background of all their lives for several months. The vast majority of the family wanted to meet their long-lost sibling but feared to do so because of Tootsie’s rages.

They argued about it for months while Brian kept putting his holidays off time and time again, waiting for the moment to suit them all and Tootsie in particular. Her reputation went before her and he knew he had to curry favor with this person who held his fate in the palm of her hand. Unfortunately, he did not know how to do so, as all attempts to contact her were thwarted. She did not reply to him or acknowledge his existence in any way.

‘You can’t come over here, mate,’ Douglas told Brian on the telephone one night for the seventh time. ‘Our sister is so furious about meeting you, even about your existence, that we dare not upset her further. Sorry, old fella. We’re real sorry about the whole thing. We would have loved to have met you but we have to consider Tootsie’s feelings. She could have a nervous breakdown over this. She’s teetering on the bridge of the abyss as it is.’

‘You won, Tootsie,’ Douglas told her on the weekend before Brian and his wife had been determined to start out for Queensland. ‘They won’t come near us. Won’t even come over to have a look around, thanks to you.’ His nostrils extended, he trailed off lamely as Tootsie began to show signs of annoyance.

‘Just as well. I hope you’ll all stop agitating now,’ she snorted as she stomped around her kitchen making tea for her visitors. ‘People Like Us don’t want anything to do with the likes of him. He’s probably shifty-eyed and ignorant as a pig. Probably had no proper upbringing whatsoever if he was a cast-off, brought up by God knows who. Never taught right from wrong. Not knowing B from a bull’s foot.’ Her big, smooth face was damp with perspiration as she folded her arms over her belly. She really found the topic too hard to comprehend and was so absolutely tired of it all.

Suddenly she sat down heavily, with an expression that could have been called crestfallen on anyone else beside Tootsie. Sitting in a heap, she felt loose-jointed and rubber-limbed, unable to do anything but smile with clenched teeth at the thought that she had succeeded in settling the hairy question to her satisfaction. She had known of her own particular potential for power, but this went to prove it once and for all.

The strained moment passed when one of her grandchildren burst into the room being chased by his older brother waving a cricket bat.

‘Hoy,’ she shouted at the children. ‘Get outside and play like normal human beings. Can’t you see we’re in conference in here?’

After deep reflection she added to her brother, ‘That settles the issue at hand once and for all,’ as she took a noisy sip of her tea.

There was no further contact until a few months later when Douglas had to ring the branch in Perth where Brian worked, seeking out a rare part for a crawler tractor. He asked to speak to Brian, just to say ‘Hi’ and pass the time of day.

‘Sorry,’ said the sales assistant sadly. ‘Brian’s no longer with us. He passed away a few months ago.’

‘Oh. Something sudden?’ asked Douglas, sucking in his cheeks in anticipation of the worst. His curiosity was mounting as he wondered what could have caused such a sudden demise for the long-lost relative in Perth.

‘You could say that. He became severely depressed. Seems like it was overnight although his wife said she had seen signs for some time. But I can’t tell you any details. Sorry. I know he was planning a trip to Queensland, really looking forward to it, said he was going to meet some of his family, but then something went wrong. Didn’t turn up for work one day with no hint to any of us that he was on his last day here. His wife just went to pieces and had to leave town. All very confidential and hush-hush.’

The conversation was reported to Tootsie, who gave a little moan of impatience.

‘Is there no end to this blessed man and his interference in our family’s business? When will we get some peace from him? Sounds fishy. Uncanny,’ she admitted, prim-faced and disapproving of the whole episode.

For a minute she rocked on her large, flat feet, sucking her bottom lip in against her pearly white teeth. She stared around the gathering with considerable coldness, jutting out her chin defiantly.

‘Still, it just wouldn’t happen to People Like Us. We don’t take the easy way out. Not my fault, anyway. I’m a reasonable person and don’t try to influence others one way or another. It’s a free country. He could have come to Queensland if he liked. That’s not to say we would have entertained him. But what was to stop him and his wife from coming to see the countryside?’

A sudden stiff smile was pasted on her mouth. No one replied either Yea or Nay. All sat stock still contemplating the fly crawling feebly on the tablecloth. With a loud, exasperated sigh, Tootsie sunk into a chair, swiped out with the fly swat and annihilated the defenseless insect.

‘Humpff! That appears to be that. At last I’ll have some hard-won peace of mind. Coffee, anyone? Tea? Biscuit?’

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T
he three children had consumed their dinner amidst various complaints about pumpkin, Brussels sprouts and the lack of their usual scoop of ice cream. Banana custard and jelly was acceptable but it was much better topped with ice cream. They were not impressed but had finally finished their meal and left the table to go their various ways.

Annie supervised the girls’ bathing. At nine and ten Ruth and Sarah were well able to bath themselves but forgot small details like scrubbing the red-brown Birkenwald Downs soil from the soles of their feet or washing behind their ears, typical childhood avoidances.

Searching for the busy four-year-old David, she found him in the next door neighbor’s yard in the red pedal-car he had inherited from the younger of his two sisters, Sarah. Annie was glad her little boy felt well enough that day to seek the company of the two small neighboring children, as he had often liked to play with them in the days before he became ill. They were closer in age to him than his sisters and he had been in the habit of seeking them out at some time during most of the long days in early summer.

But then Glandular Fever had taken its toll on him, changing his little life almost beyond recognition.

It had been a sluggishly warm and hazy afternoon on the down side of the Christmas holidays, heading into the new school year. The girls would return to Primary School and if David happened to be well enough, he would go to Kindergarten.

The sisters, Ruth and Sarah, separated in age by only one year and three days, appeared more like twins than sisters.  Ruth had been born prematurely, taking quite some years to catch up to ‘normal’ size for her age and was still a smidgen behind in height. Sarah was a lovely-natured, nicely-covered child, apparently placid and secure until her father hit his straps. He would proceed to scare the living daylights out of her with his temper, pulling a mind trip on her by telling her how stupid and unwanted she was.

Annie collected David, biding him to say goodnight to the neighboring children, Katy and Barry Simpkins, and come home for his bath. He objected quietly in his easy, pleasant way, but soon gave in and drove his pedal-car down the Jacksons’ driveway and back into his own yard.

Annie was determined to stick to her guns with David, as hard as she found it to refuse him anything, even an extra five minutes to play with his friends. He was heartbreakingly thin and pale. Annie was filled with sickening dread every time she thought of David’s future health or lack of it.

My God, he looks exactly like those pictures I’ve seen of the little Jewish children in the concentration camps that the Nazi’s had during the war, she thought as she followed the little boy back into their own yard.

His sickness was so horrendous for the small boy and his recovery was so prolonged that Annie felt compelled to be lenient with him until he recovered a little more. He was plagued by bouts of recurring fever and pains in the joints of his arms and legs. At his worst he had suffered episodes of such a high fever that he had felt spiders crawling all over him in his delirium. Annie could still hear his terrified screaming as she relived the horror of his illness. In her mother’s heart she wanted him to rest while at the same time she wanted him to participate in rough-and-tumble play if he so chose.

His recuperation from the debilitating and horrendous Glandular Fever had been slow and although not fatal in itself, it was quite terrifying for a parent to watch.  Annie sometimes blamed herself for David’s illness, as she had been in the habit of buying milk from a local dairy farmer; beautiful, rich and creamy but unpasteurized.

But then Annie sometimes blamed herself for everything. That was how she had been taught to function by her loving, faithful husband in the days before Domestic Violence became recognized for what it is, becoming a monstrous public issue. For the longest time she had been blinded by what she had wanted to believe, that he was a good man and that the marriage could be made to work if she tried hard enough, despite all signs to the contrary.

She firmly believed that much of the problem was hers, that she angered him simply by being the way she was, because it was not the way he wanted her to be. She reminded herself that if she did not cause annoyance to him he would not lose his temper and hit out at her. The brutality was mostly her fault as she brought on herself because that was what he told her to believe.

There were times when her mind was repulsed by his expressions of intimidation but she knew that if she were to continue with the marriage she had to accept his theories for her being as he told her as much as possible. To try to defend herself only caused extra tension and led to even worse outcomes. It was imperative to accept what he said as law and to try, (although so far it had been in vain), to change herself into what he wanted her to be, once she found out for sure what it was.

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D
avid’s illness had taken their country doctor in Belsen by surprise, causing him to give several diagnoses ranging from Rheumatic Fever all the way to Leukemia. Each new diagnosis filled her and Conrad with ever mounting fear.

Never one to admit to a misdiagnosis, the doctor blustered on attempting to give the impression he knew far more than he obviously did. Annie’s fears dominated every waking moment and some of her sleeping ones as well when she woke in terror for the wellbeing of her son, staring into the dark, silent, pitiless night. It had been a year of sorrow for Annie, who was deathly afraid of losing her ill child.