Four Fires (20 page)

'Time for Darjeeling,' Mrs Rika Ray announces. She goes out of the hut and comes back with the old black kettle I'd seen hanging on the tripod over the fire. She reaches for a teapot and, from one of the kero drawers under the counter, she takes three little china cups and l saucers. Then she puts four teaspoons of some stuff that looks just like tea-leaves to me into the teapot and pours hot water over them. She, lets it draw a bit and finally swirls the teapot slowly several times to strengthen the brew, just like you always do with tea. She lets it rest a.

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few moments and then pours this Darjeeling out. First she hands me this delicate little cup, then Sarah, and finally herself. 'Well, my dears, it is a happy conclusion we are looking for. Bottoms up!'

I look at Sarah and see that she's brought the cup up to her lips has taken a tiny sip. Her expression doesn't change and she drop dead on the spot. So I take a sip, because the old lady has done so. I can't believe it. It's tea without milk. Shit! Just plain tea without milk. Yuk! I'm traperated again. (Maloney word.)

'Ah, nothing like a good cuppa,' the old lady says, she's got closed like she's in heaven. (Boy, some people have a lot to learn.) English have never learned the secret of tea. They take this ambrosia, this nectar from the Gods grown on a gentle hillside so the bushes will be nourished by the early-morning mist, and they are pouring fat and sugar into it. If I didn't know any better, think they were savages. Though, I do believe the Queen is drinking her tea Darjeeling-style and without the fat and sugar. A very beautiful lady.'

There's no place to put the tea and maybe when she's not looking can throw it out the window, but she's sitting right opposite us and if take a chance and she sees me throwing away this stuff from the that's not proper tea, maybe she won't help Sarah. When we get I'm going to tell Sarah she owes me a roast dinner.

The old lady glances over to Sarah, 'Now, my dear, it is not usual be discussing these womanly matters with a young boy present.'

Sarah blushes, she goes red all over and she can't hide it, I can see she's nervous. 'Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri, Mole knows all about everything. We discuss everything together in my family.' She hesitates, like she's looking for the right words. 'Ah... er... it's just I'd feel better if he was here.'

Mrs Rika Ray smiles, 'It's all right, my dear. I'm not a witch, you know. I'm a healer, an Ayurvedic doctor. Ours is a very, very old medical tradition that is going back for many, many thousands of years. It is all right for your brother to stay if you say so. Now I must ask you some questions. You have to be telling me the absolute truth, you understand.' Sarah nods. 'When did you fall pregnant?'

Sarah looks confused, 'You mean, when did he, the boy, do it to me?'

'That will do nicely'

'We've been going out a year almost. I started going out with him after the school social last September and we've been seeing each other ever since. Then the fifteenth of August it was my boyfriend's birthday and, well, I just couldn't say no again.'

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'I see, it only happened once after all that time, you are a good girl, Sarah. It is not easy when the male person is always jolly well going on and on about it, wanting, wanting, all the time wanting. Tell me now, when was your period due and how soon after?'

'Yes, ah... my period? It was due a week later.' Sarah's voice is very small and she starts to blush again.

'That is very unfortunate. Why didn't you come to me before this?

Over three months is very difficult.'

'We only heard about you yesterday. Please, Mrs Raychaudhuri, can you help me?'

'My dear, I can see you are a very nice young lady and also very unlucky. But I must tell you the honest truth, I don't know if I can help.'

'But what about Angela Morrison, you helped her?'

'We don't use names here. After you have left, I will not recall your name, it is better like that. But the girl you mention has missed her periods two weeks only, that is very, very different matter.'

'Angela wouldn't tell me how much it will cost,' Sarah says, coming close to tears.

'Cost? No, my dear, I am not an abortionist. I am a natural healer.

For gallstones, kidney infection, lung congestion, urinary-tract blockage, haemorrhoids, blood cleansing, rheumatics and a hundred other afflictions there is a definite charge. For this, I do not take money.' She looks at Sarah, she has these dark eyes with dark rings around them, her eyes are like shining pieces of coal and they have grown soft and polished. 'Why always the woman must do the suffering? You have come very late, herbs work best in the first month, you are already four months.'

'Oh, please, please can't we just try,' Sarah begs.

'Yes, Sarah, we can try, that is all I can promise. It will not be very nice and I don't think it will work.'

'Thank you, thank you!' Sarah cries, 'I don't care how awful it is.'

The old lady gets up and walks over and selects five of the jars from the shelf and puts them down next to the black kettle.

'Can you build up the fire, Master Mole?' she asks me. I nod and she points to the black kettle, then takes a tin mug from a hook under one of the shelves and puts it beside the kettle. 'Fill it from the creek,
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the water is sweet, then boil me the kettle and bring it in.' , I go over to get the kettle and the mug. The jars are right next to it, I'm quite good at remembering names of things and I see the labels on three of the jars, the other two are turned the wrong way around, but it's no good because the names are written in some strange language with lots of curves and squiggles and dots. It must be Indian, I suppose.

'When you are bringing back the kettle boiling, then also bring me the second smallest pot that's hanging there by the fire,' the old lady instructs.

I take the big old kettle out and fill it from the creek using the tin mug. It isn't too difficult getting the fire going and I soon have a good flame licking up. I sit on an old log which you can see is used as a seat because the bark is stripped and the wood is polished from the old lady's bum.

There's lots of things going through my head and I'm feeling very confused. Nobody's told me anything about babies and I can't even imagine what's inside Sarah's tummy. I think maybe it's like the kewpie doll Bozo won at the Melbourne Show, only smaller. So how's it going to come out of Sarah just because she drinks something? What's a period? Why must it be due? The old lady has also said we've waited too long and maybe it won't work. What will happen then? If it is a small kewpie doll, is it alive? The more I think about it the more I worry because there's nobody to ask. I could ask Morrie Suckfizzle but we've been banned. He'd know because he's a doctor. I'm only twelve years old but I sense that everything is changing for us, that things will never be the same again and that Sarah may be in some sort of danger and there's nothing I can do to protect her.

The kettle boils and I take it and the pot back into the hut and the old lady, starts to work. She puts two tablespoons of something from one of the jars into the pot and pours about a quart of water from the kettle onto it. 'Here, take,'she says, handing me the pot, 'put it again on the fire and bring it to a boil for a few minutes, Master Mole.'

I do as she says, the liquid in the pot is a sort of bluish colour but also brownish and I wait for it to boil for about three minutes before I take it back. She's put the herbs in the other four jars into an empty Vacola jar. She takes the pot from me, pours the stuff I've boiled over the other herbs then seals the jar with the rubber ring and clip and lets it stand for a while. During the time we're waiting, she tells us how part of her family came to Fiji to work in the sugar plantations as indentured labour and eventually prospered and became merchants and, two generations later, her part of the family; herself and her father, followed to help with a shipping business the family had become interested in. She told us how she'd married an Australian sea captain who turned out to be 'an all-round rotten rascal'. He brought her back
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to Australia, where he used to get drunk and beat her so she left him and went back to her own name again 'because blood's thicker than water'. Her husband's name was Porter and you'd think she'd have stuck with it because Australians can remember a name like Porter but they'll never remember Karpurika Raychaudhuri.

After the stuff in the jar has stood a while, she strains it through this sieve back into the pot and reheats it. This time she goes to the fire herself because she says she doesn't want it to boil. Then she pours this dark liquid it's become into the Vacola jar again, seals it and turns to Sarah.

'Every four hours you must be taking a steaming cupful during the day for five days, but also you must add one tablespoon brewer's yeast I am giving you. Now, my dear, I am warning you, there is blue cohosh root and it is toxic so we must be careful. If you are getting headaches or wanting to do the vomit, you are calling the doctor or you are sending Master Mole to get me, no ifs or buts, we must be very, very careful.'

She turns to me, 'Master Mole, you must come here every day for five days to get another jar. I am making fresh every day for Sarah.' Now she puts her hand on Sarah's shoulder, 'Don't be hoping for too much, my dear. It is very late that you are coming and I cannot promise the making of miracles.'

Sarah thanks Mrs Raychaudhuri and then bursts into tears.

'Now, now, my dear, we can only be hoping for the best,' the old lady says.

On the way back with me carrying the jar in a brown paper bag and her carrying the yeast, I ask her about the little burning stick.

'I think it's called incense,' Sarah says, 'I read about it once.'

'Why would you smell up-de place like that when you didn't have to?'I ask. "

'It must be an Indian thing, different people like different smells and dislike others we might like quite a lot.'

'Morrie and Sophie don't have different smells,' I point out.

'Yes they do. Sophie can't stand the smell of boiled mutton. That's what they got every day in Bonegilla and people from Europe don't know about mutton, but we like the smell of roast lamb, don't we?'

'Everyone knows about mutton!' I exclaim, 'There's more sheep in New Zealand than people.'

'New Zealand's not in Europe!' Sarah says.

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'I know that! I just told you a fact I knew,' I say defensively.

I think Sarah's heard enough about mutton because she stops and puts her hand on my shoulder, 'Mole, you're not to tell anyone about our visit to the old lady today.'

'Not even Mike and Bozo?' I don't like that, we share everything and now Sarah wants me to keep a secret on my own.

'They'll only worry. Mike will be silent and Bozo will be walking around the place with a big frown and a long face so Nancy will cotton on there's something wrong. Best keep it to ourselves, eh, Mole.' I don't like it, though I reluctantly agree because she's right, that's exactly what will happen.

'What if something happens to you?' I say, though I'm not sure what that something might be.

'We better hope it does, then Nancy will think it's a miscarriage,'

Sarah says and I can see she's very upset and there's tears running down. 'Mole, let's not talk about it any more.' She starts to cry as we walk along and I don't know what to do to comfort her. At least I know what a miscarriage is.

'It will be all right,' I say, but it's just words and she knows it and I know it and we know we don't know what's going to happen and that talk is cheap.

For the first three days nothing happens except I can see Sarah doesn't feel well and is very pale but she carries on. However, she doesn't eat at tea and tells Nancy she's feeling unwell but ate something earlier at dinner. Nancy thinks it's just the baby and tells Sarah it's still morning sickness, which you can get at night sometimes, that she did with little Colleen, and to take two aspirin and have a lie down.

Then on the fourth afternoon when I get back from school to drop my books in before setting out to get Sarah's jar of medicine from the old lady, I can't find Sarah. The Diamond T isn't out the front so Nancy's out. Little Colleen isn't home, so Nancy must have taken her with her and, I think, Sarah must be with them. But the old lady said she mustn't leave the house because the medicine might work at any time if it's going to work at all. Mike will be back soon but Bozo will go straight from school to boxing.

Anyway, I have to take my school clothes off and change into my old clothes and then take my school things up to the copper in the washhouse so they can be put in like we have to do every day. I walk
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into the washhouse and there is Sarah on the floor and I think she's dead. There's vomit all around her and she's lying sprawled with her cheek against the cement floor with her eyes closed. Her tummy and shoulders start to heave and she dry retches and I know she's alive.

'Sarah, Sarah! What's the matter?' I shout.

Sarah tries to lift her head but she can't. 'Mole,' she whispers and falls back.

I can't think what to do. Then she retches again and this green stuff comes out her mouth. 'I'm going to call Morrie!' I scream.

Sarah manages to lift her head, 'No, Mole, don't.' But there's no strength in her voice and she retches again and falls back, her eyes

closed.

I don't wait a second longer, Sarah's dying is all I can think and I'm off up the hill. Even running, it takes me half an hour to get to the Mental Asylum where Morrie works in the lab. I know where it is right at the back of the grounds, a little army Nissen hut they've erected. I burst in, almost collapsing, unable to talk. Thank God, Morrie is there. I'm gulping for air and all I can say is 'Sarah, you've-got-to-come . . . Quick!' I've got my hands on my knees, bending over trying to get some air, my words gasping out.

Morrie doesn't waste time asking questions and in a few moments we're in the Austin 7 which he had to crank start, and we're off. He drives like a maniac and someone yells 'Mug lair!' out at us.