Pearl in a Cage (26 page)

‘You wouldn't come down to the Cup with me,' he said.

‘You pig-headed two year old,' she said. ‘Jimmy wants you to go.'

‘You take him then — and stay in town overnight.'

He had his housekeeper make up one of the back rooms for her — he planned on doing his own marching in the night. He was shaving when he heard the train pull in. He was sluicing his face when he heard it pull out. And five minutes later, Margaret and Lorna walked in, unannounced, unexpected, Margaret's hair looking a mite singed.

‘And there goes my night,' he said.

They'd taken rooms at a guesthouse in Brighton, which had gone up in smoke while they were sleeping. Margaret escaped in her nightdress. Lorna escaped through a window, fully clad, case in hand. They'd had two choices: Vern's half-brother out at Balwyn, who Lorna considered a halfwit and his sixteen-year-old son a congenital moron; or Woody Creek. Margaret quite liked her uncle and cousin, but her need for clothing had weighted the scales in favour of home. She'd arrived wearing Lorna's severe grey suit, the skirt pulling across her buttocks, dragging in the dust, the jacket barely covering her breasts.

Three hours later when Gertrude rode into town, the concert seemed the lesser of two evils to Vern. The horse left to eat what he could find in Vern's backyard, he walked with Gertrude and his son across the lines to the hall.

The punishment began with a maypole dance, the pole threatening to topple. It was followed by Victoria Bull's tap dance. She did it well enough. The ringmaster was popular. Each time he doffed his hat between the opening and closing of the curtains, the audience applauded, so Vern applauded, though he had no idea whose kid he was applauding.

He recognised the big rubber ball rolling across the stage. He'd given Jimmy five bob from his Cup winnings and he'd spent half of it on a big colourful ball, more suitable for a girl than a boy. He heard Jimmy laugh as one of the Macdonald twins, clad in a green frog suit, hopped across the stage chasing the ball. The princess wandered on. It was one of the younger Macdonald girls. To Vern they all looked the same, undergrown and washed out. She spent some time searching for her ball, while off to the side three seniors sang the sorry tale of the prince turned into a frog by a wicked witch. The frog hopped around the stage holding the ball, hopped over to the princess to offer it. The princess thanked him profusely, gave him a mock kiss. The frog croaked, made a point of wiping his mouth, then fell theatrically to the floor, frog-kicking as the lights went out. It wasn't a blackout, though they'd had a few in town. The stage lit up seconds later, the twin in the frog suit having swapped places with the other one, clad as a prince. It was well done and worth the watching and rightfully received a thunder of applause.

‘Who is he?' Vern asked as the ringmaster doffed his hat.

‘Ray King.'

‘That stuttering lump of Big Henry's?'

‘Shush,' Gertrude said.

Few in the audience recognised Big Henry King's son. Miss Rose had taken it upon herself to send him down to the creek with a bar of soap, a towel and strict instructions to soap himself all over, from head to toe, as he'd be wearing Richard Blunt's trousers and waistcoat and Moe Kelly's old top hat on his head. Cleaned up, he looked a different boy; dressed up, he was a class act. And he followed her directions to the letter, doffing his hat as he drew those curtains back to display twelve onions, clad in green crepe-paper tunics, brown bulbs on their heads.

‘Jenny's in this one,' Jimmy said.

‘Where?'

The onions were circling, jeering at something in their midst.

‘Shush.'

The onions stepped aside to reveal a large flower hat and, hiding beneath it, Jenny clad in purple and pink. Then the surprise of the night. That little girl opened her mouth.

‘
I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch
. . .'

Her voice was strong and sweet. Heads lifted, feet stilled their shuffling as the petunia wiped at mock tears.

‘
Boo hoo, boo hoo, the air's so strong it takes my breath away
,' she sang, the onions crowding her, leaning in, making a cage of their arms over her head.

Vern was almost enjoying himself, and Jimmy showing more enthusiasm than usual, sitting forward while the little petunia sang as she fought her way between the onions, weaving in and out, attempting to escape their patch.

‘
I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, Oh won't somebody transplant me
.'

Sissy did her best. She stuck out a foot. Jenny, her hands clasped in plea, her little face lifted towards the heavens, didn't see it. She tripped and went sprawling. Anyone with good eyesight had seen what happened. There was a communal gasp, a communal breath held, then a hum of indignation as Sissy Morrison smiled.

Norman, watching from the fifth row, had been expecting some form of retaliation. All week it had been threatening. He rose from his seat as the petunia scrambled to her feet and Miss Rose left the piano to brush pink and purple petals straight, to set the large flower hat straight, to reorganise her circle of onions. Back at the piano, she played the introduction to the final chorus, but Jenny didn't sing. She stood looking down at a dragging petal, trying to tuck it back where it belonged. It wouldn't stay there. It dangled down past her knee.

‘Children,' Miss Rose urged. Again she played the introduction.

There was a hush of expectancy, a second of silence after the final note while Jenny wiped an honest tear from her eye. She opened her mouth, though not to sing.

‘You spoil everything, Sissy,' she said.

‘You spoiled it. You made Mummy go away because you smell evil,' Sissy said, and went in for the kill.

Like a mouse evading a predator, Jenny ran for cover. Ray King looked big enough.

Ray knew he should have pulled the curtain, but the item wasn't over and he'd been told only to pull the curtain after Miss Rose had played the last note. Then it was too late to think about pulling it.

Sissy had grabbed a handful of pink and purple petals, which reminded her of the pink petals in her first concert costume, before her mother went mad and ran away, before everything bad. Crepe paper is only paper. It can be shaped, stitched and gathered, but each row of machine-stitching leaves behind a series of tiny holes, which makes a fine ripping line. Sissy came away with a handful of petals.

The ringmaster was supposed to stand in the wings during each item. He wasn't supposed to move until it was time to close the curtain. Miss Rose had said so. Ray loved Miss Rose and he wanted to please her. The ringmaster was definitely not supposed to defrock nasty bitches. But Ray King knew all about nasty bitches. His mother was one, and his father told her so six times a week and twice on Sunday, and next to his mother, Sissy Morrison was the nastiest bitch he'd ever come across.

Had he known that green onion tunic would peel off, like skin from a banana, he may not have done it, but she should have had the sense not to pull away. She knew what she was wearing underneath that tunic. He didn't — or he hadn't. Her rolls of green-tinged fat shocked him, as did her baggy white bloomers. He stood mouth open, big brown eyes afraid, stood frozen, clutching a handful of green crepe paper while Sissy screamed and released her bladder.

The headmaster ruined the climax. He drew the curtain. The audience heard the slap. Two sharp slaps.

Norman heard them, heard the familiar bellow. He'd left his seat and was approaching the stage door when he saw Cecelia's white bloomers disappearing into the night. He took two steps to follow her, glanced at Miss Rose and her helpers mopping the stage, chasing drips; saw Jenny sobbing against the ringmaster, his arms protectively around her.

Until a few moments ago, Norman had been unaware of the role Jennifer was to play in the concert. Cecelia was the dominant presence in his house; Cecelia's voice, her needs, were paramount. Until a few moments ago, Jenny had never argued with her sister. She, as he, had made allowances, had accepted.

He walked onto the stage, around the mopping women, to do his own mopping up. He wiped her teary eyes, wiped her nose.

‘You make me proud, Jenny-wren.'

 

Ernie Ogden was at the concert. His youngest boys were performing; his two eldest still lodging in Carlton, but his wife was on cloud nine. He'd put in for a transfer and they'd heard today that he'd got it.

‘The town won't be the same without you,' Vern said.

‘I doubt I'll be the same without the town, but the wife is deadset on educating the younger boys. We'll be going to a nice little place, a farming and orchard community, close enough into Melbourne for the other boys to live at home.'

‘Who'll be replacing you, Ernie?' Gertrude asked.

‘A younger bloke, they say. He should be up here between Christmas and New Year. If you can hang on for a tick, there's something I'll leave in your keeping, Trude.'

He was across the road and back in minutes and handing her a manila envelope. She remembered it, didn't want the responsibility of it, tried to hand it back.

‘There'll come a time when that little girl will want to own something that belonged to her mother. She's got a better chance of getting it if it's in your hands.'

‘If it's up to Norman, she'll never find out, Ernie.'

‘Time's a strange thing. It alters what was into what is — and whether she ever finds out or not, it belongs to her. Give it to her for her twenty-first.'

Gertrude folded the top of the envelope down and forced it into her handbag. Vern was waiting, Jimmy was waiting.

‘I hope all goes well for you and Mary,' she said.

‘It will go well enough. I'll keep my ear to the ground on your daughter's whereabouts. Sooner or later you run into every coot you've ever known in that city.'

‘Vern was saying it's getting to the stage where you can't see the forest for the trees down there these days — or the streets for the traffic.'

‘We'll see a lot of changes, no doubt. Did you ever hear anything back from your father-in-law regarding your daughter?'

‘I got a note from his solicitor. The old chap died early in '24. His daughter is still living at the house, but she hasn't seen hide nor hair of Amber — nor have any of Norman's family, not that I would have expected her to go to them.'

‘The hardest part is the not knowing, I dare say.'

‘It gets easier. Others fill up the spaces,' she admitted.

If ancient man hadn't invented the wheel, would he have taken to the skies sooner? The war had opened the eyes and minds of man to what he might do if he lifted his feet off the ground; the twenties showed a glimpse of mankind's magnificent future, of world travel, not in the slow boats of the ocean but in great airships of the sky. By 1929, those airships were offering the luxury of ocean liners combined with the speed of an aeroplane — to those with enough money to pay. There were photographs in the newspapers of fine dining rooms, of tastefully furnished lounges where the rich and famous could party all night high above the problems of the world — or those of them fool enough to risk their money and lives to a great bladder of gas, which, like a balloon, could be blown wherever the wind chose to blow it. A few had been blown off course in storms. The gas holding those things up had a bad habit of exploding and frying its crew; still, there was no shortage of rich folk willing to take the gamble. Fear had gone on holiday during the twenties.

Aeroplanes stuck with the old wheel. They took off on them, landed on them, and while they were up there had a far better chance of getting their passengers intact from A to B than did those airships, but their size placed a limit on carrying capacity. An aeroplane was a fine thing for carrying mail from place to place or riding in in an emergency, though those who rode in them never claimed to have had a comfortable trip. The future of aviation seemed to be in the airships, which admittedly needed improvements. Millions of pounds had been invested in them.

Not that air travel in any form was a reality yet in Woody Creek; acceptance of cars had been slow. A bullock wagon or a horse and dray had a better chance of traversing most of the roads around Woody Creek where a good rain could turn tyre-ripping ruts into muddy bogs. There were no two ways about it: geography held Woody Creek back, distance between one place and the next. Geography dictated their lives — but saved their lives too. Kids in the cities died by the hundreds of polio; thousands more were crippled for life by that disease. Woody Creek had two mild cases of it in ten years.

Distance cushioned the town from the stock market crash. Even the ripples created by it petered out before they got there. City newspapers wrote about it, as they wrote about exploding airships, but if fools wanted to gamble with riding gas-filled balloons or with stock market shares, they had to accept the consequences. The bulk of Woody Creek's breadwinners, employed in the timber-getting industry, wouldn't have recognised a stock market share if it landed face-up on their kitchen table.

Joanne Hooper's first husband had left her a few shares, which she'd left to Vern. He'd never taken a great interest in the things, though he glanced at them during that gap between Christmas and New Year. He might have lost a few hundred quid, but only if he sold. He didn't know how to sell them, so he didn't.

Then the twenties ended. Ernie Ogden's furniture and kids were loaded onto the train, and in mid-January of 1930, Constable Denham's furniture was unloaded and moved into Ernie's house. That was when the depression ripples started crashing into Woody Creek.

George Macdonald, Vern Hooper and Charlie White ran Woody Creek, and very few interfered with the way they ran it. They were the three richest men in town. George and Vern owned farms run by managers, owned sawmills and nice-looking houses. Charlie, the grocer, more or less owned the business centre of town — or owned the buildings that housed the business. Each week he collected rent from Blunt's drapery, Crone's café, Miller's boot shop, Fulton's feed and grain store
and Abbot's saddlery. Ten years back, he'd built three identical houses on a block south of his store, then moved with his wife, Jean, and daughter, Hilda, into the middle house, so he could keep an eye on the two he rented out. He'd never had a problem in getting his rents on time. Folk paid up, he put the money in the bank, and when he had enough to spare he bought a few shares. He was losing sleep over the money he'd lost on paper.