Pearl in a Cage (34 page)

She ran out of paper before she ran out of words.
Lots of love, Jenny
was squeezed into the bottom corner.

He addressed the envelope, included the snapshot taken at the concert of a fine-boned, slim-necked, slim-limbed fairy child with wings and wand and the crown of a princess perched on a mass of crinkling curls.

A shy child, his Jenny-wren, with a voice that charmed the town at the school concerts. She was his pride, his delight. Cecelia, though vastly improved, still had her moments. The walk to and from Gertrude's property for their Sunday meal with her assisted in keeping the Duckworths' curse of fat at bay. Cecelia was a solid girl, but hopefully, having passed her fourteenth birthday, had reached her adult height — which was not a lot less than Norman's and made her occasional tantrums difficult to control.

So August ended and September arrived with its glorious cloud-free days. The girls looked for a reply to their communications but received none, due perhaps to Charles, who had found a position for Amber in a large city laundry, ironing. The wage was minimal, as was her rent at the boarding house. In the past she had been efficient with the iron; perhaps in time she might become self-sufficient, Norman thought.

Then on a Friday morning in September, three passengers stepped down from the train: the Hooper women from the first-class carriage and a stranger from second class. He didn't recognise the second-class traveller, a grey-clad, pinch-faced woman, her long straw-grey hair drawn back hard from her face, a grey beret covering much of it. He took the Hooper women's tickets, reached for the stranger's —

‘Hello, Norman.'

He dropped the ticket and turned quickly away, walked past his staring station lad and on trembling legs went about his business. She remained, watching him, waiting for him, a cheap hessian shopping bag weighing heavily on her arm. It was her only luggage.

The train, unconcerned that his world had been turned on its ear, puffed off to continue its journey, while Norman stood watching it go, praying that when he turned around she would be gone. Not to be. She was approaching. He could not evade her, but stepped for protection behind the station trolley.

‘Did you throw out my clothes, Norman?'

‘This will not do,' he said.

‘All I want from you is my clothes — if you've still got them.'

‘You were . . .' clothed by Charles Duckworth and his wife.

He glanced at a grey tweed skirt made for a larger woman, at a grey cardigan that had seen better days, at heavy shoes.
Vengeance is mine
. . . Charles and Jane had taken their cruel revenge.

‘You jeopardise your position, madam. It was not easily found.'

Found by Charles, guaranteed to steam the starch from her backbone, to wear her ladylike hands down to the bone . . .

‘I don't work on Fridays.'

‘I have . . . I agreed to cover the cost of your room until you . . .'

‘Have you thrown my clothes out, Norman?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘No. I will . . . will have them delivered to your mother.'

‘I'll be at Maisy's.'

He turned, walked west towards his house, turned back. ‘You will not come near the house.'

‘Whatever you say.' And she was gone.

He walked to his side gate on legs unstable as straws. This had not been expected. This he could not deal with. Not on such a day. Better she had come in winter, in bitter weather; or in summer when the red winds tossed their dust over the town. Not today, not on such a glorious day.

He stood watching her cross the road, watching her open Maisy's gate. The specialist of the mind might well claim to have effected a miraculous cure with his electricity, to have turned a diseased gutter trull into a productive laundress. He did not know the half of it — or knew only the half he had been told. But perhaps she had come for her clothing and would be gone tomorrow. It was not in his nature to discard anything of use. Her clothing was as she had left it, crowding his wardrobe, his drawers. He would gain needed space — and be rid of the last of her.

He drew a breath, lifted his jowls, watched her greeted on Maisy's verandah, watched several Macdonald girls pour from the house, their colour absorbing her grey. She would not receive that same greeting from many. Woody Creek did not look kindly on absconding wives and mothers.

Maisy's door closed and, with no more to see, Norman entered his own yard, diverting down to the washhouse for an empty carton. He had a stack of them and chose one of the largest. She had a position to return to, and certainly, with work not easy to find, she would not be fool enough to put that position in jeopardy. Certainly it was her intent to leave tomorrow. There was no train on Sunday.

And if she did not?

Norman shuddered and went inside to attack a task he'd delayed too long — the packing up of his dead wife's belongings for . . . for charity. She was dead to him. He would be charitable and today all memory of her would be gone from his house — before his girls came in from school. They must not learn she was in town.

But of course they would learn. She was over the road with their Aunty Maisy and half a dozen of her big-mouthed daughters. And if the Macdonalds might be silenced, his station lad had seen her. The Hooper women had recognised her. He cringed and his trembling hands, filled with her light underwear, burned. He dropped the load to his bed and stepped back. His girls must be told, and by him. He would supervise a brief visit . . . tonight. They would deliver her clothing and . . .

He could see no further. He stood staring into the looking glass, attempting to see further. Saw his reflection staring back, saw the hand reaching for the scar on his shoulder, aching again, aching since he had seen her. A mental ache perhaps, but none the less severe. He looked towards his mother's travelling case, placed many years ago on top of the wardrobe, and as he reached high to lift it down, the box containing Amber's wedding gown fell, the dust of fifteen years showering him. It stung his eyes and his tears flowed — only to cleanse his eyes of dust, and his nose. He sniffed, shook away the blur, then, jowls trembling, his pudgy hands trembling, he flung drawers open, flung clothing into the case, flung it hard and harder, filling, overflowing the case he could barely see.

 

They came home separately, his girls, Jenny first. She heard him in the bedroom and came in. An experienced and efficient packer of cases, Norman, but not today. Items had scattered to the bed, the floor. The box containing her wedding dress upended, a froth of satin spilled out.

Jenny squatted beside the box, feeling the satin. ‘Is that Mummy's wedding dress?'

He nodded, claimed the box, fixed the lid on, and she picked up a brown felt hat.

‘I almost remember that, Daddy.'

Better she did not remember. He claimed it too. The girls would be told, but together. He would speak the necessary words once. He sniffed. Norman was not a sniffer.

Five minutes later a banging door, a school case hitting the passage floor heralded Cecelia's entrance. A kitchen cupboard opening, slamming. He sighed, left his packing and, with a hand on Jenny's shoulder, guided her out to the kitchen, where he sat. They looked at him. He was not normally in the house at this time. Cecelia had cut one slice of bread and was working on the second.

‘Your mother is in town overnight. She has come for her belongings.'

‘Where?' Two voices as one.

‘With your Aunt Maisy. After dinner we —'

They were gone, bread and jam forgotten on the table. They were out the front door and running, Jenny ahead, but not far ahead. He watched them to Maisy's verandah, sighed for the fine day lost, for the spring sunshine he had been enjoying, then returned to the packing up of his wife, who was not the woman they had run to see. His pretty, laughing Amber was dead and would remain dead.

 

It took two trips across the road to be rid of her clothing. On his first trip, he carried his mother's case and the large flat box containing the wedding gown, sealed tightly now with strong twine. On his second trip, he carried a large carton loaded high with shoes, hats, overcoat and jacket, old ballgown and sundry.

He had remained unsighted when he'd placed the case and box on the verandah, but on the second occasion, the oldest Macdonald girl saw him coming. She held the front door wide.

Maisy's kitchen was a babble. She came from it and directed him to a small room at the rear.

‘She is leaving tomorrow,' he said, more statement than question.

‘I said she could stay for the weekend, Norman.'

‘Her position . . .'

‘She said she doesn't work on Mondays.'

‘Nor on Fridays, so it appears. Tell the girls they are required at home,' he said, and he walked back to the verandah to wait.

They did not leave willingly, but on the third telling, they left.

 

He saw her on the Saturday, walking with Maisy. He recognised the striped frock, saw her hair; it had lost much of its brightness but refound its curl; her mother or Maisy had been at it with their scissors. From a distance, she looked . . . looked more herself.

The girls visited with her for an hour on Saturday evening, but he filled their Sunday, walking them early to Gertrude's to
take the midday meal with her, walking them home in the late afternoon, and for once Cecelia led the way, eager to visit again with her mother.

He expected Amber would leave on the Tuesday train. He looked for her to come. She did not. He looked for her on Thursday. She did not leave, and each evening at six o'clock, he was knocking on Maisy's door to retrieve his daughters.

Gertrude came to the station on Friday. He offered tea, but she'd taken tea with Maisy and her daughter.

‘She seems well,' Gertrude said. ‘She's very quiet, probably embarrassed that I saw her at that place. She's on tablets — Maisy was saying that they're some sort of blood-strengthening pill. She looks anaemic, thin as a rake, but she seems better than she's been in years, Norman.'

‘Seems,' he said. ‘The weather in Melbourne sometimes seems fine in the morning, Mother Foote — Gertrude,' he corrected quickly. Years had passed since that old name had slipped out. He must not go back. He would not go back. ‘I have seen it change in the blink of an eye.'

‘I'm feeling hopeful, Norm.'

‘Hope can . . . can at times shield the mind from reality,' he said.

‘Without it, what have we got?'

The month continued to excel itself, each day brighter, warmer, than the last. Norman had no complaints with September — or perhaps one. Amber had taken root in Maisy's rear bedroom. But he had never seen his girls happier or more sisterly. They sat at night at the dinner table relaying every word spoken by this miracle, their mother, always missing, always sick, now healed and returned to them — almost returned to them.

‘When is she coming home, Dad?'

‘Your Aunt Maisy has a spare room, Cecelia. We do not.'

On the Wednesday of the second week, Cecelia arrived home with her dark hair a nest of rag sausages.

‘Good Lord,' he said. ‘What have you done to yourself?'

‘Mum did it,' Sissy said.

‘So it will be curly like mine,' Jenny said. She'd stood for an hour in Maisy's bathroom watching the operation. Sissy had a lot of hair.

‘The end most assuredly does not justify the means. Do you hope to sleep in those things?'

‘I have to.'

Usually difficult to rouse in the mornings, Cecelia rose and left the house before he had the stove burning. He was serving the porridge when she returned, her hair now a mass of corkscrew curls. The specialist of the mind had not promised to perform miracles, only stated that his patient might lead a useful life. He had made no mention of his patient performing miracles.

‘I see you have invited a movie star to share our porridge, Jennifer,' Norman said.

He was not known for his humour. His breakfast table was not normally a place of laughter, but that morning his girls laughed at him, then with him, and perhaps for the first time he knew the true meaning of
Home, sweet home
. Then, miracle of miracles, Cecelia went willingly to school — if only to display her bobbing curls, which he had to admit were an improvement. They lent shape to her face, balanced her height, did something to disguise her heavy chin.

 

A week more that woman remained at Maisy's and each evening of that week time was stolen from Norman's after-dinner lessons by his daughter's need for rag curls; however, Maisy had assured him the visit would soon be brought to a close. It was common knowledge that her second daughter was marrying Ernie Ogden's oldest son on the final Saturday in September and that the Macdonalds would require every bed they could get. Maisy and George might round up three cousins between them, but the Ogdens could multiply that three by itself, double the total and still insult as many again who had not been invited.

Cecelia was old enough to show an interest in wedding gowns and wedding plans, Jennifer perhaps not. Her after-school visits to her mother shortened, and on the Saturday prior to the wedding, she spent the morning at the station and the afternoon with her friends.

She had three best friends: Dora Palmer and Gloria Bull, who were already ten, and Nelly Abbot, who wouldn't turn ten until February. Jenny and Nelly sat together at school and Mr Curry confused their names. They were of similar size and colouring. He didn't confuse Dora and Gloria who also sat together. Dora was long and dark, Gloria round and dark.

Jenny had realised early that her friends had mothers and fathers and she only had Norman at home. Since she'd first asked the question, she'd been told that her mother had become very sick and had to go away. Jimmy Hooper's mother had gone to a city hospital to be made well and she'd died. Jenny's mother
had gone to a city hospital and been made well, though it had taken a very long time. She liked the idea of having a mother, even if she couldn't live at home, which Norman said was due to a lack of beds. Which wasn't the real reason, because Gloria's father and mother were fat and they slept in the same bed in the same bedroom, as did Dora's mother and father, who were thin. Amber was thin, Norman was a bit fat, but they would have fitted in one bed. They didn't want to fit, that was the reason why Amber lived at Maisy's. They didn't even want to talk, because Norman, who had always played poker on Friday nights with George Macdonald, had stopped going over there to play.