Pearl in a Cage (39 page)

She peeped around the recess. Amber wasn't coming, and even if she did come out that gate, Mr Foster was in his office. She could hear a thump, thump, thump, almost like her heartbeat, then his thumping would stop but her heartbeat didn't.

The bottom half of the post office window had been painted so no one could see in, but if she stood on tiptoe she could see a bit through the top window. Keeping close to the wall, she crept down to see what he was thumping.

Mr Foster was a twisted little gnome man, not often seen on the street. Behind the counter, or limping off to the Methodist church, he was always dressed in the same brown suit or maybe he had two suits cut from the same bolt of cloth. The kids at school made fun of him. They copied the way he walked. He wasn't walking tonight, and he wasn't wearing his brown suit either, just a shirt and waistcoat, with gold bracelet-like armbands to make his shirtsleeves short enough. People were more interesting when they didn't know they were being watched, and even more interesting when you could see one small part of that person. She could only see his head, shoulders and arms tonight and he didn't look twisted. And he had a moustache. Had he always had a moustache? He was thumping envelopes with his rubber stamp. Around Christmas and New Year, his pigeonholes were always full of mail.

Shouldn't be spying. It was bad manners to spy on people. She turned again to Maisy's house, hoping Norman would lose all of his threepences fast and come home early. Most Fridays he didn't get home until midnight.

She walked back to the doorstep, felt with her hand for where a dog might have been, then sat. She shouldn't have
leaned back, because that door rattled, and when she took her back away from it, it rattled again. Up then, fast. He was coming. He wore a funny brown boot with a six-inch sole and heel that made him clunk when he walked. Always and forever she'd known that sound. Always and forever she'd known that he wasn't dangerous, even if a lot of the kids at school said he was.

She was standing, her back at his verandah post, when he opened the door. ‘I'm sorry I disturbed you, Mr Foster.'

‘Shouldn't you be in bed, lass?'

‘Daddy's playing cards at the Macdonalds'.'

He didn't ask what her mother was doing. She thought he'd ask. And his open door was letting too much light out and it was shining right on her. She moved to the shadows of a tree growing over the fence between Norman's yard and Mr Foster's, and perhaps he saw her peering at her father's house.

‘What time are you expecting your father home?'

‘Sometimes he comes early.'

The lights were on at the police station. There was a streetlight out front of the town hall; it lit the road, lit a pale circle to Norman's gate. And they saw that gate open, saw Amber step out, glance up and down the street.

‘Jennifer. Jennifer, I want you inside now,' she called.

Jenny didn't move.

Amber saw her neighbour and approached. Jenny broke cover and ran back to the post office step.

‘Good evening, Mrs Morrison,' the postmaster said.

‘Get home,' Amber said.

‘I'm staying here,' Jenny said, stepping up and into the post office. The little postmaster followed her and stood like a sentry guarding the door.

‘Get out of my way, you perversion of nature,' Amber snarled.

‘There are perversions, Mrs Morrison, then there are corruptions, and given our history, perhaps we should not stoop to name-calling in front of the child.'

‘You like them young, do you? Or just take what you can get, you twisted ape.'

‘Twisted ape I may well be, Mrs Morrison, but I was never so wise as my three cousins. When I see evil, when I hear evil, I speak loudly of it.'

He turned to the child who stood behind him, big eyes brimming. ‘The constable is still showing a light. Will you walk with me across the road, Jennifer?'

‘I want to just stay here with you,' she said.

An unmarried man of his appearance needed to step lightly. He chose not to that night. He closed the door on his neighbour, locked it against her, then took his little visitor down to his sitting room where he poured lemonade and offered fancy biscuits. And he had a wireless. Jenny visited with him until ten thirty, when he walked her home, and waited at the open door until she had ascertained that her mother was sleeping. Once Amber had swallowed her pills, she wouldn't move until morning.

If Mr Foster had one friend in town, it was Jean White. A busy woman, she was, like Norman, on every committee, but still found time most mornings to pop her head into the post office to pass the time of day. He waited for her on the Saturday morning, desperate for her advice on what he ought to do concerning his evening visitors. He was standing at his door at ten fifteen when the Fulton girl ran bawling from the grocery store, dodged Mick Boyle's horse and dray, then ran into the constable's yard. Seconds later, Denham ran ahead of her back to the grocery store. Something was amiss.

Something was very amiss. Jean White was dead, dead behind the counter where, for the past thirty years, she'd spent most of her days. Dead, and nothing anyone could do about it. And Charlie, sitting on the floor, cradling her in his arms and howling.

The Fulton girl ran home bawling. She told Alfred, Jean's son-in-law, who came running, his wife behind him, to find Charlie refusing to release his first love, his only love, and old Charlie White howling was a sight to behold.

Denham closed the store that morning and the town went into shock. Jean White had been in her mid-fifties. She'd never had a day's illness.

Not a soul complained when those twin green doors remained closed on Monday morning; if folk needed sugar, they borrowed from a neighbour. Most in town expected those doors to stay shut until after the funeral.

A big funeral, half the town was there. Half the town saw tough old Charlie looking ten years older than his age and still bawling like a baby, holding on to his hysterical daughter, while Alfred attempted to hold both of them up with his one arm.

A few expected those twin green doors to open on Tuesday. They didn't, and folk who had lent their neighbours a cup of sugar had now run low on it. Tea canisters were empty, and how were you supposed to feed your kids when you had no flour? During these bad times, fried dough filled a lot of kids' bellies. Those on susso were feeling the pinch. They lived from hand to mouth.

Norman was out of butter, and he had a crate of it melting at the station, along with other grocery store stock. He and his station lad walked around the growing pile until more came in on Wednesday, when Norman took it upon himself to knock on Charlie's door, express his concern for the family, and also for the perishables.

Alfred contacted Mick Boyle. He delivered the stock from station to storeroom, and Alfred made the mistake of leaving the front doors open — and was near knocked down in the rush. He knew nothing about groceries. He hadn't paid for a pound of butter since he'd wed, had no idea of the price of a packet of tea. Susso coupons meant nothing to him. He didn't know where his in-laws kept their change drawer.

‘If one of you can go and get the Fulton girl, we might be able to serve you,' Alfred said.

Someone got Emma Fulton, who didn't know where Charlie hid his change drawer, but knew the price of things, so they started writing dockets, which began an even greater rush in through those doors. Charlie wasn't known for his charity. Word that he was giving tick got around fast.

Around two that afternoon, Hilda noticed people walking by with full shopping bags. She told Charlie, who told her that the one-armed mug of a man she'd married could burn the bloody place down for all he cared. He could still see Jean lying on the floor behind the counter frothing at the mouth, could still feel the life draining out of her. Stroke, they'd diagnosed, massive stroke, vein burst in the brain, they said. He didn't care what
they said. She was gone and he was never again setting foot inside that bloody shop.

‘You've got responsibilities to the community, Dad,' Hilda said.

‘Bugger the community,' Charlie said and he turned again to stare at the passage wall, watching for shadows. Ten, fifteen, twenty times an hour he saw Jean's shadow walk by to the kitchen, hurry into the bedroom. He knew she was gone, but here, in her house, he kept catching glimpses of her. He could hear her too, not that she said much that would have importance to most, but to him, her voice was a melody.

‘
Charlie, how much did you put on that baking powder?

What do you feel like for dinner, Charlie?

Charlie is me darlin', me darlin', me darlin' . . 
.'

She was out there somewhere, clinging on like hell to the life they'd shared, and maybe waiting for him to come. And he wanted to go to her.

 

On the Friday evening, while Charlie sat watching shadows, twenty-odd kids were swimming down at the bend behind Clarry Dobson's place. Nelly Abbot was there with her big brothers. The day had been hot and the evening wasn't cooling down. The older kids skylarked, dunking, diving, swinging out over the water on a rope; the younger kids stayed out of their way when they could, and yelled when they couldn't.

Nelly was small for her years but could swim like a fish. She was last seen waiting her turn to swing on the rope. No one noticed whether she'd had her turn or not. No one noticed she was missing until the light was almost gone. The crowd at the creek had thinned out. Her brothers thought she'd walked home with someone. One of the girls said she'd seen her running off into the bush. No lavatory down at the creek but plenty of trees. She'd probably come back, the girl said, though she couldn't say for sure.

‘Nelly! You'd better not still be down here, because we're going home,' her brother yelled. They had been told to get home before dark.

The Abbots lived on the north side of the lines, a couple of houses west of the hotel. The boys were home in minutes and Nelly wasn't there.

‘Who was she with?' Grace Abbot asked, not too concerned. ‘What were you thinking of, letting her walk off by herself?' Ten minutes later and still no sign of Nelly, she was becoming concerned. She walked out to the street. ‘Nelly! Nelly!' Kids coming from many directions. Nobody had seen Nelly — not after she'd run off into the bush.

Panic then. ‘Get the constable. Go and get your father.'

A dozen men were raised quickly from their parlours, a dozen lanterns lit, a dozen more joined them before they got to the creek.

A pretty sight: lights glowing all along the curve of that creek, lights reflecting in the dark water, though there wasn't much that could be seen by lantern light. Too many clumps of reeds took on the shape of a missing child. And logs too, logs creating ripples as the creek flowed around them.

A hundred searchers, men and women, were down there by ten, shining flashlights into the forest alongside the creek, and that eternal calling, calling.

‘Nelly! Nelly!'

Two dozen or more searched through the night, and were thankful for the dawn — and afraid of it, afraid they'd see that red bathing costume.

‘She wanted red,' Grace Abbot said. ‘It was brand new this year. She could swim like a fish. She could swim when she was two years old. I tell you she wouldn't have drowned.'

The boats were put in the creek at dawn. They concentrated their search downstream from the bend, following its twisted way, following it down one side then pulling hard back up on the other side, prodding around every snag, searching every reed bank. No sign of Nelly.

They looked further afield. A middle-aged swagman had passed through town two days ago. He could have been holed up in that patch of the bush, waiting his chance. The Willama police were in town. Gertrude saw their car drive by, no doubt heading
out to Wadi's camp. There were a couple of strangers known to be staying out there with him and his women, living black.

 

At sundown on that Saturday, Gertrude's tank dry, she harnessed Nugget up to her water carrier — a forty-four-gallon water drum her father had fixed up with a set of wheels and shafts. Joey went with her. Water-getting was an easier task with two, one to pump, the other to stand out on that log keeping the end of the hose in clear water.

They were backing Nugget up to their log when they saw what was beneath it, saw that hair, blonde, long, curling like Jenny's curled.

‘Go home, Joey! Run home, darlin', and stay there.'

Joey was staring at what Gertrude had seen. He thought it was Jenny, but it had no face, only blood and flies. Gertrude blocked his view with her body and took his shoulders, turned him away.

‘Go home, darlin'. It's that little girl they're searching for. You be a good boy for me now and run home to Elsie. I have to ride in and tell the constable.'

He ran. Gertrude unhitched her pony from the barrel, mounted him bareback, and rode into town.

There were men down near the bridge.

‘The constable,' she called, and two or three pointed across the creek. She saw him, helping a group pull a boat out of the water. Over the bridge she rode, down the slope, between the trees. Denham watched her approach.

‘She's found,' she said, glancing around for the father, hoping to God that he wasn't in earshot. ‘Down near my place.'

‘You're upstream,' Denham said.

‘She didn't drown.'

She slid from her horse and walked with that pig-faced man back through the trees, spilling out what she'd seen to a man she hadn't spoken to in three years. Some things were bigger than personal feuds.

Her horse had taken himself off for a drink. The garage chap's truck was parked on the far side of the bridge. She
drove with him and Denham out along her road, led them down her well-worn track to the creek, pointed to the log behind her water barrel. Didn't want to go nearer. Gertrude had delivered that little girl. She'd delivered the Abbots' first daughter and seen her buried when she'd died of appendicitis. Wanted to go home and hide her head for the shame of all mankind. Didn't want to think of those poor Abbots. Suffering wasn't fairly apportioned in this cruel old world. Some got none of it. Others got the lot.